We're Three Years Old. Thank You.

I founded >Rockville Central three years ago today. (Here is the first article.)

When it began, I had very, very narrow expectations. I wanted to recreate some of the good feelings I describe in this article. And — more important — I wanted to try to provide a space for people to enter public life. I hoped that people beyond the “usual suspects” would step forward, begin to engage with others, and find their voice.

I reached out to some friends to see if they would join me, and immediately Cindy Cotte Griffiths stepped forward. We have been partners ever since, watching Rockville Central grow, making decisions together, backstopping each other when we get tired, and learning.

Cindy’s first suggestion was to expand the “coverage area” from just our little neighborhood to include all of Rockville. That was an excellent suggestion and ever since we have tried our best to give voice to all of Rockville — north, south, east, and west.

We don’t focus too hard on our traffic numbers, though we are happy to see that they have steadily increased and we are among the top five local blogs in Maryland. We have other metrics that we watch: Are new folks getting involved? What kinds of dialogues do we see in the comments on various articles? What kind of tone do people display? All of these measures have exceeded our wildest expectations.

There was one one metric that we had hoped would begin to show movement earlier. We were very hopeful that other people would begin their own Rockville-based blogs. For one thing, the competition is always good (it keeps everyone at the top of their game), but even more important it is a measure of increased civic engagement. More people starting Rockville blogs means more people stepping forward.

Over the last year, we have been delighted to begin to see this measure, too, begin to show promise. Look at the sidebar (“friends and other links”) and you will see a selection of the new blogs that have started — from Max van Balgooy’s Max For Rockville, to CityTalk by the Rockville city manager’s office, to The Rockvillager.

Welcome all! We are glad you are all taking part in the digital commons.

As the Rockville “blogosphere” matures, we sense that Rockville Central will need to change to make sure we are fulfilling the best role we can. We feel a special obligation to set a fair, transparent tone — because that is what we value in this city. We feel we must continue to do our best to give voice to all of Rockville — because nothing less will do. We feel must continue to experiment with new ways of doing things — because therein lies progress.

Over the next few months, as we look at how we can be of most use to our fellow residents, we plan to roll out a few new ideas, try a few things, and see where it takes us. We’ll try to augment what works, and improve the things that could be better. We can’t wait to see what happens!

But, for now, on our third birthday, we just wanted to say thank you to all the readers who have stuck by us all this time — and thank you to all the readers who have just found us.

You are all welcome here, you are all our neighbors.

Thank you.

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