Popular MatterOfStats Pages in 2014

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Traffic to MatterOfStats has been up this year, especially that being referred from Google, the self-reinforcing nature of which has brought unexpected popularity to a handful of mostly recent but a few slightly older blog entries from across the site. 

The table below provides the visit statistics for the 2014 calendar year to 21 May, and includes pages with at least 20 visits in that period (and excludes any of the more ephemeral weekly posts from the Wagers and Tips and the Team Dashboard journals, even if they've attracted that many visits).

Atop that table is one of the first posts from 2014, in which I described some of the things that have surprised me about the analyses of AFL I've conducted over the past 8 years. That blog entry has been visited over 400 times by an estimated 351 unique viewers, each spending, on average, over 3 minutes on the page. Less than 50% of people who have come to the page have 'bounced', that is, immediately exited the site, and only 45% have not gone on to visit some other page on MatterOfStats. When I wrote that post I'd have given you long odds that it would become popular.

The Pythagorean Expectation page has also attracted considerable traffic - about 26 pageviews a week since it went up. Andrew's posts on Game Statistics have also proven popular, attracting well over 100 pageviews each.

If you'd like to visit any of the pages you see listed in the table, clickable links for each are provided after the table.

Statistical Analyses Page

Wagers & Tips Pages (excluding regular weekly posts during the season)

General Probability & Statistics

History and FAQ Pages

Vale Chi

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I really didn't think he'd see the Grand Final of 2013, but he did - not that I think he cared much for the outcome.

Yesterday, a little after 3pm Sydney time, I watched while MAFL's first and only mascot, Chi the Absurdly Determined, laying blissfully on my wife's lap in our vet's surgery, a study in zen-like non-attachment, went limp and then peacefully disappeared forever from our lives.

As some of you know, the last few months of Chi's life have been especially difficult, probably moreso for us than for him, as his bingo card of ailments and pharmacopoeian list of treatments grew more numerous, the best of 21st century veterinarian medicine pitted against, amongst other things, his murmurous heart, his failing eyesight, his arthritic body and his demented brain (though, truth be told, he wasn't doing much with that organ anyway). Our vet likened the situation to propping up a tent from the inside using only your hands while it's collapsing at multiple, random places, all around you.

It was, I truly know - and as my amazing wife and our amazing vet knew - the time to let go, or as near to that time as anyone could reasonably estimate but, regardless, it's hard to quell an uneasy feeling of betrayal; he made it so difficult. 

Even early on his last morning he was, in his own mind, purposeful in heading towards the kitchen, backdoor, water bowl - who knew, given that his chosen path involved a plainly unnecessary detour via the TV in the lounge room. And then, throughout the remainder of the day he was as keen of appetite as ever, finishing most of a breakfast of eggs and ham, devouring the few, small coveted pieces of banana that were offered him, and then contentedly melting into whatever lap was available. If he knew nothing else on his last day, it was that he was loved.

One small comfort is that we never got to the point where all that was left of Chi forever spoiled our memories of all that he was.

And now, he's no more, and I feel sharply aware that, like the as-beloved pets before him, he's destined to become a blurry memory. He does have one thing in his favour though: he's easily the most photographed pet we've ever welcomed into our home. Should anyone ever decide to do a retrospective on him they'll suffer from no shortage of contemporaneous material.

It's cliched, I know, but if you have a pet - something, someone you love - be mindful in their presence and be thankful for the brief time you'll share together on the planet.

See you mate - and thanks.

Repairs and Maintenance

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Since Debs has made the site look so much better, it seemed a shame to leave it with all those unsightly broken links, most of which you've probably not encountered since they mainly related to the content from 2009 and 2010.

Eventually the curator in me won out, so I've spent most of the last couple of days hunting down and removing all of the errors I could find (with the assistance of the fabulous Xenu Link Sleuth). Please let me know if you come across any that I've missed while you're surfing the site - my email address is Tony.Corke@gmail.com.

A Blog About the Changes to the MAFLOnline Website

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There's nowhere on the MAFLOnline website where I'm able to let visitors know about changes to the site itself. This Site News blog has been created to provide me with that opportunity.

I don't expect to be posting here often, but I will add this blog to the Feedburner RSS feed so existing subscribers should automatically receive notifications whenever I do.

Over the past few weeks I've made a number of changes to the site, most notably:

  • Adding this blog, called Site News, which is now also available in the navigation bar
  • Adding another blog, called MAFL Primer, which is an FAQ for the site, incorporating and expanding on the material that used to reside in the MAFL - The Good Bits pages (which have now been disabled). The MAFL Primer FAQ is also available in the navigation bar.
  • Updating the MAFL Fund Performance page to include the 2012 results. I put it off for as long as I could but at least I can now say that it relates to a prior year.
  • Reordering the items in the navigation bar

If you've any comments, good or bad, about the changes or about MAFL or the MAFLOnline website in general, please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail to the address that appears in the navigation bar.