Over the years on ACX and SSC, Scott has written over 1,495 articles and around 4,845,854 words. This gathered over 469,009 comments.
The longest article was around 35,224 words long, and the average article is around 3,241 words (median: 2,260 words). The most commented article got 2,155 comments, and the average article gets around 314 comments (median: 248 comments).
All stats exclude Open Thread, Links, and Meetup posts. Url fragments in links are currently counted as words, which should skew the word count upward by a very small number. Comment count is saved on posts older than a month.
You'll notice there's a sharp drop in 2020 - that's when Scott deleted the Slate Star Codex blog following the New York Times doxxing threats. You might also notice there is an increase in the number of words written per post (and total words) after that. I explored multiple explanations for that: a different way of counting words when switching blogs, more "Highlights from the Comments on..." posts in ACX (which are pretty long posts quoting other people), more book reviews, but when I checked it didn't seem to fit the observed difference.
It took me some time to find the obvious probable explanation: SubStack is paying good money, and Scott has more time to write longer and more frequent articles. Go subscribe!
I assume the increase in comment count when switching to ACX on SubStack in 2021 is in part due to SubStack (and maybe the NYT drama) improving readership and engagement.
You'll notice there's a sharp drop in 2020 - that's when Scott deleted the Slate Star Codex blog following the New York Times doxxing threats. You might also notice there is an increase in the number of words written per post (and total words) after that. I explored multiple explanations for that: a different way of counting words when switching blogs, more "Highlights from the Comments on..." posts in ACX (which are pretty long posts quoting other people), more book reviews, but when I checked it didn't seem to fit the observed difference.
It took me some time to find the obvious probable explanation: SubStack is paying good money, and Scott has more time to write longer and more frequent articles. Go subscribe!
I assume the increase in comment count when switching to ACX on SubStack in 2021 is in part due to SubStack (and maybe the NYT drama) improving readership and engagement.
You'll notice there's a sharp drop in 2020 - that's when Scott deleted the Slate Star Codex blog following the New York Times doxxing threats. You might also notice there is an increase in the number of words written per post (and total words) after that. I explored multiple explanations for that: a different way of counting words when switching blogs, more "Highlights from the Comments on..." posts in ACX (which are pretty long posts quoting other people), more book reviews, but when I checked it didn't seem to fit the observed difference.
It took me some time to find the obvious probable explanation: SubStack is paying good money, and Scott has more time to write longer and more frequent articles. Go subscribe!
I assume the increase in comment count when switching to ACX on SubStack in 2021 is in part due to SubStack (and maybe the NYT drama) improving readership and engagement.