Hudson
Electron
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2016
- Messages
- 769
- Nebulae
- 4,884
The archive shares its birthday with nebulous, having both been founded in April 2016.
Several forums had come and gone, and hoping to start saving content, I started researching the Gmod community scene (thinking it would be a straightforward endeavour).
As I tried to follow the leads that sprang up during research, one community would connect to the ones that came before it, and it also led to the ones that came after it. I'd complete an interview with one person about something, and end up with several more names to chase up. The research branched out before me and looked like an impossible task.
In these 3 years I slowly chipped away at this interconnected web of information every now and then, trying to save what I thought was most interesting first, and the archive has slowly grown from a few summary pages to a database that I felt needed an index.
There's still a ton of information out there. Things I could add to existing pages, and ofcourse dozens if not hundreds of communities I haven't written about.
The folder on my PC for the notes about the archive has 800 files in it by now, mostly notepads. I could spend more time expanding it, but I want to start focusing more on things outside Gmod. I'll still be around, but probably not as active as I used to be.
The last things I was working on up until now were attempts at visualizing some of the data. They're a bit rough but I wanted to share them. I think they're good for telling stories. The specific story here is the journey that me and a few others would have taken, from Gmod biZ back in 2009 through to LemonPunch in 2013, and ofcourse the birth of nebulous in 2016:
Gmod biZ
LemonPunch / nebulous
And then how it all fits in with the other archived communities, keeping in mind that it's a rough representation, and that I could tinker with it for many hours and it would still look rough:
It's nice to work on things that age well. Like the montage videos from years ago that still get views, in contrast to much of the content on YouTube that might get lots of views initially but quickly lose interest. Two of the things that alarmed me in this research was how common DDoS attacks were, and what seemed to be a tendency of staff members taking the idea of stress more seriously than players do.
I don't think I could force people to take stress more seriously, or make them understand it, as it's probably one of those things you'd have to feel for yourself to really grasp it, but it's nice to have learnt that nebulous in particular not only engage with the idea of people being stressed in the scene, but it's also taken seriously here.
Thanks to everyone that engaged with the archive threads here, I hope there's been something from this project that you've found interesting. It's fun to work on, so I imagine I'll keep adding bits in future, but it just means putting the time aside to do it.
Several forums had come and gone, and hoping to start saving content, I started researching the Gmod community scene (thinking it would be a straightforward endeavour).
As I tried to follow the leads that sprang up during research, one community would connect to the ones that came before it, and it also led to the ones that came after it. I'd complete an interview with one person about something, and end up with several more names to chase up. The research branched out before me and looked like an impossible task.
In these 3 years I slowly chipped away at this interconnected web of information every now and then, trying to save what I thought was most interesting first, and the archive has slowly grown from a few summary pages to a database that I felt needed an index.
There's still a ton of information out there. Things I could add to existing pages, and ofcourse dozens if not hundreds of communities I haven't written about.
The folder on my PC for the notes about the archive has 800 files in it by now, mostly notepads. I could spend more time expanding it, but I want to start focusing more on things outside Gmod. I'll still be around, but probably not as active as I used to be.
The last things I was working on up until now were attempts at visualizing some of the data. They're a bit rough but I wanted to share them. I think they're good for telling stories. The specific story here is the journey that me and a few others would have taken, from Gmod biZ back in 2009 through to LemonPunch in 2013, and ofcourse the birth of nebulous in 2016:
Gmod biZ
LemonPunch / nebulous
And then how it all fits in with the other archived communities, keeping in mind that it's a rough representation, and that I could tinker with it for many hours and it would still look rough:
It's nice to work on things that age well. Like the montage videos from years ago that still get views, in contrast to much of the content on YouTube that might get lots of views initially but quickly lose interest. Two of the things that alarmed me in this research was how common DDoS attacks were, and what seemed to be a tendency of staff members taking the idea of stress more seriously than players do.
I don't think I could force people to take stress more seriously, or make them understand it, as it's probably one of those things you'd have to feel for yourself to really grasp it, but it's nice to have learnt that nebulous in particular not only engage with the idea of people being stressed in the scene, but it's also taken seriously here.
Thanks to everyone that engaged with the archive threads here, I hope there's been something from this project that you've found interesting. It's fun to work on, so I imagine I'll keep adding bits in future, but it just means putting the time aside to do it.
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