Do we need more websites or just better ones?

[Machrito]

Well this des seems to think its personal, look what she posted as comment

"All I have left to say is this, I won't keep responded to your comments on any site anymore, seems alot of people are supporting us despite what you think. PalTec is here to STAY, so get used to it. If you want to be childish and not support us, fine, but we vowed to support everyone without prejudice."

Why is she attacking you anyway ater all the hard work? And I can't find anywhere that you don't support her site just saying people should work togehter. I think this person needs to see a doctor!

[maarten]

In the last year or so its been very popular to start a Palace "support" website. What motivated people to do so remains a mystery to me, personally I think there a couple of very good support sites out there that just need a bit more help.

Especially the Directory websites confuse me, not just because I don't know what they are for, but mostly why anyone would want to make another directory if we already have a Palace tools live directory.

Here is a bit of email traffic:

The confusing directories are all the new Palace directory sites that popup when we have a fully featured Palace live directory at www.Palacetools.com

So I think its a bad idea to make new sites where new people will sign up thinking theyr Palace is on the public directory. You take the risk of having a whole group of people on Palace who know nothing about the Palacetools directory, wich has been the lifeblood of this community for years.

If you look at the directory you can see there are around 2200 people max online at any given time. With 1605 Palace servers that check into the directory. How thin do we need to spread this community anyway? :)

The problem is very basic: we have a few sites out there that work, you know them, we all know them:

http://www.thepalace.com
http://www.palacetools.com
http://practice.chatserve.com
http://www.palaceplanet.net


This is not about how many years anyone did anything, the people behind these sites are volunteers who have all been on Palace helping people for 8 years or more.

These websites are setup as starting points to point people in the right direction. They have contact options to tell them about outdated links. They are there and work because people put months of theyr time and energy into them nothing more. But they are also incomplete because to many people decide to "build theyr own" instead of continuing the work thats been done.

So the point is simple: we need less websites more cooperation and better promotion. and probably less Palace servers hah ahem oh well.

So how do they come to the Palace? What is the place they end up first? Well I'm pretty sure 90% of the people wil discover Palace through www.thepalace.com.

Its the site that pops up when you look for avatar chat, so this is the site we should focus on. Now most people might think this means getting theyr sites linked on thepalace.com. I think this means putting all good resource sites INCLUDING the palacetools directory in one site based at www.thepalace.com. Make it a complete site with everything in one place.

Its not easy, palaceplanet started out as a couple of links pages with the simple goal of being the perfect Palace starting point. Just a few months later Communities desides to quit Palace. Working on promoting Palacetools and getting that site finished became more important. We had a lot of fun working together especially during the solidarity event (pics can be found in the gallery: http://gallery.palaceplanet.net look in the album Postcards, sub album Solidatiry weekend)

There is nothing egotistical about pointing out it is a beter idea to support the existing sites and give them your input. We are all in the same boat here, its all volunteer work, nobody is gonna get anything out of this. Not even if you abuse the private message system of someone elses site like some lamers do :)

It always makes me wonder why anyone would want to redo all the work thats been done. Whats so terrible about thepalace.com, palacetools and palaceplanet that it needs a replacement or another version of the same thing? The only bad thing I can see about them is that they should be one site and not 3.


So what do you think, would you want to support the sites that are there or would you prefer to make your own?



p.s.

About taking things personal: Consider this in the past 4 years I have spend around 350 full working days and 2800$ on the site (yeah you might wonder how hah... it still needs twice as much work) And here comes somebody new pretending this site doesn't even exist and calling all site builders egotistical for having something that works. Thank you very much indeed, you think that shouldn't be taken personally?

[Machrito]

Not sure what you mean about taking things personal but i think people in palace should cooperate more. It has always been my feeling that a few really good sites will keep users intrested and active and have never liked these wannabe websites that popup pretending to be something we need.

