PNG Attitude was instrumental in its establishment and remains vital to its continuation.

Another success has been the emergence of Papua New Guinean writers of talent and calibre. When this blog began, one of its primary aims was to generate and maintain a written dialogue between Papua New Guineans and Australians. And to achieve that we required people who would write for public consumption.

At first, this proved more difficult than you might think. There was a general reluctance amongst Papua New Guineans to attach their own names to their opinions and observations. But gradually this reluctance weakened, leading to a true flowering of that boldness of spirit we know is part of the Melanesian psyche.

Just a couple of years after this blog was established, social media emerged in full flower and captured PNG in earnest. There developed a profusion of PNG Facebook sites, Twitter accounts and other forms of internet connectivity.

Sometimes this got out of control – and the internet was used to bully, harass, abuse, defame and deceive. There were attempts to exploit PNG Attitude in the same way but we have always maintained firm editorial control and an explicit policy that we expect contributors and commentors to abide by.

Play fast and loose with the demand for civilised debate and the editorial boom is lowered. In 10 years, however, we’ve only had to bantwo people because of incurably vexatious behaviour. As it turned out they were both Australians with long PNG experience. They should have known better.

There have been a couple of other disappointments. The PNG government failing to take on board the Crocodile Prize as a worthy nation-building project has been one.

And I have to mention the way in which, without explanation or warning, the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby turned its back on the Prize a year ago after, under a more enlightened High Commissioner, being instrumental in its creation in 2011.

The better news is that, under its new administration, a renewed dialogue is beginning between the High Commission and the now newly PNG-based Crocodile Prize Organisation.

So PNG Attitude has seen setbacks, yes, but we’ve also witnessed much that has been good and beneficial.

The way readers rally to a cause – whether fund-raising to get something done that seems unlikely to be achieved otherwise or joining forces on major projects, like Murray Bladwell and Terry Shelley’s current effort to get a monster container of school books into Simbu.

The blog has also brought many people together who time and distance had driven apart. I’ve lost count of the number of reconnections … scores.

There’s also the way we’ve managed to ensure that good writers get recognised through the scholarships and fellowships we’ve been able to assist with.

And there's the constant email conversation between writers and me as we work to ensure that PNG ’ voices are heard and that there is constant encouragement to improve the literary product.

Which bring me to the growth of Pukpuk Publishing and its increasingly impressive booklist – Phil Fitzpatrick's awe-inspiring achievement which spun out of PNG Attitude and the Crocodile Prize.

So 10,000 published pieces (and nearly 30,000 readers' comments) later we have reached a great milestone.

I don’t know whether PNG Attitude has another 10 years and 10,000 contributions left in it – that may be too much to hope for.

But, meanwhile, we plug on with this long project that has already achieved its initial objective – to stimulate a continuing conversation between Australians and Papua New Guineans.