"88.2% of Statistics are made up on the spot" Vic Reeves

I've become distracted with the little visitor counter at the foot of my page. I added it to this website very early on - and almost 40000 page visits later I discovered that tucked in behind the code is a raft of data that I never realised I signed up for.

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Statistics is a minefield - often misunderstood by the masses. In many ways it's misunderstood by those that deem themselves experts. Just a quick google search for statistics + definition brings up page after page of the meaning of the word "Statistics"

"Statistics is the science of making effective use of numerical data relating to groups of individuals or experiments" says wikipedia.

Princeton's definition is "a branch of applied mathematics concerned with the collection and interpretation of quantitative data and the use of probability theory to estimate population parameters"

Dictionary.com states "the science that deals with the collection, classification, analysis, and interpretation of numerical facts or data, and that, by use of mathematical theories of probability, imposes order and regularity on aggregates of more or less disparate elements."

And finally the Oxford English Dictionary puts it simply as "the collection and analysis of numerical data in large quantities"

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For me statistics is an often misused term, where people present data in a graphical manner. Personally if I have some data and I turn it into a graph I don't consider this statistics. I need to have at least have interpreted the data a little as well. Patterns are one thing but some manipulation to see you can see what you suspect you can see is another

Now this doesn't mean that I've thrown it through a deep ANOVA and have a 99% CI to back up my reasoning - it just means I've thought about it at least a little before putting my thoughts down on paper or on screen.

So why the long droning post about boring stuff Breevok? Is this making you gold?

Actually no - I do use statistics all the time to make gold - auctioneer does it for me and I just interpret what it tells me. I probably know more about what Auctioneer is telling me than the majority of users, which puts me at an advantage. Put simple - I know the pointy end from the blunt end and know where to poke for at least a decent amount of pain to be inflicted.

Anyway back to my website data.

My first post was on the 14th September 2009. I installed the counter a little time later. Since then there have been 40126 visits to the blog.

If you could be bothered you'd notice that when I post I get visitors. Rocket science this isnt.

Just looking at the past 30 days:

Prior to this post I posted on the 19th May, 27th May and 4th June.

A post gets me around 250-300 page reloads, with around 50-100 unique visitors (based on IP)

And where do these people come from? Well from the last 500 visits:

So it seems that I owe my fellow bloggers a huge debt of gratitude as a sizable chunk of my readers come here via other blogs. Thank you :)

Now there is a raft of other data there and to me it all has value. For example it seems my disc priest stuff was popular (20 visits out of the last 500) which has prompted me to come back to this topic later in the week.

However, as with all data, a note of caution. 40000 visitors seems reasonably impressive, until you look at this:

So let me interpret... 63% my most recent visitors stayed for less than 30 seconds. But my thanks to those 39 who stayed for more than an hour - alas some of those were me leaving my browser window open!

So there you have it - some data on the visits to www.csahf.blogspot.com over the past 8 months. Take it as you will.

The data itself (like auctioneer in many ways) is a tool - nothing more. Putting it to use for your advantage is where the skill lies.

So to conclude - a joke which explains a great deal IMHO :)

Three statisticians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first statistician fired, but missed, by a metre to the left. The second statistician fired, but also missed, by a metre to the right. The third statistician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "On the average we got it!"