Virtual Vienna Hails Three New Award Winners
Since early in the year 2000, changes have been made to
the GeoCities system that for better or worse have caused
the integrity of GeoCities Vienna to erode.
First there was the change to username related URLs, then came
the degradation of the neighborhood homepages and block pages.
One no longer strolls the avenues, gazing at the content
displayed by the homesteaders, but merely jumps around
following links or search engines, without noticing a
neighborhood.
Despite this, core groups of homesteaders have in most
neighborhoods continued to keep some of the traditions of
their neighborhoods alive. So it is with Vienna.
In fact, so much so that public opinion is demonstrating that
what is important in our community is not that it is a
subculture of GeoCities, but a subculture of Vienna.
That is to say, of the musical, artistic, cultural, and
historical heritage of Classical Vienna.
For some time now, the term "Virtual Vienna" has been passed
around, as capable of encompassing not only GeoCities Vienna
but sites at other domains that have content that would
otherwise make them acceptable. (Editor's Note: The existence of http://www.virtualvienna.net, a site that has obviously been in existence for some time, has recently come to my attention. This leads me to try to come up with something other than "Virtual Vienna" for our new design. So let me throw out "Vienna Virtual" as a term here and now, in case we should find it desirable to distinguish between ours and theirs. Let the discussions begin!)
In the past, we have had applications from such sites and have
had to refuse the award, but lately it has been decided to take
the plunge and start recognizing these extra-GeoCities sites.
As a consequence of this expansion of our horizon, much rethinking
has been done regarding the minimum requirements for making the
award. The most obvious change needed was modification of the rule
that required the site to adhere to Yahoo!/GeoCities Terms of
Service.
Naturally, we could not expect a resident of Xoom or
Angelfire to swear allegiance to the Yahoo!/GeoCities Terms of
Service. One would expect that such a site would conform to
whatever similar TOS that was in effect at that site's host,
but in any case, we do not feel that we have to police it.
We do, however still require that the site be tasteful,
suitable for general audiences, and have content that relates
strongly to our community's theme.
We are also going to relax somewhat the rule requiring no dead
links. This is not an invitation to submit shoddy workmanship,
but simply an admission that 1) It's not always possible to get
everything right, 2) The website hosts don't always get the
graphics sent out, and 3) We don't always have the time or
patience to check every link.
Finally, we are discontinuing the "note pin" awards. We were
hoping that this would work as an incentive to past winners
to expand their sites and reapply, sort of as an intermediate
award before the Vanguard, but that hasn't been happening,
and few sites reviewed seem so exceptional as to merit this
special treatment. Vienna Award winners who believe their
site is really exceptional should apply for the Vanguard Award.
There will be more about award requirements, the evaluation
process, and Virtual Vienna in general in future issues of
Vienna Online. Be sure to keep checking in, and also look
for any discussions that may develop in the Vienna Residents
Club.
Mozart's World is the first non-GeoCities site to be
awarded the "Virtual Vienna Award." It contains, in the words
of its owner, "A Mozart Biography, picture gallery, fan club,
fan section, links, analysis of the D minor Piano Concerto,
computer software about Mozart, fan contributions and MUCH
more - designed for all Mozart lovers!" I found the site to
be well organized, easy to navigate, and full of interest.
The second award given this month is to
Contemporary Dance. It showcases the career and work of
Francesca Abela, who heads a dance troupe headquartered in
Malta. The site comes complete with photos, reviews, and
lists of choreographies performed locally and abroad.
Finally, we have a site that is all about "Efemerides de
Opera, Opereta y Zarzuela." The site,
Operacalli, is presented by a resident of Mexico and is
text based and entirely in Spanish. It contains many essays,
reviews, historical facts and legends about opera and other
theatrical vocal music in Mexico and elsewhere.
It was initially challenging to review a site in a language
mostly unknown to this reviewer. I finally resorted to the
use of the
Babelfish translator at AltaVista. While not at all an
elegant translation, it did allow me to get the gist of the
text. Even with the machine translation, I could see that
the amount of information was excellent and well worth perusing.
A final note: We are sorry to announce that due to family and
job related obligations, CL Marg must for now at least lay down
her mantle as our premier evaluator and attend to those duties.
We are sorry to see this happen, as our collaboration was
enjoyable and gratifying, but we understand how the pressures of
real life can intrude on our virtual existence. We hope to see
her return someday, but for now this reviewer is going to assume
the mantle and try to keep the Vienna award going out to those
deserving sites that apply for it.
