ATTN: Malc

khisanth · 00:00, 06 January 10

Have to agree that Malc has and is behaving like an idiot.

Lets face it, he loves Michael Jackson more than anything and he doesnt give a monkeys about the CPCzone. He totally ignores anyone who offers to take it over.

So lets face it, CPCZone has gone for good.

Long live CPCWiki

ukmarkh · 14:27, 06 January 10

Quote from: khisanth on 00:00, 06 January 10
Have to agree that Malc has and is behaving like an idiot.

Lets face it, he loves Michael Jackson more than anything and he doesnt give a monkeys about the CPCzone. He totally ignores anyone who offers to take it over.

So lets face it, CPCZone has gone for good.

Long live CPCWiki

I wonder if he's taking the death of MJ really hard... $:-\$

khisanth · 15:28, 06 January 10

someone you dont actually know. someone you have never met.

Gryzor · 14:19, 08 January 10

Well, meeting someone is not a prerequisite for admiration, devotion, suffering or inspiration. Countless examples...

I won't judge him. After all, we don't know if MJ's death has anything to do with it, really! So I say we try it once more. Should we organize an electronic petition or something, maybe?

Dr Tiger Ninestein · 20:50, 08 January 10

Quote from: Gryzor on 14:19, 08 January 10

Should we organize an electronic petition or something, maybe?

As much as I hope it would, I really dont think it would make any difference to what malc does.

I saw him threaten this exact situation numerous times on the zone, normally when somebody said something he didnt like.

Somebody on another forum likened malcs behaviour to that of a spoilt child who picks up his football halfway through a game and takes it home with him, just to spite the other kids. I personally think that sums malc up.

khisanth · 20:58, 19 January 10

sad but true.

Ritchardo · 14:01, 20 January 10

As someone who worked his ass off at various points for that site I'm a little upset at the way the user contributed content (i.e. the forum discussions, cover scans, game reviews etc.) have been discarded.

By the end I was the only one of the 'moderators' who ever bothered turning up to try and clear the crap that was clogging up the forums in terms of spam and moderation (not that I ever had to do much in the way of modding - you were all very well behaved... mostly...). Truth be told being a mod at the Zone became a chore and a lonely one at that - I always felt like a complete spanner whenever someone came to me via PM or in the forums and asked if I could arrange something for them and had to tell them "Sorry but I don't have the power to do that and I can't get hold of the guy who does..."

Never e-mailed me, never contacted me once to tell me that the place was going down the tubes or to thank me for trying to fight the fire with a water pistol and while I hesitate to go down the route of name-calling or questioning his motivation (at the end of the day, anything could have happened in his personal life making a retro computer site somewhat meaningless in the grand scheme of his life) I do feel that I have been mis-treated by the whole fiasco.

Truth be told, it's really eaten away at my passion for retrogaming in general and while I still potter about occassionally and even try to gee myself up by tarting up some of the pages on the Wiki, I can't sustain it.

ukmarkh · 14:28, 20 January 10

Well, I'm not having a dig or anything, but I offered my services to help run the forum on several occasions, but for one reason or another, no one ever replied... at the time I just wanted to feel part of the scene, but to not even get a reply just fueled my thoughts that the guys running the show were a bunch of elitist b@stards.

It's called a community for a reason.

Sorry if it comes across as a rant, just surprised at your post. Please don't take offence, it was just my perception at that time.

Ritchardo · 14:54, 20 January 10

Quote from: ukmarkh on 14:28, 20 January 10
Well, I'm not having a dig or anything, but I offered my services to help run the forum on several occasions, but for one reason or another, no one ever replied... at the time I just wanted to feel part of the scene, but to not even reply just fueled my thoughts that you guys were enclosed in an elitist bubble.

It's called a community for a reason.

Sorry if it comes across as a rant, just suprised at your post.

If I didn't reply then apologies - I remember your offer and I posted in the staff area a recommendation that we approach someone else to come onboard as a mod - you were mentioned as were another two members of this board. Nothing ever came of it - Malc never read the post or responded to my e-mails on the subject. Apologies that I never came back to you on it personally and to anyone else I may have unintenionally offended at any point!

If I ever came across as elitist, then again, apologies not intentional and most certainly not the case. By the time I became a mod, things were already on the slide Thomas (Maskedman) had disappeared, Patrick (Zeropolis) had for some strange reason been restricted to modding only the GTW forum which was deader than a graveyard (there could be personal reasons for this that I'm not privvy to - which is fair enough and this is not a dig at Patrick in any way). So that was your moderating team - a guy who'd gone AWOL, another who only worked in a very small specialist area and me. Then you had your administrators - Malc and Rich (Zombie): Malc as you all know was very sporadic and would have a large presence for a short period of time, each getting shorter and tetchier than before (a fine example is when you changed your username - I sent Malc a PM asking if he had done that and whether it was something I could have access to and he went off his head ranting about how it was his site and who was I to question what he did... erm...okay! To his credit, he did apologise later but there you are...) Rich began to float away pretty early on and didn't really take much to do with the day to day running of the forums. So I suppose if it was a bubble we were in then it's because I was on my Jack Jones most of the time and my end of the 'community' had me living in a boarded up shack at the end of a dilipidated road (I've taken this metaphor too far...)

