Experts Round Table Newsletter #3 - 12/25/2006
It is holiday spirit time and ERT's favorite dinosaur wrote a few words to commemorate the occasion. I leave you with his letter but before doing so I want to quote him from a thread:
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it; appropriate greetings to those who celebrate something else; and best wishes to those who have celebrations at a different time of year. - COBOLdinosaur
One year ago we were getting ERT ready to go live. A lot has happened in that year. We have published articles and tutorials that are widly referenced across the Internet. We have not one, but two successful sites. We are doing what we set out to do providing free help and education. Many things have not happened as quickly as we planned and virtually everything is behind schedule, but the small dedicated core group have created something of importance and lasting value that will continue to grow.
A year ago no one knew who we were or what we were doing. Yesterday I got an email from a Pligg based site owner with an Alexa top 100,000 ranking inviting us to post to their commumity ranked tutorial listings. I have emails from other site owners thanking me for posting links to our content, and a couple inquiring about getting permission to use ERT content. We have hit the front page of Digg twice, the front page of dzone over 30 times.
There were 14 articles submitted to qoolsqool and all 14 have been voted into the permanent collection. We are highly rated everywhere. We come up top-10 frequently on Google even though our total content is quite small; and we are a regular part of the StumbleUpon circuit. We have done it all with "white hat" tactics all the way, and we have not had to use any advertising.
I started the site, and I have done some promotion; but you built it. So thank you and Merry Christmas to everyone who has helped make ERT what it is.
Matt Without Matt there would be no forum. There might not even be a site at all if he had not been here to kick me in the ass a couple of times. The content would be a lot thinner without his contributions. Matt is the prototype ERT Mentor.
Sandi Sandi has been the admin right from the start. She has stuck it out through all the ups and downs. The content is stronger from her editing and all of us have received support from her when we were down, hurt, or angry.
Rod A hero even before ERT was up by giving us a home on SE while we sorted things out. Now contributing with popular, high quality content; and as a member of the Governing Council.
Craig Unique content that attracts new users every week. Answers all the hardware questions. The master of poll management (light load on that of late). Member of the Governing Council. The big thing about Coral1 is he is always positive about ERT and that keeps us all a lot more comfortable.
Nick Most of what Nick has done is behind the pages. Fixing code; security; interface stuff; and admin. From Day one he has been helping improve the site and quietly getting things done.
Serge It took a while to get an article, but it was worth the wait. Over and above that have been Serge's efforts and contributions for a more standard look and feel for the site. The re-skinning in the first of the year will be very much influenced by our resident smurf.
Vincent Even though he has his own site to manage, Vincent has given ERT his time to help as an admin in the forums; has written 2 excellent articles; and helps users across a wide range of topics. Plus it is always enjoyable to participate in discussions and debates with him because of the quality of the thinking behind his comments and the positions he takes.
Alf Early on when we needed content Alf was right there. His popular site was a source of traffic when we first went live because of the prominent link to ERT on his pages. When DHTMLgoodies got "dugg" the traffic to ERT gave us our first big boost and started to get us noticed.
Sri Content from Sri has helped us broaden our scope and some of his ideas on layout and features have helped shape the site. He also adds a different cultural dimension that is important for our diversity.
Rob Taught us ray tracing. The RT article got us picked up by sites that would not have looked at us without the graphics content.
Ben Creator of the ERT Logo. Yes, others have worked on it, but it originated with Ben; also the icon. So everytime you look at the top of an ERT page you are seeing Ben's contribution.
Jose A member of the Governing Council who thinks I don't like him. He's wrong; I love him like a brother. He challenges me and fights about what he thinks is important just like my two biological brothers. He has been around from the beginning, and the site is better for his contributions to keeping the dinosaur in check.
If I left anyone out, I appologize. There are a thousand things that have been done and perhaps gone unnoticed. There are many who have helped put ERT on the map. There are some who came, contributed, and left; I hope they come back.
Oh, and Merry Christmas EE and staff, with thanks for pushing me to start ERT when I did. It has been one of the best experiences of my life.
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