Palacetools was my favorite and now i spend most of my visits on palaceplanet, I think you can add a lot more stuff to this site to make it complete but my guess is this takes time and people who want to help out. I have checked out this new paltec site and think its pretty pathetic especially after reading the comments des posted on the pdg list. If anyone is egocentric its that ***moderated*** and we don't need people like this in our community.

[maarten]

Hi

Well to be honest I don't know the "people like this" very well and I don't believe in personal attacks on the internet because you pretty much don't know anyone really anyway.

So I don't think its going to help anyone by telling us who should be in this community and who shouldn't. The point is simple: no matter how good the intentions are working together is what we need most right now.

Actually Palaceplanet started out as a bunch of html pages and has grown to one ofthe most popular sites. I still think it could and should have been more complete but this is a matter of time and energy, by spreading this out across loads of little sites we loose a lot and gain confusion.

If there was a portal like Palaceplanet before I started work on this site I would have joined it and helped out. ( I did with Palacetools until developement of that site stopped) Its all volunteer work and we all have real lives afterall.

[Kassie]

So much to write, so few words in my addled brain.

A little about me. I am co-owner of the Golden Oldies Directory (GO Members) as well as GO Directory Tours, EasyPalace.net hosting, Adult Radio, GO Learning Center, and Cygestolia (formerly Deep in the Forest).

I didn't found GO Members, I took it over mid-stream. GO has gotten some bad press because of our voting system. However, unlike other directories out there, GO gives incentive for people to go out there and meet new people to chat with. With the 100,000 hits we get on the site per month, we offer a lot of exposure for member Palaces. We don't have voting to define the "best" Palace. "Best" is subjective.

However, many GO Members who vote frequently do tend to stop and chat a while at several palaces a day. That's what it is really all about... incentive to chat. Palace is CHAT, when you strip away all the scripts, props and room graphics. We are here to connect with other people. That gets lost sometimes, because (face it) Palace scripts and graphics are very cool.

I am not a particularly popular person in the Palace community, I am still new to this. I am out-spoken and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. When a friend and I took over the GO directory, several Palaces left GO and new directories/forums popped up overnight. They claimed to be the "fair" or "friendly" or "equality" directory. (Fair and friendly are two more very subjective words.) I didn't get upset. I wished them well. I still do. I didn't ban them from my directory, and one of the newer directory owners still has a listing on GO.

I think that if all directory/forum/help site owners got together and sat down in one room, had a meeting, and set aside competitiveness, we would find that we all have the best interests of Palaceland at heart. I think we could come up with new and interesting ways to serve the Palace community. I, for one, am more than willing to do this. (Yes, this is an invitation - or some might say a challenge - to everyone!)

Kassie Thayer
Co-Owner of
www.goldenoldiesdirectory.com
www.godirectorytours.com
www.easypalace.net
www.adultradio.net
golearningcenter.easypalace.net:9998
cygestolia.easypalace.net:9998

[maarten]

So this means you are ready to help us out at Palaceplanet? Thats great, we can use all the help we can get.

Actually I tried to get as many people together as possible in the past. But all of them ran off to do their own version. And sadly all of those sites have died and gone.

The only time it actually worked was when I asked Bond to merge our two Palace server mailling lists. So we have a single Palace server help list. After 4 years thats the only time it actually worked out.

The problem still remains: most people who come here to advertise websites.
Usually in the wrong way, because if anyone wants to actually help out all they need to do is submit those links and articles to Palace Planet.

Organise something and we willput your article on the frontpage. As for hits, I think almost 20 million hits over 3.5 years is not a bad. That gives Palace Planet an average of 460,000 hits a month. But the funny fact still remains, even with 7550 members only a few actually post anything. Either to promote or ask a question. Almost never to help someone else or to add anything to the site.

So my conclusion is Palace is a selfish community where people only act when they need to or get something out of it. And this includes attention or the appearance of being important.



:twisted:

[Kassie]

You and I differ on a few points, Marteen.

One, I did not offer to volunteer at Palaceplanet, although I would consider it, but not without a list of your guidelines, a copy of your mission statement, etc. (Did I miss the link to your posting guidelines?)

