Closing bacman website - migrating guides to RacketBoy

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bacteria
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Re: Closing bacman website

Post by bacteria »

Usually on a forum people like to think they can search for information when they want it, however in practice, if one searches for something often the search engine in a forum does not work, giving back errors like whatever you type it says "too many results". That means one has to manually look through thousands of topics to try and find something. If you do get results, then there can be loads, then you have to plough through 95% of posts to find the mod guide you were looking for - and even then, if the pictures are hosted not by the forum site, the pictures which after all are pretty important, have gone.

That is the reality usually of guides on forums.

For those reasons on previous forums I made, I had a reference guide section to only contain the relevant guides not posts which were not relevant (ie sort the wheat from the chaff); that meant at the time I couldn't allow users to edit the guides. Although it got some resistance, over time people realised it made sense as they could find the guides easily and the information they wanted; and most were converted to be having far more benefits than not.

That was taken further with the new website, which you have all the guides for, it took well over 100 hours, if not longer, to make; all guides were re-written, all nerdy guides removed and only the basic-moderate level guides were left on purpose. My work with guides since I started modding in 2007 was to take out the black art of modding and make all guides easy to follow, and also publish all knowledge I knew. That is what made my site and forum popular.

There are a number of systems I have no experience with, so what I suggest is inviting members here who have more information to add to my existing guides to do so, and more importantly, add more guides to the section for systems that are not covered, to make things more complete. Then, a moderator can edit the topic if needed, ensure the images are stored to the server and use those image links for the guide, and add them to the new reference section here.

If you then advertise this Racketboy reference guide section and sell it as a positive benefit, by way of YouTube videos, exposure on other sites, make it prominent on the main forum page as its own section, etc; you will generate new members for the site and hopefully bring it back to a higher level of active members like it used to have here. Worth a shot.

As to my involvement, I thought the bottom had fallen out of the commissions, after did the N64 and SNES systems recently - a guy is about to pay me, in advance, for making him an N64 in a GBA carry case; so i'll make a guide for that in the modding section here; won't be anything new to add but will hopefully encourage others to make a system if they are interested. I will still do commissions and mods.

On that subject, the mods I intend to do in the coming months:
* complete the Unity system 2, all be it with less systems than was going to originally.
* convert my French RGB Atari 7800 into a SCART or HDMI console and incorporate it into a case (not sure what yet) to sell it.
* convert my ColecoVision motherboard into a smaller console system and sell it.
* convert one of my N64's to RGB and into HDMI and sell it.

Other things in mind to make too.

Bacman continues! :D
I am the Bacman
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CRTGAMER
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Re: Closing bacman website

Post by CRTGAMER »

bacteria wrote:Usually on a forum people like to think they can search for information when they want it, however in practice, if one searches for something often the search engine in a forum does not work, giving back errors like whatever you type it says "too many results". That means one has to manually look through thousands of topics to try and find something. If you do get results, then there can be loads, then you have to plough through 95% of posts to find the mod guide you were looking for - and even then, if the pictures are hosted not by the forum site, the pictures which after all are pretty important, have gone.

On that subject, the mods I intend to do in the coming months:
* complete the Unity system 2, all be it with less systems than was going to originally.
* convert my French RGB Atari 7800 into a SCART or HDMI console and incorporate it into a case (not sure what yet) to sell it.
* convert my ColecoVision motherboard into a smaller console system and sell it.
* convert one of my N64's to RGB and into HDMI and sell it.

Other things in mind to make too.

Bacman continues! :D

YES! Looking forward to your new projects! :mrgreen:

Agree, the Published Guides are the best way, this also allows your documents linked at sites such as Wikipedia since they are actual Published and not just Forum Posts. A great idea for you to update the YouTube videos linking Racketetboy to increase members and advertising. The one trade off is the loss of any instant edit updates, but then I think your submissions might get followed thru quickly.

As for me, I posted numerous Guides in the Guides Section of the Board Index. I like it that way so I can instant update new information even years later; others also have added great info in the Replies. Moderators have the option to copy paste edit any of the Guides into a published article which was done once for the Gyromite Adapter Guide with contributions by Ziggy and Ack. In this case, the original Thread linked from the Article is intact for any revisions that anyone can add to.

fastbilly1 wrote:It will be on the main page as a set of articles with the only change to the original content being a header.
In honesty, it took me longer to find the published Gyromite Article then in the Thread! First clicked the Guides at the top, then thought it was under NES or Modifications until I located it under Hacks. There are a lot of subcategories (arrow) in the drop down box. Since Bacteria has so many great articles, maybe a dedicated section of the drop down box to keep everything in one area? This will help for an instant "find" of all Bacteria's articles.

Maybe the Drop Down box should be right on the Front Page? Many new visitors do not see the GUIDE button (looks like just a NON LINK description due to dark grey) at the very top bar.
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bacteria
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Re: Closing bacman website - migrating guides to RacketBoy

Post by bacteria »

I am the Bacman
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bacteria
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Re: Closing bacman website - migrating guides to RacketBoy

Post by bacteria »

Well, site closes in about 4 days, looks like the announcement video got 340 views, about 840 so far on this site; totalling about 130 downloads.

That's not bad, for these days. A few years ago a video showing a portable system would get around 100k-200k, these days more like 1k-3k which represents the decline in the hobby; even on the website it was getting around 250 a day every day a year ago (even in that decline period) now more like about 50-90. Those figures include robots of course, so real figures will be lower of actual people visiting. Hence why decided to close site.

I am still working on commissions and projects, that hasn't changed - in fact now I have more time for this which is positive!


20 June - website now closed.


If you want a commission done, when I am free to start it, feel free to PM to discuss! :mrgreen:
I am the Bacman
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