With RK riding into the sunset, I'd like to take a moment to thank Lowell Feld for his tremendous dedication and effort during this community's existence. Engaging in a complete labor of love, Lowell founded and more or less ensured the continued vitality of RK through out its history during a critical time in Virginia's progressive movement. The stats that Lowell just posted tell the story: without him, this thriving community would not have existed.
And, so, I fully support Lowell's decision to bring this blog to an end. He won't say this explicitly, but this is his blog. Sure, we decided to create a community here -- and we succeeded in creating a vibrant group of progressive netroots denizens here. Many people deserve credit as well for keeping RK successful. And Lowell certainly didn't want to be the overwhelmingly dominant poster here (as he's told me numerous times). But in state-level blogging, it's often one person that keeps the venture going. And, for this community, that person was indisputably Lowell.
This blog -- its history, its personality, its existence -- is completely intertwined with Lowell's personality, opinions, and efforts. As a result, "under new management" is not a realistic option: RK is Lowell's baby, and he's entitled to want it to continue (or cease to continue) on his own terms. I understand the desire to keep the resources built here going with different bloggers. But RK is Lowell Feld in many ways. The continuance without him simply doesn't work. Should RK falter or go in a direction that didn't comport with Lowell's original mission and goals, such a result would be an affront to all of the effort Lowell and his team put into this place.
There is certainly room for another blog to take RK's place, and there will be efforts to help this community transition over to those blogs in the future (especially if such a blog springs up before the end of the year). But, as for RK, all good things do come to an end. And, as a fellow RK front page blogger that is losing his community and platform, I fully support Lowell (and Eric) in their decision to leave on a high note.
I'd like to close by thanking Lowell for meeting me for lunch and recruiting me on to the front page back in 2005, giving me a place to rant and rave about politics for many fun years. I'd like to thank him, Eric, Josh, Miles, and my fellow RK bloggers for being great netroots cohorts. And I'd like to thank everyone else in this community for listening and joining in the conversation.
Keep up the good fight, and thanks for helping turn Virginia blue!
Rob
Also - your choice of a TNG video to wrap it all up - awesome! Q is pretty fantastic.
Why must the site be closed completely? Is it because of propriety? That I can understand. It is your creation. However, if it is not propreity, perhaps the reins to the site could be passed to others. The name could even be changed. It seems like such a loss of a tremendous amount of work on your part and others to lose the organization and content.
At the very least I hope that you can link your address to whatever site (if any) try to fill its shoes.
Certainly it will not be the same without you, but it could go on. Thanks for everything.