Two, you use the word "wrong" which is just another subjective term. Without a point of reference, it is very hard to agree with such a harsh judgement. Again, if you could point out the list of your posting guidelines, it would be of great of help.

Three, 2 million hits in 3.5 years is great! You're reaching a lot of people, and it shows you've put a lot time and effort into what you do. But, you may want to check your math (46,000 per month instead of 460,000).

Four, I would beg to disagree that Palace is a selfish community. If I thought that, I wouldn't be Palacing at all. The very nature of Palace itself, as I have seen it in my admitttedly short time Palacing (20 months) doesn't allow for a lot of selfishness. One must commit time, effort, and a certain amount of money to run a Palace, a directory, or help site, or anything that offers SOMETHING to the community.

You seem jaded, and I suppose that is why your post is so combative (reference your last paragraph). However, as you do have strong opinions, I will ask for your opinion on a time and date for the meeting I suggested above. It would be of great help if you could forward your suggestion to my email: kassie@easypalace.net

Thank you for taking the time to post a reply, and thank you in advance for your consideration.

Kassie Thayer

[r_leeds2003]

Hey.

I agree with both of you and a lot of comments. Firstly Palace Planet has become my favourite site for palace menagerie. Especially due to the fact that Palacetools is NEVER working anymore. But i think Palace Planet should be a bit more ripe with Developement help, as i have been making a server for the past month or so and i have needed all the help i could get.

A few more Script Pages, and some more developement tools wouldn't go a miss.

Also i couldn't find a way to actually contact you personally (via. a contact us page or whatever).

So, basically i like the site and it has helped me a great deal, but it could do with some improving in cirtain area's.

Finally, i think that people will be only too willing to help if they can, but you have to ask for it. In today's society not many people offer their services freely due to being busy and a basic lack of time.

Rob L

[maarten]

Well I'm glad you like the site, its been a lot of work and determination. And yes your right it needs a lot more work to become an even better Palace portal. But this is up to anyone who wants to help, Palaceplanet is an open website, anyone can add theyr news, views and scripts.

There are several things we need:

A good newcomers guide for client and server on site.
A good prop tutorial
A good room making tutorial

And of course a lot of info about scripting. The script archive itself is open for anyone to post theyr scripts. Just like the forum, news, links, top list, articles on any topic and the gallery.


In the past 4 years I asked everybody I ever met in my 8 years on Palace to help out. Thats a lot of people and so far the effect has been pretty strange. Basically everybody said yes great idea but in all the years only 8 people actually added or donated something to the site. 6 where people I never asked hah. So sorry but I'm not asking anyone anymore.

The people I asked all vanished after theyr lovely promises for whatever reason. So now I think its up to the ones who actually just want to help out and DO something instead of talk about it.


But like you said Rob time is a problem, I ran out of time to continue work on Palace Planet, these days I only have time to rant a bit on the forum.


As for the mission statement:
A: Hah don't be so bloody pretentious, this is a volunteer website made ages ago to help out people not a company website :)
B: Get as much info on a web site for people to find without asking for anything in return. Palace is about choice, inform the users so they can make a choice.

Posting guidelines are simple: use common sense, everybody reads this site. My personal rule is simple: if I need to explain to you how to behave your better of staying away from the forum :)

A while back a stupid snet kid made a Palace help site. He said he was going to help out Palaceplanet, instead he put over a 100 private messages in the private message system. Inviting people to come to his empty site. Thats what I meant when I said some people use the wrong way to promote. He could have submitted an article and a link, talk about it in the Forum. But nope that would be just to easy. Or perhaps to public, or even feel like contributing to someone elses work.

Oh well, anyway if you got a story, a link, a download or anything Palace related you would like to add please do. Its what the site is made for.


p.s.

If you need to reach me just try my name on this domain or any of the 3 really :)

[Hidalgo]

To help you and this site I will submit as many weblinks and new items as I can think off.

Viva Palace planet!