When HO and I started this thing, I think we knew that what we were talking about mattered quite a bit. Still, I don't think any of us, even after Yankee, SuperG, and Stuart came on board, ever anticipated that The Oil Drum would become what it is today. We didn't think we'd average 7000ish unique visits a day. We didn't think we'd have 2200 registered accounts. We just wanted talk about the subjects we thought were important. And, it that regard, has been a fascinating and dynamic year. We have seen a lot and learned so much.

My personal reflection is that, while TOD is a lot of hard work, it remains one of the most rewarding things with which I have been involved in my life. I am proud of what we do here.

I think we have remained true to our goals: we wanted to establish a community space where honest and informed discourse is rewarded and where both sides of an argument are welcome. We also wanted to establish norms and conditions under which people can explore ideas and learn about and discuss controversial and complex topics.

Most importantly, people can disagree in this space and reason out their differences through collegial persuasion; arguments with empirical evidence and logical reason continue to win the day. We at The Oil Drum will fight to make sure that remains the case, we view that dynamic as vital to the mission of what we do here.

I am amazed by the amount of brain power and positive will here on a daily basis; there are so many smart people with a lot of varying perspectives and approaches--it is gratifying that all of you choose to do that here, with all of us are bringing mind-power to bear on a very complex and interesting set of questions, not for ego's sake, but because we all believe, in our own way, that this "something" actually matters and we need to do hard thinking on the problems we face.

I am always going to be someone who appreciates the tie between the empirical and the world of ideas; if someone can reason and make me question my assumptions or other empirical findings...well, they have created an opportunity for me to learn. And on that I can say with little doubt that this community and its conversations have broadened my horizons. Not because we just parrot what each other says, but also because people present good counterarguments/counterfactuals which challenge our ideas (e.g., Halfin, who proves there is nothing wrong with being a contrarian, as long as you are really good at it).

So, we thank you all for making this work. Please remember that you create and reinforce the norms that shape the environs here. You make this space; without you, it's just blown bandwidth. Thank you for improving on the silence.

In closing, I would like to express a loving thank you to my colleagues. They continue to astound me with their intellect and abilities, all the way from HO with his ability to make the technical quite interesting, Stuart's ability to kill any learning curve, Yankee's bringing of consciousness, awareness, and calming influence, and SuperG constantly improving the quality of the site (and keeping PG calm in his bouts of mania), well, this place just keeps getting better. Add in Dave and his wonderful purposive righteous indignation, peakguy and his articulate involvement, and our newest with Chris and the UK site--which looks to be getting off to a great start, and it seems we have a good foundation for growth and endurance.

Thank you dear people for doing what you do.

Who knows what the future holds other than that change will occur and time will pass. We have guesses, and some of them will be right, some will be wrong. Either way, we will be here while we have the means to keep the lights on and the will to persevere.

We will continue to innovate and improve the site (thanks to SuperG again). Check out the archives, use the search boxes; chances are that there's a lot of content that, because of the blog format, has passed you by at some point. If there's a topic germane to this subject matter, we've probably talked about it. If we haven't, do please bring it our attention. The mailbox is always open for suggestions.

Happy Birthday, TODers. Happy Birthday indeed!