The Official B5 website...why so bad?

[Emfeeli]

is soooo bad. What is WB doing? They havn't updated it since the end of season 4. It def. needs some work...is this because Warner Bros. just doesn't care about B5 or what?

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"And that, Mollari, is why it will not be your people, or mine, or the Gaim, or the Drazi or the Vorlons or the Shadows who in the end will stand astride the galaxy like giants. It will be the humans."
"I think you are the one who is mad, G'kar," Londo said. "I can choose just as well as the humans. I can choose to stay in this cell, with you, or I can choose to leave."
"Yes, but can you choose for there not to be a cell at all?"
"I don't understand," Londo said.
"Exactly," G'kar said. "Exactly."

 

[drakh]

It was created by the division of WB that handles syndicated shows. When the show moved to TNT, they simply dropped it since it was no longer their responsiblity. This might change if Rangers becomes a series, since it has Babylon 5 in it's name.

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"When I want your opinion I'll beat it out of you, ok?" (audio)
-- Ranma-chan, A Leotard is a Girl's Burden, Ranma 1/2

drakh@spamcop.net

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>When the show moved to TNT, they simply dropped it since it was no longer their responsiblity.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly, and TNT simultaneously started up a pretty decent site of their own. (Staffed in part by genuine B5 fans, some of whom posted under both their own real names and aliases when they just wanted to "hang out.") For all the later Crusade problems, TNT treated B5 extraoridindarily well, lavishing far more attention on it than Warner Bros. ever did, and making a serious effort to promote the show. The TNT site also went out with class, posting a note telling visitors that the series was moving to the Sci-Fi Channel when the TNT run ended.

Since then the show has been out of production, and old series never get the attention that new ones do. As drakh said, expect something better when/if Rangers becomes a series. But don't ever expect anything too good - WB does not do the internet very well, at least as far as TV shows go. (Feature films do somewhat better, but WB as a whole simply doesn't "get" the whole internet thing.) For instance, don't ever expect a responsible person from WB to post any messages, as programming people and the webmaster at the TNT site did routinely.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[drakh]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
As drakh said, expect something better when/if Rangers becomes a series. But don't ever expect anything too good - WB does not do the internet very well, at least as far as TV shows go.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>SciFi might try to buy the rights to it and give it a facelift themselves... IIRC, TNT did this when they acquired Pretender and Psi Factor.

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"When I want your opinion I'll beat it out of you, ok?" (audio)
-- Ranma-chan, A Leotard is a Girl's Burden, Ranma 1/2

drakh@spamcop.net

 

[Emfeeli]

Thanks for the info. It just kinda pisses me off that all the official B5 sites really suck--including sci-fi's, which is even worse than the WB one. When you look at the Star Trek website, its amazing. They have libraries,and updated news. Oh well.

------------------
"And that, Mollari, is why it will not be your people, or mine, or the Gaim, or the Drazi or the Vorlons or the Shadows who in the end will stand astride the galaxy like giants. It will be the humans."
"I think you are the one who is mad, G'kar," Londo said. "I can choose just as well as the humans. I can choose to stay in this cell, with you, or I can choose to leave."
"Yes, but can you choose for there not to be a cell at all?"
"I don't understand," Londo said.
"Exactly," G'kar said. "Exactly."

 

[KoshN]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Emfeeli:
When you look at the Star Trek website, its amazing. They have libraries,and updated news. Oh well.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Except that their Search leaves a helluva lot to be desired (as does Sci-Fi's Search). There is no embedded word search. You can search for a character, but only the way THEY entered it in their database. You can't just search for "Worf". Instead you have to find him on the drop-down list from hell.

The Search, here at B5LR is pretty flexible, and actually works.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

"To Live and Die in Starlight"
pilot movie for "Babylon 5 - The Legend of the Rangers"
January 19, 2002 at 9PM on The Sci-Fi Channel.
http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

 

[solaris5]

It's different when something is coded by an enthusiast as opposed to a large company. That's why GPL software is more reliable than the rest. Any design flaw is noticed and rectified immediately, same goes with sites, if a person is doing it himself, he puts a bit of him in the site so it's much more, and when a large group or company makes it, although it might look better it will still lack personality.

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I am Yu Lau! I am nobody's bitch! You are mine!

 

[Lyta]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Emfeeli:
Thanks for the info. It just kinda pisses me off that all the official B5 sites really suck--including sci-fi's, which is even worse than the WB one. When you look at the Star Trek website, its amazing. They have libraries,and updated news. Oh well.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think it is a little unfair to expect the same kind of quality and attention that the Star Trek site(s) get as opposed to the B5 site(s). Trek is consistantly on the air year after year and are basically money making machines where as B5 have always had struggles staying on the air.

Heh, that is why this site kicks all the "official" sites ass!

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Monica Hübinette | Seattle, WA | Send a Warm Fuzzy!
They knocked down two tall towers. Graft now their echo onto your spine. Become girders and glass, stone and steel, so that when the world sees you, it sees them. And stand tall. Stand tall. --JMS (Amazing Spider-Man #36)

 

[Leto II]

Actually, looking at it all from a slightly different perspective, it is very, very fascinating that the original Babylon 5 website is being retained in the form in which it existed some four or five years ago, which gives one an excellent historical "snapshot," as it were, concerning how official sites were designed back then and how things are done today.

(Also, for other unique historical fillips, go to http://web.archive.org and hop into the Wayback Machine.

)

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[Jomar]

I only got on to the internet in 1996 and the very first search I made was for Babylon 5. I happened to luck out by getting the Lurker's Guide and from there I went to the Spoiler Junkies. Between them they gave me everything I wanted from a web site and I found the official site almost useless. In fact I'm surprised it's still there.

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I always seem to be diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

 

[JMB1138]

Yeah, the official site was/is pretty crappy. This has always kind of surprised me. It's kind of ironic given the fact that Babylon 5 is the first show/film where the powers that be (in this case, the main main himself) have taken such an active role in communicating with the fan base through online media. jms is not only responsible for the B5 fan base, but he is at the center of it. It always seemed to me that given this fact WB had such a great opportunity to make that correspondence "mainstream" and "official" -- so that not only could they claim responsibility for an amazing show, but also have some evidence to point to as proof that B5 was also groundbreaking in terms of its development and relationship to its fan base.

But eh, lost opportunities abound I suppose...

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-jmb

[This message has been edited by JMB1138 (edited December 04, 2001).]