Berkeleyside

Celebrating 1,000 here on Berkeleyside

June 7, 2010 5:49 pm by Lance Knobel

We don’t spend a lot of time tooting our own horn, but The Berkeley Wire today was the 1,000th post on Berkeleyside since we launched last October.

In that time as well, we’ve published 2,902 of your comments. One of the real strengths of Berkeleyside is your involvement as readers. Thanks for your support.

4 Comments

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  • s z underwood

    Kudos also to Thomas Lord who functions as the unofficial omniscient narrator to Berkeleyside, providing in-depth commentary and expert, polymath analysis across the broadest spectrum of issues and questions. With Berkeleyside’s 1000th post, it is probably fair to estimate that Mr. Lord has opined at length on at least a quarter of these posts and, quite often, multiple times on issues of greater import to him or the community. Therefore, if we very conservatively estimate that he has offered 500 total comments of which I am surmising this recent response to screen name “James” being a representative sample length:

    http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/06/07/violence-in-southwest-berkeley-neighborhood/

    Plugged into a Microsoft word file yields a 769 word count: So, 769 x 500 = 384,500 total estimated word count. The old rule of thumb is 250 words per page laid out in “novel form.” Divide 384,500 / 250 = 1,538 pages (give or take). Now, it so happens that one of the very longest novels ever published in English literature is the unabridged version of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, usually issued at 1,536 pages.

    Bear in mind that Berkeleyside has only been up and functioning in its present incarnation about 8 months now (since last Oct.) which yields a monthly est. avg. for Mr. Lord of 192.25 pages per month of comments or an annual estimated pace of 2,307 pages per annum. Even the very longest classic novel known to me in any language, L’Astrée (“possibly the single most influential work of 17th century French literature, Astrée has been called the ‘novel of novels’, partly for its immense length (six parts, forty stories, sixty books in 5399 pages”) is not beyond his means to eclipse here on Berkeleyside. If Mr. Lord only maintains his current prolific rate of writing, over the span of several years, he could without doubt end up rivaling Voltaire, whose collected correspondence and writings runs to nearly a 100 vols. in some scholarly editions, as one of the most prolix and fecund pens in history.

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    Mr. Underwood: ;-)

  • Dan

    Not to boost your ego too much, but I’m a bit of a Thomas Lord groupie as well! If I see there is a comment by you, I’m pretty likely to read it!

  • Cliff Magnes

    Well done, Berkeleyside founders and contributors! I think Berkeleyside has become an invaluable community forum, I look forward to additional participation and points of view on critical, interesting, and just plain fun Berkeley issues.

    I’m sure everyone has read this, but it’s worth repeating:

    Lance Knobel (co-founder) is an international consultant and professional writer. In 1999-2000 he was Director of the Programme of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He was also Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of World Link, the magazine of the World Economic Forum. He was an Adviser in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit in London. His journalism credentials include being Editor-in-Chief of Management Today, the leading business magazine in Britain and founder and Editor of Designers’ Journal in Britain. He has published four books on architecture and design. His blog, Davos Newbies, has been running since 1999.

    Frances Dinkelspiel (co-founder) is a professional journalist and author. Her book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, published in November 2008, is a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Frances spent more than 20 years in the newspaper business, working as a reporter for the Syracuse Newspapers and the San Jose Mercury News among others. Her freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, People Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press and San Francisco Magazine. Her blog, Ghost Word, covers books and literary events in the Bay Area, and she writes a City Brights blog for the San Francisco Chronicle.

    Tracey Taylor (co-founder) is a professional freelance journalist whose writing appears regularly in The New York Times, the Financial Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and Diablo Magazine among others. Her articles cover a broad range of subjects — including business stories, features on food, homes and architecture, as well as profiles and interviews. Tracey writes On the Block, a Bay Area property blog, for the San Francisco Chronicle and Home Girl, an independent real-estate blog.

    Charlotte Horsey is interning at Berkeleyside during May 2010. Charlotte recently graduated from Head-Royce in Oakland, where she was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper. Passionate about journalism, Charlotte is a rower and fluent French speaker and has been offered a place at Kenyon College, Ohio in the Fall.

    Becca Freed is a writer and editor who has worked primarily on technical publications, including Wired. She blogs at Becca’s Blog and is Berkeleybecca on Twitter. She put down roots in Berkeley 16 years ago and is always interested in what her fellow Berkeleyites are up to.

    John Seal A movie connoisseur with a penchant for natty hats, John lives in that city next to Berkeley called Oakland. John writes a weekly film recommendation column at Box Office Prophets, as well as a column in The Phantom of the Movie’s Videoscope, an old-fashioned paper magazine, published quarterly. He also writes regular film reviews for IMDB which can be read here.

    Kim Weisberg has lived in Berkeley since 2006. She is proud to have been published in such little-known but well-loved places as It All Changed In An Instant and the upcoming Aiming Low Back Burner Recipe Book. You can catch her ramblings about cooking, home organization, and just about everything else on her blog, Kim’s Kitchen Sink.

    Romney (Nani) Steele is a freelance writer, cook, and food stylist and the author of My Nepenthe: Bohemian Tales of Food, Family, and Big Sur. She grew up at her family’s home in Big Sur, which also doubled as a restaurant and community gathering place. Her food writing has appeared in Edible East Bay, MSNBC online, Gourmet, Cooking Lite, and Bon Appetit. Romney muses about food, family and coastal life on her blog, also titled My Nepenthe. She lives in the East Bay with her two children.

    Sarah Henry is a professional freelance writer with two decades worth of journalism experience. Sarah worked for the Center for Investigative Reporting for almost ten years before a stint at Health/Hippocrates magazines. She is also a former senior editor at Caring.com. Her freelance stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Washington Post and San Francisco Magazine. She muses about good food matters on her blog lettuce eat kale. Sarah is a contributor to Civil Eats and a volunteer at the Edible Schoolyard. She lives in West Berkeley.