NGS WEBSITE CLOSURE

[geordieboi]

Unfortunately, the NGS WebTeam have taken the decision to close down the newcastlegayscene.co.uk website.

As regular visitors will know, there have been no updates to the site for a considerable length of time. The information on the site is out of date, and since the departure of Gary (Ophelia) from Fat Boy Leisure, the only two people who provided any information from within the company were John Harrison and Rick Evans.

Since Rick quit his job as manager of The Eagle, followed by the departure of John from The End, the webteam have not received a single update from Fat Boy Leisure. We have therefore taken the difficult decision to close down the website with immediate effect.

It is often the case that people viewing websites assume that because the site is out of date, it is the fault of the website manager or his webteam. There are threads on these chatboards which suggest the lack of updates is due to failings on the part of the website team. This could not be further from the truth, and anyone who knows me and my team will confirm.

It was puzzling to me, and to the team, to view a comment posted to the chatboards recently whereby a member of staff from Fat Boy Leisure announced there were "job vacancies" for the website, and anyone interested should contact him. We felt it important to point out that the newcastlegayscene.co.uk name is not owned by Fat Boy Leisure, nobody has approached me or my staff with a view to vacancies, and nobody within Fat Boy Leisure's employment has any authorised access to any part of the website's admin or content - so just what these 'vacancies' covered remains a mystery!

Personally speaking, I would like to thank those people within my team who have provided me with the information in the first place, from the regular contributions from John Harrison, Rick Evans, Miss Ophelia Balls, and the venue managers of other venues who contacted me with information at the site's launch. Also thanks to Oscar, who provided some news items earlier this year.

Finally, a thank you to all of the visitors who have used the site over the last 12 months, and who have taken the time to send in emails or messages via the website, or even passed comments in person. I have enjoyed working on this project, and your support has been much appreciated.

Have a Happy Christmas everyone!

Graeme
NGS Site Manager

[hippy]

Oh boo hoo! Couldn't you just veer away from FBL (not exclude) and provide a more general overview for visitors and Tynesiders alike? Maybe you do need to recruit some "on the spot" contributors/volunteers. I'm sure it could work. John H. said at the beginning that he wanted it to be a resource for ALL gay bi ts etc etc people and not just an outlet for one section.

Come on. With a great URL and a dedicated following it sounds a little bit like someone's just spat out the dummy.

OK so break from the FBL influence. It is only a short step to creating a good and useful Website and encouraging an on-line community.

I suspect that the adverts for Web designer vacancies were a FBL attempt to get a dedicated site going, rather than zoopedy-doop this one. Nothing has happened, presumably, as the FBL Directors have discovered the commerical cost is more than a curry and a night out with the boys in the real world.

You do no-one any favours by quitting. Get in touch on personal message or email if you want to discuss options further.

[wildeman]

The goings on at FBL this year are slightly familiar...

See: The fall of the Roman Empire, Death of Idi Amin or other out-of-touch despots at the end of their reigns.

PS thanks for keeping the chatboards going.

[combatmikieuk]

I agree wildman, like Rome, the FBL emperor is too busy fiddling!!!

[fbh]

I am sorry if some of you consider this to be a mere dummy spit. Believe me it is not a decision that has been taken lightly by anyone involved in the NGS website. A large number of individuals have contributed to this project since the site began many years ago, no-one more so than myself.

All the team have given it their best shot, and I must say that after lengthy discussions we temporarily removed the site, which after all only contained stale, out of date information on events, old news and activities which were listed months ago. So unfortunately since no information has been provided by FBL, who have sponsored the site and were kind enough to cover the cost of the hosting charges, no further updates will occur .

The dated content is, in my opinion more damaging to potential visitors to the scene not to mention the collective moans from those who log in day after day only to be disappointed to see no change. If the site remained active it would go completely against everything that I had hoped the project would achieve for the entire lgbt scene, regardless of ownership, an overall glimpse of a unified and forward thinking commercial and cultural lgbt scene full of life and vibrancy.

I do hope that you all understand the reasons behind my decision and accept my apologies for authorising my web team to place the site on hold (hopefully temporarily).

I would like to advise you all that Pure Leisure have a website which offers some useful information regarding the Newcastle gay scene:
www.newcastlegay.co.uk

[gazza]

on a happy note I just want to say agreat big thanks to Graeme,as with out him this really would'nt of happened.
The endless pints and chats we would havediscussing the site and what would go where etc was a real buzz for both of us.
and I remember we launched it on just after midnite on world aids day last year.with the help of our Quiz winners.
Hopefully all of everyones hard work and efforts may be stacked and re-used.

At least one good thing come out of having this site,2 great people met....! see ya on the 15th

see ya folks

Gary ex FBL

[dazza190574]

Very sorry to see the site close down.

For anyone interested there is another site at www.gaysceneonline.co.uk where we have chat forums and live chat rooms and new features coming on line soon.

A big thanks to all of those people who put a lot of time and effort into the site.

[tightass]

Well as an outsider to all these politics with no attachment to fbl, I just want to know what's going on? Is this an fbl site or not? Most posts say it is not but some say it is! Whilst fbh says it is funded by them, I don't think a 'holding them to ransom' attitude by closing the website is a good way to go about things. The site will close entirely will it not without funding from them?

