It is with a heavy heart that I announce the demise of The Guardian of Forever. It is fitting that I close this site this year, the 10th anniversary. It has been a long, fruitful and fun journey!
I want to thank you all for all your cooperation over the years. A very special thanks goes to all of you who contributed so much by sending me so many screencaps!
But, in the end, there doesn�t seem to be any place on the net anymore for pure fan-sites. It takes too much work for one man. And there is so little response from visitors...
Live long and prosper!
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
ACK! Yours is one of the best sites for concept art and obscure ships! Is the site going to close completely, or are you just going to stop updating it?
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
I�m sorry B.J. but it�s closing completely I�m afraid.
I�ll still collect pics, and actually I�ve been replacing old caps with dvd ones on my own database. I actually have all voyager and enterprise as well as TOS, TAS, and the movies on dvd. I�m currently done with everything except the last three movies.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
But why? Can't you store the pics somewhere else(like in a zip)? I'd host it. Shit, now I don't know where to go for Starship pics.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I agree. If you'd ve willing to hand over the content to someone like Bernd or the like, then it would still at least be preserved somewhat.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Definitely Bernd. His site could use some more starship pics. Especially when it comes to concept art. There's also Trek Core which hosts images from another defunct site: Star Trek in Sound and Vision. There's also Memory Alpha.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
My site remains active - for now. Although I have little time or inclination to do regular updates and keep increasing content, that may change one day. The domain registration and hosting doesn't cost all that much, and it means at least mine and my wife's email addresses remain the same as they've been for several years now. I continue to collect images, although not as obsessively as I once did - whereas, once upon a time, it was virtually impossible to get screencaps, now thanks to places like TrekCore (and it's predecessor, whatever it was called - and it claims STinSV as an ancestor as well? I didn't know that) you can find just about anything you need.
All this may change next year as anticipation grows about the new film. We'll see. It's just occurred to me, I always keep all the amassed meterial to do at least one page on my memory stick, I wonder what I have at the moment. . ? Oh, the TOS Type-II, which I've already done. Arses.
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
I can appreciate that you all wish to see my pictures remain in a public domain, and possibly I might give them to Bernd. We've cooperated before. However, my collection of pics is at least 500 megs large...
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well at least try giving away the concept art pics as those are hard to find. And of course the Federation starships are a priority.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Like everyone else I'm very sad to hear you're shutting the site down, it's pretty much the one stop shop for any references on starships.
I'm not really sure what you mean about a lack of response from visitors. I mean, there's only so much people can say about starship images and to my knowledge you don't have a guestbook page, so they'd have to email you if they wanted to comment or ask questions. You must get a lot of hits, though. And that's the clearest sign that people appreciate what you're doing.
Anyway, when do you expect the site to go down permanently? There are certainly a lot of images I'd like to save to my hard drive beforehand.
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
Well, I think anyone who has a website knows how much work goes into it. And with a picture-heavy site as my own it has been a lot of work, I used to update every few days a while ago. Just capping from videos a few years ago was a pain in the ass, and now, buying the dvd:s and capping and posting again and again...Browsing the net looking for more and better pics and asking permission to use them...Especially when "Enterprise" was on, it�s all a heavy workload.
Then some punk takes my pics and posts them on their own page without asking or even worse, hot-links them! This has happened more times than I care to remember. I�ve chased internet-providers on more than one occasion, I can tell you!
Add to all this, that yes, I do get a lot of hits, which has always been gratifying and to tell you the truth, that�s been all that�s kept me going. Knowing that fans come and check it out. But they generally browse through and don�t email me with comments. And a guestbook, well I tried that a few years ago, and spamming and a lot of unnecessary off-topic comments led me to close it down. So, you have no way of knowing if they liked their browsing or if they hated it. You need positive reinforcement sometime, you know?
Finally, I�m sad to say, my site is already down.
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
THIS ISN'T QUITE RELATED BUT Does anyone know why DSC (www.dropshipcommand.com) is placeheld at the moment?
Hopefully it's a glitch and not an actual end to the site... Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I can say I know the feeling. My website has been up for 9 years this November. I put a lot of work and time into it, granted I don't really get around to actively update it like I use to.
I agree with your statement about hits (although my hitcounter appears down)... I do have a guest book though... that sees like one signature every couple of months. So if someone finds starship information they're looking for then I feel I've done my job.
Anyway, as a fellow Trek site man, I hate to see another good site down.
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
Thanks Hobbes, I�ve always enjoyed visiting your site. See, now I tell you...
Well, in the end perhaps we are all more alike..
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
You know, trek sites are fading away. Maybe we should take this opportunity to try to consolidate as much as possible in one place?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yes, I gather they now have these fantastic communities called "web-rings."
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Click here for the next five! Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
I hope you let someone else take the files at least. I've been saving old sites related to my site's specific topic, along with a few special exceptions. But I'm sure your site is massive, and would require extensive hotlink protection.
But oh, man, the pictures. They were invaluable from time to time back in the day. Even now I hate to see the drawings and early sketches go away.
In the meantime, there's always the scant hope of archive.org.
If they ever go down everybody's screwed.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Guardian is closing? (Or is now closed)
"Not happy Jan". Fantastic site.
I find it bizarre that i've been on the next for over a decade now!
Can you at least tell us what your old username used to mean: "pIn'a' Sov"??
Oh and can whoever does end up mirroring it/hosting it let us know with a nice clear link, how to get to it?
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
Actually, very roughly translated my old name meant "master of learning", a very small in-joke since I have a Ph.D. in history...
Good luck to anyone copying of that archive-site (I�m not even sure I like it, it was my material, but you always lose control over the net), I stopped updating the website a long time ago and just updated my own database. Almost all new dvd-caps of voyager, enterprise, tos, tas and all the movies are NOT on the web.
I will not give all of my material to someone else, it�s over 800 megs worth and it was a lot of work collecting them all, but rare pics could be given to Ex Astris, if Bernt wants them.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Starship Freak: Actually, very roughly translated my old name meant "master of learning", a very small in-joke since I have a Ph.D. in history...
I what language?
Oh and any chance of putting it all back up and letting us take things over the next week?
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
In klingon, actually, and no, I�ve already cancelled my webaccount, so..
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
![[Frown]](frown.gif)