MuppetFans.com: A New Era in Muppet Fandom

[dwmckim]

Which is kind of my point.

Muppet Mindset filled a niche. A need was not being met and it was created in reaction to that. Its purpose, need, and value was clear from the word "go".

Muppet Fans, on the other hand - what niche is it filling? What need is it accomplishing not being met (and particularly by the very sites behind it)? What is the raison d'etre? Who is going to use it as a unique resource as opposed to just an extra bookmark that has the same stuff as the others?

I hope my comments here don't sound like i'm trying to be mean or contrary or purposefully negative. I really want to support a new needed resource. But i'm not yet seeing the need nor the reason to support it. I'd dearly love to have one.

 

[Muppetfan44]

I just checked out the site and I think it looks absolutely fantastic. Dave Hulteen's art is awesome and I enjoyed learning about other artists on the Artists page.

This is just my personal opinion but I think the reason for the site is to have one place to kind of quickly check out everything up-to-date that is going on at other Muppet fan sites, and possibly in the future, a place for other Muppet fans to contribute stuff too. I don't think they meant the site to be exclusive to only their websites but they are the ones that put all the work into making it so they definitely deserve some credit.

I don't know about you, but I definitely get tired of checking out tons of different sites everyday to see what content is up there. It takes so much time and you get a lot of unnecessary overlap. I've been using facebook recently to see what new content is up to see if I want to check it out. I think the site is great because it looks awesome and you can go there and check out all the new content to see if you want to read more or just read the snippet.

I love MuppetCentral, but I never come here for news updates or to read articles anymore, because there is hardly anything new on the website and if it is, it is put up long after the fact so I already read about it somewhere else, usually on toughpigs or muppetmindset or even the MC forum.

I for one will never discredit new muppet fan websites that look great and offer a "one-stop shop" for great muppet content.

To all the men over at muppetfans.com: keep up the great work! I can't wait to see what else pops up on the site!

 

[dwayne1115]

Which is kind of my point.

Muppet Mindset filled a niche. A need was not being met and it was created in reaction to that. Its purpose, need, and value was clear from the word "go".

Muppet Fans, on the other hand - what niche is it filling? What need is it accomplishing not being met (and particularly by the very sites behind it)? What is the raison d'etre? Who is going to use it as a unique resource as opposed to just an extra bookmark that has the same stuff as the others?

I hope my comments here don't sound like i'm trying to be mean or contrary or purposefully negative. I really want to support a new needed resource. But i'm not yet seeing the need nor the reason to support it. I'd dearly love to have one.

I kind of unserstand where your coming from and feel the same way. Sorry if that is upseting.

 

[minor muppetz]

Will this include any of the best pages from Muppet Central? I was looking at the interviews page, and feel that the Muppet Central interviews with Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, and Dave Goelz are just as good as the ones posted.

 

[dwmckim]

I'm guessing not (though i really hope i'm wrong)

Since the tough pigs announcement went up, i'm gathering that it is indeed a portal of sorts.

So...essentially a "Muppet Google" that only really provides content from the sites sponsoring it freezing out any other sites that may be out there with big pretty photos of the webmasters plastered all over saying "We're the real Muppet fans and if you're looking for neat cool Muppety stuff on the web all you need to know is just check us out instead of looking anywhere else."

(and yet none of these sites have cared to cover such important Henson stuff like Boom's Farscape comics)

If i don't miss my guess, i think there may be a kind of google-ish feature towards the bottom that robotically searches for recent Muppet news articles - which essentially results in either bringing up the same articles from the sponsor sites linked to above or in the occassional instance where it does finds something from outside, the end result is that it seems like it's being presented by this new cabal that's taking implied credit for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Wal*mart-ization of Muppet fandom.

Like Slackbot hinted, i'm hoping this is all tied in with a particular date in April, but i have a sad feeling that's not the case.

Someone please give me good news that i'm reading this all wrong - that it's just been explained and presented very poorly and in actuality is a good idea. I'm sorry if i sound harsh, but the more respect you hold for a person, the more you expect from them and hold them to a higher standard - and the harder you'll come down on them when they do something really disappointing. Right now when i look at this site, i feel like a teacher whose prize students got together to work on a special project and instead of the brilliance i know they're capable of both apart and pooled together, they handed in one of their older sibling's term papers from my class two years ago hoping i wouldn't remember it with all the original typos still intact and with a cover page filled with big garish glossy photos of them decorating the front and back covers and the margins.

 

[dwayne1115]

I'm guessing not (though i really hope i'm wrong)

Since the tough pigs announcement went up, i'm gathering that it is indeed a portal of sorts.

