VirtualWorldlets.net Could not connect to database, advertising has been disabled. Warning: mysql_query() [function.mysql-query]: Access denied for user 'virtual'@'localhost' (using password: NO) in /home/virtual/public_html/Resources/Hosted/RandomRanting002-PFV.php on line 33 Warning: mysql_query() [function.mysql-query]: A link to the server could not be established in /home/virtual/public_html/Resources/Hosted/RandomRanting002-PFV.php on line 33 Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/virtual/public_html/Resources/Hosted/RandomRanting002-PFV.php on line 35 Printer Friendly Resource Copyright 23rd April 2003 Random Ranting 002: Site death & dismemberment by Steve Fletcher

Another topic has arisen, which irritates me into the need to rant. This time, it's internet resource sites. It's perhaps strange that I should be writing about this topic, when this site suffers many of the same symptoms too.

 The difference is, perhaps, that here, and in other persistent sites, these problems are worked through, and dealt with: In the sites that I'm ranting about, they're not.

 So what is the problem?

Every so often, I do a sweep-search of virtual world resource sites. Each time I do, the same names turn up (art of building, mudconnector, imaginary realities, ets...). These older, larger sites form the hub of resources for virtual worlds, much as is the case in any industry. They're large, they're comprehensive, and they're persistent - been around for years, always growing, always changing. They're not what this rant is about.

 Instead, let's move further back into the search, pages with fewer hits than the big sites, but still worthy; sites such as this one is, smaller than the big few, but still growing fast: Sites that specialise in a particular area of expertise; up-and coming resource sites; and, if we proceed far enough, home pages, and occasional resource sites. Now, we also begin to get the husks, the partial sites, and the failed attempts. This is where my grievance lays.

 Don't misunderstand me; I have no problem with the newly created general resource sites that pop up every year. Two years ago, that was where VirtualWorldlets.net started, six pages on a home site. I'm all for the new guys. The problem comes when the new guys, gather a collection of resources under their belts, grow for a while, then give up, and shut down, leaving all their resources on the site, which eventually disappears off the web.

 Seeing as this site, itself only sees approx. six months of new growth a year, perhaps this seems a weird topic for me to rant about, but at least this site returns every year (and, maybe won't stop this year), to grow again. The sites I'm referring to don't. They just gather resources - written especially for them, or take copyright of the ones they have, and then fold, destroying their resources along the way.

 The problem seems to be that the webmasters don't seem to realise the problem they commit themselves too. General resource-sites are the worst offenders. To offer "global-focus resources", and become the "premiere site for *" seems to be a commonplace theme. Mostly, however, this "become the premiere" seems to consist of waiting for the content to fall in your lap, of doing no (or very little) work yourself, and, when no-one sees fit to give you what you wait for, shutting up shop, and sodding off.

 All well and good for your own work, but what about the stuff of other people's that's on the site? Do they get it back? Does the copyright return to them, once you've closed up, and gorne? Of course not! Therein lays the rub. Each one of these sites that goes down, takes a little piece of the industry with it.

 This is why we're going round in circles, this is why we're remaking old mistakes, repeating old initiatives - the resources that would tell us what went wrong, what never to repeat, have gone, lost for all time, part of sites which gave up, and sodded off.

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