It’s now virtually a 12 months and a month since this web site introduced its cessation as a unbroken endeavour, with the “last resolution” clause being invoked 4 months later.
Since Wings confirmed its formal closure as a weblog there have nonetheless been 19 posts in eight-and-a-half months, comprising a combination of polls (the location’s remaining objective), visitor posts, admin, a few throwaway joke movies and very occasional one-off, polling-related remark items on important events like the SNP marking 15 years in energy or Nicola Sturgeon turning into the longest-serving First Minister.
So it’s a bit of bit startling that it’s nonetheless – and by a substantial distance – the world’s most-read Scottish politics website.
(In actual fact, larger than the following three put collectively.)
Admittedly we had one thing of a flurry of exercise in Could, with a brand new Panelbase ballot contributing to a whopping whole of SIX posts, however SimilarWeb information the previous three months of stats so let’s add these all collectively and see if something adjustments.
Nope, nonetheless Quantity One by a transparent head.
And lastly only for laughs let’s depend common visits per submit.
And the mixed model:
(No different websites we may consider registered in any respect on SimilarWeb, which appears to require a minimal of 5000 visits a month, so no Peter A Bell or Speaking Up Scotland or Scottish Evaluation. The one Unionist one which met the edge was ThinkScotland, which might have trailed in in final place barely beneath Imagine In Scotland.)
So clearly that’s each amusing and miserable. In additional than a 12 months, no one has come near stepping up and filling the outlet left by Wings. Nor have any of the websites which used to usually assault Wings been in a position to make any headway as soon as freed of our vile and malign chokehold on Scottish political discourse. Certainly, since the final time we analysed the scenario almost two years in the past, they’ve all gone backwards.
And whereas frankly none of them deserve any higher, that’s nonetheless not wholesome for both the once-much-vaunted “new media” or the indy motion. Coupled with dire turnouts at indy marches and occasions, it appears Nicola Sturgeon’s mission to destroy the grassroots that she perceives in her paranoia as competitors is nearly full. The marketing campaign for independence is now in all significant senses the only real property of the SNP. Our purpose of coaching our personal replacements by instance has failed.
Wings’ webhosting has expired and is due for renewal, however we we’re not searching for funds to pay for it – the prices shall be met from the rest of the Wings Combating Fund. We’re aiming to downgrade the internet hosting to avoid wasting a big amount of cash, however readers shouldn’t discover any distinction – regardless of nonetheless being the preferred Scottish politics website, visitors is round 80% decrease than it was previous to final Could, so like a six-lane motorway at 3am there’s loads wiggle room to shut lanes with out affecting velocity.
(By the way, whereas counting the opposite websites’ posts we have been struck by a plainly dishonest declare in Paul Kavanagh’s newest attraction for money on Wee Ginger Dug, wherein he stated the weblog was his “predominant full time job” whereas concurrently asserting {that a} £5,000 fundraiser from it could present him with “a sum equal to the minimal wage”.
However the UK full-time minimal wage is £17,200 a 12 months, which might imply his self-described “predominant full time job” was offering a mere 29% of his revenue, along with his “half time aspect gig” for Newsquest Media Group making up the opposite 71%. We digress.)
As for ourselves, we’re a couple of chapters into writing a Wings memoir, so keep tuned for extra on that. As a result of the prospects of circumstances altering to advantage any return to the fray within the foreseeable future appear someplace between distant and 0.
