Dakota Free Press fielded 29,099 comments from 698 distinct commenters in 2018. Who talked the most?
52 individuals, including myself, commented at least once a week on average. Kal Lis and Francis Schaffer just made the list with 60 comments each in 2018. 16 of us—down to O at 505 and Rorschach at 427—contributed at least one comment a day.
We can also look at the length of comments. I use the same quick and dirty formula as last year: count every character typed in every comment and divide by 5.1, the average length of words in English. Excluding my own comments, I find that you, dear readers, contributed over 2.1 million “words” to the comment section, up 5.8% from last year. Your contribution to the comment section is the equivalent of 32.6 Brave New Worlds.
67 of us wrote more than 2,500 words in the comment section in 2018:
I posted 3,464 comments under my 1,546 posts in 2018. That’s 9.5 comments a day, responding to and posing questions, adding context and sources, refuting blatant nonsense, and keeping things on track. Here are each of our top commenters’ totals, with their percentages of the conversation:
| Commenter | Comments | % | cumulative % |
| Cory Allen Heidelberger | 3464 | 11.90% | 11.90% |
| mike from iowa | 3313 | 11.39% | 23.29% |
| jerry | 2460 | 8.45% | 31.74% |
| Jason | 2012 | 6.91% | 38.66% |
| Debbo | 1829 | 6.29% | 44.94% |
| Porter Lansing | 1488 | 5.11% | 50.06% |
| OldSarg | 1208 | 4.15% | 54.21% |
| Roger Cornelius | 1206 | 4.14% | 58.35% |
| grudznick | 963 | 3.31% | 61.66% |
| Donald Pay | 707 | 2.43% | 64.09% |
| bearcreekbat | 574 | 1.97% | 66.06% |
| leslie | 555 | 1.91% | 67.97% |
| Jenny | 553 | 1.90% | 69.87% |
| Ryan | 519 | 1.78% | 71.66% |
| o | 505 | 1.74% | 73.39% |
| Rorschach | 427 | 1.47% | 74.86% |
| Robert McTaggart | 358 | 1.23% | 76.09% |
| Kurt Evans | 319 | 1.10% | 77.18% |
| Darin Larson | 224 | 0.77% | 77.95% |
| Adam | 214 | 0.74% | 78.69% |
| Dana P | 212 | 0.73% | 79.42% |
| happy camper | 205 | 0.70% | 80.12% |
| John Kennedy Claussen, Sr. | 200 | 0.69% | 80.81% |
| owen reitzel | 185 | 0.64% | 81.45% |
| Robin Friday | 180 | 0.62% | 82.06% |
| John | 179 | 0.62% | 82.68% |
| T | 174 | 0.60% | 83.28% |
| Nick Nemec | 152 | 0.52% | 83.80% |
| Dicta | 149 | 0.51% | 84.31% |
| Clyde | 123 | 0.42% | 84.73% |
| Stace Nelson | 108 | 0.37% | 85.11% |
| Debbie | 103 | 0.35% | 85.46% |
| grudgenutz | 102 | 0.35% | 85.81% |
| Anne Beal | 98 | 0.34% | 86.15% |
| Daniel Buresh | 93 | 0.32% | 86.47% |
| Richard Schriever | 93 | 0.32% | 86.79% |
| jimmy james | 89 | 0.31% | 87.09% |
| Steve Pearson | 88 | 0.30% | 87.39% |
| TAG | 86 | 0.30% | 87.69% |
| RJ | 85 | 0.29% | 87.98% |
| Curt | 84 | 0.29% | 88.27% |
| David Newquist | 84 | 0.29% | 88.56% |
| Evan | 71 | 0.24% | 88.80% |
| Loren | 71 | 0.24% | 89.05% |
| Roger Elgersma | 71 | 0.24% | 89.29% |
| Buckobear | 70 | 0.24% | 89.53% |
| tara volesky | 67 | 0.23% | 89.76% |
| 96Tears | 64 | 0.22% | 89.98% |
| Francis Schaffer | 60 | 0.21% | 90.19% |
| Kal Lis | 60 | 0.21% | 90.39% |
This chart shows an outsized example of Pareto’s principle: just over 90% of our 2018 comments came from just 7.45% of the commenters. If I take myself out of the math, the percentages remain about the same: 90.03% of non-Cory comments came from 7.78% of the commenters not named Cory.
You can compare word counts and number of posts in the following table. You can also see the top commenters’ equivalent output in terms of novels (Brave New World, the median-length novel on Amazon.com, at 64,531 words) and inaugural addresses (Barack Obama delivered 2,406 words in 2009).
