This is Post #8,834 in Braves Journal history, at least that is what WordPress is telling me. That’s probably wrong, because I think a fair number of Mac’s earliest posts aren’t counted there, but we go with the history we’ve got, not necessarily the truth. Now as milestones go, 8,834 is sort of obscure, unless you count in base-631, which is more fingers than even Antonio Alfonseca has.

For those of us committed to the more prosaic base-10, however, we are very close to another WordPress-notified milestone: 600,000 comments. The odometer is going to turn over for the 6th time pretty dang soon. To everyone who has contributed to that we here at Braves Journal thank you.

So I did some data analysis, cos that’s what I do. I want to start by saying that the stats here look pretty accurate, but undoubtedly have errors: many, many commenters have used more than one screen name, either on purpose or through typos, and quite a few have used more than one email address. So I’ve aggregated by name and email address to try and isolate people, but that’s an inherently fraught enterprise. Nonetheless, the results look pretty plausible to me.

There are only two commenters who have made more comments than Mac’s 21,533. AAR at 24,334 and csg at 22,393. Good on both of you, as Peter Moylan would say. Rounding out the top 10 are Messrs. Copenhaver (19,312), braves14 (17,145), smitty (17,019), ububba (16,354), stu (15,285), Ryan C (13,032), and Sam Hutcheson (12,858). Together, these 10 have contributed just about 30 percent of the comments here. I am not known for my reticence, but I have contributed a modest 4,595, good for 34th place, though that of course ignores my 340 posts which are much longer in verbiage, if not necessarily more insightful. I don’t have residence data, but I’m pretty sure that timo (5,323) leads the international contingent, well ahead of stephen in the uae’s 2,000.

Looking over the list creates a lot of nostalgia, both good and bad. We all still miss Bethany and her 8,476 comments, and I’m a little sad about the way blazon and his 5,577 have left. No one, I trust, misses the 389 posts from iloveemmastone.

The Internet is characterized by long tails. There are just over 1,000 commenters (roughly half the total) who made but one post, and they are (from visitor counts alone, as well as comments to me personally from people I went to high school with) swamped by those whose lurking is so dedicated that they have made no comments at all. I love all of you as well.

And these counts should not be construed to give short shrift to the latecomers who make the bulk of comments today and simply started too late to make the overall lists. In the last two years, for example, stampton has generated just over 10 percent of all comments, with putter, our new insect overlords, tfloyd, roger and rusty s. not far behind, among those not previously mentioned.

Anyway, as we near 600,000, we can take pride in the fact that we have created a community, and it’s now time for pitchers and catchers to report so I don’t have to write posts like this one. When will we hit the magic number? Well, it all depends on you guys.