This year set a new precedent for MIA growth. Previously, in November of 2000, MIA had it's highest visitor rating of 87,635 people coming to the web site in that month. During the Northern Hemisphere's schooling "summer vacation" traffic typically drops around 40%, and thus it did, in August of 2001 (just before the start of school) we had 56,571 visitors.
In September of 2001, after the terrorist attacks in the US, our traffic shot up higher than it had ever been: 88,138 visitors in that month (and this number despite the fact that our phone line was cut for the first week in the month). Typically, after the start of a school session, traffic to the web site increases by around 10% per month up until November, where the traffic peaks. What came next was even more amazing.
In October, we had 108,609 visitors, another record broken, and a nearly 20% increase in traffic. In November, we had 152,907 visitors, more than a 40% increase in people visiting the site. We were astounded by the response: while the mass media showed a rise of US patriotism as a result of the attacks, we saw a rise in interest in Marxism, in other words, the search to critically asses and understand current events.
Also in this year the MIA server was moved to hardware that we bought and owned (as opposed to using someone else's server). The Charter was reviewed since its creation, and points 1-6 were updated to reflect the mature MIA consensus. Furthermore, the position of Secretary was created to organise internal debates (§ 4 of the Bylaws). The average number of mails to the internal mia-list was about 5 messages per day.
Finally, MIA offered space, administration, and paying for the costs of our new sister site: Leftist Parties of the World.
by Brian Baggins (June, 2005)