Now that the merger of Yahoo and GeoCities is official on paper, it's time for the more rigorous task of merging the two systems and databases. Since this change-over began, we have experienced outages of various services, and it's been a hair pulling experience for all involved. If you think it's difficult from your side, imagine what the programmers and networkers are going through at the other end. In all it hasn't really been too bad, considering the magnitude of the task. Through all of this our pages were accessable to viewers... our updates would have to squeak through some other time.

As the dust settles and things have begun coming back online, the system is overall pretty stable. Re-registration has begun and there are updates finally occurring to pages again. It's still advisable to keep an eye on the system status for next little while, but it appears the worst is over.

Now, here comes the part we have been waiting for. The "what happens next"! Is it going to be an improvement to our services and can we look forward to more?

There has been a resurgence of interest in the former Awards Program. The Awards Program is being revitalized and has the go ahead to carry on. This program was obviously affected by the changeover of ownership and had been put in cryogenics.

So the word is we are going to reinstate the "Outta Site Award", which means you can nominate a page (including your own) from Eureka. If it meets guidelines for our hood you could be recognised for your page with an award and be covered in this newsletter and posted on a recipients page.

Since this program is just being re-launched it is not finalized. The Awards Committee Members are scrambling to get things set up again, this includes everything from a submission site to a voting booth... no small task! You can find more information and updates on the awards project in Special Projects and follow it's progress while being reinstated. As new information is released it will be posted to this newsletter and the Special Projects pages.

Under the former awards program we could select a weekly winner for recognition in Eureka, each month a single winner was selected from the weekly winners and submitted to GeoCities for consideration in their own awards program. This program will benefit those who have worked hard at developing their page by helping to promote traffic to their site - the award is just a bonus. Winners of the monthly GeoCities awards are eligible for even greater rewards by being entered into the yearly awards. What better way to promote your site than to receive an award of recognition by your peers.

For the Community Leaders who put this project together, it meant many hours of work in outlining and planning the event, creation of graphics and a support page, press releases for the various GeoCities newsletter, etc. They worked exceptionally long and hard at preparing this contest, with the intention of providing GeoCities homesteaders with entertainment, and the prospect of winning an award for solving a puzzle.

Sadly, this contest did not receive a single response. The result yielding a lack of response must have been taken quite hard by our committee members who worked so hard in presenting this. Hopefully this will not discourage them from creating future contests and events for Eureka.

The Scavenger Hunt Committee.

These committee members are committed to bringing you quality programs, contests, and events. They strive for the highest quality possible, and have to work closely despite sometimes being a half a world apart. Contests are selected and created for the quality of entertainment, made simple to solve (most only require determination to complete the puzzle), and often expose viewers to the pages contained in Eureka. They are used to highlight events during a month or season.