- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Blogs Tenth Birthday and 50 comments to go til we reach 500,000

Comments count sitting at 499,955

Sometime today the comment ticker will hit 500,000 and sometime last Sunday we reached the blog’s tenth birthday.

Jo Nova, photo, 2018

Thanks

For the curious, see that first post on Sept 30th, 2008

I didn’t really know what a blog was then. I had no history of commenting, no experience moderating, and somehow didn’t even have a list of blogs I read daily. For the first year my posts were often two weeks apart and I remember wading into the trenches in comments consuming hours to research and defend arguments. As with many new blogs, there were heated battles. It was a bit of a Grad Dip on steroids in the climate debate. Fortunately the sparks attracted a great class of respondents, and soon I had help to answer questions and help to moderate. Sometime I must write about the processes that seemed to work best with cultivating a good community discussion. In the end, it was useful to imagine we were all in a room, and ask whether that behaviour would be OK face-to-face?

The blog and Skeptics Handbook got me into The Australian, speaking in New York and Washington, (and hopefully Germany and Norway next month). I’ve been in an ABC documentary and on SkyNews. Best of all I met true gems — the insubordinate thinkers; people I admired for years like Mark Steyn, Matt Ridley, James Delingpole. I had a wild time making mischief in the media tent at the UN in Bali and the master climate front liners Marc Morano, Christopher Monckton. I’ve hugged Andrew Bolt.

Thanks to so many who I learned so much from, and thanks to the team of moderators which evolved and made it possible for me to write more posts. They get no public rewards, no pay. I’m so grateful to them and to all of you who share your wit and expertise here.

Thanks especially to everyone who helps support this blog and my work. We still have to pay the bills and every bit helps.

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