About Christian's and Scott's Interactive Top Ten List

This page describes a bit about who we are and what the top ten list is about. In addition, there is also another page describing how we pick the top ten.

What is C&S ITTL?

When Scott and Christian decided to add content to the WWW, we were looking for something that would cause people to keep returning to our site and something that would be widely enjoyed. Ever-changing top ten lists were what jumped to our minds and thus began the Interactive Top Ten List. If you like it, please feel free to bookmark it or create a link to it. We have created the following two images for you to use as a link image.

As well, we thank Chris Mulder from Agoura, CA who has created the following image links.

Feel free to copy one of them to your own site and list it along with a link to http://www.csittl.com/.

Who are we?

We (Scott & Christian) were students at Stanford University as undergraduates. During our Junior years there, we decided to add our own bit to the World Wide Web and started the Interactive Top Ten List in February of 1995. We have been roommates twice at Stanford and still keep in close touch and collaborate on the top ten list, although we no longer live in the same dorm room.

about Scott

about Christian

Christian graduated from Stanford in June 1996. He is now a professor of Computer Science at The University of California at Riverside.

History of the Top Ten List

• Feb 4, 1995: Top Ten List Created
• Mar 5, 1995: More than 100 submissions in a single week
• Mar 1995: Scott leaves for Germany to study for 6 months
• Jul 16, 1995: Graphics added to the top ten list (see Top Ten Signs You Are Boring)
• Sep 1995: Scott returns to Stanford
• Nov 5, 1995: More than 200 submissions in a single week
• Dec 1995: server dies over Winter Break
• Jan 1996: server switched to a new pentium machine
• Jun 16, 1996: Scott and Christian graduate
• Jul 1996: server switched to a Centris 650
• Sep 1996: Christian moves to MIT; Scott continues graduate studies at Stanford
• Sep 22, 1996: More than 300 submissions in a single week
• Oct 28, 1996: More than 400 submissions in a single week
• Dec 12, 1996: More than 500 submissions in a single week
• Feb 1997: server switched to a new pentium machine.
• Mar 2, 1997: List changes from one list a week to two lists a week.
• Mar 13, 1997: 100th List Published (see Top Ten Things Not to Say During an Archery Tournament)
• Mar 31, 1997: More than 800 submissions in a single week
• Jun 30, 1997: Searchable Index added
• Feb 24, 1998: Top Ten List moves from Stanford to the MIT AI Lab (see Top Ten Real Reasons the Top Ten List Moved)
• Mar 4, 1998: 200th List Published (see Top Ten Things Left Behind in Nagano after the Olympic Games)
• Feb 22, 1999: 300th List Published (see Top Ten Rules for Eating Chocolate)
• Feb 3, 2000: 400th List Published (see Top Ten Lessons Christian and Scott Have Learned after Five Years of C&S ITTL)
• Jan 22, 2001: 500th List Published (see Top Ten Things You Don't Want to Hear in the Middle of the Night)
• Dec 18, 2001: List moves to new server and domain: csittl.com (see Top Ten Reasons C&SITTL is Moving to a New URL)
• Jan 14, 2002: 600th List Published (see Top Ten Signs You're Getting the Flu)
• Jul 2, 2002: For the first time since the creation of the list, neither Scott nor Christian could update the list, due to travel. Stephanie, a guest editor, stepped in for two weeks (see Top Ten Differences While Stephanie Ran the List)
• Jan 2, 2003: 700th List Published (see Top Ten Signs You Are Addicted to Chess)
• Dec 18, 2003: 800th List Published (see My Top Ten Thoughts When I Saw the Flashing Lights in My Rearview Mirror)
• Dec 2, 2004: 900th List Published (see Top Ten Signs that Your Turtle is Depressed)
• Feb 4, 2005: Christian & Scott celebrate the ten-year anniversary of CSITTL (see Top Ten Reasons Christian & Scott are Still Doing This After 10 Years).
• Nov 17, 2005: 1000th List Published (see Top Ten Reasons to Become an Environmental Activist)

How the Top Ten Works

(see also how the top ten are chosen)

The original format of the top ten list was that each week a new subject would be presented on the main page along with the top ten list for the subject of the previous week. As more and more submissions started to pour in for the lists each week, it became harder and harder to select only ten funny entries for the lists. Since the site is intended for top ten lists, instead of lengthening the size of the list, we decided to move to two lists a week.

Now the page displays the top ten list most recently chosen and two subjects along with the day of the week on which those lists will be displayed. Whereas the previous format dictated that the current list be updated once a week (on Sunday night/Monday morning), the list is now updated Sunday nights and Wednesday nights.

Old lists have always been saved in chronological order on the old list page. However, we also have a search engine for the old lists.

We usually generate the topics for the lists. However, we also accept suggestions from viewers for list titles. In general, we really appreciate comments or suggestions for the web site. Feel free to e-mail us at topten@csittl.com. We try hard to respond to each e-mail sent.

Awards

We don't specifically attempt to garner awards. However, we feel proud to display the following:

Scott Atwood and Christian Shelton (hereafter the authors) retain full copyright of all material on this and all other pages of "Christian's & Scott's Interactive Top Ten List." The authors grant to all other parties the sole right to create a link to this page. However, the authors reserve all other rights. No material from these pages may be copied without the express consent of one of the authors.