It only occurred to me late last night that it was about a year ago on a Friday evening when I started this community (mostly on a whim). I had to go to my own profile to confirm what’s the official birth date and time for this site (as I was the first user):
…and indeed that was the case, so, for posterity, officially recording them here: November 9, 2017 12:43 AM
Happy first Birthday 
to our grad community!
Here are some statistics from the About page to mark the occasion:
Site Statistics
All Time Last 7 Last 30 Topics 233 8 41 Posts 1.5k 68 249 Users 189 3 22 Active Users — 13 59 Likes 122 3 18
So we have over 175 users now, not so bad given we never used any social media to publicize this community.
In this one year, I have tried and tested the system and feel very confident that it can scale to our graduate student needs but now I really need your help!
How can you help?
- Tell other grad students about this forum.
- Ask questions and/or post things here that other grad students might find interesting.
- See Top topics from last year to gain a sense of what users have found useful so far.
- See more ideas of what kind of topics you can post here
- Let me know by replying to this topic how this university-wide community may be helpful with your needs as a grad student. I am already working/talking with @grad-council and International House to understand their needs to improve this platform. The Events category was a direct result of feedback I gained from their needs.
- Let me know if you’d like to use this platform for your department or division level discussion (cc: @rhyspovey). I am already experimenting with my own department’s @ phd group. If something like this works for other departments/divisions, I am happy to work with you to implement groups and private categories for your needs.
As always any other constructive feedback, ideas, suggestions are welcome. If you haven’t already, I suggest checking out the FAQ page for the well-thought-of community guidelines that will define the nature of discourse here. Thank you so much for being part of this community and helping it grow. Here’s to another year and more!