Well it's about time I had a mini-rant so here goes. Oh and I blame
Spalls for making a post about reusing IP.

The Wargamer website has been around for as long as I can remember and
as the name suggests it concentrated on table top and digital wargames.
Boy how things have changed.

It was sold off several years ago and nothing really changed at least
from the outside. Last year though was a bit different, it got a
makeover (nothing wrong with that) and said it was going expand its
remit to include more table top games (nothing wrong with that either I
thought). Yes you had some of the gronads moaning but my thoughts where
very much, move with the times granddad. Well I was wrong and the site
is pretty much now unrecognisable as it's dominated by D&D, Warhammer
40k and Magic The Gathering.

Now there's nothing wrong with having a website like that, the problem
is that it replaced the one I used.

On Fri, 10 Jun 2022 10:18:36 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>Well it's about time I had a mini-rant so here goes. Oh and I blame
>Spalls for making a post about reusing IP.

>The Wargamer website has been around for as long as I can remember and
>as the name suggests it concentrated on table top and digital wargames.
>Boy how things have changed.

>It was sold off several years ago and nothing really changed at least
>from the outside. Last year though was a bit different, it got a
>makeover (nothing wrong with that) and said it was going expand its
>remit to include more table top games (nothing wrong with that either I
>thought). Yes you had some of the gronads moaning but my thoughts where
>very much, move with the times granddad. Well I was wrong and the site
>is pretty much now unrecognisable as it's dominated by D&D, Warhammer
>40k and Magic The Gathering.

>Now there's nothing wrong with having a website like that, the problem
>is that it replaced the one I used.

I can't comment on the change in content (being a D&D grognard myself,
I like the idea of more D&D commentary... though I could do without
any of those card-tossing MtG weirdos ;-) but I really hate when
websites change their design. /ESPECIALLY/ when they 'update' its
appearance to something more modern. I know this will probably
surprise everyone to learn that I - someone who adores Usenet for its
lack of functionality - have a soft-spot in my heart for old-school
web-design too. Javascript? Who needs it? Give me a few .GIFs and
<bold> tags and we're good to go!

The really sad part is that often these modernizations are the first
indications of an attempt to change a site from something created out
of love for the topic (or hobby) and into something designed to make
money. Being particularly old-school, there's still a part of me that
rejects any idea of commercializing the Internet (yeah, I know, that
boat has long sailed). It just saddens me that too often people can't
be bothered to create something unless there's a profit in it for
them, and transformations like the one described above are just a
reminder of how far from its original ideals the Internet has strayed.

Well, here's hoping you'll find a replacement for Wargamer. It's hard
to lose a favored hangout. And when you do find your new community,
here's hoping it can resist the urge towards increasing its userbase
and moving towards the dreaded goal of 'profitability', at least for a
while.

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 8:43:24 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

> The really sad part is that often these modernizations are the first
> indications of an attempt to change a site from something created out
> of love for the topic (or hobby) and into something designed to make
> money. Being particularly old-school, there's still a part of me that
> rejects any idea of commercializing the Internet (yeah, I know, that
> boat has long sailed). It just saddens me that too often people can't
> be bothered to create something unless there's a profit in it for
> them, and transformations like the one described above are just a
> reminder of how far from its original ideals the Internet has strayed.

Dragonsfoot.org changed a couple years ago, but it was more a security
update to newer web forums. I preferred the old look and utility, but
it didn't change the discussions.

- Justisaur

On 10/06/2022 17:13, Justisaur wrote:
> On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 8:43:24 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>> The really sad part is that often these modernizations are the first
>> indications of an attempt to change a site from something created out
>> of love for the topic (or hobby) and into something designed to make
>> money. Being particularly old-school, there's still a part of me that
>> rejects any idea of commercializing the Internet (yeah, I know, that
>> boat has long sailed). It just saddens me that too often people can't
>> be bothered to create something unless there's a profit in it for
>> them, and transformations like the one described above are just a
>> reminder of how far from its original ideals the Internet has strayed.
>
> Dragonsfoot.org changed a couple years ago, but it was more a security
> update to newer web forums. I preferred the old look and utility, but
> it didn't change the discussions.
>

I have seen that on another site and there the reason given was just
that the software used for the forum was so old it was becoming
increasingly difficult to maintain it.