mercurial dot org

When did you start your site?
late 1995 -- it's gone through many changes since then! mercurial.org is the latest incarnation, i started it a couple of years ago.

Marital Status?
single

Occupation - What kind of work do you do?
web developer

Hobbies - What do you like to do, besides keep this site?
shoot pool, drink coffee, act/direct in community theater

Location - Where are you from? Where are you now?

Why did you start writing your Web site?
seemed like a good idea at the time :)[/link]

Why do you write a site about you?
i know more about me than i know about anything else.

Do you communicate with readers of your site?
absolutely! i love getting feedback and try to be timely when replying to people who take the time to drop me a note.

How much email feedback do you receive from your site? Is it mainly positive or negative?
not much .. my site was down for a while and only recently went back up.

Have you met any new friends because of the site?
yes

Has your motivation changed over time?
not really, except in that i always try to push myself in doing new things with the mechanics and functioning or design of the site

How has it changed your life?
i went from being a secretary in what was essentially a dead-end job to being a web developer, which i love. i also got to teach college courses in web development this past year.

Do your friends and family know you keep this site/read it? If so have you had any really negative experiences as a result? If not why?
they know but i don't think any of them read. my parents are not too tech-savvy and i don't have any other close relatives that i keep in touch with on a regular basis.

How has your Web site benefited you? Your friends? Or total strangers?
it's my playground, where i practice how to do the stuff that makes me money in the Real World *tm*

If you had to do it over again from the beginning, what would you change?
i'm not sure .. i kind of like where i'm at now. i'm afraid if i changed anything it might have turned out differently :)

When looking at other people's Web sites what do you look for as a viewer?
information about the personality of the author, including 'about me' sections, links to favorite music, movies, and activities. photos are a nice plus, to kind of round out the mental picture, but it's not the first thing i check out when i visit a site.

What is "one word" that would describe your site?

Because of your site do you consider yourself a Web celebrity, an exhibitionist, a public figure, a writer, an innovator, or something different?
a writer and artist. i write all my own code and do all my own graphics, and am constantly trying to outdo myself in terms of my capabilities in each. i am definitely not an exhibitionist! :)

How do you tackle the mechanics of Web design and how do you deal with your frustrations when you can't do what you envision.
i keep working at it till it at least closely approximates what i went after. ideas i couldn't work in the current version go in a mental basket and i drag them out again after i learn things that might help me put them on the page.

Why do you think people are interested in you and what you have to say?
i'm not really sure -- i speak my mind and try to give my own point of view on things. i have a lot of varied interests and always try to encourage people to interact with me and each other via the web. i'm very web-community oriented, and am always working on some idea or other that promotes using the web as a way of connecting people, or allowing people to share with each other.

What compels you to design beautiful pages and to write from the heart (beyond just the usual question of "why write a Web site")?
birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, i gotta do websites. honestly, i don't know why -- but it's definitely something that is part of my life. it's not just something i do in my spare time, i am constantly coming up with new ideas and things i want to try. i don't always get to all of them, and they don't always work the way i wanted them to, but i keep working on it and eventually some of them come out very close to what i originally envisioned.