Phillyman

Earlier today Meppi and myself brainstormed together about doing some tidying up around the forums. I have realized for a while now that I maybe created too many categories and that the forum needed an condensing down. We removed the Computer Support forum, and all the forums for the separate magazines. We also changed the color of Moderators from Green to Slate Blue (dont ask) Anyways please tell me if anything on the forum can be organized better or such. We want this site to be easy to navigate and find the information needed. -Phillyman

Thats good, When I subscribed (now expired) I got the Mario and Luigi Partners in Time Guide. I should really subscribe again....

Update: Yahoo is being a prick to the people who I host with, They are blocking or partially blocking emails from my host. So I have blocked registering with a Yahoo Email in order to prevent people from running into this problem. As soon as it is resolved I will Whitelist Yahoo again for use on these forums, Sorry for the inconvienence....feel free to email Yahoo and bitch at them for me! About The Yahoo Problem!

Sure any magazine is of interest, Take a few sample scans and send them off....it would be a welcome addition to the Downloads section.

I had a subscription to them back around issue 20, but I didn't renew. Although sitting next to me as I post this is about 70 Issues of Next Generation Magazine.

Well I am going to be scanning EGM Issue 1 this week. So keep your eyes peeled for it. I only own about 3 Gamefan issues and they are all around the 95-98 era. I tried bidding on GameFan Issue 1 ($25) and the damn thing sold for $75 which is crazy! As for today I scanned the second Issue of Game Informer......but again....some older GameFans would be awesome!

No its totally not a requirement, I do so to save time, and only on issues that are "Perfect Bound" , If I remember correctly GameFan Issue 1 is stapled together, so it should be a snap to scan. Even if its not .....scan it the best you can....we would love to see the first issue of Gamefan

Just how bad can a magazine suck to be canned after 1 issue? I went and looked up some info on GameGo, since I have the first issue. This is what I found..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameGO! Thats absolutely horrible, I mean how do you start up a gaming magazine and only have enough money for 1 issue? Word of mouth cant spread that fast...so how do they know it would not have picked up. Very weird, But Retromags now has the first issue scanned for your enjoyment, Eday should have it up tommorow or Saturday PS - Its filled with half naked anime women!

Won! GameNOW Issues 1 and 10

I can see both points of view on the joined pages, Its really a personal pref and I am not really leaning one way or another. But I just want to weigh in on your comment about this site being well known already. The Honest truth is this site only gets about 300 unique visitors each day, Now that may sound like a nice solid number....but its not. Take that 300 unique users and start subtracting 10% are probably misrepresented search engines 10% are probably spam robots, Our forum got hit very hard and now it has moved to the Wiki (ask Meppi as he cleans up most of it) 20% are visitors who most likely do not understand the English language 15% are repeat visitors So after all that you are left with maybe 165 unique people visiting this site per day. And thats an optimistic number. Now take into account how many people out of that 165 are just going to download and leave.....your number just gets smaller and smaller. To you the "Thank You" page may seem insignificant, but lets look at it from this way...... A Member signs up to Retromags, He downloads one of your scans...lets say Game Informer #66 Now once he has downloaded that magazine, maybe he puts it in his Kazaa Media Share Folder That magazine gets downloaded out of that shared folder 15 times One downloader decides to upload it to a Binary Newsgroup One downloader decides to place the magazine in his DC++ share folder One downloader uploads it to a Rapidshare link and posts the link on his website The remaining 12 people just download it and go to Google and type "Game Informer Magazines" All those views and downloads from all those people, not one of them knows that the magazine originated from Retromags.com, Newsgroups get hundreds of thousands of views, and the person who uploads a copy to his gaming site....well he has a huge amount of members.....again all missed opportunities. Look we have a HUGE amount of Nintendo Power scans on this website, Go to Google and type any of the following.... Nintendo Power Downloads Nintendo Power Scans Nintendo Power Magazines Nintendo Power 121 Nintendo Power .cbr downloads Nintendo Power Scanned Magazines How many of those search terms list Retromags on the first page? How many on the second page?......Sometimes Retromags is not even listed....I dont know about you Fusoya....but when I Google Search.....I only dive about 3 pages in. In the end maybe you feel like I am making a fortune off this site or someother ulterior motive, but in the past 2 years of operating this website.....I have maybe pulled $1000 worth of donations....and I can honestly say that for every $1 donated, I have probably put $1.25 out of my own pocket. I am not running this website to become rich, I am doing it because I believe in protecting the issues that many of us have lost or thrown away. I believe that people who have these magazines tucked away in protective plastic comic bags should be able to enjoy the issues they own ...without further damaging there physical copies. I am all for idea's on improving this project.....I may have had the initiative to start this project.....but each member that helps....is why this project continues to move forward....we should not let personal gripes and such slow down such a great way to preserve our gaming history -Phillyman

