I moved over to maderblog.com at the end of that summer, with my first MovableType blog. Just looking at it makes me nostalgic – those cartoon category tags! In this iteration, MaderBlog developed its first real readership, mostly other college students and a few of the other blog pioneers. I think it’s hard for the contemporary blogger or blog-reader to appreciate just how small the blogosphere was back then.

In the summer of 2003, with the Iraq War in full swing, I upgraded my MovableType installation and adopted the now-infamous banner graphic, based on a picture of British soldiers in combat. Since adopting this third iteration of MaderBlog, I’ve lived in six different cities and received two degrees, not to mention entering the workforce full time. As my life has changed, so has the blog: posting has fallen off, then revived, then fallen off again; the focus has shifted from the war, to American politics, to Canadian politics, to British politics, and back again. Some posts have received national attention; some have been spoken to the wind. But all through it I’ve had a blast.

The most gratifying development over the past seven years has been the development of a real community of readers. Some of you I know personally; some of you I’ve never met. But each of your comments challenges my way of thinking, and has contributed in a real and meaningful way to my opinions on news, and on life, and on how we–as people, as citizens–interact with one another.

Late last year, Movable Type stopped working. While I could continue to post, you–my readers–couldn’t comment. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that, robbed of comments, MaderBlog’s value plummeted–to me, at least. It was time for a change.

I introduce MaderBlog 4.0. There will be glitches; the layout could be better. But with WordPress, I have much more robust back-end tools to create a more dynamic blog. You, the readers, are a big part of that, as you always have been. I welcome your suggestions for ways to increase the communal element of the blog, and I’ll be experimenting with some plugins designed to do just that.

The key to any blog, of course, is content. For nearly two years, I’ve been unable to blog about a huge swath of topics that were once MaderBlog’s bread and butter. The restrictions will be lifted over the summer, for reasons I’ll explain then; and when they are, I’ll have a lot more time to blog–at least for a while. In the meantime, I have a few side-projects going that will hopefully result in more content here.

This move to WordPress is a big step, and I hope that it will result in a better MaderBlog in every which way. Let me know what you think. I promise: the comments work.