The End Days of Xenite.Org
I have been struggling with a difficult decision for a very long time now. I need to retire Xenite.Org. It has outlived its usefulness in my life and career and now is more of a burden on my time and energy than an asset to proudly display in the showcase of my Website portfolio.
When I first registered the domain in 1997 I was only thinking of consolidating four previously existing Websites on a single domain. I didn’t have a theme in mind. I’m not sure the science fiction fan mega site concept had yet even been recognized. For many months I didn’t realize I needed to create some sort of index page for the root URL. Tom Simpson of Xenafan finally sent me a polite email explaining why it was a good idea to create at least a blank page there.
That was the day the real Xenite.Org was born. It became more than a repository for Websites. It became a domain with a purpose, a compendium of science fiction fannish activities and interests. For several years Xenite rolled out new sections: standalone special interest microsites, Web forums, a poster store and gift shop, an Amazon affiliate book store, Lord of the Rings movie news, FAQs, fan fiction, and much, much more.
At its height Xenite.Org encompassed around 100,000 pages of content if you counted the UBB forum threads our community spawned. Even without the UBB forums there were about 50,000 static HTML pages on the domain.
And then we created SF-Fandom. I did that on a whim when a fellow SF fansite operator contacted me privately about a legal matter. Fandom, Inc. was trying to shut down her domain (Fandom.tv). I thought Fandom, Inc.’s assertion of trademark value were absurd. The company had raised millions of dollars in investment capital but it was attempting to trademark a word (“fandom”) that had been in widespread, general use for at least 50 years.
I was confident that, if Fandom, Inc. came after SF-Fandom.com for trademark infringement that I would win any lawsuit and the inevitable appeals process. As luck would have it, Fandom, Inc. never sent the cease-and-desist letter I had hoped for. Eventually, the company went out of business and its assets were sold off or shut down.
Still, 10 years ago I had the time to devote to several large science fiction fan sites. I was promoting them through Web banners, search engine optimization, Webrings, and multiple forums. Blogs were still experimental. Matt’s Script Archive was the incubator for what would have been called “social media” back then. Websites were simple and guys like me who went to the trouble to create thousands of pages by hand were able to build huge audiences.
At the height of its popularity Xenite.Org received about 250,000 visitors a month. SF-Fandom brought in another 150,000-200,000 visitors. We had dozens of volunteers helping with our forums, our directories, even FAQs and fan fiction. At one point as many as 50 people were regularly contributing content or moderation time to Xenite.Org and SF-Fandom.
But times have changed. Blogs made it simpler and easier for people share their passion for science fiction and fantasy on the Web. Social media sites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Twitter drew the passionate crowds away to enjoy a larger communal experience. And many of our old friends…grew older. They got married, graduated from college, developed new interests, and moved on for a thousand reasons.
My own interests changed over time. On a large I created a Web page about a white cheese dip recipe that grew into a microsite which eventually became the most popular part of Xenite.Org. When I became involved in Salsa dancing I created a 50-page feature section that introduced thousands of monthly visitors to the dance teachers, dance clubs, and several of my dance friends from the west side of Houston, TX. To this day I still receive occasional email from people interested in clubs that no longer exist.
Xenite.Org was always about my interests and passions but my interests and passions were not always about science fiction and fantasy. I have increasingly found it difficult to be passionate about science fiction and fantasy the way I used to be. I am getting older. I have a new career. My personal life and activities have changed (yet again). I’m no longer actively writing about or for the science fiction and fantasy world.
Through the years Dixie Harrison and I nursed Xenite, SF-Fandom, and a few other Websites through server migrations, upgrades, disasters, and conversions. We have collectively explored more variations on the Linux operating system than I can count or ever wanted to know exist. We have installed, tweaked, upgraded, fixed, and discarded software for managing directories, mailing lists, forums, blogs, and things we cannot describe. I wrote a lot of scripts and Web applications from scratch (including a professional-grade forum package that, unfortunately, I just couldn’t complete fast enough to satisfy our users).
