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[Eagle of Fire]

In the last few years I've become more and more convinced that this site first goal have been kind of hijacked by other, "more modern" goals.

It is really hard right now to seriously discuss old games on this board without someone stepping in and trashing the place up with new games speech. God forbid this is actually an old game site which is supposed to focus on DOS games.

Not that long ago I supported Abandonia.com with all I had. I know a few places on the net where people don't talk kindly about this site at all. Right now I simply dropped any support and I'm probably about to join those few places up instead.

[arete]

Um, "more modern" goals? All gaming is "modern" by default. You don't see stone age computers, do you? Why do we always have to nitpick about crap? Why do people get so upset and outraged when other people disagree with them about things? Surely those other people have just as much right to hold their opinion as you do?

Abandonia does desperately need a simplified review-submission process. But I honestly don't know how to make it simplified in a way that doesn't discourage the casual site visitor. The registration bug is really damaging our ability to gain new members. People get fed up and stop trying. And these deep site problems are not the fault of the crew. The crew doesn't own the site, they just try to run it in a sort of vacuum, and blaming the very people who put so much effort into what actually does get on site (the active admins and updaters, for instance) is actually a bit rich. At least, that's my view of things.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by florianix

The point that I also agree to is that the advertisements seem to be more than necessary to host a site like this.
For me the combination of the fact that there is a company behind it (usually with the aim to earn money for someone), so many advertisements and then asking for donations - that left me with a bad feeling.
There a a lot of people spending a lot of time and doing a great job contributing to the site. And that should not happen to generate profit for a company without beeing clear to all those.
For me this is not clear enough as the imprint or statement that its a company seems to be hidden quite well.

I'm in contact with the company and it's clear that the site costs can't be easily covered with those ads and donations, especially if you consider the help we are receiving from their Web Programmer, he must be paid after all like all the other employees they have.

I'm not defending them, their choices and policies can't be defined as great or particularly smart, but I can say I received their support in the last years, if you want to know more about them it's all here:
http://www.abovomedia.com/index2.html

Regarding bugs we have just released the quiz again giving a look at the possible problems, now we are working on the browser caching issue, after that we will also give a look at registrations.

Little steps forward, but we are still moving.

[Eagle of Fire]

And these deep site problems are not the fault of the crew. The crew doesn't own the site, they just try to run it in a sort of vacuum,

Yup, I agree with the first part of this quote. And frankly I think the second part of the quote is a very big part of the problem right now. I'm not actually blaming anybody for leaving the site to a company or whatever but it is clear that the site is not really directed by the true owners, who should be the admins in charge here.

This lead to the impression that everything is simply kept alive artificially and destroy the "community" which was one of the prime positive point of this site in the past. Without that then this site simply become a download site and there is nothing much to be expected from users from that perspective.

[Japo]

As much as I dislike Abovo and what they're doing with the website, the reason Kosta sold it is because he couldn't continue working on it. So the choice was between what we have and the website disappearing, like so many hobby websites after the owner gets tired, like HOTU for example.

As much as the crew does together, we don't do everything necessary to keep the website up, starting of course with paying for it or making it self-sustainable. Running a website is easier said than done.

[Eagle of Fire]

You guys keep rehearsing that all the time since a few years. That might be true but it doesn't help at all in this situation. Worse, it give me the impression that nobody really care in the end even though I'm pretty sure it is not the case.

I don't really have anything else to add than what I said above so I guess I'll simply keep my presence in this thread short. No point to whine about it on my end either, I simply wanted to point it out.

[florianix]

Originally Posted by Dave

I'm in contact with the company and it's clear that the site costs can't be easily covered with those ads and donations, especially if you consider the help we are receiving from their Web Programmer, he must be paid after all like all the other employees they have.

I'm not defending them, their choices and policies can't be defined as great or particularly smart, but I can say I received their support in the last years, if you want to know more about them it's all here:
http://www.abovomedia.com/index2.html

For sure if there is a professional working for the site, this will cost more money than can be covered by the donations.

Nevertheless, the combination of a community spending lots of effort into that site on the one side and a company that will earn money with it on the other side leaves a somehow bad taste (at least for me).
If people contributing to the site know about that it is a commercial project, it is ok, however.
But I am not sure how many know it - as there is no clear indication that this is a commercial project of that company. The statement that the "coding" is by Abovomedia could even be called misleading in that context.

I would consider a clear comment on the homepage fair.

[Tracker]

As a member who recently got closer to the staff (somewhere halfway between regulars and admins), I can tell you that I actually was aware of this situation a long time ago. We earn money for others by working for free, voluntarily - but we also work for the community, otherwise this site would be cancelled, because the company I guess does not have interest in spending money on this site if it is not mandatory. It would be much easier for them to shut it down, mostly because there's always a risk of being sued for hosting illegal software, and, the funny thing is, the copyright holders would more likely sue the company behind the site rather than users alone I think.
All I'm trying to say is, we're pretty much aware of the current status of the site, and even if we don't necessarily agree with it, there's no much we could do other than keeping it alive for those who enjoy it. Just my two cents.

[Smiling Spectre]

Speaking about reviews... I could make some of them, but there are several problems. Two main ones are - my lacking abilities to tell my thoughts clear, short and in interesting way, and second - bad English. Being Russian have it's upsides, but it also fogs my words even more than it was initially.

As I suspecting that there is no editors who can correct my faults, I am not even trying to write reviews.

[Japo]

Originally Posted by Smiling Spectre

As I suspecting that there is no editors who can correct my faults, I am not even trying to write reviews.

We do have the squad, they edit every review before we add it to the website.