Two decades of thesession.org

On June 3rd, 2001, I launched thesession.org. Happy twentieth birthday to The Session!

Although actually The Session predates its domain name by a few years. It originally launched as a subdirectory here on adactio.com with the unwieldly URL /session/session.shtml

That incarnation was more like a blog. I���d post the sheetmusic for a tune every week with a little bit of commentary. That worked fine until I started to run out of tunes. That���s when I made the site dynamic. People could sign up to become members of The Session. Then they could also post tunes and add comments.

That���s the version that is two decades old today.

The last really big change to the site happened in 2012. As well as a complete redesign, I introduced lots of new functionality.

In all of those incarnations, the layout was fluid …long before responsive design swept the web. That was quite unusual twenty years ago, but I knew it was the webby thing to do.

What���s also unusual is just keeping a website going for twenty years. Keeping a community website going for twenty years is practically unheard of. I���m very proud of The Session. Although, really, I���m just the caretaker. The site would literally be nothing without all the contributions that people have made.

I���ve more or less adopted a Wikipedia model for contributions. Some things, like tune settings, can only be edited by the person who submitted it But other things, like the track listing of a recording, or the details of a session, can be edited by any member of the site. And of course anyone can add a comment to any listing. There���s a certain amount of risk to that, but after testing it for two decades, it���s working out very nicely.

What���s really nice is when I get to meet my fellow members of The Session in meatspace. If I���m travelling somewhere and there���s a local session happening, I always get a warm welcome. I mean, presumably everyone would get a warm welcome at those sessions, but I���ve also had my fair share of free pints thanks to The Session.

I feel a great sense of responsibility with The Session. But it���s not a weight of responsibility���the way that many open source maintainers describe how their unpaid labour feels. The sense of responsibility I feel drives me. It gives me a sense of purpose.

The Session is older than any client work I���ve ever done. It���s older than any books I���ve written. It���s even older than Clearleft by a few years. Heck, it���s even older than this blog (just).

I���m 50 years old now. The Session is 20 years old. That���s quite a chunk of my life. I think it���s fair to say that it���s part of me now. Of all the things I���ve made so far in my life, The Session is the one I���m proudest of.

I���m looking forward to stewarding the site through the next twenty years.