Honestly I have 500GB of storage on this host, and for $5 more a month I can increase that to 1TB. So its not entirely out of the question to host both sets and in the end let people choose which one suits them better. The only thing holding me back from getting the remaining issues released on here (in a temp form) is that I don't have all the posters joined as of yet. I have been working with Meppi to get some of them scanned, but I know he has his scans to mess around with also. As it stands this is the situation...... Missing Only Posters 90,92,111,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,123,124,125,127,129,130,137,140,142,143,14 4,145,146,147 These issues we just need to join the poster side and drop them into these releases and they are done. Missing Posters and Covers 121,122,126,128,135,136,138,139 Like the above but missing the covers also Scanned But Not Released (aka Poster Needs Joining) 148,149,150,151,153,154,155,156,157,160 Not Scanned At All 152,158,159,161,162,163,164,165,166 Need to buy these issues and scan them All this just made my head spin, so thats why I laid off it for a while, because at least on the EGM set its either Have, Missing or Scanned!

I have two Issue 82 EGM's. If it was in the one I used to scan, it would have been scanned.....The other one I just checked and its missing from there also. We will keep an eye out for it

Thanks for the donation, I will keep my eyes open but haven't seen it yet

Yes I have not banned anyone in a while, I did not ban you for Disagreeing with me, it was that I felt that you were creating a hostile environment that would deter anyone from offering to help out. Who wants to help on a project where it looks like the members don't get along? I personally am not too concerned with the DPI that you scan at, I would rather see you include the "Retromags Thank You" page in your Releases so as they populate around the internet....people know where they came from, and possibly help the cause. As you said....If I was the only one doing work ....you would not lend a hand......so why not try to prevent that? Yes I will admit that I am EASILY sidetracked, I keep wanting to get the Nintendo Power set up and finished to Issue 165. Not really too keen on the joining of the pages (to each his own). The problem with the Nintendo Power set is that I feel as though I would have an easier time rescanning all 165 issues then to try to fix up the current set. In my opinion KMFDManic turned the contrast down to low on these pages and everything has a "Dark" feeling about it. His scans also don't leave me much room for the joining of the posters. I am kind of tired of looking at Nintendo Powers, and decided to do a fresh start on EGM and PSM. I think this site was getting the image of only scanning Nintendo Powers, So thats why I decided to scan EGM's. I only have about 40 Issues left to run through the ADF, and then 20 Issues to scan manually (staple bound) Once I get those all scanned, I was going to drop back to 1 scan per day and finish out the PSM collection 001-053, and then I was going to finish manually scanning the 20 Sega Vision magazines.......after all that I was going to redo the Nintendo Power collection. Will I get sidetracked again.....Probably.....but I am trying.

Fuysoa, No other member has any problems with me, and I have none with them. You are more then welcome to upload magazines to the Retromags system. What I will not let you do is try to tear this site into 2 again. You are right that you were here before most of the current members, but in terms of helping Retromags out, you fall very far behind most of my current members. If you want to come on this forum just to try to drive a wedge between me and my current members, well that wont be tolerated. I have tried to accomadate you in every respect... You didn't want to create an NFO File I said OK You didn't want to include the Thank You Page in your releases I said OK You didn't want to scan at 300DPI I said OK I have even gone as far as to ask other members on this site NOT TO CRITICIZE your scans! Yes a few members don't care for the joined pages, and a few others have asked why your scans look "Grainy". I went and told them to let you be, but then you come and rear your head bashing me for my scans. Yes my EGM scans are Rough scans, After I have reached my goal of scanning 150 Magazines I will be going back and fixing them up. The madness behind the idea was that if I do all the work scanning 100+ EGM magazines, that maybe.....just maybe a few people will step forward and help me with cleaning up the scans. You need to make a decision Fusoya, Either you want to help the Retromags project or not. If your problem is soo big that it can't be resolved, then please move along and let me and my team get back to work.

