In February 2014, College Misery closed down. (If you read any of the mail that comes in about this, we've closed down several times during our 5 years online, ungraciously, capriciously, because we're all assholes.)
Beaker Ben (R.I.P.) graciously ran the Academic Pressure Cooker page for some intervening months, and then Terry P. started us back in mid September of 2014. it's been a year now since all that happened, and despite tumbling hit counts (and a historically small day today, for example) we're still open.
Some folks don't give a shit about the hits and so forth, but I think it's interesting to see the reach of the page. Here are some relevant stats. The big spike in the middle is the brief time we were on the Stommel radar. The drop off was after Terry's brilliant early April Fool's post, that apparently fooled too many people.
Beaker Ben (R.I.P.) graciously ran the Academic Pressure Cooker page for some intervening months, and then Terry P. started us back in mid September of 2014. it's been a year now since all that happened, and despite tumbling hit counts (and a historically small day today, for example) we're still open.
Some folks don't give a shit about the hits and so forth, but I think it's interesting to see the reach of the page. Here are some relevant stats. The big spike in the middle is the brief time we were on the Stommel radar. The drop off was after Terry's brilliant early April Fool's post, that apparently fooled too many people.
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| THIS GRAPH SHOWS WEEKLY HIT NUMBERS FOR THE PAST YEAR |
When you see it like that it's depressing. I wish I felt like writing more, but the whole industry makes me so despondent that when I'm not doing my level best for just my own classes, I can't bring myself to think of the larger picture. Sorry, Fab. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHey, kids! Let's invite Jesse Stommel to write a guest column! He'd get to list every column on his CV (or at least, that's what he thinks), the site would get oodles of hits, and we all giggle in glee while taunting and tormenting Jesse to madness! We can't lose!
ReplyDeleteStrommel is ColoradoSockPuppet, right?
DeleteYeah, he's fair game for whatever.
Don't forget about those of us who read the posts on a feed reeder. No need (usually) to click over, despite your attempts to shorten the posts and force us to.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to crawl out from under the current misery long enough to write about it.
ReplyDeletePoint of order: "Academic Pressure Cooker" seems like either an excellent Freudian slip or a nice wink at Ben, but it was Academic Water Cooler.
And lest we forget,
Delete"Burn it down yourself or LET it burn. It's all the same."
I will do my level best to contribute to keeping it going, because I believe in the mission of this place irrespective of the fact that I need it now more than ever. If it burns down, at least I have been warmed by the flames for a while.
The anonymous email we just got claiming we were jealous of Ben is off the mark. While Ben was never officially a part of the continuum of mods who has run RYS and CM for 10 years, his work was always much appreciated. And he knew it! Nothing but love. And yes, we've made the pressure cooker joke before.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think it's a pretty good joke.
DeleteI've never seen anyone here (moderators included) express anything but appreciation for Ben's setting up and running AWC. Had he not done it, there's a very good chance I would have wandered off somewhere else and never found CM again. Not that the latter in itself would have been much of a loss for CM, but if it could have been so with one, it could have been so with all.
The pressure cooker analogy works pretty well in more than one way, I think. I never owned a pressure cooker, and perhaps they've improved, but my memory of my grandmother's is that it periodically blew up (usually when she was distracted/in a rush/busy, e.g. on Thanksgiving morning), leaving permanent stains on the kitchen ceiling, and she cleaned things up as best she could and went on with business as usual, apparently oblivious to the warning hanging over her head, until the next explosion. We did always have an excellent Thanksgiving dinner, though (well, until dementia caught up with her and I took over, but even I did a pretty credible job, albeit with canned cranberry sauce, which didn't offer the temptation of hurrying along via the pressure cooker).
DeleteAh Stommel. Those were good times! I participated in the live chat event hosted by Beaker Ben when Stommel came in, lurked, started chatting and then left in a huff, only to reappear after awhile. That was some bizarre behavior. Terry challenged him several times, but Stommel was the master of changing the subject and not answering the question. He would say something like, “You are publicly shaming me.”or “I suspect that the person impersonating me will also delete their comments.” Like I said, those were good times! You can’t make this stuff up!
ReplyDeleteIt is heartbreaking to imagine the writings of the person impersonating me not being a part of my future tenure dossier -- as a kind of scholarship that "counts."
DeleteJesse Stommel is on the move after being informed that his tweets and blog posts won't count for tenure at Wisconsin-Madison: http://jessestommel.com/leaving-wisconsin/
DeleteHe's generated press coverage: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/university/digital-learning-professor-leaving-unfriendly-climate-at-uw-madison/article_f20264c6-fff2-503e-acbc-ee898f53b53a.html
- Old Fart Prof