You knew it had to happen - and now here it is.

Since we threw out the welcome mat a while ago, it appears that about a gazillion people have decided to show up here.

Let me say in behalf of the site, welcome, we're glad to see you.

Hi, I'm Joe, one of the two site admins, the other being JtC. JtC is the guy who makes the gears spin and the pixels happen here. Without JtC (short for Johnny the Conqueroo) this site would literally be just a pipe dream that a bunch of us were having. I try to help JtC out where I can and do stuff like creating the Evening Blues series (a weeknight compendium of news and blues music), writing stuff like this and participating in site moderation.

Usually when I write here, it reflects my opinions alone, for this piece, I have pulled out the soapbox and cranked up the reverb on the megaphone. This piece was vetted by and generally reflects the consensus of the admins.

To give you some history of C99, this site has been through a number of iterations over a period of time, including an email list, a google group, a bulletin board style group and a previous abortive attempt at building a website. Through that process there was a lot of discussion about what sort of website was wanted and the site you see before you is the result of that.

Now that there are so many more people using the site, there have been some changes. JtC has migrated the site twice so far to progressively more capacious servers with more bandwidth. In order to accommodate so many people there will inevitably have to be some changes in the site functionality. JtC is working on creating some groups as one way to rationalize the display of the additional traffic so that people can find what they are looking for.

Please be patient as we work to update the site, this is a labor of love and most of us have day jobs to pay the bills. It may take time to get some things done as folks try to put food on their families.

We look at this effort as a community project, though and we'd like to draw your attention to some perhaps less obvious ways that folks can contribute to the site.

Here are some ways that you can help make the site better:

Among our aspirations for this site are to make this a place with very few rules, not because we thrive on chaos, but because we'd like to foster the sort of community that values and respects the site and each other, such that respectful discussions happen between people with diverse views in an organic manner.

Our one current rule is, don't be a dick. We have articulated a bit about that in the FAQ, but we surely have not even scratched the surface of the topic. We're pretty sure that most folks understand what we mean.

Our intent for the site was to be issue-oriented and build a community towards activism around shared goals. We are hoping that the site allows the folks here to educate each other and to amplify our voices in the world.

So, here are a couple of other things that will help make the site better and more coherent.

Use the open threads. Every morning, an open thread is posted. On weeknights the Evening Blues diary is available to use as an open thread, too.

If you start a post and you realize that it's really pretty thin on material, maybe it's just a few lines long, or you just wanted to say hello, or you have a video you'd like to post - please use the open threads.

Don't throw spitballs. A lot of folks have come here from another site where there was much unpleasantness. Take your time and heal. Our sympathies are with you.

Our shared vision for this site is for it to be a community on its own terms, a place where new and interesting things are possible and people are interested in getting on with the business of making a better world.

While it is understandable that many people who are hurting would want to use the platform that this site affords them to hurl commentary and invective at the place they came from or the people still there, that sort of thing really doesn't move this site forward.

Note that we are explicitly not saying that articulate and insightful criticism of another web site's content, positions, owners or staff is verboten. It's just that we'd like the focus of this site to be on what we can do going forward and we'd like it if you honored that purpose with your contributions to the site's content.

As they say, the best revenge is living well.

Take care in making claims. If you are making claims that it seems might be contentious, please provide good evidence for them. For example, if you want to say that Donald Trump is a narcissist, go right to it. On the other hand, if you want to speculate about whether Donald Trump would be properly diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a political blog is not a proper forum for those concerns.

Our site's reputation is dependent upon our putting out interesting, thoughtful and well-documented articles. Taking care in the construction of your posts will benefit everybody.

Check out the documentation. In case there are folks that are kind of wondering how the site works and want to get oriented, here are a couple of things that will help out. First, there is the FAQ which we intend to expand soon. There is also some information in the welcome mat article.

So, we look forward to building something great together. If you have questions, dropping a comment in one of the daily open threads or in the Evening Blues diary are a good way to get help and information.