11 May 2019: Images and Other Audio/Video Online[edit]
The Battlestar Wiki Media Repository is back online. Most of the images and other content are now available, except for a small percentage (<2%) that will be addressed.
Next step is to deploy some basic visual updates to the layout of the Wiki, and then bring the Wiki online so that others can edit. I expect that to be available by the end of the next week (May 18th).
Cheers,
06 May 2019: Welcome back (sort of)![edit]
It's taken a while to get back online, but the deed is in the last stages of being done!
Why did it take so long? The long and the short of it is this: life.
So, the good news is that I spent the weekend (May 5, 2019) taking a crash-course in Amazon Web Services, which is a whole next generation different from the web services that begat the wiki back in 2007. In fact, you could say that it's the difference between Classic Cylons and the Re-imagined Chrome Jobs.
Of course, a lot has changed since then, and the crew behind-the-scenes has also changed. Why? Again, the answer is life.
In that time, I fell out of love with the show. I frankly did not much care for how it ended, to be honest -- and I've felt that way ever since I read the script in the continuity binders, which I had a hold of during my time slaving over the Battlestar Galactica Auctions held by NBCUniversal. This was well before articles like this one summarized my thoughts on the "ending". And the spin-offs were, well, underwhelming in their banality. So I pondered just walking away and saying, "Fuck it, it's been an interesting run. But it's closing time." And, as that song from my youth goes, I hoped I had just found friends. Fortunately I had, and the journey made the years of collective work done by BSGWiki's humble (and, in thankfully fewer cases, not-so-humble) contributors all worth it.
Yet, killing something and walking away simply because of a personal view didn't sit right with me. Even though, I had every right to do it. I had been the Alpha, and I could have easily been the Omega.
Now before you ask, I could have sold the Wiki. Maybe made some scratch in the process. It would never cover the monetary investment I myself had put into this thing -- which, over its decade-plus run, is tens of thousands of dollars. And I've had offers from people who could have made me somewhat satisfied, were I solely interested in money.
Money is a tool, and both volatile and transitory at that. It's another form of bullshit: It may help you on your pursuit of happiness, but it won't keep you there.
I tell you this because when receiving such "sell out" offers, not one of their advocates actually had the temerity to share with me what future the Wiki would look like... beyond merely keeping the Wiki on life support. Due to that lack of vision, I could never sell it. Call it my litmus test for selling out: Have a vision, and stick with it.
I'm sure you had enough of my waxing pathetic in this steam-of-consciousness pseudo-blog, so I'll point out a few things:
- We're not fully operational yet. I could have held off until everything was ship shape, but perfect is the enemy of done. Also, you've waited too long.
- Pictures aren't loaded. Yet. (See above.) The "media" sub-wiki is large (8 times larger), and so that would take more time to handle. However, I wanted reach the first "resurrection" goal, which is to get the most important stuff up first. The most important thing: the text.
- The English-language wiki wins. I've placed a moratorium on the internationalization project. It never really worked even when the Wiki was at its height, so time to prune the bush a bit. And, unless someone has a real fuckin' plan for it with a real fuckin' vision, I simply can't justify appropriating resources to support such a project.
- You can't edit, not yet. Since I'm still tweaking things behind-the-curtain and throwing up the Cylon organic resin, editing has been locked.
- The look will change. The look we had was seriously dated (think MySpace), and so is our logo. That will change, too. When? I'm not quite sure.
Anyway, the Battlestar Wiki is back. And no, fuck that "So say we all" shit. Just be happy.
Regards,