Byte-counting

February has been The Hand Mirror's biggest month yet, as you'll see:

February 2009:
Posts: 121 (average of 30 per week)

Comments: 1,112 (average of four most commented posts: [81+70+40+36]/4 = 57)

Most commented on post: Well that's f*^#ken offensive by Deborah created a new record, 81 comments, debating the offensiveness of the Herald asserting that tracking women's menstrual cycles will prevent domestic violence.

Also popular in the comment department: MCP Watch: Farrar blows the fat lady alert whistle, by me, which got 70 comments (including some defending himself from the offending blogger); I'm hearing white privilege all over this, by Deborah (35 comments contributing to a wide blogland debate about Bruce Emery's sentence); Oh that abuse it's just so funny, also by me, attracted 35 comments (mainly considering an Australian TV ad about sexual abuse); Bowled over for a maiden, by the ex-expat (40 comments on the issue of changing your name on marriage); and Meat heads by Anna (criticising an ad for The Huntsman in Dunedin, with 36 comments for and against). A few of these, and many other February comment threads, are still growing.

Guest posts: New Labour MP Jacinda Ardern wrote about her experiences as a young woman on the campaign trail and in the House in New school. This has been a hugely popular post, with people still clicking through from various places for it. Thanks again to Jacinda for her insights.

And: We hosted the 9th Down Under Feminist Carnival. Deborah did most of the spadework on this, and it turned out marvellously. The 10th DUFC will be up sometime in the next week or so at Ideologically Impure. Good luck Queen of Thorns!

Page loads: 19,374 (692 a day)

Biggest day: 9th February, 1,173 page loads (our new biggest day ever, largely thanks to Jacinda's guest post getting a lot of links from other, and bigger, blogs)

Unique visitors: 12,442 (444 a day)

These last three sets of stats are all based on Statcounter, and have been for all the previous byte-counting posts. Extreme Tracking results were very similar, slightly lower in general, don't know why! I'll be continuing to report the Statcounter ones because they require less effort on my part. Our Tumeke ranking is based in part on the Extreme Tracking daily uniques figure, which was 425 for February.

Our Tumeke blog ranking for January: 15th


Coming up in March:

• A great guest post tomorrow on Tuesday about all those lesbian rumours about Helen Clark and the way they have been fed by sexist and homophobic attitudes about women and power.
• Some collective activity - The Pay Equity Faxathon this Friday (more on this later today)
• Our second event - The Hand Mixer in Auckland on March 19th (discussions are underway about the possibility of a Wellington edition)
  

Past byte-counts:
January 2009 stats.
December 2008 stats.
November 2008 stats.

Grateful thanks to everyone who makes The Hand Mirror what it is - readers, writers, lurkers, commenters, members of our Facebook group, and those who link to us :-)