So...essentially a "Muppet Google" that only really provides content from the sites sponsoring it freezing out any other sites that may be out there with big pretty photos of the webmasters plastered all over saying "We're the real Muppet fans and if you're looking for neat cool Muppety stuff on the web all you need to know is just check us out instead of looking anywhere else."

(and yet none of these sites have cared to cover such important Henson stuff like Boom's Farscape comics)

If i don't miss my guess, i think there may be a kind of google-ish feature towards the bottom that robotically searches for recent Muppet news articles - which essentially results in either bringing up the same articles from the sponsor sites linked to above or in the occassional instance where it does finds something from outside, the end result is that it seems like it's being presented by this new cabal that's taking implied credit for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Wal*mart-ization of Muppet fandom.

Like Slackbot hinted, i'm hoping this is all tied in with a particular date in April, but i have a sad feeling that's not the case.

Someone please give me good news that i'm reading this all wrong - that it's just been explained and presented very poorly and in actuality is a good idea. I'm sorry if i sound harsh, but the more respect you hold for a person, the more you expect from them and hold them to a higher standard - and the harder you'll come down on them when they do something really disappointing. Right now when i look at this site, i feel like a teacher whose prize students got together to work on a special project and instead of the brilliance i know they're capable of both apart and pooled together, they handed in one of their older sibling's term papers from my class two years ago hoping i wouldn't remember it with all the original typos still intact and with a cover page filled with big garish glossy photos of them decorating the front and back covers and the margins.

Well good luck with that! cause I know I have been talking to Ryan D, and he wants to basicly leave MC out of it. I have tried to talk to the guys at toughpigs, but we just really didn't seem to connect. Steve and me talked about this site, and like with the awrards I wanted to see some of the Puppeters and artiest on here recongized. I really thought though that it would some how be different, I don't know how but different. I know you yourself DW have a muppet site and they don't even acknolage you at all, so I cen see how there would be some problems there.

 

[dwmckim]

Well good luck with that! cause I know I have been talking to Ryan D, and he wants to basicly leave MC out of it. I have tried to talk to the guys at toughpigs, but we just really didn't seem to connect. Steve and me talked about this site, and like with the awrards I wanted to see some of the Puppeters and artiest on here recongized. I really thought though that it would some how be different, I don't know how but different. I know you yourself DW have a muppet site and they don't even acknolage you at all, so I cen see how there would be some problems there.

Well, my site's long been on permanent hiatus after all this mess has been going on with my financial/employment troubles so it's essentially been closed until something happens to where my life is in a good place again (which i don't foresee happening soon) so that doesn't bug me. It's one step away from being "dead" (it's just in a coma awaiting a miracle).

But say for example, nothing bad happened to me last year and i was able to keep it going. Would it be doomed to non-support because it was left out of this clique? What about any new sites that sprung up? How about acknowledgement of other sites that exist alongside the ones putting this site together? Instead of a new site that just presents everything on all these already existing ones, has anyone given any thought about trying to create a space for an archive for all the now lost stuff from the recently closed Muppet Newsflash? Based on what i've observed and what you've shared, it seems like a deliberate attempt to promote their sites over anything else and freeze out anything else.

I've had some ideas in mind for some articles for the Mindset which again "life things" like scrambling for a job, food, and money to pay bills with have taken priority over getting them written and submitted but i have to say with stuff like this going on, it makes me not want to even bother. It makes me wonder about the whole timing with Ryan's dropping out of the awards. Don't get me wrong - even with all the extra junk in my life, i don't mind picking up the flack but would all the great stuff that happened here and came out of the forum just been left unacknowledged just because someone wanted to start playing with the big cooler kids on the playground and acting as if his old friends didn't exist?

This is all just leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. At first i was a bit wary because this project seemed like New Coke. Packaged pretty but not really thought out and trying to take the place of something that already existed and was just fine as it was. Now it just seems more like Big Corporate Conglomerate moving in and shutting down all the neighborhood mom-and-pops...with shiny smiling corportate logos and fuzzy mascots.

Again - i WANT to be wrong. I hope someone can give me better information on the whole idea, concept, purpose of the site and i'm reading everything wrong because of the poor way it was introduced and presented. I want to support fan efforts. I want to click on a muppet fandom link and smile. I want to know people i like, admire and respect haven't gone rogue. I want to know that what seems at first glance to be a really bad idea by really good people is in fact something wonderful that hasn't been fully properly explained. I really don't want to see the fandom community have all these new cliques and wars and "we're better than you" attitudes spring up at a time when the Muppets are experiencing such a big relaunch.

