All the news outlets are doing "top stories of 2008" this week, so I thought I'd recap the top posts of the year on The Chief's Corner, where there were just over 136,415 visits in 2008. Now, how do your measure the most popular posts?
You could count the total number of page hits. Page hits, though, come primarily from external links or from backlinks contained in other posts--something I do a lot of. As the year wears on I might write three of four new posts with a link referring to the same post I wrote back in February, for example. That could generate quite a few page hits. A lot of external hits come from Google searches, particularly images. Since I post quite a few photos and graphs, if you do an image search on something like "SWAT" or "call box key", it's going to generate a page hit.
Alternatively, you might count the number of visits per day. Theoretically a good post will generate a large number of visits compared to a dull and boring one, and those visits will come on the day of the post or perhaps a day or two thereafter.
Finally, you might count the number of comments. A provocative post ought to create more dialog and comments than a lame one, although sometimes the comments take off in a completely different direction than the original post. So here's the top ten lists for 2008:
Most page hits:
Exemplary planning and execution
Most visits in a day:
Most comments:
My personal favorite never made any of the lists.
Well, you can count on me at least for a comment on almost any home-invasion topic. CCW-related posts are always good for a comment too. I'd like to suggest a future post on LPD's employment screening practices, and specifically how you avoid hiring any loose cannons (pun intended) like this one. You probably can't confirm or deny, but if she didn't also apply at LPD (and LSO, NSP, OPD, DSO, SSO, UNLPD, etc), I'll eat a bug. It looks like APD might have really been needing that quota-hire.
ReplyDeleteAs a CYA for the touchy and easily-offended, I'm not saying that all female officers are quota hires, and certainly not at LPD, where they receive more eminently-qualified applicants than there are academy slots. In fact, one of my favorite LPD Officers is #1582, to whom I wish a long and rewarding career 8^D.
ReplyDelete6:44-
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, whenever someone says something like "I'm not saying...", they almost certainly are. If the conduct has nothing to do at all with gender, why even mention it, and why the need to defend yourself against the implication? I put that qualifier in the same category as:
"I'll be brief."
"Just one more thing:"
"I won't bore you with statistics."
"To make a long story short,"
Not at all, I just see the badge and the commission, and one is as good as the another to me. Maybe it's from dealing the hair-trigger posters at the LJS ("you're blaming the victim" when you say they shouldn't have left their wallet in plain sight on the car seat), but after posting 6:25, I thought it necessary to flesh out the "quota-hire" term. LPD isn't desperate for qualified recruits, and actually have to turn away applicants that many other agencies would give their eye-teeth for, so they don't quota-hire, because they don't have to. You can meet diversity numbers without settling for second-best, because you have more than enough apps from top-notch applicants from both genders. That's a compliment to you and to your whole PD. Please take it as such.
ReplyDeleteTom-Missed the one on the call box key. Still have mine as well as my motor officer ring, another relic. My best to you and all the others with a number under 400.
ReplyDeleteJim
Could we have a New Years eve count of the number of patrol cars that had chunks blown in the back seats?
ReplyDeleteCelebrating with too much booze can create some awesome art. Kind of like splatter paint. The fair used to have the disks that would spin and you could squirt paint on it to make great paintings.
Any cool designs would be interesting. I once hurled something on the fresh fallen snow that looked just like Abraham Lincoln. I know some Madoff investors who look twice at the stool, prior to flushing.