procyon

RT: That's okay, it's just as well. This clearly was not the best approach that I could have taken, and I wish I could retract my second post.

For what it's worth, while we are asking for "free" content, and make no attempt to hide that fact, we also take no ownership of the content either. If you look at the licensing on the site, we operate under CC BY-SA 3.0, so all contributed content becomes part of the public domain. That even means, if AA became so inclined, they could import the content from SW directly on to this site, provided they followed the attribution rules specified by the license. There are other sites out there who do claim ownership of your contributions, but we are not one of them.

RT: Point well taken, I see what you mean. I meant in the general sense that someone who knows anything about Atari 2600 games is an expert compared to the general population. I don't suppose it's possible to alter the title of the thread?

Trent: We're aware of the pop-up ad situation and trying to work with our advertisement agency to remove them. That actually only started recently and we weren't told about it in advance (naturally).

OK... these responses took me a bit by surprise, but I'm taking them at face value. StanJr, I had no intention of making any kind of backhanded slap to any member of this community. I was genuinely unsure if I had posted my request in the correct place based on the lack of response I initially received. I apologize if my second post insulted anyone.

Trent, we're clearly not AtariAge, and we don't have a store to support the site. The ads help keep the site running. Without them, there'd be no StrategyWiki.

Most importantly, StrategyWiki is in no way trying to compete with this site, Digital Press, or AtariProtos. Not even remotely. Our competition is sites like GameFAQs.com. We're trying to record and preserve actual game play information, everything and anything there is to know about how the games were played, strategies to get the best scores, easter eggs, etc. I have always seen sites like Atari Age more about preserving the history of the physical media (who created what, when and how many). While we may incorporate information like that wherever it's practical and relevant, it's not our core focus. That's the huge distinction between AA and SW.

Anyway, I apologize if I sounded pushy, I was very eager for feedback, and hopeful that some members of this community would let us know how well game play information is presented, and how to improve that presentation. It never occured to me that anyone would think that AA and SW were trying to occupy the same space on the internet. Thanks anyway,

I'm only going to bump this topic just this once, because I was really hoping for some kind of feedback. I assumed this would be a good place to find people who genuinely enjoy Atari 2600 games, and who could provide expert opinions on how we're doing at presenting information. If there is a better forum for fans of Atari 2600 games, could someone please direct me to it? If not, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts that you could share with me about what we do well, and where we could improve. Thanks very much for your time.

Shannon, on Fri May 4, 2012 1:15 AM, said:

Part of what you have to do to understand Tod's thinking is put yourself back in 1982, and remember how Time Warner was running Atari around that time. Atari wasn't a place where programmers strived to create the highest quality programs ever created. If you wanted to do that, you went to Activision or Imagic. Programmers were cogs, not people, part of a machine that was designed to pump out widgets that made execs and investors a lot of money. Tod was the first to receive royalties, but until you get a check for a million dollars, it's kind of hard to imagine how that's going to feel. When the execs told him to polish up the game and make it sellable, he probably just shrugged and followed the order, regardless of how idiotic it sounded to him.

It's very easy for enthusiasts like us to think that if we were in Tod's position, we would have tried harder, and fought against stupid business executives who didn't know a joystick from a door knob. I didn't get to know Tod for very long (about a year or so), but he was who he was. He was a brilliant guy who just wanted to solve difficult problems. He didn't care what you thought of him, or what you thought of Pac-Man or Swordquest or anything else he did. He knew what he was capable of, and he knew what he was paid to do, and he didn't equate the two. In a way, I kind of admire him for that.