If you know anything about me in NationStates, it’s that I love news and I love numbers. Thus, it brings me great pleasure to present NationStates Today’s one year anniversary to you ‘by the numbers’, looking at our diverse readership, staff body, and content output.
Our readership has been simply outstanding throughout 2019 – we have accrued 20,524 unique page views from 4,035 unique site users and counting in the past 12 months. Our top visitor countries are as follows:
| Rank | Country | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 56.7% |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 9.1% |
| 3 | Canada | 4.4% |
| 4 | Australia | 3.2% |
| =5 | France | 2.1% |
| =5 | Germany | 2.1% |
These thousands of readers have come to view 139 articles, 19 weekend editions, and 11 published podcast episodes. But which were our most popular articles this year? These were our top ten by unique views:
| Rank | Article | Author | Unique views |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Power20: July 2019 | – | 291 |
| 2 | The Shift: November 2019 | Llo | 193 |
| 3 | A Look at ‘Meet the Countryballs!’ | Ivy | 160 |
| =4 | The WA Shakeup: Will the W.A.L.L. Finally be Toppled? | V Sawyer | 150 |
| =4 | The East Pacific Coup: Your Questions Answered | Wymondham | 150 |
| 6 | New Western Atlantic Faces Collapse as King Abdicates | Llo | 147 |
| 7 | Pacifica Struggles to Rebuild Amidst Internal Conflict | Dawtania | 143 |
| 8 | ‘Red Phone’ Leaks Reveal Concerted Attempt to Undermine South Pacific Government | Prarie | 139 |
| 9 | Pacifica to Relocate to Thalassia Due to Founder Insecurity Concerns | Llo | 138 |
| 10 | Top Five Overused Roleplay Nations | Imperium | 133 |
We have also been blessed with a diverse and highly talented array of journalists, which have been the heart of our content operation, totalling 30 published authors. In total, we have had 61 members of staff at some point during the year in varied capacities. These were our top five most published writers in the past twelve months by their number of articles:
Quality journalism, however, is not without leadership and organisation behind the scenes. Our editorial team, most notably Brihimia, Wymondham, Prarie, Deepest House, and The Doctor at various times during this period, have been essential to providing quality feedback to our writers.
Most critically to ensuring we have a smoothly-operating organisation are our Board – I am eternally grateful to Lewis, Wymondham, and Precoixious for not only their support of me during my tenure as Chairman in the last three months, but their continual dedication of time and effort in lengthy audio chats, dilemma diffusing, and professionalism over the course of this entire year. Without the passion of these three individuals on our Board for our model of independent journalism day-in and day-out, NationStates Today would certainly have not made it to this point.
In order to sustain our quality, independent content throughout 2020, we will need your support. As a volunteer organisation, we are dependent on passionate new staff – if journalism, technology, or graphic design are areas that you are interested in, then you should apply to join us! We are the most widely read newspaper in NationStates, and your work has the potential to be seen by thousands of players across the game.
