It’s fun to look at the web site statistics for Dactyl Manor and discover how people accessed the site. For instance, a huge number of visitors are looking for information about anime conventions (clearly I need to break out the convention list by genre in addition to location, date and event name); and although a growing number of people are using recent versions of Internet Explorer, there are still quite a few using versions 4, 5, and 6. (For crying out loud! Upgrade already! Or get Firefox! Sheesh!)
One of the other interesting statistics is how people arrived at this site. About half either came directly to a page they already knew, or followed a link from another page on the site. That’s pretty normal.
The two most frequent sources of external referrals are Google and Yahoo. No big surprises there either.
What did surprise me though is that the third most common source of referrals to Dactyl Manor is Luke’s Blog! So far this month, more than 330 people have arrived here via http://toothface.blogspot.com/. The actual number of referrals is even higher though, because a link to Dividing by Zero appears in the list of “friends” links on every page of Luke’s blog and people have been clicking those links too.
This of course raises the question, why are so many of Luke’s readers heading over here? What on Earth would cause so many people from the Lancaster Theological Seminary to visit my site?
And then it hit me, they’re looking for background information on their Pastor-in-training!
That certainly puts a new light on this site. I’ve never before had so many members of the religious community interested in my activities. (Hopefully none of them are offended by the Naked Eye Candy!)
And what should I say about Luke? He’s a friend, so should I be talking him up? Should I tell the tales of how for as long as I’ve known Luke, he’s been taking blankets and dinner to the homeless?
Or do I tell the truth and write about how for years he’s been carrying on with a married^* woman? And to complicate the matter, this married woman, we’ll call her “Kate”, recently gave birth to Luke’s child! Does this guy know no shame?
And then there’s the question of Luke’s wife whom I also consider a friend. Does she know about “Kate”? I’m not really comfortable being the one to tell her, but then again, wouldn’t it better for her to find out from a friend than from a complete stranger?
And you also have to wonder, are the folks at LTS aware that Luke is a Cylon?
On the one hand, the ability to keep quiet is frequently a valuable (and quite rare) skill. On the other hand, isn’t there a responsibility to tell the truth?
It’s a tough call. But when I started to write Dividing by Zero, I knew it was possible that strangers might one day read it.
It appears that day is here.

^*OK, sure. “Kate” is is in fact Luke’s wife, Kate; it’s to be expected that they’d spend time together. But it’s not nearly as sensational when you phrase it that way and I do want people to keep coming back.