“This is going pretty smoothly.”  That’s what I typed to Angela Ju, ALIST Digital’s managing editor, at 1:20 AM on the morning of our site launch. Three hours later, instead of celebrating a successful launch, we signed off, exhausted from a mountain of problems that crept up as we got close to launch.

Our site was in development for nearly three months but even so, there were fundamental issues with the site that we still can’t fix. I’m typing this just 15 hours after we unveiled the site into the 4 AM darkness. To make matters worse, I’m working on an urgent project for my main job and won’t be able to look at lines of code until that’s finished.

Because of some underlying issues, things like our RSS feeds and XML structure are sporadic (very important things) and Facebook Open Graph doesn’t work (which means you won’t see text and image previews when you share to Facebook). But these will be fixed sooner than later.

So even with a numb mind and throbbing eyes, I’m actually happy to say that this was still a wildly successful launch by a team that I’m amazingly proud of. What was originally going to be a giant launch, became a smaller launch, and then a “soft launch” at the last second. But even so, the ALIST team perseveres and we’ve gotten amazing feedback and a buzz that’s still growing.

I’m posting this as part of Inside ALIST, where we write about the ins and outs of starting and maintaining an international publication with an all-volunteer team.  I welcome you to get to know us and how we work. Because ALIST is for all of us.  And you should know what our plans for the magazine are and have your input heard as well.

Meanwhile, I’m turning back to my other compuer while ALIST finishes up a successful launch day. A big thank you to all our readers and our incredible team.

I can already tell that this is going to be an incredible ride.