Fair comment though and no offence taken for my part... even if you did edit it to make your post even stronger!

ukmarkh · 15:07, 20 January 10

Really sorry, wish I hadn't posted now, foot in mouth problem... feel terrible.

Ritchardo · 15:45, 20 January 10

Quote from: ukmarkh on 15:07, 20 January 10
Really sorry, wish I hadn't posted now, foot in mouth problem... feel terrible.

It's really not a problem and I can understand fully how observers might have looked at the place, particularly in those last few years! I've not taken offence and I'm a lot mellower now than I was then: pressure corrupts!

Nreive · 16:13, 20 January 10

What a sad, sad story of the Zone's behind the scenes shenanigans. A great site, but with no one at the driving seat, its eventual crash was inevitable, taking all its passengers along with it.

khisanth · 16:52, 20 January 10

but from that was born this site and forum which is doing really well i think.

Let it be known that there will ALWAYS be people on here wanting to be a moderator or admin

(including me!)

The death of CPCzone also zapped my retro feelings and drifted away, but i am glad i came back to the cpcwiki.

Ygdrazil · 11:55, 21 January 10

Yeah!

It is a real pity... I would like to have CPCZONE back online, I think this i unlikely to happen though!

I just hope that all game and forum data is intact and that Malc will pass it on in the future.. If this happens I am willing to offer my PHP and MySQL skills to integrate it into the CPCWIKI!

I really have a hard time to understand why Malc is keeping it for himself, after all the data there is a great tribute to him, and as a CPC fan surely he wants to let the data live on in one form or another even though he has lost interest in running a full blow CPC site...

Why not let it live on and let it be nursed by a dedicated community like here :-)

Well .. only the future will tell!

/ygdrazil

Gryzor · 12:18, 21 January 10

Ritchardo's first post on the issue is not only a very interesting read but also very correct and to the point. It's a shame that: the Zone went tits-up, since it was a wonderful place into which Malc had put many, many hours, but mainly because: the user-generated content is not free. That's the worst part, and it's why I had vowed to distribute the entire CPCWiki project to anyone interested if I withdrew from it (the offer still stands, though there are more people now abroad, so less risk

).

After some of you placed bets (here and through emails) that Malc would not utter a peep, I decided to send him a message. Sure enough. he didn't even bother getting back to me... so it seems he's deliberately decided to ignore all this. Shite...

Zombie13 · 21:30, 23 February 10

Quote from: Ritchardo on 14:54, 20 January 10
Rich began to float away pretty early on and didn't really take much to do with the day to day running of the forums.

The forum and front-page content were the only parts of the zone that I, along with the others, could touch. Malc was definitely belted into the drivers seat at all times. I hope he considers passing on the contributions everyone made... scans, reviews etc. I wouldn't expect him to give out his code, but the content can be re-used and would be greatly appreciated.

khisanth · 21:31, 23 February 10

Quote from: Zombie13 on 21:30, 23 February 10I hope he considers just passing on the contributions everyone made... scans, reviews etc. I wouldn't expect him to give out his code, but the content can be re-used and would be greatly appreciated.

All the best,
Rich.

You will be lucky if he even considers it, which would be for about 3 seconds as he hits delete on the files.

mr_lou · 07:35, 24 February 10

Didn't anyone ever do a wget on cpczone to download everything in a "flat" format?

khisanth · 13:32, 24 February 10

You can get some stuff from the waybackmachine at http://www.archive.org/

ukmarkh · 13:45, 24 February 10

We really need to bump things up a level... i'm not even sure how, or if a plan is already underway. I feel everyone in the forum should try and help in some way? If we want the CPC to still be very much a topic of conversion in the upcoming years, we need to cater for all needs... currently the forum / site doesn't really give CPC gamers the fix they need, from a techy level I think its found the right balance, but something needs to done on the games front. If gamebase or template could be implemented, and the forum members just post info or reviews on a game, this could be a good start.

What do you guys think?

ukmarkh · 13:50, 24 February 10

khisanth - that wayback site is so cool.

khisanth · 13:53, 24 February 10

i agree whole heartedly, games will always garner more interest from the masses and non geeks etc.

i am happy to help in any way to get this going.

redbox · 14:54, 24 February 10

Quote from: khisanth on 13:53, 24 February 10
i agree whole heartedly, games will always garner more interest from the masses and non geeks etc.

Yes, but it's the geeks who are writing the new games

ukmarkh · 14:35, 25 February 10

Anyone can program their own game, the difficult part is coming up with a good idea and finding the time.

arnoldemu · 16:16, 25 February 10

Quote from: ukmarkh on 14:35, 25 February 10
Anyone can program their own game, the difficult part is coming up with a good idea and finding the time.

I'm not sure anyone can program a game.

The difficult part is definitely finding the time AND finishing the game.

News:

ATTN: Malc

Zombie13