Does Anybody Remember Fun?
By: "Apatt"
What with all this ranking, stealing, cheating, flaming frenzy raging all over the SM community perhaps it is time we go back to basic and think about why we put up SM pages in the first place. Those who are considering putting up their first page may like to think about this too.
If you get frustrated with what you perceive to be too few hits or not getting the recognition you feel you deserve and you want to tear your page down you may want to think about one fundamental thing:
Why did you put the page up in the first place really?
Is it because you want to make an award winning page?
or is it because you love Sailormoon?
I am not saying every SM web masters put up their pages because of their love for the show, the huge SM online community is an attraction in itself. SM may or may not be the author's favorite show but any one can see that it can bring more exposure than doing a page about any other anime series. In any case, regardless of motive, at the end of the day it's supposed to be fun isn't it?
Why join the SM Community?
The huge SM community is a double edged sword, these are the pros and cons as I see them:
Pros:
- Huge resources, information, graphics, advice etc.
- Huge potential audience, an extremely popular SM site can get 300 or more hits a day!
- Recognition Because the Community is so big you can become a kind of celebrity of if your page becomes very popular, a great ego boost, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
- Consider someone lacking confidence in real life, achieving accolade for his site may inspire in him the confidence to do his best in his real world task.
Cons:
- The community is so huge it's difficult to make your marks, if you put up an "OK" page, the chances are very slim that you would become known in the community.
- Even if you put up an excellent new page, there are still older and perhaps better pages about, how do you make your voice heard? Why should people visit your site when they can go to tried and tested one?
- Even when your page is going well, you inevitably get flamed by idiots who flame for the sake of flaming!
Do the pros outweigh the cons? Only you can decide. Certainly there is nothing wrong with having a go, giving it your best shot, even if you make a mediocre page a long as you have fun making it the enterprise is worthwhile and you will learn useful things about HTML and web site management, the kind of thing that could play a major part later in your life.
However, the way I see it, the whole point is to have fun, if you had no fun making your page you can be sure nobody will have fun looking at it and the whole exercise would be pointless.
Comments on this article can be sent to:
Apatt.
Comments made on this page are opinions of the author.
They are not necessarily shared by Tripod and the Amazoness Quartet.
