Over the past couple of weeks, this site has gotten a surge of new visitors. Reading the FAQ is not mandatory, but is recommended.
CIDU has been around since 1996, but unfortunately GoDaddy managed to destroy it earlier this year so you’ll only find archives going back to January.
Despite the fact that “godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com” is probably appearing in your browser’s address bar, you can always access the site using the slightly-less-cumbersome “comicsidontunderstand.com.”
Comics I Don't Understand 
@ Bill – Does WordPress give you statistics on “read-only” visitors, or are you extrapolating the lurkers from the number of new people who have written comments?
Visits to the site, Kilby.
The very concept of statistical extrapolation is anathema to me.
I stand corrected, but “visits” just measures “traffic” (which all readers can see is way up). For “visitors”, I presume that WordPress gives you some sort of measure on the number of unique IP addresses that are coming to the site (which is something we – thankfully – cannot see).
Despite the fact that “godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com” is probably appearing in your browser’s address bar
I don’t know exactly why, but I still dislike this name, and especially dislike having it show up in the address bar.
Bill, have you decided now that you want it that way? Previously I got the impression that you were just looking for an appropriate safe moment to click the box and make “comicsidontunderstand” the default domain. But if you tell us you do prefer keeping this one so foregrounded, I’ll try to just forget about it and stop nagging.
Actually, I kind of like the godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie. It reminds me of the terrible evil they inflicted on the world in deleting years of our brilliant repartee.
Honestly, Mitch4, I’m afraid to mess with something that’s working.
And that might be what some people have bookmarked at this point.
Yes, Kilby, they do show me that more ISPs are showing up. As well as other information I avoid looking at as if it were Medusa’s hair.
Bill, I’m not sure if your response fits my “Then I’ll quit nagging” threshold, as it doesn’t quite say that you like it as it is. (Setting aside unnecessary fears.)
But since Chak said essentially that, I’ll leave it be.
I think of it less as “like” than being dealt 18 in blackjack: it’s not ideal, but trying to improve it doesn’t warrant the possible downside.
“as if it were Medusa’s hair.” So use a mirror.
I don’t have a problem with the name, but I suspect new visitors are scratching their heads trying to figure it out. I can imagine them thinking “What’s with this Go daddy thing and what does he have against squirrels?”
I don’t have a problem with the name, but I suspect new visitors are scratching their heads trying to figure it out. I can imagine them thinking “What’s with this Go daddy thing and what does he have against squirrels?”
Good.
Any idea what inspired all these visitors to appear? Were you featured in a Forbes article? Did you make somebody’s enemies list?
frosteddonut, sometimes I know (we got mentioned in both the NY Times and EW some years back), and sometimes not. Or there could be no specific reason, just a statistical fluke.
Whatever the reason (or lack thereof), I figured I should put up a new FAQ.
I wonder if the increase in visitors is because IBB gave your URL out by mistake as the web address of his Seattle real estate firm. 😉
Thanks for the laugh, Pinny.
Hey Bill, I read the new FAQ and it occurs to me you’ve left out some tidbits, like who IBB is/are. Maybe somebody with a better memory than mine can make a list of the things that, at present, are insider jokes/references.
Chak, I don’t want to scare people away.
Where is this FAQ?
Andréa: The FAQ is linked to at the top of this post.
Bill: It seems like it would make sense for the FAQ to have a more permanent link in the sidebar. In a recent thread when I wanted to “prove” that the Arlo Award was named for Arlo Guthrie, I ended up doing a web search and linking to a very old incarnation of CIDU.
That’s it? I was ‘specting a long list of information . . . no wonder I couldn’t find it. Thanks!
Andréa: To be sure we’re talking about the same thing: it’s not the information at the top. It’s the page you get to by clicking on the word “FAQ.”
Yes, and that brings me right back to . . . this page. Really.
I GOT IT!!!!
Bill, I like the URL you gave the FAQ.
I will set up a permanent front-page link to the FAQ. Oddly enough, that’s something the new template makes it very difficult to do.
Apparently, they want you to have links to what THEY think you should have links to.
Seems like each generation of templates offer more options WITHIN the templates, but makes it harder for users to go off-script.
Yes, nice pun.
@ Bill – For the FAQ link, can’t you simply duplicate whatever you did to include the link to “Your Random Comments”?
That is indeed what I will do — once I remember what that was.
It might be a matter of entering it as a PAGE (as against a Post). And I mean that in a certain WP term-of-art sense, not the other sort of paging, where they break off a long list of comments after about 50 and make you follow a link to the next group.
@ Bill – As long as you are taking the trouble to make some changes, perhaps this would be the time to recreate the link to larK’s “Harvester” (assuming larK approves, of course). I lost the link, so I think it would be useful to put it back somewhere on CIDU.
That is http://scrape.nowis.com/CIDU/index.cfm
Some of Bill’s comments above made me think of this, which I recently came across in a “help me” thread elsewhere:
I have it working [again] after some trial and error.
Don’t change working settings.