If it is not fbl, how can they be blamed on no forthcoming information as a reason for closing the site?

Yes the 'whats on' was out of date and yes 'headline news' is carved in stone somewhere but the rest was OK and still of interest to people who want to visit Newcastle. Type in 'Newcastle gay scene' in any search engine and this site comes top!

I know all board managers, and you know me from my years on the scene and I am not getting at you personally. You have all put the time and effort into making Newcastle scene the place it is (was?) and I know that taking decisions to resign is not made lightly. I did it once and still have nightmares on how I had the balls to do it.

Whilst 'whats on' will be a very difficult space to fill without fbl involvement I am sure there are enough 'roving reporters' to enlist to make reports on recent events to keep the site up to date and topical. Personally I would have hoped you would have got rid of the out of date info and kept the site up and running with a warning that it might close without input.

What do others think?

Al

[newcuk]

dazza190574 said:

Very sorry to see the site close down.

For anyone interested there is another site at www.gaysceneonline.co.uk where we have chat forums and live chat rooms and new features coming on line soon.

A big thanks to all of those people who put a lot of time and effort into the site.

Yes, the GaySceneOnline website is fab!!
And its been online since jan 2004 so is long term.

Its ran by individuals rather than the venues which is prob why its stuck around so long, and visitors can send in info to add to the news sections etc

Chat rooms are great too

[ouch]

tightass said:

I just want to know what's going on? Is this an fbl site or not? Most posts say it is not but some say it is! Whilst fbh says it is funded by them, I don't think a 'holding them to ransom' attitude by closing the website is a good way to go about things. The site will close entirely will it not without funding from them?

To clarify who owns the domain name - it is not owned by Fat Boy Leisure, it is owned by an individual that used to do much of the running around; leg work and general operational running of the business (FBL). Now he no longer works for them why would he choose to run and operate something at his own expense for the benefit of FBL? I imagine he paid for the domain out of his own pocket from the beginning.

If FBL want the domain name they can do what any other commercial organisation would have to do and approach the individual that owns the name and purchase it from them.

The old powerhouse domain name expired fairly recently and visiting it now reveals what happens if you arent on top of such things : www.power-house.co.uk/

As for the closure of the site itself; who knows what will happen to the site and its content. It is presently closed - it could be re invented as the independant face of the gay scene people have been crying out for; at least for as long as I can remember. Many of the bar/nightclub customers have always felt that they have no place to independantly talk about prices and issues that effect them because each of the "Gay Scene" sites have been owned by a company that wants to make a profit and often does not take criticism very well.

As for the closure of the site : I imagine there are hosting costs and expenses for the running, updating and registration of the site. Its a logical assumption to make that the person who owns the site (now pays) and wants to do something different with it and minimise these (his) costs.

As for a warning about the site closing without updates... well from my experience as a Website Manager, people are full of empty promises... especially if it involves doing anything like something that resembles work for nothing. Its been a long long time like geordieboi said since the site has had any updates and knowing geordieboi I imagine it isnt for the lack of him trying to get some from people.

[dazza190574]

Like I have said in a previous post come along to our site www.gaysceneonline.co.uk

It is completely independent and you can talk about anything you want, from chavs in the club to the extortionate prices pubs charge.

[andydarlo]

I'd just like to add my two penny's worth

From what I can make out, the website was put together and run by people who were involved with FBL, so it had a FBL slant to it, but it wasn't the official FBL website. Since said people have left the employ of FBL, the information required to keep the website "up to date" wasn't flowing to those behind the site, hence the decision to stop supporting it.

Now surely one of the features of a chat board is that people chat on it. Therefore, as long as people continue to chat on it and tell people what they've found out is going on, then it stays relatively up to date. As for publishing a definitive gay scene events diary, i can see how that would be awkward - scene operators have never been too forward at event details. It surely would be possible for the site to remain as a forum for users of the newcastle gay scene, and loose events info could still work i.e. strippers at eagle wed/fri/sun, greta at the yard on weds, cabaret at the yard sun/mon, lesbian pianists in the end on sundays, etc etc without having to say that a particular e.g. stripper will appear on a certain day.

I can understand how certain people feel a certain lack of enthusiasm in supporting fbl through publicity of their events on this site, but the point has been made that this is not an official fbl site, so support doesnt have to occur. Reference is another matter of course....

I'd be a shame to see a free and easy chat forum for the users of the newcastle gay scene be lost, surely we can keep it going............

And before anyone says anything, i know the work in running something for the gay scene and the problems of no-one willing to help, support lacking etc, it's just a case of the benefit that people get that keeps me going......

Andrew
Secretary, Gay Men Tyneside

The views expressed are mine, and not those of GMT.

www.gay-men-tyneside.org.uk - Providing a social alternative to the commercial gay scene since 1992.

[gazza]

To A point I do see where you are coming from,but....
Dont the people or most, that use this forum know that there are strippers on at eagle, Drag on at Yard etc,,,,etc,,,,,
It is nice to actually know who will be entertaining you,as it could make a difference where you go ,or even come out. Prior to website days, Many times Ive rung venue's to see who will be on , and the staff never even knew, so its a case of better go out anyway,(Good marketing I suppose....?)
I ask the question,do people not want to advertise who is on and when, just in case they do not show up, or has there been anyone ever booked in the first place...??