As the years passed fewer studios, actors, and writers contacted us for help in promoting their movies, shows, and projects. They either found dedicated fan communities to help them or simply developed their own social media assets. My promotional resources grew as a result of my professional search engine optimization career but even those resources have now faded into the woodwork.
I feel like Elrond, looking back wistfully upon the Elder Days. If Sauron were to threaten my existence today, like Elrond at his council in Rivendell in the Third Age year 3018, I would have means of opposing him. The armies of volunteers are all in the past. I have but a few loyal, hardcore moderators left for the forums. And they, like me, have other priorities.
It has been over a year since I have created any substantial new content for Xenite.Org. Whatever I may have planned to do last year has long since failed to materialize. The recent emergency server move broke almost 100 scripts. It disrupted our news services. I have yet to try to implement complex advice I have received on how to fix the broken email services. Our forums have only just begun operating again after being shut down for more than a month.
The traffic Xenite.Org receives has declined rapidly since the server change. I am confident that it will recover if I fix everything. Well, the traffic has been gradually declining for 2-3 years. I just don’t have the time and energy to put into a static HTML site.
Many people have suggested or asked why I don’t upgrade Xenite to a content management system. That’s more easily said than done. The feature articles use a variety of design concepts that don’t easily convert to a typical blog or CMS structure. I have been trying to redesign the articles so that they could eventually be inducted into a blog or CMS but that work is endless.
And nowadays I find myself wondering why people would even be interested in 10-year-old articles about the Lord of the Rings movies. Sure, there might be some historical interest in those old articles as the “Hobbit” movies’ release dates approach, but I just don’t have my heart in the franchise any more. And there are hundreds of other articles on Xenite.Org that are equally old and aging.
To add insult to injury, Google’s new XML recipe markup requirements have reduced the amount of traffic we receive for white cheese dip. Sure, I could incorporate the markup — but I don’t really want to. And now it seems like every recipe site on the Web has one or more white cheese dip recipes (some not so good, others quite delicious). There’s no real need for the Xenite cheese dip site any longer.
The same is true for our “GEICO Tiny House Commercial” fan page, our “Schick Treadmill Girl” fan page, our Grace Park (of Battlestar Galactica) fan page. Heck, I don’t even see that much traffic for Xena Online Resources any more.
Our content is ancient, irrelevant, and not quite so interesting.
But it’s content that I put my heart into for more than 10 years. It’s content that I proudly used to teach the principles of search engine optimization to generations of SEO specialists. It’s content that set the standard for many other fan sites. It’s content that made a difference on the Web. You don’t see that difference but I do. I remember every site that copied our ideas, every scraped article that sent us traffic, every fan site that linked to our directories, every Webring that we carefully selected and helped to promote.
Every page on Xenite.Org means something to me. It is my life’s greatest work and I shall never create its like again. Xenite.Org is my Silmaril.
But it’s also a burden I cannot bear any longer. I spent several hours last night fixing broken scripts for pages that are no longer receiving any visitors. Maybe if I wait a while those pages will receive traffic again. But they are really not very relevant to anything people are interested in.
All this I write as a way of saying that Xenite.Org’s day is done. I need to bring myself to take the irrevocable step of removing all that content. Maybe I can find a home for some of it here on SF-Fandom. Maybe I can build a new, smaller Xenite that is easier to maintain. But to do that I have to start with a clean slate and a content management system that will carry me forward into the future.
I can’t spend any more long nights doing things my way. My way should be more about creating content for people to enjoy and less about creating a structure for content — a structure people struggle with as it moves farther and farther outside the accepted norms of Website design.
It’s time to say, “Good night, Xenite.Org. Thank you for being there when I needed you. Thank you for being what I wanted you to be. Thank you for showing people what I care about.”
I just hope that as I clean the domain it will rise from the ashes like a phoenix or maybe like the Doctor. Knowing that a new life awaits Xenite.Org is a bit reassuring. It still has potential. I can still use it to share my passion. I just need to let it rest and recuperate. I need to let it die.
Namarie, old friend. Namarie.