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Thank you so much Violet. I know this must be hard for you at this time. This whole artistic community is right behind you and will help in any way we can. Peace Gareth > Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:27:44 -0700 > To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com > From: violet@missviolet.com > Subject: future of Looper's Delight (long) > > I've been trying to write something about this all week, but finding time > and strength has been hard. It's difficult to write this even now, but I > feel compelled. I don't know how eloquent it will be, since I don't feel > particularly coherent right now, so bear with me. > > I know many of you are reeling right now and worrying about what's going to > happen with Looper's Delight. Will it fall apart? Will it be abandoned? > I know it's hard not to fret, but please try to have faith. I need > everyone to, because... > > What's going to happen now is exactly what was going to happen anyway. For > a long time Kim had been frustrated that the site was such a mess and he > had no time to work on it. Even the times he did update it, he had a tough > time because he didn't know much about HTML; adding even the simplest thing > was hard for him, which is why the site is so jumbled and inconsistent. > > He'd been begging me for more than 10 years to help him clean it up. Every > now and then, I'd make graphics for him and help with layout on the site > using my awesomely bad circa 1998 web skills (the CD ad banners, the > navigational buttons ... ugh, please don't hurt me! They were cool at the > time, I swear!). But the main reason I never fixed the site for him was > because it needed to be switched over to CSS, and *I* didn't really have > the skill to do what needed to be done, either. But it was something we > talked about many, many times. > > I've worked on several sites since then and I know much more about site > development than I used to. > > Two days before Kim died, I told him I had finally begun site restructuring > for Looper's Delight. He was SO HAPPY! I can't even tell you how excited > he was. For anyone who doubts that Kim still had a passion for LD, I can > tell you that the passion never left. The fire I saw in his eyes that > night, the joy ... I will never forget that and I wish you could have seen > it. He was simply stretched thin and his job at Nvidia was so stressful, > there wasn't enough time for him to do everything he wanted. I watched him > wrestle with that for so many years. You have no idea how frustrated he > was that he couldn't do everything he wanted to do. > > In the past I had added an interface to the site to make updating the news > section easier for him, but he never had time to learn how to use it. > (Currently, you'll notice the news page is giving a server error; that's a > result of my moving the interface UNDERNEATH the running site when > restructuring began in order to hide it so that the existing site can still > viewable while I work on the re-org.) I told Kim that since I already knew > he probably wouldn't have time to give me much input or work on the site > even with the interface added, I was also going to join the list so I could > get input from the community directly and get you involved. He laughed and > said yeah, that was probably a good idea! > > So the upshot is, Kim and I had already agreed that I was going to take > over the day-to-day management of the site and seek input/help from the > community. I had hoped he would be here to guide me because I don't really > know the sorts of things that are of interest to you, but sadly, well, we > see how that went. But I was going to rely on the community for much of > that anyway. > > So together we can do this. You know the sorts of things that are of > interest to loop artists. I know what Kim's vision was, I know the > principles that were important to him, because they're the same principles > by which I run my OWN sites and mailing lists. We were in absolute > agreement on how mailing lists should be run - and as you've seen for > years, he took great pains to structure the list so that it would be able > to run without him personally babysitting it - and we also had many > wonderful discussions on how we felt news sites should be operated. I will > miss those discussions so much. > > You may not have Kim any more, but I hope you'll find that his spirit lives > on in me. We were two halves of the same whole. (Although I am, > admittedly, the more verbose half.) I hope you can trust that I will take > the site in the direction Kim would want it to go, because I watched him > care about it for the past 14 years and I know how much it meant to him. > > The trouble for me at the moment is that having lost Kim now, I won't be > able to get to the actual redesign as quickly as I'd wanted to. I was > working on it, and now I'm reeling and life as I knew it has come to a > screeching halt. Not only am I too heartsick to focus on much of anything > right now, but I'm also going to have to work on keeping Kim's personal > sites - KimFlint.com and Annihilist.com - alive in his name. This is on > top of the work I have to do for other sites on our server and dealing with > my own website, Undented.com. > > I haven't given much thought yet to how I'm going to keep up with it all, > but I do have people to help me through this, and I have all of you to give > me input when I'm sorting out the LD stuff. > > But for now, things are going continue the way they were and would have if > Kim were still here: the list will continue running the way it has been, > and I will be reorganizing the site behind the scenes and getting some of > you involved when I'm ready. > > I hope this gives you some hope for the future during this painful time. > > Oh! I nearly forgot ... although the way the site is physically run is > going to change dramatically (in that it will be able to be updated > regularly when I'm done with the re-org, yay!) the overall look probably > won't change much. Originally I had wanted to come up with a new design - > nothing overly flashy, but something better than what's there now - but now > that Kim has gone, his mother has asked if we can at least keep the entry > page similar to what it's been all these years because it comforts her and > makes her think of Kim, so we're going to do that. But it will also > feature a prominent memoriam to Kim. I don't think anyone would argue that > that's the way it should be. So it isn't the overall look that will > change, but the way the content is organized and updated, which will make > it much more exciting and interesting for everyone. I'll be relying > heavily on the community to help with that. > > And I'm going to clean up the archives. When I looked at those, I was > shocked by all the spam! I wish Kim had told me that was happening - I > could have cleaned that up. Eesh! > > So the site isn't going to suddenly turn all crazy, just be more coherent > and easier to navigate and update. > > Okay, I'm done now, and very tired, and I may not have the energy to > respond to replies, but I *am* here and will be reading as much as I can. > > Violet > xoxox > Get a new e-mail account with Hotmail - Free. Sign-up now. |