So you've made it thus far, and you're wondering "Hey, what happened to Peterman's nifty site"? Well, Peterman decided to turn over the keys to the site, and we are in the process of rebuilding from scratch. That's right..a BRAND SPANKING NEW WWW.BURNINGMANSEATTLE.COM! So, the old content is mostly here, and in a matter of a few weeks, the shiny new site, made completely in Joomla.

What new things can we expect? A larger amount of information on regional events and information worldwide. A new history timeline. And all the goodness from before.

What does "old content mostly here" mean? Well, we already know some links are wonky or dead, entire sections or pages are missing (like seaplaya and the yearbook), however they are coming back. This is just temporary while we code away deep into the night. You don't have to email us letting us know the temp site is broken.....we know :-)

Check in soon!

diem//BuMP regional contact//seattle

BMS Tech Team -- Barak//Tumbleweed/Tripod/diem

************************

Hey Folks,

Even the most casual BurningManSeattle.com visitor has probably noticed that not much has been happening on the site as of late. Sections haven’t been updated in ages and feral cats have all but taken full control of the forums. But don’t worry, this isn’t because things are being shut down… in fact, they’re about to be reborn!

Six years ago I was doing some work with the now-defunct Black Rock Gazette and started talking with some other writers about how we could create a year-round Burning Man presence for the Seattle region. Fueled by a refrigerator full of diet Coke and nothing better to do one weekend, I registered the BurningManSeattle.com domain name and slapped together the first version of the site. Shortly thereafter I was handed the reins of the Seattle Regional Contact position and began to use the site as the primary tool to disseminate information.

Over the years the site has gone through a few changes. From the start I envisioned it to have community-provided content, but oddly enough that never really took off. Adding the forums helped this a bit… I guess it’s not too surprising that people are more willing to contribute a few sentences than full articles. The Yearbook proved to be very popular from the moment it was introduced, though I’ve had to repeatedly spurn feature requests that would have essentially turn it into a dating site.

When I relinquished the Regional Contact role after three and a half years, I decided to continue maintaining – and paying for – the site because it continued to be a fun hobby. But now the time has come to say good-bye.

After 12 trips to the playa, Carol and I are taking steps to back away from things a bit, and one of the things I’ve done is drastically reduce the time I devote to the site. Since this is not fair to those who depend on the site for news and information, I have decided to hand it over to the same sucker who I offloaded the Regional Contact job to: Dave Martinez. Oh, when will he ever learn?

I’m going to keep the site on life support until around the first of the year. In the meantime, Dave is working on a brand new version that will completely replace the current site. There might be a bit of overlap where Dave maintains the current site while he puts the finishing touches on the new one, but it’s safe to say that come 2008 I’m outta here.

I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed in any shape or manner to the site over the years. True, under my stewardship it did not become the vibrant community-driven site that I had hoped for, but I think it still provided some help. I look forward to watching its next evolution… but from the sidelines.

-- David “Mr.” Peterman