Is Apolyton still the biggest Civ site?

[DanQ]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I understand that, it wasn't meant to sound critical, I just said what I observed.

And I do understand that as well.

Well, that might be true, the news part is fast and up to date. What I meant is more that the news is never unique or special. It's news you can find anywhere.

Indeed, what you've said here hits on one of if not the main underlying reason I stopped driving Apolyton's news department so hard and turned my energies elsewhere on-site.

There was little to no feedback, little to no interest (demonstrated), neglible traffic for news here for the ~6 1/2 years I was in the news' "driver seat" and further no concerns communicated to me when our news department began to slow down and quite quickly. That said, while I was/we were reporting on news you could find elsewhere, you would be hard pressed to find it covered as comprehensively and timely as it was here (and can still be where resources permit. I eventually began to draw the conclusion, and still hold to it, that many more go to a) forums and/or b) larger gaming sites for their gaming news, Civ or otherwise, than Civ fan-sites.

Though having said that, the apolycon coverage and the civ warlords preview videos were unique and good and special.

Thank you kindly. ApolyCon video coverage continues!

I agree that those secsions are quality sections, and there's nothing wrong with them. I just think that a site that focusses on too much subjects will lose appeal to a lot of visitors. It's a decision you guys have to make. Do you really want to be a home for those few CTP guys.

There is more than enough room on Apolyton to cover titles that fall under our (self-mediated) pervue regardless of whether they cater to 100 or 10,000 persons [arbitrary numbers chosen here]. Why not offer a home to the Call to Power community as well as the 'direct' Civ line? Whether they choose to occupy the home at all, or for how long, well... we're addressing those points elsewhere here.

I think people got the feeling more and more that apolyton is a tbs/world builder fan site, civfanatics is a civilization fansite.

At its 'core' Apolyton is a Civ fansite, but it extends beyond than that. We cover Civ-related titles that are almost but not entirely turn-based (re: Rise of Nations), not in the 'direct' Civ line but can trace their roots -- their core -- back to Civ in one significant fashion or another. At least in our estimation.

I hope you didn't read my comments as hars critisism, that's not how I intended it. I just tried to give my opinion and how I think that things may improve. I might be very wrong though. And I understand that resources are limited.

Harsh? Not at all -- it was well measured. Primarily I wanted to clarify or contextualize a few of the points you raised and discussed.

[q]That's the difficult part. I would love it to contribute but my time is limited as well. [..][/QUOTE]
I should clarify myself en masse that those who help make Apolyton what it has been, is and will be are not simply those on staff: it's the community here as a whole. What I was getting at specifically was, yes, those individuals that are willing, able and follow through in taking on a staff role.

Constructive criticism is a necessary basis for me to engage in a discussion with someone on something -- and I admit I have had to learn the hard way in the past. This is made all the better when suggestions for practical, reasoned solutions accompany or or otherwise borne out of those discussion. Being apart of those solutions can almost always be big, small or somewhere in between; certainly, "big" help is difficult -- and understandably so -- to come by.

--------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[Lancer]

Hmm, lets see, post something helpful that won't get deleted or earn me another unbelievably superior and nasty PM, that's not a forbidden subject...such a challenge...Hmm...

I find it alot easier to understand, access, and use CivFanatics download section. I've been downloading from there for years now for that reason. Is this why more modders post their stuff there?

[Sparrowhawk]

Who could have guessed that TCO would pose a semi-serious question adn that two senior (senior meaning how long they have been mods, their respective roles w/Apolyton or their age I don't know) would end out debating (read: flaming) each other over semantics.

Perhaps that is the best answer to TCO's question. That is what Apolyton has become

But I don't know anything about civfanatics, don't ever intend to, and still intend to keep paying for my membership for the foreseeable future so I am not complaining. (though I think I originally bought that membership to get a larger PM box and it still isn't big enough ).

/me

[Lancer]

Is this what the strategy thread in the admin forum looks like?...

"If all the Civ stuff is better at CivFanatics, I suggest we use a nasty mod to treat the OT people like **** and continue to demean them by not having their posts count. THAT will will bring Poly back!"

