Main Stats

• Visits – 3,550,071 (2,993,948) – 19% annual increase
• Visitors – 746,662 (718,046)
• Pageviews – 7,082,230 (6,487,007)

Country of Visitors

1. NZ 84.3%
2. Australia 4.8%
3. US 3.0%
4. UK 2.5%
5. Canada 0.6%
6. Singapore 0.3%
7. Japan 0.3%
8. Germany 0.3%
9. India 0.2%

City of Visitors

1. Auckland 37.2%
2. Wellington 23.3%
3. Christchurch 8.5%
4. Hamilton 2.5%
5. Dunedin 2.0%
6. Sydney 1.6%
7. Palm Nth 1.6%
8. Mechanics Bay 1.5%
9. Melbourne 1.4%
10. Nelson 1.0%

Browsers

1. IE 37.0% (-8.3%)
2. Firefox 26.2% (-4.1%)
3. Safari 18.1% (+6.1%)
4. Chrome 15.1% (+4.8%)
5. Android 1.1%
6. Opera 0.9%

Operating Systems

1. Windows 73.5% (-8.2%)
2. Mac 14.0% (+1.3%)
3. iPhone 4.4% (+2.3%)
4. iPad 3.4% (++2.7%)
5. Linux 1.5% (-0.1%)

Hosts (excluding ISPs)

1. VUW 21,264
2. MOJ 15,779
3. MSD 10,865
4. Massey 9,306
5. APN 6,930
6. Air NZ 5,707
7. Fonterra 5,279
8. Treasury 4,798
9. MOE 4,755
10. NZ Post 4,500
11. Westpac 4,028
12. Ak City Council – 3,759
13. TVNZ 3,636

Access

1. 35.0% search
2. 29.3% referral
3. 35.7% direct

Search Terms (excluding Kiwiblog and my name)

1. Cactus Kate
2. Cathy Odgers
3. Malcolm Harbrow
4. Whale Oil
5. Matthew Hooton
6. Erin Leigh
7. Labour List
8. VSM bill
9. Liz Shaw
10. Mana Party
11. Kate Sutton
12. Owen Glenn
13. Whaleoil
14. Vote for Change
15. The spirit level

Referrals

1. No Minister
2. Whale Oil
3. Facebook
4. NZ Herald
5. Dim Post
6. Keeping Stock
7. Cactus Kate
8. Scoop
9. The Standard
10. NZ Conservative

Also currently Kiwiblog has had:

• 21,188 posts, of which approx 2,800 were made in 2011
• 790,704 comments, of which approx 140,000 were made in 2011
• 4,020 tags
• 7,514 registered commenters

I actually think he has a very decent chance of becoming Prime Minister.

I’m on holiday until early January so Jadis will be doing the odd guest post, as well as possibly other guest editors.

I’ll still do a bit of blogging, but will be less regular.

• 38,110 unique visitors
• 105,531 visits – of which 10,000 are to the mobile version
• 213,626 page views

Browsers

• IE 33%
• Firefox 24%
• Safari 19%
• Chrome 18%
• Android 2%

Operating Systems

• Windows 70%
• Mac 13%
• iPhone 5%
• iPad 5%
• Android 2%
• Linux 1%

Top Visit Sources

1. Ministry of Justice
2. Datacom
3. VUW
4. MSD
5. APN
6. Air NZ
7. Massey Uni
8. Min of Ed
9. Westpac
10. Cant Uni

Top Referrers

1. Whale Oil
2. No Minister
3. Facebook
4. NZ Herald
5. t.co
6. Keeping Stock
7. Cactus Kate
8. Trade Me
9. Stuff
10. Scoop

Top Search Terms

1. Kiwiblog
2. David Farrar
3. Erin Leigh
4. Bradley Ambrose
5. Cactus Kate
6. Kate Sutton
7. Supplementary Member
8. Matthew Hooton
9. Labour List
10. Who is the child abusing comedian

Top Pages Visited

1. So much for a panel of undecided voters
2. Blogroll
3. Caption Contest 32
4. KB back up
5. General Debate 21 Nov
6. A vote for NZ First is a vote for a new election
7. Labour’s campaign hits full stride
8. Must read blogs
9. Goff savaged
10. General Debate 20 November 2011

This means I will not be posting any material after midnight that could be seen as influencing any elector as to how to vote, or not to vote. I am asking all those who comment to do the same. The law should be interpreted broadly, so do not post comments tomorrow on any candidate, MP or party, current issues or policy.

