[quote author=Sara Leigh H. link=action=profile;u=18588 date=1236803539]
I wanted to know something if you do not mind answering.
[/quote]
This was a PM I received, but I figure I may as well answer these publicly:
I have yet to find an "About" page that is specifically the site itself. I have seen a few articles about PokeCharms but none of them gave me any details I was looking for- Correction: There was one, but they only had the first two sentences of what appeared to be an About page. It was a dead link unfortunately.
After a bunch of attempts to keep an up-to-date about page on the site, when I restructured a year or so ago to clean up the site into fewer, very distinct sections, I dropped it entirely. We DO however have a full page on the Bulbapedia (which we have supported from its creation) that pretty much does the same job - and even better, allows others to update it when necessary.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokecharms
Is "Web Page Design" a college major for you or a well thought out hobby?
Both. I've been doing web design since I was about 12/13, which is pretty much 10 years. And through all of that, it's been self-taught. However, I'm currently doing a New Media design course at University that focuses a lot more on the design aspect than the technical aspect, which is rounding out my abilities and skills a lot more and will hopefully give me a career in Web Design properly in a couple of years.
Is this what you hoped for for PokeCharms? Would you ever of dreamed it being this large when you first registered August 14th, 2004 (Source: Alexa.com)?
At its earliest, Pokecharms dates all the way back to 2001, around the time of Pokemon Crystal's release. That is when I made
this original incarnation of the site. It's
really bad and n00bish - but 8/9 years ago the web was an utterly different place, and amazingly, this quality wouldn't have been that uncommon to see... The forums were pretty much born out of the friends I had made on my own first forum experience at Pokeschool and - albeit with a LOT of twists and turns along the way - eventually ended up with something resembling what you see today.
As for its success - I always wanted Pokecharms to be a good website to visit, and to have a nice vibrant community like the one I had enjoyed on Pokeschool, but as I used to say, I would continue to work on Pokecharms even if there was only one other person to see it.
Are you satisfied with PokeCharms with how it is now?
Nope. Never have been, never will be. I will continue working to add the newest and best features to the website and continue working to grow and improve the community here and I will never be satisfied. The work is never done, and nor should it ever be.
What inspired you to actually publish PokeCharms onto the Internet? What/Who helped make that decision?
Even years before I ever had one, I was
fascinated by computers. I've always been a bit of a techy - it probably grew out of getting a Master System for Christmas when I was 5 and loving the hell out of it - and computers just seemed like the pinnacle of what I could get my hands on. And as soon as I did, the internet started booming onto the mainstream scene - so, obviously, I was instantly fascinated by that too. There was a bit of a gap between us getting a PC and us getting it online, but as soon as we finally did, I became heavily interested in building my OWN websites (I'm a very 'monkey-see, monkey-do' kinda person, and LOVE to try my hand at new things like that), got my hands on an HTML editor and learned me some HTML.
Publishing what I made was a bit harder - back in those days, free hosts were not as plentiful or generous as they are these days and it was a veritable mine-field to navigate. But it wouldn't deter me from trying. I wasn't THAT interested in getting loads of people to come and visit the site/s, I just wanted to do them and see them online for my own satisfaction.
That was the beginning anyway. When it came to bringing Pokecharms itself back a few years later, around the release of Pokemon Colosseum, it had been solely out of the choice to give me and my friends a place to upload their fan images, or fan fictions, etc and have a space online for them. The site then evolved further to be more like you see it now, but that emphasis on friendship and community is still at the heart of the site today and is a major part of what makes the place unique.
How many hours would you say you have "put in" into constructing PokeCharms? Maintaining it?
Way too many to begin counting - but when it comes to putting together new stuff like the TCM, it takes weeks upon weeks of on/off work that I have to fit in around my other commitments. Recently I've been working on the major upgrade to the Pokedex, and typically I could easily spend around 4/5 hours a day/night working on one single aspect of that massive project, for a couple of days a week. Similarly, with the major projects I have lined up for this Summer, I anticipate it will take even longer. As for updates to the TCM, just a normal Trainer/Background update can take about two hours to do all-together - and for an update like adding the Shiny Pokemon to it, that took two days of doing it for
most of the day.
I don't have the time to spend all that time on the site constantly, so understandably, big projects take longer than they would if I could theoretically work on the site full time - but considering the stuff I do for Pokecharms is unique - and in most cases, utterly unavailable anywhere else on the Web - it's both worth the workload and for the visitors, I'd hope worth the wait.
