I’d be quite surprised if readers of this weblog didn’t know about my assorted Mars adventures both on and off the web, but it’s been a while since I’ve talked about them so here’s an update about New Mars, one of my longest running projects. The New Mars forums have, as I predicted a few years ago, completely outgrown its parent New Mars magazine (which is terribly, terribly neglected by me) and matured into a bustling web community of intelligent and thoughtful posters.
There have been mishaps since I took over the reins of the site three years ago, and there have been arguments and trolls and bannings on the forums. Yet the forums are still going strong and with the current upswing in Mars activities – namely the NASA Spirit and Opportunity rovers – we’ve had a surge in traffic with dozens of new members not just signing up but participating, and a flood of posts. Right now, we have over 600 members and 25,000 posts. It’s hardly a huge community by the standards of other sites, but it’s a community nonetheless and probably the best place on the web to find serious Mars discussion of any kind.
So, I’d like to salute the forums and all those that dwell within them, for creating such a wonderful new community from scratch, and doing it almost entirely without my assistance! Huzzah!
mssv 