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Site Owner Idiots (Rant)

Started by mgman, 23:50, 10 April 11

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mgman

Hey, guys.

There's something that's been bothering me for months, but little I could do about (I'll explain that later). Basically, one of the earliest fansites for the Contra series is currently dead. The link is now: contra.kontek.net

However, it's in the hands of a douchebag owner. It pisses me off the most because this guy promised over and over and over and over and over and over to actually update the site's content (NOT JUST ADDING BS TO THE FRONTPAGE NEWS). Nothing's ever changed with the site ever since he took over site ownership. In fact, the site has been in the hands of irresponsible false fans of the series in all its lifespan. I really feel this is the case because the site's been handed down so many times. No fan who started such a dedication would act so irresponsibly, nor lose interest in the series. In fact, the previous owner just added so much irrelevant and invalid nonsense to the site as far as his contributions were concerned.

Now, the current owner somehow disappeared, not willing to answer emails or messages of anybody concerning his site or his responsiblity towards it. The previous owner also partly owns the site right now. He's just as much a douchebag as the current owner.

It's frustrating because his site used to be the number 1 resource for all things Contra. So when he started showing his true colors, about 99% of the Contra series' fans lost interest themselves. What a dick move by him.

I know it's his site and he can do as he pleases, but don't any of you agree that he can send it to better hands for better productivity and better things coming out of the site? I mean, it's absolutely absurd. What about you, guys? Despite him being the owner (as well as the previous prick), shouldn't he do the right thing?

And the thing about what little I could do: All the contacts/friends around this guy are no different from him. They are elitist laptop gangster wannabe's. I emailed the previous owner about this guy's negligence towards his responsiblity of the site, and that guy just says "ummmm, because he's avoiding the site? ask the current owner".

Xyphoe

I've never visited the site before, but looks like it hasn't been updated since 2007 which is a shame!

It's sad but there's nothing you can do about it, apart from either yourself or find someone else willing to take it over and hassle the current owner.

I would tread carefully and try not to throw insults or get angry with them as some people are so sensitive and childish about these things .... which ALL of us now on this forum know very much about *cough*cpczone*cough*  ::)

Gryzor

Hmmm it doesn't look so great to me to begin with. Just a normal, run-of-the-mill site from 2000. Did it ever have a community? In any case, if there are fans and communities around I don't see why not just reproduce the content elsewhere...?

mgman

I'm (partly) sorry for any potential and unintentional reference to the cpczone...

Anyway, that was one of the main problems of the Contra HQ: the design is losing whatever touch the previous owners (and maybe a respectably bigger demographic from the start of 21st century) saw in it.

It indeed did have a community of its own and there was even a community for the currently, but slowly, running Contra Database. Both communities are down. I guess the Contra HQ owner was too cheap to maintain the forum in favor of the series he was more a fan of: Castlevania. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Castlevania at all. But you're not a fan of Contra series when you're devoting 99.999999999% of your time and 100% of your money on maintaining a site for Castlevania series. It's not even a 50-50 thing.

Trust me, I really REALLY REALLY had hope for there to still be fans... back in 2008.

QUICK HISTORY LESSON! Please read, I feel it's important in context...:

After the Contra DB's original site location closed down, I was really hoping the Contra HQ owner would take charge and try to recuperate the dropping fanbase (in 2006). No, instead, he took it upon himself to continue to flood the homepage with walls of text, mostly irrelevant to Contra (and whatever relevance consisted of false promises).

In 2008, when I had the chance (and got fed up with Contra HQ), I created both a fansite and a forum dedicated to Contra. The fansite wasn't much, considering the limitations I had to work with. But the forum was a perfect reel-in to recuperate Contra fans. I advertised it fairly well all around. That's when I realized the fanbase went from about 800 to about 40. Nobody seemed to care. To date, there have been an estimated 20 people who joined my forum. More than half of them are inactive (and most just registered for the sake of it).

It seems hopeless for the Contra fanbase... not even the overwhelming surge of good that came from Contra 4 in late 2007 brought back old faces.

I still run the Contra forum, but it's like a dead cat in there. There are only about four active members and one or two sporadic/on-and-off members.

I also have two blogs dedicated to ALL Contra-related games. I believe you posted a comment over a year ago at one of those blogs, Gryzor...

AMSDOS

Quote from: mgman on 02:30, 13 April 11
I'm (partly) sorry for any potential and unintentional reference to the cpczone...