Well the ultimate goal I would like for this site is the following.... A team of 20 people that can scan and upload 1 retro gaming magazine per month. That would equal out to 4-5 new releases per week and no one would burn out. In addition it would be great if we had people spread out across the world so that we get a good variety of magazines and shipping costs on Ebay would not kill us. In Fusoya's defense I will admit that the way I had this website set up was not the most efficient. Up till last November the system worked the following way..... A Member scans a magazine If that magazine is edited they upload it to my personal FTP in the *Edited Section* I then take that magazine and place it on Mininova and TPB and place a link back to Retromags I seed it as much as I can, then I stop Any Premium Members, Ask me for an account to the Personal FTP, and I grant them access Now for the other scenario.... A Member scans a Magazine If that magazine IS NOT edited, they upload it to my personal FTP in the *Un Edited Section* I then try to find another member who is good at editing to download it and fix it up If that member fixes it up.....then they upload it back to the *Edited Section* As you can see this is only a fraction of what was going on behind the scenes.....it was a nightmare to manage and it was even worse to organize. This is why when I found out that the people who created the software that runs my forum, had created a Download Manager.....well I jumped at the idea....Now things run A LOT smoother. This Download Management software is still kind of new so there are a few bugs, but it will all get worked out over time. I do appreciate EVERYONE who helps this project out.....but running a project such as this requires organization. I believe that Fusoya is coming in with the mindset of "I don't work for you, So I will do as I please...and if you don't like it....I will not help". This kind of mindset will always cause problems! My 3 rules from the start on this website were the following..... 1) Scan the Entire Magazine (with a few exceptions) 2) Share What You Have Scanned 3) Don't Submit anything that isn't at least 5 years old! The first rule is pretty simple.....Either your going to scan a magazine or not. If people start taking it upon themselves to determine what is "Worth" scanning......well then the releases are going to suck. Lets say that Meppi scans a magazine and leaves out all the Advertisements, Now I come along and decide to scan those advertisements for that issue (because I feel they are important) Well its not just as simple as me scanning those ads, Because each scanner "scans" images differently.....you will be able to tell that the issue was scanned by 2 different people. That issue now looks like a "Frankenstein" issue.....So I might as well rescan the entire magazine now. Now not only did Meppi waste his time scanning everything but the advertisements, but now I wasted my time rescanning something that could have been done the first time around. The second rule is also simple, Why scan something for a community project if you wish to place restrictions on how its used. I really have no time to keep track of how everyone wants there scans distributed. This project is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, don't be the stingy kid on the playground that doesn't want to share his toys! The truth is that 97% of people that come to this site will just leech the files and leave.....its just the nature of the beast. Not everyone who downloads an emulator will help that author code his next version.....we are no different! The third rule is my own personal enforcement, This site is called RETROmags, not last months issue of Gamepro. I do not support anyone scanning current issues of magazines. If you want to do that, then go register the domain www.CurrentMags.com and do so yourself....Not going to really beat a dead horse on this one Now I don't think that any of the above rules are "Over The Top".....I try to be a laid back Admin......I welcome an open discussion on any improvements that can be made. All I ask for is that you do it respectfully!

I don't know Meppi.....Fusoya may be right....If I don't personally read every release.....whats the point of anyone doing any work? On that topic...wasn't it you Fusoya that told me "GamePro Sucks" and that its a waste of time to scan any of them? I would bet quite a few members would disagree with that fact! Oh and I don't really care for "Fearless Leader" .......I like to be called "Grand Supreme Master of the Universe" Fusoya....Pick one....either you want to scan and participate on the Retromags team....or you hate my guts and wish I would get hit by a bus.....you cant really have it both ways. I'm not gonna waste anymore time on this post, its time better spent scanning. EDIT: Fusoya is having trouble because he is not using the period-slash before the path name, If you don't use them it moves the file but corrupts it. "./uploads/filename.ext" is the correct way to upload files to the system. Before you bash the system maybe you should remember what I told you already

You mean EGM #1?

This is just a friendly poll to see what is stopping most people from helping out. We are asking only because we want to try to get around any hurdles that members may be experiencing in helping out.

I am thinking that they shouldn't be hard to find, so that I can debind them and run them through the ADF

Meppi and Kbf_private_joker both have enough magazines to keep them busy for the next few years.....Time for some more recruits

The Retromags fund is still recovering from the EGM purchases, We had $50 in the fund.....I put $60 out of my pocket because I know I will be reselling these magazines on Ebay after scanning. I also have a bid on Nintendo Fun Club Issue 1 right now ......I will move your topic now

I would love to see some more foreign scanners like Meppi, We can always take up donations for oversea's magazines (just ask Meppi)

Big Thanks to all the donors -Phillyman

Racketboy over at Racketboy.com is thinking about lending the missing EGM magazines to Retromags for preservation. He has most of the missing issues that we need to have a complete run of EGM. The only issues he is missing is Issue 2 and Issue 7. I may decide not to take issue 44 and 77 since that was when EGM was doing those massive 300 page issues and it would take me forever to scan. I also already have a bid on Ebay for issue 103 and Prophane33 is going to be sending me issue 95..... The break down looks like this now.... Updated as of March 24th 2008!