 

[theprawncracker]

Before I start... this is really Steve Swanson's baby, so I'm hoping he can come in and clarify what exactly the site is about better than I can but I'm going to do my best.

Since the tough pigs announcement went up, i'm gathering that it is indeed a portal of sorts.

That is exactly what it is. MuppetFans is not intended to replace any Muppet website or push any site out of the limelight. We built it to support ToughPigs, Mindset, and MuppetCast by tying them all together in one place so that MuppetCast fans could find Mindset content they might be missing, Mindset fans could find ToughPigs content they might be missing, etc. It is intended to act as a portal/guide to the vast world of Muppet fan content on our three sites.

So...essentially a "Muppet Google" that only really provides content from the sites sponsoring it freezing out any other sites that may be out there with big pretty photos of the webmasters plastered all over saying "We're the real Muppet fans and if you're looking for neat cool Muppety stuff on the web all you need to know is just check us out instead of looking anywhere else."

We are NOT freezing out other sites and never do we make a claim such as "We're the real Muppet fans." Steve asked Phillip Chapman if he wanted to be a part of MuppetFans and he either declined or never responded. We needed to move forward so we had to leave MC out. It has never been and never will be the intent of MuppetFans to say, "These three sites are the best things you can find, so don't bother looking anywhere else." But you cannot deny that Muppet Central, ToughPigs, The MuppetCast, and The Muppet Mindset make up the four main Muppet fan sites. I'm not saying that to be snobby... it's just the truth. We wanted to provide a one-stop location that tied these sites together so that Muppet fans can see that Muppet fandom is a collaborative effort and that we aren't competitors. None of us feel any sort of ill will towards Muppet Central or any other Muppet fan site, we were simply trying to tie together the most content in one place.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Wal*mart-ization of Muppet fandom.

In NO way is MuppetFans a "Wal-Mart-ization" of anything. We are NOT trying to put other Muppet fan sites out of commission, we are NOT trying to discourage other Muppet fan sites or Muppet fans from anything--exactly the opposite, in fact. We are encouraging Muppet fans to find all of the great Muppet content on our sites. If they find The Muppet Mindset they'll find a place where they too can provide Muppet content to be read by a mass audience, which will then be reposted via the MuppetFans portal, which will start the cycle all over again. There is absolutely no intent on our part to discourage Muppet fan creativity, new Muppet fan sites, or any such thing.

If MuppetFans.com fills a niche it is this: A one-stop location where you will find a collaboration between three of the Muppet fan sites responsible for daily and weekly Muppet updates--something you cannot find anywhere else. MuppetFans.com provides a portal for fans new and old to discover content they may have missed by previously only knowing of one site and not the others or two sites and not another. In the end, MuppetFans.com is about the Muppet fans. It gives us a place to find more and more content that is consistently updated with news, new Mindset and ToughPigs articles, Muppet facts of the day, fan artist spotlights, and events. It is a convenient location to find virtually all of the interviews conducted by all three sites on one page so that Muppet fans can find out more and more about the people who make the things they love. And above all we hope it is an encouragement to Muppet fans that shows that there are people out there who are interested in what they think and have to say and provides them with links to three websites that would be happy to showcase their fan-content and opinions on their homepages.

 

[Slackbot]

We are NOT trying to put other Muppet fan sites out of commission, we are NOT trying to discourage other Muppet fan sites or Muppet fans from anything--exactly the opposite, in fact. We are encouraging Muppet fans to find all of the great Muppet content on our sites.

It sounds like you are saying that MF encourages non-member sites by guiding people to the content on member sites only. I don't see how that works.

If MF truly wants to encourage "other Muppet fan sites," an easy way would be to add a links section. That would certainly show goodwill.

 

[dwmckim]

Thank you. I was hoping for a little more clarification. That does make me feel a bit better about it.

That being said, i hope you understand my comments were indeed based on what the site appears to represent based on its initial presentation and unveiling. If the kind of explanation presented in your above reply was presented at the get-go, that would have been more helpful. Also keep in mind maybe the Muppetcast explained it better but i don't have the ability to listen to it so i couldn't go by that.

As i've said throughout, if my comments seemed more on the harsh side, it's only because i hold you to a higher standard. I still can't say i'm won over to the idea or whether this all was really needed or well thought out enough between initial idea and final execution. But like i also said, whatever the goal is i wish you the best of luck with it and hopefully you can take some of my criticism as an outside set of eyes calling attention to some weaknesses with the presentation and use them to help make the site's purpose and goals clearer. I do wish you the best of success with it.