Anyway, that was one of the main problems of the Contra HQ: the design is losing whatever touch the previous owners (and maybe a respectably bigger demographic from the start of 21st century) saw in it.

It indeed did have a community of its own and there was even a community for the currently, but slowly, running Contra Database. Both communities are down. I guess the Contra HQ owner was too cheap to maintain the forum in favor of the series he was more a fan of: Castlevania. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Castlevania at all. But you're not a fan of Contra series when you're devoting 99.999999999% of your time and 100% of your money on maintaining a site for Castlevania series. It's not even a 50-50 thing.

Trust me, I really REALLY REALLY had hope for there to still be fans... back in 2008.

QUICK HISTORY LESSON! Please read, I feel it's important in context...:

After the Contra DB's original site location closed down, I was really hoping the Contra HQ owner would take charge and try to recuperate the dropping fanbase (in 2006). No, instead, he took it upon himself to continue to flood the homepage with walls of text, mostly irrelevant to Contra (and whatever relevance consisted of false promises).

In 2008, when I had the chance (and got fed up with Contra HQ), I created both a fansite and a forum dedicated to Contra. The fansite wasn't much, considering the limitations I had to work with. But the forum was a perfect reel-in to recuperate Contra fans. I advertised it fairly well all around. That's when I realized the fanbase went from about 800 to about 40. Nobody seemed to care. To date, there have been an estimated 20 people who joined my forum. More than half of them are inactive (and most just registered for the sake of it).

It seems hopeless for the Contra fanbase... not even the overwhelming surge of good that came from Contra 4 in late 2007 brought back old faces.

I still run the Contra forum, but it's like a dead cat in there. There are only about four active members and one or two sporadic/on-and-off members.

I also have two blogs dedicated to ALL Contra-related games. I believe you posted a comment over a year ago at one of those blogs, Gryzor...

I don't really know anything about this or the websites, unfortunately it may only be a sign of the times which is having a bad impact with what's happening with those sites. Somethings only seem to keep on going for ever because the fanbase don't want to see it go, usually that's the only way to keep things alive. I my feeling though is if you can promote to the right audience, it may rekindle interest. Seems annoying though that a site which was managed by someone who didn't have an interest in that particular thing should have had control of it in the first place!  ???
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Gryzor

I have a question; without meaning to be disrespectful or offending, what would be the array of topics and how much discussion could a game like Contra generate? I mean, it's a series of action games, and there's only so much that can be said. Even bigger games (like RPGs etc) have a natural life ending, the more so for much simpler games... so maybe there's just no interest for it?

I mean, I just love Gryzor (right? :D ). But for how long could I keep discussing it?

mgman

#6
Some areas of interest:

Discussing what we like in the games, our favorite/least favorite games in the series, new interesting info we find out about any of the games in the series (I've been finding out so much on my own as it is), technical details about any of the games (the data of the ROM), trivial information, offering strategies, helping those who need it for any part of a level or boss or whatever, upcoming releases, giving reviews, discussing overseas version differences, fan-made games, ROM hacking scene (ips, etc), the pirated/unlicensed scene (which can be VERY big) relating to Contra, every single version/port can be discussed if any of them interest the guys, speedrunning competitions, tying up loose ends, etc...

There were a few who did so... And if new members were joining, the amount of topics created for each kind of category would be adequate, to be honest. Back when Contra Database's forum was around, it was consistenly active. People were posting topics on the Contra series like I've never seen before.

Do you know how many versions/ports of the game are out there to talk about?

MacDeath

Reminds me of that RickDangerous un-updated site where the guy enter the typical douchery of claiming the speccy is better than the CPC on this one...

Another colourblindness. ;)

Xyphoe

Quote from: MacDeath on 05:58, 14 April 11
Reminds me of that RickDangerous un-updated site where the guy enter the typical douchery of claiming the speccy is better than the CPC on this one...

Another colourblindness. ;)

HAHAHA!

If it's the site I think you're talking about, I know this guy very well indeed .... I went to Uni with him and see him around at pubs / metal gigs here where I live. Just in case he ever reads this forum I won't pass any personal comment, but ummm.... lets just say he's very stuck in his ways and opinions, nearly all of which I don't agree on.... A lot of my friends think he's a very strange guy indeed.

He even thought the RD128+ reworking was still not as good as the Speccy version!  ???

