WordPress.com prepares an 2012 annual report for blogs using the service, and since it is obvious from the traffic today that New Years has officially begun, I thought I might as well make its report on what occurred at Ethics Alarms public this year. I like WordPress, and this is also a good opportunity to thank them. Thanks.
Now please add an editing function for comments!
This isn’t part the Ethics Alarms Most Unethical and Most Ethical of 2012 posts; they will be along soon. Meanwhile, Ethics Alarms and its proprietor want to thank all those who kept the site growing, busy, lively, current, less typo-ridden (thanks, Jeff! ) and usually filled with intelligent, enlightening and civil, if occasionally too tough for some gentler tastes, discussion. Together we weathered web hoaxes, a national election, a plagiarizing lawyer, a couple of threatened law suits, a bitter American Idol contestant, an Instalanche, Penn State, George Zimmerman, ethics train wrecks galore, and nasty attacks from drug-legalization fans, bitter law grads, and mercifully few trolls, and still managed to keep the group ideologically diverse.
The site ends the year averaging about a thousand more visitors a day than it did 12 months ago, and for a blog on a topic most people think is as exciting as watching paint dry, I think that’s an accomplishement. I know this is difficult to believe, given my preference for stating my positions in the most assertive and uncompromising way possible, but one of the chief reasons I produce this blog is to explore new areas and ideas, to have my mind opened, my ideas challenged, and to learn. You have all done a wonderful job fulfilling those funtions, more than you know, and am obligated to all of you for it.
Thank you Chase Martinez, tgt, Ampersand, Bill, Tom Fuller, Lorraine, Steven Mark Pilling, Michael Ejercito, Curmudgeon, Arthur in Maine, Tim LeVier, Jeff, Elizabeth, Crella, Walrus, Jan Chapman, Yardley, Windypundit, ethicssage, fattymoon, blameblakeart, Rick, Ethics Bob, Peter, Scherie, Jeff, Dave Gent, Interested Blogger, The Nance, gregory, Charles Green, Christine, Lianne Best, This Guy, Brian, Roger, Karla Marie Robinett, texagg04, Dwayne N. Zechman,49erDweet, Diego Garcia, Jolie, Jenna,Debbie Swartz, zoebrain, oldgraymary, Joshua, Jeremy Wiggins, Inquiring Mind, Sharon, Michael, Modern Knight, Fred Davison, Joe Fowler, Libby Torgerson, Mike Martin, celestialsquare, Proam, Karl, Martin Brooks Smith, Fred, Eeyoure, garlicfriesandbaseball, Rick, Michael R, Eric, and any of the cherished regulars here I have missed, for all the substantive content you contributed in 2012. Some of you have been AWOL for a while; I hope it wasn’t anything I wrote, and I hope to see you back in the fray in 2013. I know I was sometimes cranky, occasionally unfair, and uncivil at times. I can be careless, stubborn, mistaken, and outright wrong. And there are days when my brain takes a holiday. I’ll try to improve in 2013.
I’ll depend on you to make sure I do.
From here on, everything is WordPress.
About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 830,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 15 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!
Ethics Alarms 
This Guy is grateful for the grace you showed even when he spent a year and a half flouting your only rule on comments.
Congratulations, thank you and Happy New Year. I hope we see lots of Ethics Heroes in 2013.
So pleased to have found Ethics Alarms. Thanks for all you do Jack. Best wishes for continued success.
Well, your blog has much more relaxed security than the airlines that fly to Europe, I can bring all my toiletries with me; and as part of the 47 percent, I can afford multiple trips.
So true, so true.
Oh my! I didn’t realize that Liechtenstein had even died. He was such a wonderful and inspiring man.
Jack, I must credit you and your blog for providing the tools with which I now use to converse with those I once thought were much too intelligent for the likes of a girl like me. Now that my mind has been honed into a cerebral steel trap…some people can be quite suspicious or even aghast at the information and conclusions I render and naturally want to know my source…with which I reply with your name. Just some free advertising for you there. No need to thank me!
By the way, which small European country is Liechtenstein lying in state? To think that over 50,000 tourists have already paid their respects and I am just now finding out about his untimely death! And if it were not for your blog, I would clueless!
Too…thick..to…move….must…get…shovel….blasting caps…help….