It is not my intention to disable commenting, just as I don’t expect Trade Me will close down their forums for the day. If any commenter does post a comment that could be considered in breach, I will be happy to supply their e-mail address and IP address to the Electoral Commission. I will also delete the comment and suspend the account.

If a number of people act retarded and post stuff they should not, them I may stick moderation on for comments so they do not appear automatically. I’d rather not do that, unless necessary.

I’ve already voted. I voted today for National, for Paul Foster-Bell, for change, and for STV. Whether or not you vote the same as me, make sure you vote before 7 pm tomorrow.

Thanks to John Stringer for this crossword. It is intended to be a weekly feature.

In the spotlight over whether the taxpayer has funded Labour’s party activities, deputy leader Annette King has taken a pot shot at right-wing Stuff blogger David Farrar. …

King said Labour was very careful about what its staff did during paid time at Parliament.

”We have looked at it and we have made sure they are doing what is appropriate for them to do.”

Other parties should also check their staff, she said.

”Because I have no doubt that in the past someone like David Farrar setting up his blog, a lot of it was done within Parliament.

”I’m not accusing him of using Parliamentary time but every party has to be careful of what they do in their own time, in their own equipment and in Parliamentary equipment.”

Farrar admits he was working at Parliament when he set up the blog in 2003, and over the nine months he spent working in the National Party’s leader’s office he occasionally blogged from Parliament.

”But the blog was hosted on the NZ Pundit server in Dunedin. No Parliamentary resources were used.

”I worked an 80 hour week, they were getting free time from me, so the taxpayer didn’t pay for my time.”

I literally laughed out loud when I heard Annette was talking about eight years ago in 2003. And as I told Danya, my blog was never hosted on servers paid for by Parliament. Gordon King from NZ Pundit hosted it back then.

I definitely did blog from Parliament during the nine months cross-over with working there, but did this openly and under my own name. I actually think parliamentary staff should be encouraged to blog – so long as they do it openly like with Frog Blog.

But with me, it was very much as an individual. I did not seek permision from, or even inform in advance, any MP or staffer that I was starting a blog. For me it was just continuing on the debates I had been having in Usenet since 1996.

But what I am going to try, is to see if there are any readers interested in helping out with Kiwiblog. These are not paid roles, but volunteer roles. A chance to contribute, and if you really want have a fancy title

These are the roles which I have identified as most useful to me for now.

Sub-Editor

• Do regular posts of political events – who’s on Backbenches, Q+A, The Nation as we receive them, and iPredict newsletter updates.
• Set up the General Debate to appear at 8 am for each day
• Correct any obvious typos in my posts
• Approve any comments held in moderation (normally from new posters)
• Clear the spam queue
• Embed a Daily Dilbert Cartoon
• Feed quotes into the Quotes Collection

Data Monkey

After someone who is a whiz on Excel. Don’t need to know all the fancy advanced features, but is good with data. I’d like to do more data analysis on Kiwiblog, but don’t have as much time to to do it all myself.

An example of what I am after is the planned series of posts on Electoral Reform. One of the posts will be on how porportional each of the five systems are. So what I am after is someone who can use the Gallagher Index to calculate the proportionality of the result for each election from 1996 to 2008, and the average over the five elections.

Then ideally to also model what the results of each election would have been under SM 90/30 and FPP, and to also calculate the Gallagher Index for each of those scenarios. Then one can compare the average proportionality (or not) of FPP, SM and MMP.

None of this is particularly difficult – it just takes time to enter in the data for 5 elections, create alternate results for 10 further scenarios, and then calculate the index for each.

Cartoonist

Kiwblog used to have a regular cartoonist. If you want to take up the spot, send me a couple of cartoons.

