AirLockAlpha.com

More than a decade ago, I was working for a small community newspaper in a great little town where people were active, and not much was going on. The community was nearly a century old, and many of the traditions and life hadn't changed much during that time.

One morning, however, people were driving into downtown as part of their daily routines when they stopped dead in their tracks. At a small intersection, a circle of sand bags had appeared, and they didn't know what to do.

City Hall was flooded with phone calls ... what is up with the sand bags? Was the street flooding? Was it stopping people from driving into a sinkhole? Was the town at war?

In the end, the mystery was solved with a single sentence: It's a roundabout. The intersection it was placed in was just a few feet from another major intersection, and the town's leaders were trying to figure out the best way to keep traffic in all directions moving effectively. The idea they came up with was to build a roundabout, and the sandbags were a temporary version of what they had planned.

The town went nuts. For weeks and weeks, it was our top story -- what should the city put in that intersection? A roundabout? Stop signs? A traffic light? Revert it back to what it was? We had poll after poll, and were flooded with letters to the editor. City council meetings were packed as people tried to share what they wanted, many not wanting any change at all.

In the end, the city put up a three-way stop sign (the crossing street is a one-way), and it's still that way to this day. When the city did some streetscaping a few years back, they made a big brick circle in the middle of the intersection, almost a memorial to what could've been, and instead of having flowing traffic through that intersection that a roundabout would've brought, there is instead stop and go traffic there.

I know change isn't what we all like to see, no matter what the most recent presidential elections promised. Even with the mantra of "yes we can," there were still many people who didn't want to change the status quo, who didn't want to wake up one morning and find a radically different world.

But ignoring the political aspects of it, change can be good.

We have received hundreds of e-mails from readers (and you can e-mail me, too, at mhinman@airlockalpha.com) sharing their thoughts on the change to Airlock Alpha. And to be honest, I was completely surprised by the response: People actually seem to like the change for the most part. Not everyone, of course, but readers seem to be accepting the new look of the site much more than I thought they would.

But I do hear the naysayers as well. SyFy Portal was a great name, and it remains a great name. I'm sure someone will do some wonderful things with it down the road, and continue a brand that I created more than a decade ago.

But at the same time, like I just said, that name was created more than a decade ago. It reflects a time period and a philosophy that has changed a lot as we moved into the 21st century, and there's nothing wrong with that. I, however, like to stay focused on the future (which is why this is a science-fiction site, after all), and being attuned to the future means being willing to change when it's necessary.

Madonna, for instance, has remained a pop sensation for 20-something years. And while some might say it's not because of her music, I think most of us agree that at least she continues to change with the times, and does everything she can to remain relevant, yet innovative.

That's what we want to do with Airlock Alpha. I got one e-mail just yesterday from a longtime reader who I really respect who felt that if we were going to make radical changes, we should really go over the top. We should make the site flashy, de-emphasize news, put up big pictures, all of that.

I have nothing against big pictures or being flashy, but we don't need any of that. The draw to this site over the past decade hasn't been how we look or how pretty we are (although I have to say, for the most part, we've always looked pretty good). It's the content we provide. It's how easy it is people can find the stuff they're looking for. It's knowing that you can come to this site, come to Airlock Alpha, and know there's no garbage. We don't report every little minute thing that might come across our desk. We instead work to make sure your time is well spent here, getting the news that is important to you, and providing insight and analysis you can't get anywhere else.

Yes, I know that a lot of our stories come from other sources. But that in of itself makes us no different than other sites, even large ones with a paid staff (we're still staffed with volunteers who have day jobs) pull a lot of their content from other sources. And we do try to provide original reporting as we can, and have made a commitment to do that as the BlipNetwork evolves.

[Airlock Alpha is currently undergoing maintenance. The full story will be available shortly.]