On getting 5000 hits on the blog

I use this blog as a way to force myself to think and write in bite sized chunks about social class.  I have intentionally written about a wide variety of topics, from an interaction model of social class to a list of movies that focus on social class issues.  When I explore the sources of the hits on the blog I make some inferences from the data.  It is my belief that nearly all of the hits come from people searching for material on social class.  I am pleased to provide content that people find interesting and useful.  The stats on the blog also let me know which blog entries get the most hits, when these hits occur, where the IP address comes from, and the URL of the referring web site. The data analysis tells me that interest is widespread in time and place.

I must say that I am pleased. 

In the academic promotion and tenure world we pay attention to the citation index – how many times your peer-reviewed-published article was referenced by people in other peer-reviewed-published articles.  The easy way to get this is to use Google scholar and search for a faculty member's name. In my post tenure review papers I include the hit count on my blog.  Does this blog count as scholarship, or should each blog entry be reviewed by an editor and 3 of the editor’s associates and then wait up to 2 years before appearing in print?

Whatever the answer about the nature of scholarship, I am pleased to have touched the lives of over 5000 people in some way.  If I have provoked you to think a little more or a little differently about social class, then I have used my powers for good.

Thanks.