Two Years Down The Track

I think there would be very few people who've spent time on the evolt.org site or mailing list (thelist), over the last two years, and not learned something. During this time I've seen members finish their tertiary education, be promoted, move to more secure jobs, or make the tough transition to serious freelancing - and I've seen evolt.org play a part in many instances. But back at the dawn of evolt.org, I don't think everyone expected our creation to have such a positive effect on so many people.

I have strong memories of the very first days of evolt.org's development when our gang of ex-MJ guerrillas started up a small list to discuss building a community for developers world-wide. I remember the threads about what would work best for the workers of the Web, and how we could encourage others to contribute to our list and site.

It is immensely satisfying to see our initial hopes realised: a Web site with a regular stream of content, and a list with a good flow of questions covering all experience levels and areas of Web work. If our first year showed us that we were roughly on the right track, our second year has reinforced that, and shown that evolt.org is a valued resource to many people all over the world. Specifically, it is exceptionally cool that a growing number of article contributions are by non-administrative members, and that help on future evolt.org code has also come from outside the core group.

Guerrillas was our initial name - an ape-play on MonkeyJunkies, and reflective of our underground development. I feel that it is then strangely appropriate that the colour scheme of the 2nd Anniversary site (evolt.org 2.0) is based on the khaki colourings of guerrilla warfare camouflage gear. With the release of the new site drawing ever closer, I don't doubt that everyone is with me in thanking those making the sacrifice to push evolt.org forward; especially Dan, Jeff and Rudy, who on two occasions have travelled

isaac