If a ship is sinking and the captain continues to fiddle, it's time to think about other transportation.

http://forums.mzocentral.net//index.php?act=idx

I haven't had even one deleted thread or one demeaning PM in the time since I *ahem* left this site. For me, a new record. A week or two? This is like Poly in the old days! I'm Freeeeee!

So what am I doing here?

Bye again.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ming
But I have no problem with comparing serving logs, because it will only suport the data I can clearly see.

How often do have I have say it: I AGREE!!! But the fact that this is about as likely as me not winning the jackpot tomorrow doesn't make it a fact.

God, I keep forgetting not to get into tech discussions with non-techies. The quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" applies. Hey, if you don't wanna understand how it works, fine with me. Ignorance is bliss, I'll leave you to it...

[Ming]

Originally posted by Locutus
God, I keep forgetting not to get into tech discussions with non-techies. The quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" applies. Hey, if you don't wanna understand how it works, fine with me. Ignorance is bliss, I'll leave you to it...

I guess you can understand that Ignorance is bliss from personal experience

You seem to think that you must have an "exact" answer to mean "proof" That is very seldom the case in the real world.

Does being a techy mean you can ignore simple math and statistics?
Statistics show that while research can not be exact, we do know what the error tolerance level of the data is. And even if the data on both sides fell to the extreme limits of reality, it still shows at "least" twice the levels of traffic at CF.

But what the heck, if you don't want to face reality, who am I to make you do it

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Lancer
So what am I doing here?

Busted!

[Ecthy]

.

[Ecthy]

Locutus, Ming: ATTACK THE POST, NOT THE POSTER

[Zoid]

The mods have rules of their own. You know that Ecthy

[conmcb25]

The wisdom of youth is a fallacy

Interesting arguement though. Be careful of needing an "exact" answer. Its rarely required in the real world.

And I AM a technie

[Nikolai]

/me grabs some popcorn and sits back.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by conmcb25
Interesting arguement though. Be careful of needing an "exact" answer. Its rarely required in the real world.

But in this case it is.

I don't care what Ming's tools are telling him, but -- although I hate to put exact numbers on inexact things -- based on my experience (I won't claim to have done this for 20 years but I'm not a rookie either) I would estimate based on the FACTUAL numbers that I have access to (which for Apolyton are the actual server stats and for CFC include but are not limited to forum activity stats and sparse actual server stats that Thunderfall has posted in in the past), CFC likely has somewhere between 1.5 and 2 times as much traffic as us. Of course, considering that this is just educated guesswork (like that of any tool) we have to take into account a sizable margin of error, but this estimate makes me more than 90% certain that the reality is somewhere between the sites being roughly the same size and CFC being up to 2.5 times larger. Yes, that's a vague statement that many people may not find useful but that's reality for you, in real life things are rarely as simple as a single hard number -- but IMO it beats blindly trusting some magic number generated by a tool that uses indirect and incomplete data any day of the week. If I'm accurate, Alexa's claim falls well outside the scope (which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows what they're talking about) and based on what Ming has said about his tools they are probably off by a significant margin as well. It also means that if you take my judgement even remotely seriously (which I doubt Ming will but that's his prerogative) you cannot claim with any degree of certainty that Apolyton is bigger than CFC, one simply needs more factual data to fill in the blanks. Once again, it is very likely and I do believe it to be so (although I seem to be thinking in considerably smaller margins than Ming) -- but it's by no means an established fact.

I know Ming will probably think I'm delusional for even considering that his infallible technology could possibly be wrong and that I pulled my numbers from my arse -- which, again, would be his prerogative -- but I've used these type of tools and done manual comparions often enough to know that if I have to choose between trusting my life to these tools or my own judgements, I'm screwed either way but I'm still better off going by my own judgement. Except by brute-force (which doesn't apply here) computer algorithms can rarely outperform human reasoning skills, even mine (especially if such algorithms don't have access to the same data I have access to)

[Japher]

If CFC is bigger than Apolyton it obvious why... Babe Threads.

Thus, I would like to appeal to the management that we should reinstate Babe Threads for the sake of mainting the supremacy of this site. Just a note, however, if some gay posters (or female posters, or males pretending to being female posters) want to post pics of guys they should do so in their own thread so as not to tarnish the good name of Babe Threads.

BRING BACK BABE THREADS!!!

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

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