I have decided to disband Archipelago. It's been a lot of fun, and it's brought a lot of hits and attention to the members over the years, but I would rather bring it to a graceful end than face a decline in quality and interest. When I started it in April, 1997, there was only one diary webring consisting of less than 200 diaries. Now there are myriad webrings, suburbs, themed listings and upwards of 10,000 diaries and weblogs online. Archipelago changed the way we thought about ourselves as a community, and the debates it engendered served a useful purpose. It bestowed a certain amount of glamour, garnered a fair amount of acrimony, and successfully showcased excellence. I'm proud of my contribution to a web phenomenon. I'm sincerely grateful and privileged to have been associated with the numerous fine diaries who have been a part of the ring. Now it's time to move on.

That's the elegant summary. I'm leaving out the part where I got tired of nagging people to keep up with their minimum number of entries, and to fix their HTML. It was hard turning down 95% of everyone who wrote to me, especially since I managed to be a pompous ass about it at least twice a year. The idea of Archipelago has clearly and completely permeated the online diary community so that there are now a zillion different sites focusing on making their site collections special instead of all-inclusive. And the Webring sale to Yahoo tolled the death knell on the whole ring idea as far as I'm concerned. I could not get enthusiastic about it any more. Suddenly, I realized it was time to let it go.

So I have, and although I was unexpectedly depressed about it most of the day I'm still certain it was the right thing to do. I'm a big believer in knowing when it's time to leave the party. I had a ball, and I'll cherish the memories, but I'm ready to go home. Thanks, Archipelagans, for making it all worthwhile.

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