Buffyverse Music Video Database up for new ownership
The current maintainers of the BMVD (heresluck and boniblithe) have decided to give up responsibility for the site. If we can find new maintainers willing to take it on, we're happy to pass along information and backups; if not, we'll be retiring the site.
This decision was prompted by two things:
1) The database crashed recently, as it occasionally does, and the usual quick fix didn't work. The database itself is intact, but it'll require some attention to get back up and running, and the prospect made me realize how tired I am of dealing with a database that I myself never use anymore.
2) It's time to renew the site's hosting, which boniblithe has been paying for since the site's inception in 2002. (The domain name is registered for a while, so the hosting is the only thing that would need to be taken care of.)
So we posed ourselves the question: Given the rise of LJ and YouTube and links lists on del.icio.us, and given the wane of mailing list culture (specifically the relative lack of traffic on Nummy Treat, the list to which the BMVD is linked), is the BMVD still serving a useful purpose, or should it disappear?
There are still vids being posted to the database, but not many. This is not surprising, given that both Buffy and Angel have been off the air for several years and the number of new vids has gone down correspondingly. There are still visitors to the site (certainly my own site still gets hits from it), but the number's been going down every month for the last year: 20,000 visitors last May, only 7,000 last month, with a steady decline over the intervening months.
We feel fairly certain that interest has been waning partly because the database itself is a mess: it needs to have dead and broken links fixed or removed, it needs additional search terms (like Ilyria) added to the database and to the Quicksearch function (and existing vids updated with that information), it needs a software update (which I have downloaded but never got around to implementing), it could use a makeover from someone with more graphics skills than we have. These things are not difficult, but they would be time-consuming, and we are spending our time elsewhere these days.
boniblithe and I have decided to let the Buffyverse vidding community help us make this decision. If anyone's interested in paying for the site and maintaining the database, we're happy to pass it along to the next generation of managers. If the interest isn't there, we'll take it as a sign that the BMVD has reached the end of its natural lifespan.
If you're interested, or if you have questions or want more info, you can comment to this post or email me privately (heresluck at gmail dot com).
[x-posted to vidding, fan_vids, jossversecinema, boniblithe's journal, and my journal]
This decision was prompted by two things:
1) The database crashed recently, as it occasionally does, and the usual quick fix didn't work. The database itself is intact, but it'll require some attention to get back up and running, and the prospect made me realize how tired I am of dealing with a database that I myself never use anymore.
2) It's time to renew the site's hosting, which boniblithe has been paying for since the site's inception in 2002. (The domain name is registered for a while, so the hosting is the only thing that would need to be taken care of.)
So we posed ourselves the question: Given the rise of LJ and YouTube and links lists on del.icio.us, and given the wane of mailing list culture (specifically the relative lack of traffic on Nummy Treat, the list to which the BMVD is linked), is the BMVD still serving a useful purpose, or should it disappear?
There are still vids being posted to the database, but not many. This is not surprising, given that both Buffy and Angel have been off the air for several years and the number of new vids has gone down correspondingly. There are still visitors to the site (certainly my own site still gets hits from it), but the number's been going down every month for the last year: 20,000 visitors last May, only 7,000 last month, with a steady decline over the intervening months.
We feel fairly certain that interest has been waning partly because the database itself is a mess: it needs to have dead and broken links fixed or removed, it needs additional search terms (like Ilyria) added to the database and to the Quicksearch function (and existing vids updated with that information), it needs a software update (which I have downloaded but never got around to implementing), it could use a makeover from someone with more graphics skills than we have. These things are not difficult, but they would be time-consuming, and we are spending our time elsewhere these days.
boniblithe and I have decided to let the Buffyverse vidding community help us make this decision. If anyone's interested in paying for the site and maintaining the database, we're happy to pass it along to the next generation of managers. If the interest isn't there, we'll take it as a sign that the BMVD has reached the end of its natural lifespan.
If you're interested, or if you have questions or want more info, you can comment to this post or email me privately (heresluck at gmail dot com).
[x-posted to vidding, fan_vids, jossversecinema, boniblithe's journal, and my journal]