Photographer

We have the wonderful nature photos by Chtonoid every Friday. But what I am after is someone in Wellington and probably someone in Auckland who can attend significant political events (marches, rallies, demos etc) and take some photos for Kiwiblog.

So if you are interested in helping, e-mail me.

Readers voted and selected the Fred Hollows Foundation. That was great. I met with them, and with Give-a-little who kindly offered to be the donor system. I also had various readers offer to help.

And then I got busy, and remained busy. And months went by and I hadn’t had the time to properly organise online widgets for donating, arranging a schedule of events such as debates and quiz nights etc. So then I though maybe I’ll make them the 2011 charity instead of 2010. But I still never managed to find the time, and then the earthquakes struck and that wasn’t the time to try fundraising for another cause, and then we’re getting close to the election and I realised that realistically I had over-committed and couldn’t  deliver what I wanted to.

Part of the plan was that I would donate 10% of the gross advertising income of Kiwiblog to Fred Hollows Foundation. Today I donated $10,000 to the Fred Hollows Foundation, as my contribution towards their wonderful live changing work. And for those mathematicians out there, no that isn’t 10% of the gross advertising income – it is a much much higher percentage.  But I feel it is what I should do to make good on what I hoped we could achieve.

At some stage I would still like to try using this online community to organise fundraising events for charity, such as celebrtiy debates and the like. But realistically that would need a part-time organiser, not someone with around four jobs like I have.

Anyway the point of this post is not to highlight my donation, but to encourage yours. if you enjoy reading Kiwiblog every day, and appreciate the thousands of hours that has gone into doing 50+ posts a week, then you can show your appreciation by donating to the Fred Hollows Foundation. They are one of those charities where even a modest donations can make a huge difference, because in some of the countries they work, they can restore sight for just $25.

You can donate to them at this link, or by clicking on the widget at the top of the left sidebar. Please do so if you can.

1. Littlle fat shit i will return
2. david Farrars blog is a gay site
3. kiwi blog encourages CHINESE TAKEOVERS OF NZ BUSNESS
4. Your latest post was pathetic for a fat whimp like you,is that the best????? opps pure national arse licking, well arse licking

Very strange, my last post wasn’t even on politics, but on an upcoming film I want to see.

The scary thing is that he gets a vote.

Anyway if he keeps e-mailing me I’ll publish his name and e-mail address.  And I think his temporary ban is very close to becoming a life-time ban.

So being a big WordPress fan, I’m really looking forward to attending WordCamp NZ on Sat 19 and Sun 20 February. It is being held at Te Papa.

The guest speakers are a mixture of local and international, including John Ford from Automattic – the company behind WordPress. Local speakers include Julie Starr, Lance Wiggs and Richard McManus. I’m also talking for a bit about the challenges of a blog with over 600,000 comments on it. There’s also sessions commercially focused such as Search Engine Optimisation.

You can register to attend on the wordcamp website. Cost is only $85 for the weekend.

I’m hoping I’ll come out of it with some good ideas about ways I can make Kiwiblog better.

Someone is stalking Rex Widerstrom as his name is in 9th place for search terms and the NZEI death sqauds are hunting Peter McKeefry who is in 11th place.

Very amusing that we have a tie for 21st place with 179 hits each between “donkey sex” and “trevor mallard labour leader’. Is it 358 random searches or one person searching for both terms 179 times?

He announced last week that he is going to stop blogging. This has made news not just in the blogosphere, but also in the mainstream media.

Looking at some of the reasons why Iain has quit, I can understand his decision. There are times when it does get pretty challenging.

Well, I am afraid this is the blogpost where I tell you that I am giving up blogging. This decision has been coming for some time and was nearly made a month ago, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it then. Well, today I can.

There’s no single reason, but let me try to explain as best I can why I can no longer blog in the way I have been doing over the last five years. First of all, let me say what it’s NOT about. It’s got nothing to do with the Conservatives being in power. There’s this myth that blogging in government is less interesting than in opposition. I’ve never bought that argument. I think I have been quite open in making clear when I think the coalition have got things wrong, but I accept that is not the perception, and probably never will be.