*facepalm*

MacDeath

#9
*doublefacepalm*

Wow... this would even need a *triplefullbodypalm*. :laugh:
It's no just a douche but a full monsoon showering the full world.




anyway...
a "Gryzor fansite" just must be wrong...

because this is actually not a Gryzor fansite but a "Contora" website.
(Engrish for Contra)

remember this game had shittons of local variants such as... probotector... (because robots killing is less violent than Soldiers killing...d'uh!)

And most of all, this is a "consolefag" and Nintendorks matter after all... "Weabbos" to be more precise.

They don't even know about the Amstrad CPC's awesome version...
or would go the classic "dudes, where is the scrolling ?" douchery.

AMSDOS

What's funny about this is if you replace the word "Game" with the word "Operating System" and you find people are still talking about CP/M some 30 years after it was released!  :laugh: 
CP/M's rival (UNIX) which is like 40 years old is also popular topic of discussion!  ??? 
Don't hear too much about OS/360, probably cause everyone moved to BASIC, Pascal, C, C++ & Assembly a long time ago and couldn't be bothered using Fortran!  :laugh:  (Not enough Real Programmers to warrant enough interest!  :laugh: )
* Using the old Amstrad Languages :D   * with the Firmware :P
* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

Home Computing Weekly Programs
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Your Computer Programs
Updated Other Program Links on Profile Page (Update April 16/15 phew!)
Programs for Turbo Pascal 3

mgman

Quote from: MacDeath on 09:37, 14 April 11
And most of all, this is a "consolefag" and Nintendorks matter after all... "Weabbos" to be more precise.

They don't even know about the Amstrad CPC's awesome version...
or would go the classic "dudes, where is the scrolling ?" douchery.

I really hate when they point out the lack of scrolling as a complaint.

TFM

The CPC has a good hardware scrolling in both X and Y. And it's not hard to use it.
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

redbox

Quote from: TFM/FS on 17:53, 14 April 11
The CPC has a good hardware scrolling in both X and Y. And it's not hard to use it.


You say this every time.


And again, I will say, yes TFM, it's really easy to scroll the CPC screen using the hardware.  The hard part comes in calculating everything again once you've scrolled.  ::)

I'm still looking forward to Fano's article on this (based on his discussions with Longshot).  ;)

mgman

Alright, can we please stop derailing this thread any further?

TFM

Quote from: mgman on 13:50, 15 April 11
Alright, can we please stop derailing this thread any further?

Well, if the headline of a thread already contains the word 'Idiots' and in case you already insulted these hompage owners serveral times - then I seriously think it's more productive to discuss Scrolling with Redpoint. But - alright - we do this in another thread.

So please go on about the old topic...
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

mgman

#16
Because I think it's justifiable, considering their wrongdoings.

If my judgement about them is faulty, prove me wrong by showing them different.

TFM

I don't inted to proove you wrong, and you will have good reasons for your opinion. But I think it's a tough one. In live things always have more that two sides. Like Gryzor once said never judge. Ok, that doesn't make it easier for you ;)  But staying on the original topic here, what do you think can be done?
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

mgman

#18
The only solution is ideal. In other words, it's not practical and not probable given the circumstances (I'll explain later). What ought to have been done was if enough people grouped up to speak their common voice about the matter. And now for the explanation:

Of course, this solution is only feasible if there ARE more than 4 or 5 people who actually still care about the series to the point that they care how unfaithful fansites are hurting the fanbase. There are only 4 or 5 of these people (at least it seems that way... the internet is immense OF COURSE so there might be more out there who just don't know there are others who feel similarly...?). That whole thing, and the fact that the thick-headed site owners are arrogant, ignorant and busy with other things to be caring about people's opinions of what they're (ir)responsible for. And it doesn't help that they've created an immense following of equally characteristic yes-men to further shield the truth from exposure.

So the only thing is here: What do you guys have to say about this matter in the sense that: Is there any justification to what these guys are doing? Moreover, to the problems they've created?

Gryzor

There needn't be any justification or explanation. As our own short history has shown, people will sometimes act in very weird ways and hurt the efforts of many others for no apparent reason whatsoever. Go figure. People carry lots of luggage.

But, well, why not move on? Our own scene has had two major meltdowns and each time it continued stronger than before, in another place. So...?

mgman

That would be a good idea, had there been enough supporters. It seems people not only have moved on from the Contra HQ, but from the series itself.

I don't know about you, but I really don't believe that would have happened had the site maintainers not been so negligent.

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