FWIW Dept: Monthly Activity Report = 350,000

[Capn Jimbo]

A rare measure of activity...


To be fair, I'm not all that concerned about how many visitors we get, but moreso with the quality, accuracy and infomative nature of The Project. Sue Sea and I feel blessed by our relatively few but wonderfully informed and knowledgeable regulars that stop by and post as they will.

It turns out that we have far, far, far more readers than posters, which I credit to our lucky decision to closely restrict registrations. Of the hundreds of registration, probably less than 5% represent sincere and long term interest, with most being spam machines, and those monkeys who try to register simply to toss up a single trolling post.


The numbers...

Each month I get an activity report from the IP, and to be honest, I rarely read it. I remember when we'd get something less than 100,000 hits/month, which in time became 200,000 or so, at which point it didn't matter. I knew then the Project was probably the most read truly free and non-commercial rum focused site on the net, but no matter.

What was posted here seemed to get around, and it is fair to say that myths busted here by moi and our regulars seemed to evolve nicely around the net.

But this I checked - the growth amazed us - and is now approaching 350,000 hits a month. That is FAR from trivial. I attribute this to the great body of truly informative posts. Compare to the Shillery and the arsenine "What did you drink today?" and "Me too" posts, or that of our favorite Canookies, one who dropped out and the other who has "reviewed" hundreds upon hundreds of freebies, but very, very comments at all.

Here you can learn something.


But this act of personal idiocy is not without fault...

For example, I've never been accused of saying too little, lol. I can get involved in crusades. The Project at times can be perceived as negative (and it is). Are these forgiveable? If the activity is any indication, perhaps yes.

One of the problems is that for the early years was that except for JaRiMi, we stood practically alone. Even the Count hadn't yet crossed the road and to date still walks the center line. Almost all of the relatively few rum sites were commercial wannabees whose main goal seemed to be getting product to review.

Their measure of success was predictably related to the softness of their reviewing, the level of an "...it's all good" attitudes, and either ignorance or reluctance to state the obvious alteration and misrepresentation of rum. Even now most are NOT addressing the death of Caribbean rum, even as it has actually happened, and is approaching the end days.

With so much false positivism and condescending bravado by these empty suits, I do hope its understandable if we may err on the critical/negative side. Not to mention that rum really doesn't have all that much truly new and worthy releases of which to speak. Compare to single malts and the 100 distilleries producing all manner of quality, aged pot-stilled products.

Still if you have any suggestions as to where you believe The Project can improve or change, have at it, either publicly or per PM as you deem appropriate.

Again... thanks for your participation and know that the readership has reached yet a new pinnacle of readership, who puts up with me but certainly reads your posts...