Announcements
Showing Original Post only (View all)Meet the new boss, same as the old boss [View all]
Hi everyone,
If you haven't seen Skinner's announcement yet, I suggest you check it out before reading this. But here's the bottom line: I'm the new owner of Democratic Underground.
Back in the summer of 2000, David Allen was running a one-man design shop for local small businesses and the occasional Democratic Congressperson who needed one of those new-fangled "websites" that everybody was talking about. Having picked up more work than he could handle alone, he hired me to help out. Just a few short months later -- inspired by the Bush coup of 2000 and our discovery of FreeRepublic.com -- we came up with the crazy idea of trying to build an online home for folks on the left; a place to get away from the conservative propaganda and trolls that infested the message boards of the era, and fight back against the right-wing media machine. David and I launched Democratic Underground on January 20, 2001. He called himself "Skinner," I called myself "EarlG," and a few months later "Elad" joined the team, first as a volunteer programmer and later as a full-time employee.
I remember well a sneering post on Free Republic at the time they first discovered the new DU. A Freeper wrote, "Whatever. Go back in eight months time and they won't even be there."
Twenty years later, we're still here.
Sometimes it's hard to believe that DU has been around since before Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. DU was even around before "blogs" were a thing -- heck, we're only two-and-a-bit years younger than Google! Many, many sites have come and gone over the last twenty years, but DU is still going strong. And that is all thanks to David's efforts.
I understand and respect David's decision to move on, and I know for a fact that he has never wanted anything but the best for DU. I have personally witnessed him agonizing over difficult, sometimes impossible decisions on how to run the place. He is literally the most fair-minded person I have ever met, and he always wanted to do his best for everyone who posted here -- even the people who hated his guts. He didn't make much money doing this, and a lot of people spread a lot of nasty stuff around the Internet about him over the years. Speaking as someone who watched him work every day, I can tell you that it was 100% garbage. David always had my back, and never let me down, and if I can do just one thing for DU, it will be to do my best to keep running this place the way he would want it to be run -- as fairly and equitably as possible. And I'm deeply grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to do that.
I'm going to miss working with David. He's taken me to some amazing places -- I'm sure you recall our reports from past Democratic National Conventions -- and he gave me the freedom to be creative in a way that I can't imagine any other boss would have. Honestly, if I wasn't doing this, I don't know what else I could do.
Hopefully, I'll be able to build on his legacy. Next year will be our twentieth year in operation, and I think that DU is due for a new coat of paint. So next week we're going to run a Summer membership drive -- one which old-time DUers may get a kick out of! -- and once we get past the election, our next project will be a visual refresh that, if all goes well, will keep in place all the things you love about DU, while making it a little easier to read and navigate -- and maybe even add in a few new features.
In case you're worried about any of that stuff, please don't be. Like you, I love DU -- it's the first place I go in the morning, and the last place I go at night, and I'm here all day in between. This is our home on the Internet, and my goal is to keep it that way. I hope you'll stick with Elad and I as we move forward.
Here's to Skinner, and to DU.
-- EarlG