I agree it is not less fun in Government. I thought it would be, but I am finding no shortage of things to blog on – in fact my challenge is the topics I miss out due to lack of time or resource.

I’ve been thinking of going through the year’s posts and counting the number of times I have criticised or disagreed with the Government. It’s several score at least.

The truth is, I no longer enjoy blogging and I think that this has been evident for a few months now to my readers. I hate the backbiting that goes along with it. I hate the character assassination that is permanently present.

I’ve always said I’ll give up if I don’t enjoy it. But unlike Iain I don’t get too bothered by the haters out there. The more someone spews venom at me, the more I think that I must be doing a good job for them to feel so threatened. If someone I respect criticises me, I take that very seriously – but they tend to do so in non-personal terms.

So I can’t see myself ever giving up because of the haters. Quite the opposite – it encourages you even more.

I no longer enjoy the pressure of feeling I have to churn out four or five pieces every day. I used to enjoy sitting in front of the TV at home in the evenings and writing blogposts at the same time. I can’t do that any longer as I am on the radio every weekday evening. And when I am in the office during the day I have two companies to run. Something has to give.

This is where I can totally empathise with Iain. Once upon a time the blog was not an “obligation”, just fun. But I do feel a sense of (mainly self-imposed) obligation to try and do around 8 – 10 posts a day, to cover off major issues and to be topical.

There are days and weeks when I am exhausted from trying to manage the blog, actually earn money from Curia, contribute to InternetNZ’s activities, do various media obligations, and a near non stop range of meetings and speaking arrangements.

Even getting up at 5 am doesn’t leave enough time, and friends have to put up with me trying to catch up on a backlog of e-mails while watching DVDs on a Friday night.

To cope with what will be an even busier in 2011, I will be soliciting some volunteers to help with certain aspects of the blog. I’ll provide details in January. I’m also going to learn the value of the word “no” and start declining speaking requests – not all of them, but some of them.

And if I am honest, I now feel that my blogging is having a negative effect on various aspects of my business and broadcasting life.

I estimate I could probably double my income, if I gave up blogging. Partly due to the extra time I would have to do business development – in six years of business, I’ve never responded to an RFP or solicited a client. It has all been word of mouth. Also the blog makes me too risky a choice for many government sector clients.

I’m working 9am to 10pm five days a week. I enjoy it. I relish it. I thrive on it. I’m running a very successful publishing company which is, I believe, on the brink of great success. I’ve achieved a lifetime’s ambition of having my own daily radio talk show. I am not about to put either of those things at risk. And frankly, I’m not going to put my health at risk either. As I said above, something has to give in this life I am now leading, and I am afraid it is the blog.

The health factor is real also. I left Parliament, partly because of the insane hours. They’re not as bad as when I was at Parliament, but it is a long way from a 40 hour week.

But at the end of the day, my challenge is to get a better balance, not to give up blogging. I’ve actually been debating politics online since 1996, and blogging is just a continuation of that. If I can get the balance right, I hope to blog until I am happily (or grumpily) retired.

I have also decided to give up all party political activities, as they too have hampered aspects of my business and broadcasting career in the past. I am, and will remain, a Conservative supporter, but that’s as far as it goes.

I made that decision after the 2005 election, and it was the best thing I have ever done. I will attend the odd party conference if it is interesting, but have managed to avoid any roles or offices.

The only party role that might interest me in the future would be on the Board of Directors, but I suspect it would be incompatible with my blogging as you can’t really have a Party Director criticising a National-led Government, even mildly.

Finally, I’d like to thank all my readers for sticking with me through good times and bad over the last five years. To the many enemies I have made along the way, I’ll just say in a very Nixon-esque manner, just rejoice in the fact that you won’t have me to kick around any longer. For the moment, anyway. For the most part, I have enjoyed the blogging experience and made a lot of friends through it.

Iain’s departure is a real loss to the UK blogosphere. I always enjoyed his blog, as he was very reasonable and fair. And it was a great way to keep up with UK politics.

“According to Kiwiblog and Whale Oil, the guy leading the charge is a Labour Party candidate”

It was a group having lunch. I resisted the urge to introduce me, and just kept the quiet satisfaction to myself.

