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This Site Is Dead
"Well, I honestly don't have the energy to update anymore. I've completely run out of ideas for the site. Every time I try to come up with something new, I get stuck about 1/3 of the way through it. That's why lately all the updates made have pretty much just been to my game list and the links page. I think I'll pretty much close the site, but leave it up until it gets deleted. Oddly enough, a week from today it will have been one year since |tsr closed his site. No connection, or comparison to |tsr, simply an odd observation. You know, I never actually thought of my site to be anything great to begin with. I always thought the Goomba Cult, and Crono's sections were about all it had going for it. And even the Goomba Cult got old after a while. Honestly, I don't know where I'll go from here. Maybe I'll work on The NES Triforce, make websites for other people, make a non-NES-related website of my own...I honestly have no idea. Perhaps I'll completely give up working on websites altogether. I still think that would be a little farfetched, though. I'd pretty much have to give up the internet altogether in order to accomplish that, and that sure as fucking hell (/obligatoryprofanity) won't happen. I know this seems rather hypocritical dropping my site like this, but who cares? Hypocrisy is the American way." - from The NES Dungeon, defunct as of January 13, 2001
Well, that's pretty sobering, huh? So where am I going with this editorial? I'm not sure yet. Give me a minute to gather my thoughts.
Ah yes. Now I remember. Last January was when I first looked at an NES website. I found tha NES Smackdown while performing an N64 search on a search engine. And from the Smackdown I found |TSR's NES Archive.
The day I found the archive was the last day it was updated - January 20th. At the time, I remember thinking thoughts like "Why the hell would you stop updating such a good site? Wouldn't you want to keep working on it?" How foolish I was at the time. A website is hard work. That's the purpose of this editorial - to tell you just how tough a website is.
First off, there's starting it. I'll make a bet that there would be twice as many NES websites out there if every single one survived the first month.
But all too often they don't. And this site, NEStopia, was almost a casualty. I, knowing very little about the Internet (I had never heard of HTML, FTP, ICQ, etc.) decided that I was going to make an NES website. That was March 1st. By March 20th, I had stopped working on NEStopia, which had never even put put up on the web for viewing. It remained a jumble of files on my computer.
Then, over the summer, I got after it again. I worked hard for two months, and voila! NEStopia was Internet ready.
Then there's the whole issue of publicizing a site. I was lucky enough to have been an accepted member of the scene by the time NEStopia went up, so I had a few people who were behind me from the start. But what happens if a website doesn't have this immediate fan base?
I'll tell you what. No hits, and the webmaster gets the impression that their site stinks. So they don't work on it.
Even if they do survive the first few weeks, there's the issue of the constant updating.
Let me take a minute to say that webmasters are normal people, not geeks who sit at a computer 24-7 cooking up updates for your viewing pleasure.
I, for example, am a perfectly normal (and busy) kid. I am no outcast; I have a healthy number of friends. I play high school sports two out of three seasons. I work hard in school and am consistently on the High Honor Roll.
I believe a website should be updated at least every two weeks. That is hard work. My weekly updates take about two hours to put together.
So how do I keep the updates coming? God only knows. Really, that's the truth. Somehow I find the time to piece together something for NEStopia every single week, failing on only two occasions so far.
Next, there's the issue of something that I can only define as "website depression." I fought a case of it just last week. I'm sure Nakoo (NES Dungeon's webmaster) can identify with me when I say this: "Why do I bother working on my website? It's so much work, and what do I have to show for it? I don't earn money from it. It would be so much easier to just stop updating." Many webmasters drop their sites as a result of this. It's just too much work, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
What I'm saying to those of you who don't have websites is please respect the decisions of webmasters. They are actual people, not your servants who work on their sites whenever you ask. They have lives. And a website can be tough to fit in when you have a busy schedule.
Nakoo, I understand your decision. The Dungeon was a good site in my opinion - not great, but good enough. I enjoyed visiting it. I wish you would keep updating, but I can't force you to. It's your decision, and I respect it. Good luck with anything you try in the future.
And getting back to the whole |TSR thing. The last update was January 20th, 2000. But who knows? January 20th is coming around again. If you're a fan of the NES, you might want to stop by just to make sure there isn't anything going on...
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