Welcome to 2017!
Sadly, this year WordPress won’t be producing the lovely annual report we have come to expect from them (see last year’s and the one before), as it is apparently too demanding of their resources. They promised to come back in 2017 with an equivalent that requires less manpower.
So I have assembled my own report, based on WordPress stats and a bit of data mining.
General: The blog had 194,296 views; 63,616 visitors; 140 published posts; and 989 comments.
The most read posts: A Good Little Girl was viewed almost 24k times! It’s likely the most widely read piece of writing I have ever produced.)
Visitors came from all over the world!
Top referrers are:
Top 2016 commenters and the number of comments they posted in 2016 (this info was nontrivial to extract, and it may or may not be entirely accurate):
nicoleandmaggie 46
prodigal academic 36
alex 34
gasstationwithoutpumps 33
jojo 33
artnscience 31
lyra211 29
Nicoleangmaggie won for the 3rd year in a row — congrats, nicoleandmaggie! They will get to enjoy some free caffeinated beverages, as in the years past.
If you are among the above top commenters and would like a copy of Academaze, please let me know via email (xykademiqz at gmail). Even if not, thank you very much for commenting!
Further 2016 honorable mentions in the commenting category go to Anon (fe******@gmail), gwinne, Cloud, pyrope, grumpy, Rheophile, qaz, and Cherish.
Additional prizes:
Sadly, the Academaze game gained very little traction so I am assuming we won’t have any other takers. So far, the two people who played and who thus won are:
They are both entitled to their prizes, as discussed here.
Aaaaaand, last but not least… The first week of January is the International Blog Delurking Week (Jan 1-7, 2017)!
Please say ‘hi’ in the comments, whether you have ever commented or not — don’t be shy! Tell us a few things about yourself, what you hope to achieve in 2017, and/or what you would like to read about at xykademiqz in the coming year.
Thanks to everyone who has read and commented in 2016! I know blogging is considered “sooooo 2010” and much of the action has moved to Facebook and Twitter, but I don’t think the blog, as a medium, is going anywhere. It remains a great outlet for the people who prefer to write and read longer pieces. So thank you all again for the support, and I am looking forward to another year of xykademiqz!
xykademiqz 
Oh hey, I wasn’t even paying attention! Oh gee, I should see who is our most commenting winner for the year (I’m betting chacha wins again, but I’ll have to take a look!)
I should do that today so it’s accurate…
Waaah, I can’t find the top commenters for the year, only for some unspecified amount of time that is smaller than a year. 😦
Yeah… I went to WP admin comments, and discovered that it doesn’t consider year of posting as valid search entry. 😦
Then I searched by commenter name or email address for some 2-3 dozen people who I know comment a lot, then for each I recorded the number of comments made in 2016.
I think I’ll probably just go with the number given on insights, even though I know that if chacha made 233 comments last year she probably made more than 56 this year.
Hi!
That’s a lot of commenting!
Hi!
Delurking to say please please please don’t stop blogging! I’m an early career tt prof in physical sciences and I love reading your posts and advice. Short format social media has a purpose but it is not what I like to read.
Hi Bardiac and Daisy, thanks for delurking! No worries, Daisy, I am not going anywhere. Happy New Year!
Wow I was a top commenter! How cool!!
Thanks for being such a reliable and remarkable blogger. 🙂
Hi, and greetings from another stubborn blogger – writing short is painful to me and I’ve not found anything worth regular reading on the shorter platforms, so blogging for me as long as possible!
JaneB
I visit this blog so often that all the visit stats from my country must be me!
Happy new year GMP, from and old friend who loves to read everything you write, lurk and comment occasionally.
I’m so excited I won the book! I thought for sure I’d be left in the dust, so didn’t do more. How do I claim it? Keep on blogging!
Delurking: I’m a female PhD student in an applied math field. I appreciate your insights on academia and what’s ahead if I become a professor. Thanks for writing!
Delurking. As a mid career, tenured physics prof, I find some aspects of what you write so familiar and other aspects completely foreign (due to differences in institutional context — I am at a small liberal arts college).
Delurking. Youngish (i.e. 40 year old) full professor of chemistry at an R1. Have had 2 kids on while on the tenure track. More on the bio side/NIH research than NSF. Read for the perspective of women in the sciences doing it all!
Honorable mention! I’m mid-career in biology at an R1. Used to be very ambitious and competitive, but life intervened with a special needs kid and some other complicated family things going on, dysfunctional department, yada yada. I try to be a good mentor, good teacher, good colleague, and keep my research limping along, and I’m doing just about … ok-ish. On a good day. Anyway, I get huge vicarious thrills reading about your successes, and a lot of what you write really resonates with my own experiences. I like to think that maybe in an alternate universe my career could have been like yours. Maybe?
Keep kicking ass in 2017!
I delurked a couple of months ago and started commenting, and hope to keep it up in the new year. Im a white male postdoc at a prestigious US university (I do have a child so my privilege ends there) doing computational STEM work and I so immensely enjoy hearing your perspectives on university life. I learn a lot, both about being in the US system (I’m also originally from across the atlantic), about being a PI (which is still my ambition), and about being a women in my field (not something I aspire to, but the perspective is healthy I think). Additionally, I think you write well and very entertaining.