Sharon beat me to the punch on the Liechtenstein bit! One thing, however, can be said for that tiny principality. Unlike so many of their more prominent neighbors, that country is both prosperous and somewhat sane. That likewise puts it ahead of at least a dozen states of the Union. Maybe it wasn’t a bad example after all! And, of course, a Happy New Year to you and the other posters.
You did miss me, but I haven’t commented in a while… I prefer lurking most of the time; better things to do than get dragged into an online argument with SMP or Michael.
I’m sorry, Chase…I went over random posts over the year with lots of commenters to jog my memory. I regard you as a stalwart, and I shouldn’t have even needed the jog in your case. It was a brain problem, not a sign of disregard. Please excuse me.
(I just added you in. At the beginning.)
A stalwart? Let’s not go too far, now. I’m a non-confrontational lurker who prefers a quick joke or typographical correction to anything approaching a real debate.
Too Modest!!! I counted, Chase: you have made 389 comments here, and that ain’t sauerkraut! The Scale is…
1000+…Assistant-blogger
700-999….Fanatic
400-699….Enthusiast
250-399…Stalwart
100-249…Regular
50-99…Bench Player
This blog is great conversation starter for me and my friends. I’ve been working on getting my best friend to contribute, his concise and clear style would be beneficial for all. But unfortunately he is lazy about contributing and hopefully this online call out will spur him to action.
This blog has also challenged many of my notions and caused change to some. Keep it up!
I flew over Liechtenstein once.
Your site is a regular read of mine because it always gets me thinking more critically, which is something in need in society. I posted a few alarms on my Facebook page and had quite a disagreement with my dad on the school bus monitor issue. It’s been an “interesting” year. Here’s hoping 2013 brings about more ethical behavior.
I know that tgt is a prolific commenter, but to see his numbers compared to the runner-up, and even the 2nd runner up….astonishing. Since he was almost double the # of comments as the runner up, I propose he have a new year resolution to actually double next year’s runner up.
I would try to crack the top 5, but I’m not even sure I’ve cracked the top 15…and sometimes, I just don’t think I have anything worth while to say, despite reading every single post.
Happy New Year Jack! Keep up the good work and I wish you the best for your future success.
And I’M the runner-up, Tim!
I think half of tgt’s comments this year might have come from that Vegetarian Reception post in which he (among others) tried for over two days to get a commenter to think clearly and rationally. Tgt showed unusual patience and the heart of a teacher until finally forced to call “troll.”
I don’t know about that, but throw in my often less patient responses to SMP and tex, and that probably gets well more than half of them.
My new years resolution is to only respond twice to any given ridiculous comment.
If you also pledge to respond to every ridiculous comment, you’ll have a new record and another title!
Just so we keep things in perspective: I made over 4000 comments in 2012, in addition to the posts. Nearly 11,000 since the blog was launched. Not that anyone’s keeping score…
Just out of curiosity, can you tell how many I had last year? I’m gonna guess 150, but I’m thinking lower.
I show just short of 200. Still your lightest year.
But Tiggy… you think EVERYONE is ridiculous but yourself!
Thanks for a year of interesting material, Jack. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year, and thank you for an oasis of rational thinking and reasoned discussion.
Thanks for one of the few places where one may post a comment without being called names for disagreeing with other posters. Since I am plagued with a computer with a mind of its own, working only when it apparently feels like it plus a host of other problems to contend with, I’m not online as much as I’d like to be – but I catch up as often as I can. Best wishes to you for continued success and to all your commenters as well.
Jack, it is YOU who deserves the thanks.
I’ve never found anything else like this place (except the Ethics Scoreboard, of course) and I doubt I ever will. We don’t always agree, but you’ve earned my respect 1000 times over. Keep it up.
–Dwayne
Many thanks Jack, and keep up the good work! Ethics Alarms is a fantastic blog, and it’s worthy of the traffic it receives. I look forward to the stimulating debates and ethical quandaries that 2013 will bring.
Things started off to a rocky start when you almost made me cry, but, Jack, I’ve come to greatly appreciate your work here.
Thanks Jack for a year of enlivening blogging. Happy 2013 – look forward to reading more ethics alarms.
Thank YOU for provocative and thoughtful contributions, Nancy. I know I don’t always sound grateful, but I am.