The future of Apolyton

[PLATO]

Merge with WePlayCiv and call it ApolytonPlaysCiv and let Solver be the Grand Overlord.

[Solver]

I've already noted I offered Robert one possibility.

Yes, and I am cautiously optimistic, I think you're likely to make a good suggestion.

[gwillybj]

I wish I could say something of help, but all I can do is leave a note of gratitude. This site was absolutely necesssary for me to understand SMAC - not just how to play and mod, but also why and how it was made. Thank you for being here, an invaluable resource.

[Nikolai]

Merge with WePlayCiv and call it ApolytonPlaysCiv and let Solver be the Grand Overlord.

Except for the name, not a bad idea.

[KrazyHorse]

How much does a comprehensive solution like legend's cost?

[Robert]

One question never aired is how much it actually costs to run Polly in time and money - any ballpark figures out there? Maybe downscaling the site would help? The current format is a bit dated, looks like a lot of work, also shows inactivity plainly by having many empty forums.

Money is not an issue.
I'm running Apolyton as a part of my own company, so we get some tax cuts on the costs (and since we pay much tax overhere in Holland, that's quite a good cut!)
For the rest most of the money is covered by our advertisements. Martin Gühmann arranged some good deal.

I honestly am not looking often at the figures, but I don't believe that we lose more then around $10 per month each.
It's not a very expensive hobby.

[self biased]

i have copious amounts of free time in the evening and check the place on a daily basis, but [strike]little[/strike] zero technical knowhow. i have run gaming clubs before and maybe i could use some of those skills for apolyton's benefit. Apolyton is my first real community, and it would be sad to see it go under. i would do what i can to help, but i don't know if i have what it takes.

[Robert]

Let me make one thing clear: I'm not done with Apolyton yet, neither am I done playing Civ.
I'm still playing Civ 4 a couple of hours per week.
Unfortunately not anymore in the diplo game community.

I had the idea for a long time to just keep Apolyton running till Civ6 would show up.
I loved the time around the launch of civ5, when I was able to interview several Firaxians live, and even shot a video interview with Jon Shafer.

It was really great to have close contacts with the Firaxians, write reviews, cover the news.
I think we did quite a great job back then.
I'd like it to do that for Civ6 as well.

But in the meanwhile Apolyton must survive.
I am not the guy who can keep the site online technically. Well, I can keep it online, reboot the servers, I'm not a total fool if it's about ICT (I'm making my money in ICT, remember). But I'm not a server admin.

Not to mention that if Civ6 would pop-up, I could not do that all by myself either.
And the honest truth is that Apolyton doesn't hold like 20 dedicated guys who would be willing to cover Civ6 with news articles, discuss the news in the forums, moderate in good manners, etc. So we need to recruit people, and in general: get Apolyton back on track.

So that's why I'm launching this here. We need at first good Admins/Owners.
And if I'm a stay in the way for new good owners to jump upon the bandwagon, then I'm happy to move away.
But if people will be willing to join me, take over tech support and server support, and think about the future of Apolyton and be able to be creative about that, then I'd be very happy to work together on that.

But we can't let Apolyton continue like this.
Remember that we had a lot of owner changes in the past couple of years. After Markos left we had Ming and rah and Locutus as co-owners, then Jeroen and me took over, Rutger and Arno joined us, and the 3 of them later on were leaving again (after doing a great great job on moving Apolyton from vB2 to vB4 and place it on a new server! Without Jeroen, Arno and Rutger Apolyton would have been dead for years already).
Then Martin came in, and he's got very good technical skills and his job on the advertisements, on upgrading vBulletin, and getting some ideas running is great as well.

But we can't continue to switch owners forever.
At a certain moment things must move into a certain direction.
And there's leadership needed for that.

Only with good dedicated leaders we can motivate people to help as staff members.
Apolyton must be a fan community. There's no hope I think for financial gains, which is good enough for me.
For me the greatest reward is just being a civ fan having a lot of fun running a civ fan community.

I'll just let you guys come with ideas and feel free to name names of people you'd trust!
This is not about the money. If people have great skills but little money, we can work things out to cover the costs.

And like I said: if some good idea pops up that needs me to be removed, I'll be glad to step aside.

And indeed, I do not consider the OTF to be a problem.
It's everything Solver and AH said it is. But I do not believe that the OTF is anything near the cause of the problems of Apolyton. Though it's not the solution either. The problem and it's solution are the On Topic Forums and the On Topic thrive to enjoy Civ.

[Robert]

Atomic gamer.

If you would be willing to send me a bit more information about how this hosting works, and perhaps what the costs are, then I'd be very thankful!
Also thanks a lot for the suggestion!

[Maniac]

http://atomicgamer.com/hosting.php

"We are looking for new and unique sites that fill a niche in our network. We have sites that cover Linux and the Civilization games, and aren't looking for more."

[The Mad Monk]

Doesn't sound like they're going to want us.

[Solver]

Oh, turns out it's Telefragged under a new name. I had no idea they were still around.

[Aeson]

I run my own websites for a living, the most active of which is a gaming website that has ~14k daily unique visitors. It runs on a VPS that I manage myself. I've built it from scratch in the last 6 months, including the parsing of game data, display, and other functionality that allows me to often beat the game's related wikia (with hundreds or thousands of contributors and a rather large, active, and technically proficient management team) in being first to publish new info about the game. While I'm still learning a lot ... I understand both the promotion and technical side of things, as well as what else is required to build a gaming community.

What it requires is a lot of time and hard work. I'm no longer a single guy living with no responsibilities, so couldn't devote that time and hard work without ownership and profit potential. I think Apolyton can be an elite gaming site. I think it can be profitable as well. I would be willing to take on the risk and responsibility to make it so in both regards.

I think I have a pretty good track record in regards to on-topic content and events both from a management and participant standpoint. I ran the Civ III HOF at CivFanatics and was a main contributor to the management of the CivFanatics GOTM during the Civ III years. In both cases I helped to turn them from hand generated lists into dynamic database driven ones. (Even though I was a complete noob ... those were my very first PHP/MySQL projects.) In both cases I was one of the more prolific contributors to the discussions around those events. Also I was one of the more active contributors tot he on-topic here at Apolyton at the same time. One of the few posters who had significant roles on both sites.

I was on the Civ IV playtesting group for ~2 years, and one of the more active contributors to that project. I was also approached by Trip about having a role in Civ V. (I don't know what role, because I had to decline.)

I understand that things in the OT and my own posting would have to change. I wasn't always cuddly in on-topic, but certainly more respectful and constructive than in the OT. The OT would need some rules to keep it from negatively affecting the rest of the site, but could remain mostly how it is. I would return to my on-topic days, and necessarily wouldn't have time to do much arguing in the OT. No grudges on my part of course. So, if you want me gone from the OT (in my current incarnation), you should support my bid for ownership.

[Berzerker]

thats too bad, the OT sports forum is

[KrazyHorse]

Plomp: if you can't dedicate the time/money to keeping the lights on (including security), then I suggest you give over control to somebody who can (this is no knock on you - makes sense that you've given a good amount to this site, time to pass the torch).

I can dedicate 0 time to the site, but I can possibly pay somebody else to do so (in terms of technical support, security etc).