5MV Update History: August 2005

5MV Update History

maintained by Zeke

AUGUST 2005

August 2

Damn fence. Okay, I'm back; sorry for missing a couple of newsposts there. Cliffhangers 7 and my First Fiver Retrospective are now done, which leaves only the final details. Be here tomorrow for the end -- no, really -- of Cliffhanger Week.

August 3

Welcome to Day 32 -- the END of Cliffhanger Week! (Why 32? Because it's 2 to the fifth power, fool.) Here's what we've got:

First, here's the rest of Kira's amazing comic fiver for "The Best of Both Worlds."
Second, the last in our First Fiver Retrospectives series is my own, taking a look at the very first fiver not just by me, but by anyone: "Caretaker."
And finally, this year's panel event concludes with the very long Cliffhangers, Part 7 by me.

And that's almost a wrap! Cliffhanger Week is done, but the fifth-anniversary event isn't quite -- I have a few words to say about this milestone we've reached. I'll say them in a special article tomorrow, and I'll also let you guys know what's coming up at 5M in the next few months.

As for CW, however, this really truly is the end. I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who contributed -- especially the staff, who have been working on this for over a year now. Kira deserves particular credit for all the formatting work she put in, without which I would have had a much harder time making these updates (especially those first 20 big ones in 20 consecutive days!). And finally, thanks to all you readers, who have driven our hitcounts high throughout this event and given us plenty of feedback. This event was worthy of the occasion, and I'm grateful to everyone who made that so.

(One more thing: there are a few fivers intended for CW that weren't ready in time for the finale. They'll be appearing as they're completed. They're part of CW in spirit -- if you like, think of them as DVD extras or something.)

[Comments]

August 8

So, with CW over, what lies ahead for 5M? (Hmm... that acronym isn't working as well as I thought yet.) Here's a run-down of my immediate plans for the site.

The most important thing that needs doing is post-event cleanup. During the event, I simply blasted the content out and didn't bother with details like back/forward links; I'll be taking care of those now that the pressure's off. A bigger problem is that v4.0 remains in an in-between state, with some fivers inaccessible and some subsites not even there. I won't be able to really overhaul the PHP till September, but I'll at least patch things up a bit.
Speaking of v4.0, you'll recall that the images we're currently using are only temporary. Dan Carlson and I will be working on the new ones over the coming weeks; believe me, when you see what Dan can do, you won't miss my stopgap images.
There may or may not be subsite events in August, but there will definitely be fivers. I have several in progress, and there are many, many guest fivers waiting in the wings. One of my first goals is to get a good start on the much-requested Season 4 of Enterprise.
I've had a new idea for making some money through 5M. I think this one will work better than the signed-fivers thing; later this week I'll explain what it is.
Finally, the fifth-anniversary article is still coming, it's just taking a bit longer than I thought.

[Comments]

August 14

I think I'm going to try "5M.net" as our abbreviation for a while and see how it goes. evay's made some good points in favour of it. Anyway, today's actual update is the beginning of the cleanup I mentioned: I've fixed all the broken links on the front page, except the Smallville link, as that section still needs an index page.

August 15

Whoops -- the Trek and TV categories still need index pages too. I'll do that tomorrow if I have time (a commodity I was very short on today).

August 17

I'm very busy this next couple of weeks with the move back to Waterloo, so the updates will likely be small for a while. I did whip up a temporary index page for Five-Minute Smallville, though. (I actually found a message board post recently that referred to our Smallville section as "members-only." Whoops.)

August 24

Two days till I leave Ottawa. The one site thing I'll have time to finish before then is the fifth-anniversary article; look for that tomorrow, and don't miss it, because there will be important news included. In the meantime, I've addressed the growing problem of forum spambots.

August 25

And another perfectly good plan bites the dust -- too much packing, too little time to squeeze in that article (unless I'd been willing to half-ass it, which I wasn't). My online time on the trip to Waterloo will be brief at best, so I'm not going to try anything heroic. The update and announcement will have to be on Tuesday when I'm settled in.

That does mean no new content till then, but have you seen how much old content we've got? We're five years deep, baby. I guarantee there's stuff at FiveMinute.net you haven't read -- poke around. (May I recommend our Angel section?)

More update notes:

2000:

2001: