This site went live on December 1st, 2002 and for its first four years had extremely modest traffic. In January 2007 it somehow came to the attention of John Paczkowski at Good Morning Silicon Valley and it got its first widespread exposure. It was picked up by Dan Damon of the BBC and a Guardian web page (link no longer available). It seems my readership skews British; anyone want to take a stab at why?

Later that year I received a dim notice by Jan Freeman of the Boston Globe, but it was actually one of the more restrained criticisms.

For instance, I'm definitely not on this guy's Christmas card list.  (UPDATE: Appears to have been taken down.  I'm heartbroken!)

Or this one's.

And while I've had lots of Stumble Upon users give me some love the reviews haven't been stellar.

One mcglk posted a long critique of the site and included lots of details on why many of my entries are wrong or misleading. For instance, he writes "Actually, tendentious brings along an air of “contentious” with it, such as those who promote the idea that the Holocaust never happened." He adds a lot of nuance to the words I cite as strictly synonymous with others, and while I in turn disagree with many of his disagreements he makes a credible case. For PAW site haters this appears to be the definitive takedown of the whole enterprise.

Most emailers have been thoughtful even when they largely disagreed with me, and on Jun 19, 2008 I was Link Of The Day at UserFriendly.org.

What does it all add up to? I have no idea. But either way don't hesitate to let me know what you think.