| Commenter | words (calc) | comments | words/comment | Novels | Inaugurals |
| Cory Allen Heidelberger | 303,136 | 3,464 | 88 | 4.7 | 126.0 |
| jerry | 288,576 | 2,460 | 117 | 4.5 | 119.9 |
| mike from iowa | 183,173 | 3,313 | 55 | 2.8 | 76.1 |
| Debbo | 120,892 | 1,829 | 66 | 1.9 | 50.2 |
| OldSarg | 117,965 | 1,208 | 98 | 1.8 | 49.0 |
| Donald Pay | 111,696 | 707 | 158 | 1.7 | 46.4 |
| bearcreekbat | 96,403 | 574 | 168 | 1.5 | 40.1 |
| Porter Lansing | 95,022 | 1,488 | 64 | 1.5 | 39.5 |
| Jason | 80,359 | 2,012 | 40 | 1.2 | 33.4 |
| Ryan | 63,001 | 519 | 121 | 1.0 | 26.2 |
| Roger Cornelius | 58,761 | 1,206 | 49 | 0.9 | 24.4 |
| Kurt Evans | 52,067 | 319 | 163 | 0.8 | 21.6 |
| leslie | 49,654 | 555 | 89 | 0.8 | 20.6 |
| grudznick | 49,204 | 963 | 51 | 0.8 | 20.5 |
| o | 45,516 | 505 | 90 | 0.7 | 18.9 |
| Robert McTaggart | 36,859 | 358 | 103 | 0.6 | 15.3 |
| Jenny | 32,187 | 553 | 58 | 0.5 | 13.4 |
| Rorschach | 28,555 | 427 | 67 | 0.4 | 11.9 |
| Darin Larson | 27,745 | 224 | 124 | 0.4 | 11.5 |
| John Kennedy Claussen, Sr. | 26,157 | 200 | 131 | 0.4 | 10.9 |
| happy camper | 19,872 | 205 | 97 | 0.3 | 8.3 |
| Dana P | 19,257 | 212 | 91 | 0.3 | 8.0 |
| Adam | 18,000 | 214 | 84 | 0.3 | 7.5 |
| Stace Nelson | 15,797 | 108 | 146 | 0.2 | 6.6 |
| David Newquist | 15,188 | 84 | 181 | 0.2 | 6.3 |
| Clyde | 14,610 | 123 | 119 | 0.2 | 6.1 |
| John | 13,970 | 179 | 78 | 0.2 | 5.8 |
| Joe Nelson | 13,842 | 48 | 288 | 0.2 | 5.8 |
| Robin Friday | 13,690 | 180 | 76 | 0.2 | 5.7 |
| TAG | 11,756 | 86 | 137 | 0.2 | 4.9 |
| T | 10,912 | 174 | 63 | 0.2 | 4.5 |
| Daniel Buresh | 10,853 | 93 | 117 | 0.2 | 4.5 |
| Debbie | 10,427 | 103 | 101 | 0.2 | 4.3 |
| Evan | 10,372 | 71 | 146 | 0.2 | 4.3 |
| Anne Beal | 10,264 | 98 | 105 | 0.2 | 4.3 |
| Dicta | 8,775 | 149 | 59 | 0.1 | 3.6 |
| 96Tears | 8,772 | 64 | 137 | 0.1 | 3.6 |
| Nick Nemec | 8,283 | 152 | 54 | 0.1 | 3.4 |
| Richard Schriever | 8,050 | 93 | 87 | 0.1 | 3.3 |
| Roger Elgersma | 7,699 | 71 | 108 | 0.1 | 3.2 |
| John W. | 7,623 | 20 | 381 | 0.1 | 3.2 |
| Kal Lis | 6,680 | 60 | 111 | 0.1 | 2.8 |
| Michael L. Wyland | 6,500 | 47 | 138 | 0.1 | 2.7 |
| John W | 6,276 | 34 | 185 | 0.1 | 2.6 |
| owen reitzel | 6,270 | 185 | 34 | 0.1 | 2.6 |
| tara volesky | 6,198 | 67 | 93 | 0.1 | 2.6 |
| David Bergan | 5,741 | 30 | 191 | 0.1 | 2.4 |
| Steve Hickey | 5,440 | 40 | 136 | 0.1 | 2.3 |
| jimmy james | 4,840 | 89 | 54 | 0.1 | 2.0 |
| Craig | 4,742 | 19 | 250 | 0.1 | 2.0 |
| Paul T | 4,654 | 25 | 186 | 0.1 | 1.9 |
| Francis Schaffer | 4,653 | 60 | 78 | 0.1 | 1.9 |
| RJ | 4,428 | 85 | 52 | 0.1 | 1.8 |
| Bill Adamson | 4,376 | 4 | 1094 | 0.1 | 1.8 |
| Steve Pearson | 4,063 | 88 | 46 | 0.1 | 1.7 |
| Curt | 4,004 | 84 | 48 | 0.1 | 1.7 |
| grudgenutz | 3,772 | 102 | 37 | 0.1 | 1.6 |
| John Tsitrian | 3,641 | 42 | 87 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
| Patricia Shiery | 3,456 | 15 | 230 | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Aaron Aylward | 3,081 | 20 | 154 | 0.0 | 1.3 |
| Greg | 2,824 | 50 | 56 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Eve Fisher | 2,817 | 39 | 72 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Loren | 2,800 | 71 | 39 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Lori Stacey | 2,633 | 21 | 125 | 0.0 | 1.1 |
| South DaCola | 2,601 | 46 | 57 | 0.0 | 1.1 |
| steve novotny | 2,518 | 13 | 194 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
| Robin | 2,502 | 17 | 147 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
One other way to put all this data in context: If we all lined up at the mic to speak our comments, and if I slowed down to match the national average speaking rate of 174 words per minute, it would take us 231 hours—9.6 days of nonstop speaking—to recite every word in the 2018 Dakota Free Press comments sections.