1. NZ 250,720 85.0%
2. Australia 13,366 4.5%
3. US 8,767 3.0%
4. UK 6,461 2.2%
5. Canada 1,749 0.6%
6. Japan 1.326 0.6%
7. Singapore 878 0.3%
8. Hong Kong 707 0.2%
9. Germany 683 0.2%
10. India 645 0.2%

Also at 0.1% or more are France, Netherlands, South Korea, China, Thailand, UAE, Ireland, Indonesia and Switzerland.

A round of applause for him, as people impressed that at 89 years old you’re coming to the pub, having a beer and watching Backbenchers.

At the end of the night he came up to me when he left and said how much he enjoys the blog, and reads it pretty much every day. Pretty thrilled to get such cool feedback, and meet what may be KB’s oldest reader.

It got me wondering. Who is the oldest and the youngest reader of Kiwiblog? If you are over 89 or under 18 feel free to state your age – either in comments – or if you are shy, by e-mail.

Around 12 days later on 1 October, Eastern Ward Councillr Rob Goulden sent the following complaint to the WCC Returning Officer:

This email is in relation to information I sent to the Electoral Officer as a candidate profile.

My profile was sent for WCC to circulate on its website to the media, as general information as to who was standing, and for publication in the Candidates handbook.

I did not and have not given permission for my information to be published on the Kiwiblog website.

I am also required by the Electoral Act to authorise such publication. I have given no such authorisation to the Mr David Farrar the author and owner of the Kiwiblog website.

I believe his publication under the banner of Local Government Election 2010 on his website is a breach of the act. He tells people how to vote in numerical order, and whom they should vote for.

I do not see this as any different from circulating a leaflet doing the same thing, which was the subject of a recent complaint in Tawa.

I wish information about me to be removed from his website.

Can you please consider this matter as a formal complaint?

The first I knew of this complaint was today.

I should point out at this stage that in my blog post, I did not actually advocate a vote for or against Rob Goulden. I did endorse Simon “Swampy” Marsh and Amanda Nicolle for two of the three spots and said:

The three current Councillors are all quite well known. I’d keep at least one of them on – so people should also support their preferred incumbent.

Ironically several people wanted me to explicitly state that Rob should be ranked in an unwinnable spot. But because of some shared history I declined to do so, and did not state any preferences amongst the three incumbent Councillors. I won’t be as generous in future.

I also provided links to the official candidate supplied statements on the WCC site, allowing readers to make up their own minds on who to support.

Anyway back to the complaint, the Returning Officer responded the same day:

I acknowledge receipt of your complaint and, as required by section 138 of the Local Electoral Act 2001, your complaint will be referred to the Police for their investigation and appropriate action.

Oh what fun. I’ve been under Police investigation without knowing about it. The Police responded quickly:

Police response on Kiwiblog complaint

The Police very sensibly can tell the difference between an advertisement and a hyperlink.

Anyway I found out about all this today when Rob e-mailed me and said:

Please see the attached. I hope you will comply forthwith and remove my information from your website.

Now I am under no legal obligation to remove the link – it is to a public elections site. And I am bemused why Rob didn’t just e-mail me directly in the first place. But just so Rob doesn’t lose any more sleep about this, I have removed the hyperlink.

But perhaps I should replace that hyperlink, with another one. This hyperlink is to the WCC Watch Blog, specifically (by coincidence) to a blog post they did today on Cr Goulden.

UPDATE: A further e-mail from Cr Goulden:

I sent you an email tonight with the Police and Electoral Officers response attached.

I made a complaint to the Electoral Officer because that is the process I am required to follow.

You published my material without permission, which is why you have been asked to remove it.

For the record in 2007, you also published on your website defamatory material about me. You were told  to remove and you subsequently did.

I note already a defamatory remark made in response to your latest post.

I am not going to be as lenient as I was last time and intend to do something about you and your posts.

I will give you until the morning to remove them and no longer.

I have responded:

I am disappointed you have not learnt anything from this.  Polite requests go down better than threats and complaints.

You have not specified which of the comments you feel is defamatory. If you do so, I will consider your request.

I will continue to blog updates.