DFO: Huckleberries @ 6

It’s hard to believe that I’m 6 years into this cyberspace experiment called Huckleberries Online (and No Holds Barred and Hot Potatoes before that). I started this blog six years ago to provide a conservative voice in support of George Bush’s successful re-election. Since 2004, the blog has leaned right and then left in the comments section. About every six to nine months something happens that causes the blog to reinvent itself. The first of those occurrences was the addition of a comments section in the fall of the first year. Which boosted traffic and produced a lot of headaches for me, as I had my first encounter with trolls (before there was software to block them). People have come and gone from here. Many more have stayed and become part of HBO’s fabric. More than once, individuals have predicted the death of HBO as a result of one of these reinventions or exoduses. But the hits keep coming. The intense interaction here has pushed me toward the middle. The comments section is almost perfectly balanced in terms of conservatives and liberals (although hard-core partisans on either sider probably don’t agree). I launched Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004, by warning early readers to “fasten your seatbelts.” Huckleberries may be tamer and kinder than it was in the past. But it’s not totally tame. And the pack here can turn on you at any minute. So, it might be a good idea to keep your seatbelts fastened …

Question: How long have you been part of the HBO blogosphere?