Its also a huge guilty pleasure reading about your complaints. I feel less alone when an established PI deals with some of the same annoying reviewers, administrators and students. For some reason noone shares these things in my local circles.
Hi! I’m a late-ish stage PhD student and although my field has a relatively large amount of females, I am working in a university of technology, i.e. very male-dominated environment. I live in one of the smaller European countries with funny language, and I particularly appreciate your posts about being an expat academic and what that entails. This is still my native country, but I’m elbows deep in planning where to post-doc after graduation. Could you consider writing a post about when you moved away from your home country, how did you end up where you did? Did you do a post doc, and how did you choose which countries or universities to apply to?
Delurking. One of the readers from one of the European countries reigned by a king, not my native country (so very much relating also to the expat aspect).
I enjoy reading the diversity of posts and can relate to some of them (especially also on teaching as I am a lecturer, but also doing some research).
I’m an assistant prof in theory/computation closer to the natural sciences. I love knowing that I’m not the only one who goes crazy trying to edit my students’ manuscripts (or, um, to mentor them more generally). I like your candor about all the posturing and boasting and personalities in science. I give people the benefit of the doubt too often and blame myself more than I should. You have also been VERY encouraging of me in the past when I commented during some of my most insecure periods. I like that you combine toughness and productivity with honesty, and you’re not a sociopath.
I don’t think I’ve commented here, so Hi! Postdoc who’s lost enthusiasm along the postdoc route so probably not pursuing tenure track but enjoy reading about those succeeding at it!
Hi everyone — both old bloggy friends and new commenters! Thanks for stopping by to say ‘hi’ and tell us a little bit about yourselves. These delurking posts are my favorites; it’s always so cool to learn about all the great people that the blog has reached.
Delurking – female postdoc at an R1 in the middle of no where. Feel like I’m muddling through my current position. Hoping I can get my excitement back and land the job I want this coming year. Read for the rants, the perspective from someone higher up, someone w/ a family (all my female mentors don’t have kids), and views from a non-American in the US system (my SO is expat)
Delurking. A condensed matter physicist turned biophysicist in another country far, far away, yet able to relate to much of what you write. Enjoy reading your blog and often share your observations with friends. Keep blogging .. please.
I’m a female PhD student in mechanical engineering (though my research borders on condensed matter physics) hoping to get a faculty job at a research university eventually. I love reading your blog (and Academaze as well!) I enjoy that it’s a bit different from some of the more technical blogs I read, and I like your unique perspective. I also appreciate your honesty about the more challenging parts of the job, which I think can be somewhat hard to come by (and I find it very useful as someone interested in a faculty position).
Delurking. *waves hi* I don’t think I’ve commented here before, but I’ve been reading since before you switched over from Academic Jungle. I found you in Nicoleangmaggie’s blogroll. I’m a PhD student in the sciences who lost the love of it a long time ago and am now just grinding it out to finish (this year! woo!).
(And of course, I meant NicoleANDmaggie. Darn typos!)
Thanks for a great blog, Xykademiqz.
I’m one half of the Research Whisperer team. I come here for things I can post to @researchwhisper (and the occasional role playing / sci fi / fantasy reference).
I read your posts in feedly – does that factor into your statistics for “views”?
delurking, but I have commented here a few times over the years. Female full prof in STEM at R1. Love your posts! Your experiences seem to mirror my own, and I especially appreciated your “good little girl” post.
Still love your blog, and I hope to continue mine (though December didn’t really work for me :-). Assoc prof at an R1 in physical science. Been reading since the first post! I didn’t realize I comment so much over here–a sign of how much I enjoy your posts.
Thanks everyone for stopping by! It’s wonderful to meet you all (and to say ‘hi’ to some old friends)!
I was thinking about something I’m really struggling with as an adviser and PI: getting trainees to actually follow through and make their deadlines. I always ask them at the outset if the deadline is reasonable. I rarely try to push them, and I might gently remind them if they have had trouble following their own schedules. They say the deadline is reasonable. I show them where in my calendar I’m blocking off time to look at their draft or analysis or whatever. At least half the time, I get some last-minute excuse (like Sunday at 9 p.m. for a 5 a.m. Monday deadline) about how their cat got sick, or else they pretend they didn’t know I needed it in the morning v. the afternoon, or they unapologetically give me 50%-80% of what we discussed. I’ve tried in a dozen ways to convey that this behavior is unprofessional, results in a crappier product, and frustrates me, but I’m not sure much is changing. What should I do? Allow them to submit a crappy proposal and write a half-a$$ed letter myself (which makes my lab look bad)? Build in more buffer time myself, which I’m afraid will make them think being chronically late is okay? I’m working more than I’d like on weekends and at the last minute, and I’m feeling burnt out from feeling like I have no control over my schedule (while still caring enormously about the finished product). I’m also losing a lot of respect for my trainees.
Doh… the bottom line is that I would love a post on anything you might do to confront this problem!