Why 13?

Lucky, I guess.

It's also a Jewish thing. You wouldn't understand.

It's ubiquitous, this listmaking that happens at the end of the year, especially among the typing classes. So I do mine.

No one asked me to do this. God forbid, that's the surest way to make sure something won't get done.  Nor is it something I was planning to do anyway.

I'm rolling out this list of 13 things about OS because I can, and because it seems like the right thing to do, under the circumstances.

13.  If you're here, you probably don't need to go elsewhere.

 I don’t read the newspaper and I don't have a TV. Shit, I don't even have a house or apartment of my own these days.

I removed the New York Times as the default home page on my web browser long ago. And while I used to rely on salon.com as my primary source for news, the design changes made over there in the past year or so leave me kind of cold.

But I am up on the latest news. I’m conversant on current events, am hip to what’s going on in politics, the arts, sports, movies, culture, international trends in fashion, design, technology – just about anything anyone would care to chit chat about in line at the bank or the Safeway or the post office, or at a cocktail party or on the bus.

I’m up on all these things because I spend part of most days at Open Salon, where some of the information I get is as fresh and timely and smart as anything I’d find at CNN or FOX or on Twitter -- and often enough it comes with links and pointers to other sources for further information.

Open Salon is as good a portal onto the world today as anything I’ve ever relied on.

12.  There’s great writing here.

The original hook was that this was supposed to be a place for writers. Well, it became so much more than that quite early on.

Sometimes the great writing to be found here gets overlooked. Or perhaps a better image for it is that it stands against the rushing tide of so much else that washes in the open doorway. But world-class writers ply their craft here and that alone, for fellow writers and readers alike, rewards time spent at Open Salon.

11.  This is a great community.

One of the Salon Overlords once infamously denied the value of the community aspect of OS.  Total bullshit. Spend any amount of time here, put the slightest bit of effort into reading and commenting on people’s posts – you don’t even have to post a thing of your own – and I defy you not to make a few friends.

You may not participate at Open Salon for the value of its community; you may not have any interest in being a part of the Open Salon community. But the community is here nonetheless and as communities go, it’s one of the finest I’ve been associated with in nearly half a century.

10.  Weez can haz diversity.

This place is a f*cking zoo.  Doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs. Smart people, idiots, Phds and high school dropouts. Flaming liberals and staunch conservatives. Artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, poets and pundits. Seriously mentally ill people, mildly depressed people, narcissists, and mere attention whores. Celebrities, seriously accomplished people, spambots and trolls. OS has people from all 50 states in the US and from nearly every continent on the globe. There are quite a few Canadians here, too.

I have personally met more than two dozen OS members and am proud to say they and hundreds more like them (whom I’ve yet to meet) are awesomely talented, deep thinking, loving, compassionate people.  Diversity rocks.

9.  It’s ALIVE!

If you’ve not heard of it yet, you’ll soon hear of something called the real time web. OS is on the cutting edge of the next major developmental trend in the evolution of the Internet, which involves real-time communications -- where information flows and conversations happen non-stop -- where sites are updated on an ongoing basis and what we know changes right before our very eyes.

If you’ve never participated in an OS liveblogging event you should try it sometime; it’s an exhilarating experience.

8.  It’s broken.

It pains me deeply to see the degree to which salon media, inc.’s financial difficulties keep the installation of OS’s underlying platform from being developed to its true potential. It could be so much more and the user experience here could be far more intuitive and enjoyable.

I won’t bother to list the many ways in which the OS backend might be improved, but – as just one example – why it’s possible to stay logged into another very popular social media website I won’t name -- for weeks at a time -- without being asked to “sign in,” while OS wants its users to “sign in” several times a day? Well, there’s just really no excuse for it. None.

7.  It really is Open.

No rules, no guidelines, no censorship (from the editors). Users can do and say what they want to here. It’s really quite extraordinary. I’m amazed there’s not more porn.

6.  It’s getting better all the time.

OS isn’t even two years old.  It’s growing steadily and new, interesting people with different talents and different ideas join all the time, and they find their way – make their mark – on the digital record that is the OS archive. 

I miss some people who’ve come and gone, though old friends come back after time off; but I also dig some of the new contributors I’ve found in recent months as much as anyone who’s been here since the beginning.

 5 – 1 I’m leaving blank, sort of like empty boots in the stirrups of a riderless horse at a funeral. 

A handful of OS members were asked by the new editor to create “Best of 2009” posts listing their top five or ten favorite writers or posts from the past year, which is definitely, as far as I can tell, something of a departure from the standpoint of editorial engagement.

I don’t leave these top five spots blank in protest for not having been asked by the new editor to do such a post, nor am I leaving them blank because I’m concerned about the change in direction. Read my bio: Everything changes.

No, I’m leaving them blank for the same reason I wrote this post to begin with: because I can.

Because it’s symbolic of what Open Salon can be and has been up to now: a truly open forum that has borne incredible fruit in a very organic manner.

The best thing on Open Salon might just be at the top of the feed the next time you refresh the page.