The History of Gamoe.net

Introduction

When I started this website in late 2000, MySpace and FaceBook were not yet around and everyone who wanted to say something had his own website on Geocities, Angelfire, or some other such free service, or on the web space provided by his ISP.

My intent was to make a personal site about me, and the things I loved, to share with the world. Indeed, I did do this and had various sections on the sites categorized by content, including tributes to people I admire and entire section dedicated to hyperlinks (as was often customary back in the day).

My first real web site dedicated fully to one topic was the Apple II Beginner's Guide, which I actually made before starting this website, when I myself was on my ISP's web space, and then improved upon it later. This unintentionally became the focal point of my website, as the links and search term and page hit stats made abundantly clear to me.

Web sites were beginning to become much more sophisticated and I started testing out CMSs and other database driven systems. Since the beginning I had wanted to keep some kind of blog on my site, and it was apparent to me I needed a better system than directly editing HTML pages and re-uploading them. The Apple II section was still the most popular, though.

Apple2Guide.net

As such, I finally reworked the Apple II Beginner's Guide into a wiki, running on MediaWiki software in late 2005 and spun it out into it's own website with it's own domain name, Apple2Guide.net in early 2006. I had registered the domain years before, and I figured it was time to use it.

To me, this was the most logical way to proceed-- there are much older, more knowledgeable people that could add and expand on more topics on the website, while my contribution would be an initial body of work, a platform onto which to add more knowledge, and management of the site.

After announcing Apple2Guide.net, many Apple II fans came and really contributed to the site. I find an open source copyright (or copyleft) license best for open collaborations like these, and I put the content of Apple2Guide.net such a license. This allowed contributors to pull something from Wikipedia (which they had sometimes written themselves) or another copyleft source and add to it. I encouraged contributors to do so, but not to to make a direct copy and paste, which, in my view, was contrary to purposes and spirit of the site.

Apple2Guide.net got many original contributions from sources familiar and still working with Apple IIs, both in text and photographs. We also got some re-worked, corrected and expanded content originally from Wikipedia.

Not long after though, naysayers came out and labeled the site obsolete in light of the mighty Wikipedia. Their logic went somewhat like this: Wikipedia exists, so surely every other wiki is redundant and/or obsolete.

This logic is unsound, of course. Well distributed systems fare much better more often, and it is unwise to charge one site with virtually every piece of general information. Besides, I believe smaller sites are better at fostering communities and solving their own problems more quickly and efficiently.

However, my application of copyleft, though vital, was a double-edged sword, and the indirect cause of it's undoing. I found that practically all the original, distinguishing content of the site was being quickly exported and integrated into Wikipedia. It was fair; It's a two-way street. But it was still disheartening to see, especially in the way it was being done by many: out of spite.

Still, I had a good amount of supporters, who were not just willing to cheer me on and contribute content-wise, but even willing to pay to help the site. Once I accidentally deleted the database, and a few came together to send me the money I needed to ask my host to recover the backup for me. The site even got to be listed on none other than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's site, Woz.org as a "favorite link", with a 5-star rating, among many other sites in the Apple II community.

Pulling the Plug

So it was with some shame that I finally, though not intentionally, pulled the plug on Apple2Guide.net after an unsuccessful and delayed wiki upgrade. I realized that I did not posses the motivation or commitment to maintaining the site, especially considering my considerable frustration with database driven web apps, which are difficult to back and restore, in my experience.

Nevertheless, I feel that the loss of the site was not a great loss for the Apple II community. There are other, and much more comprehensive Apple II databases, with longer roots. And though the Apple II will always be dear to my heart as my first and in some ways, most pleasant experience with a computer, and certainly something to preserve in knowledge, emulation and museums, I feel it is most certainly a dead-end for me, not something I want to personally charge myself with any longer, as I look towards the future and life demands more of me.

That said, I have not totally ruled out a revival of Apple2Guide.net. In fact, though I am not personally interested in managing the site anymore, I would like to "pass the torch" as it goes, to anyone interested. I would hand over the domain, and I would try once again to rebuild the database. I do still have the last database backup. I sent an e-Mail about this a long while back to what I thought would be an interested party, back never got back a reply, so the offer is still available to anyone who is genuinely interested and capable.

The rest of Gamoe.net

The site really started back in 1999, living on my ISP's included web space, but did not earn its own domain name until late 2000. In 2003 Gamoe.net was registered and became the primary domain name of the site. As is evident, the Apple II guide, in whichever incarnation, became the unintended focal point of the site. But it was always my intention to enhance the site with additional original (and hopefully valuable) content.

For most of its life Gamoe.net had a Tribute section with memorial pages to people I admire who had passed on. This also included a tribute to those fallen in the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, which I wrote and uploaded that day and the really tragic loss of the Columbia shuttle crew.

Gamoe.net also started out with a hyperlinks section which I named "Neat 'Net Links", for sites of friends and good content. I also experimented with a few different things, probably most notably, MacGUI, a little website with software listings and links to GUI enhancement apps for the Mac and reviews, whenever possible.

That count of course, does not include the less than successful trial runs of several other web sites, including Blogyzine, a "magazine blog" I could never get enough people involved, a forum for the self described "A Thinker's Group", as well as a local city-based forum I hoped would connect people (it did not, as practically nobody signed up), and XOforall.com (now named XOforall.info) which I was even interviewed about, a site about the One Laptop Per Child initiative, a project which I followed with great enthusiasm, but in my opinion has gone very wrong.

Gamoe.net Today

That brings us back to today. If you've actually read from the beginning up to here, congratulations. Gamoe.net has been with me in some form or another for about ten years now, so it is obviously of some importance to me, especially when I consider all the hours I've put into it or thinking about it over the years. Hey, even if you skimmed a little, I still appreciate it.

Thing is, these days the personal website is somewhat dated. Social networking tools have outmoded the entire concept. Sites like MySpace and FaceBook, in spite of all the privacy and security risks, make connecting with other people much easier, even with those not as technically inclined. It's much more probable that busy family and friends will sign up for a social networking site and add you as a friend than all make their own websites, upload and install the proper software and link to you and each other.

Of course, as a more technically inclined person, one could put up a blog and manage to keep people in touch with tools like Twitter, RSS and site APIs. But I've found that I've no desire in dealing with online database management for fun. Constant updates to patch vulnerabilities and backup issues are beyond what I wish to deal with on a regular basis merely to express myself through words (and images occasionally), as I am doing right now.

In fact, it is one of the issues I have come about with websites. A website is suppose to be an informational service, created for the purpose of expression. Yet, it becomes at once a technical tool, such that every time you wish to enhance your capabilities for expression (upgrades, etc.), it becomes a more complicated tool which may begin to hamper your time and ability for expression.

I like technical challenges, and I like writing and expressing myself, but I do not wish my capability of expression to become dependent and potentially hampered by the technical. TV producers don't have to know how cameras work, camera manufacturers don't need to worry about directing a film. Writers need not know how to produce paper and pencils. Paper and pencil makers need not worry about writing novels. Am I getting across clearly enough?

Which is why today, coincidentally Memorial day here in the U.S., I am re-working Gamoe.net as a blog on Blogger.com. The technical side is still there, of course, but I need not worry about it. I can read about and study it without fear of deleting a database or finishing an upgrade on time.

I am hoping it will work out. I generally like Google, and I believe I do need to refocus the site. I make no promises. This might be the most boring blog you've ever ran into. But maybe not. We'll see. To old friends and new visitors: Welcome to the new Gamoe.net.