We Shall Stand
By Conrad VanderWoude
Some of you have heard from me before.
(Some of you may think you've heard
from me too much before :) ) Some of you haven't.
First of all, since this letter pertains to Zelda, and to Zelda
web sites
specifically, I'll quickly introduce myself for those who don't
know me.
My name is Scott C VanderWoude. I'm on the staff of the
Zelda
Headquarters, going by the name Conrad VanderWoude, where I am a
heavy
participator in the Letters section and maintain Classic Hyrule:
the
upcoming Zelda 1 and 2 sections. My accomplishments in
Zelda 1 are
briefly (yet fairly completely) documented on Ice's Zelda
Central, and
soon will be on the Zelda Headquarters as well.
I don't normally indent my paragraphs one letter, but I think
this letter
will prove to be longer and cover more ground than even my usual
letter.
Those who have been on the Zelda Headquarter Staff Team mailing
list from
the beginning will understand the significance of that
statement. So, I'm
doing a bit of special formatting to make headers easier to spot.
Second of all: Purpose of this letter.
The purpose of this letter is to hopefully foster good relations
between our
sites.
Our visitors (to IZC and ZHQ) appear to be trying to start a war
between us.
This is, I believe, in the best interest of neither of us.
Zelda WWW history:
Chronologically:
ZHQ: Went up. It appears pretty much everyone receiving
this E-Mail has seen
ZHQ. If they're interested in ZHQ's history, they can check
it out there.
Only thing I'll note here is that ZHQ's been around since April
1996.
My Zelda site:
When I became a part of ZHQ, it was because of a web site I
created. It had
a chunk of Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 information, most of which was, to
the best
of my knowledge, unique to the internet. Perhaps 2/3 of
that is because it
was my own writings, but that's beside the point :)
I created the web site because, as of that time, I had no
credentials with
any other Zelda sites. I found the amount of Zelda 1 (and
2) information
on the 'net to be truely pathetic, and I figured the least I
could do for
the games was to create a tribute to the games.
When Niels of ZHQ asked me to join his site, I cautiously but
eventually
agreed. I figured that working with ZHQ would give my work
the most
exposure to the general public, despite the bit less power over
the work
and the bit less recognition that I would personally receive for
all of
my work. My goal, with the web pages I had completed to
that point, was
to share the information with people who would enjoy it. I
thought, at
that time, that ZHQ was the best way to do it.
Ice's site:
From the bit that I've read, Ice went to ZHQ in March 1998
(ZHQ-ites: that
would be the month before the April 2 2nd Anniversary update,
when ZHQ had
basically no updates for about a month, before ZHQ got updated by
taking
a bunch of sections off). To make a long story (available
at
http://members.tripod.com/~zeldaice/about.htm)
short, Ice started his own
site.
Between then and now, Ice's web site improved and got some
popularity.
When a visitor to both sites recently asked ZHQ why Ice's wasn't
linked,
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The war begins:
SCNWO did what, I think, is a totally legitimate action: He
E-mailed ZHQ
taunting them for being second rate compared to the web site he
was
associated with. While not necessarily the best way to make
friends, I
can understand the humor meant.
The letter got posted on ZHQ on September 11, and Niels did not
acknowledge any knowledge of IZC's existance.
September 13 I read the letter posted on ZHQ (with Niels's
responce), then
read the incoming Letters List E-Mail, and read a polite
letter...
I'm going to be quoting a few letters in this one. This is
the reason why
some additional people are being carbon-copied. I think the
least I ought
to do is let them know I'm quoting them and how I'm using it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 17:03:40
From: Stephen <steveieboy1@usa.net>
Reply-To: zhqletters@hyrule.ml.org
To: zhqletters@hyrule.ml.org
Subject: Ice's Zelda Central
Hello my name is Steve I saw in the last Letters section that you
do not know
about Ice's Zelda Central. This is a great site there are updates
everyday.
They have a lot of info and the webmaster is very cool. When you
e-mail them a
question they responed within 24 hours
I was just wondering what your thoughts where on this site and if
any bad why
Infact they have a link to you why don't you link to them man if
you guys team
up you will be huge here is the url if you don't know it
http://members.tripod.com/~zeldaice/zelda.htm
or
http://fly.to/zeldaice
P.S. If you put this in the letters section I will die
fellow Zelda Fan,
Steve
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After reading that letter on September 13, I checked ICZ out that
sent the
entire ZHQ staff the URL and my breif review of it (looks fairly
well.
Actually a useful Zelda 1/2 resource, which is pretty rare these
days.)
September 14, Niels acknowledged existance. My guess is
that Ice's site
will rank in the top ten Zelda sites on the 'net in ZHQ's Links
section,
but I'm not sure when the Links page will get updated
again. (From my
understanding, I just opened a door to a bunch of bad ZHQ jokes.)
Anyways: First I'm going to quote some E-mail sent to the ZHQ
Letters List.
Since all such material is open to be publicly posted on ZHQ, I
don't feel
I'm violating any sense of privacy on the part of the authors of
the
E-Mails. While I may be violating some unwritten ZHQ policy
regarding
sharing of pages-in-making (by sharing incoming Letters), I think
it's in
the best interest of ZHQ, so...
If you object to swearing, turn your monitor off.
Otherwise, enjoy the
pathetic reading. I'll have more to say below (no surprise
to people
who've read E-Mail from me before.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCNOW:
Here's some Zelda news, assholes. Ice's Zelda central is
the site that's kicks
your ass. Your site really, really, sucks. You offer
no info that couln't be
read days earlier on Ice's, your letters are stupid, your music
section can't
compare to his, your staff is a bunch of people who haven't even
played all the
Zelda games, but you still call yourselves the best Zelda
site. You guys also
think that scnwo is Ice? That just shows how stupid you
assholes really are.
One more thing, since you printed my letter, you've lost many,
many fans to
Ice's Zelda Central you speds.
scnwo@netnitco.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Response: Steve Fairbank, <sdf@snip.net>)
I'll spare you some further humilation of the ZHQ Letters
page. I nor
anyone on the staff will bother countering your attacks about the
ZHQ(As
arguing with ignorance doesn't get anywhere).
When did we think you were Ice? Scnwo is spelled totally
different then
Ice. Niels' reply to your letter in the last Letters page
was that he
never heard of Ice's Zelda Page(Nor have I until now.
Keeping up with
more then 30 other sites on Zelda isn't my main priority).
And I'm sure
Ice is a more intelligent person then you anyway.
Enjoy your future visits to the Zelda HQ.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Langsley <n64fanatic@hotmail.com>
Subject: Ice has a lot of nerve
I can't believe those idiots think their site is better than
ZHQ...
Anyway, since they sent you guys hate mail, I decided to send
them some
hate mail!
To: (all six Ice staff member email addresses)
Subject: YOUR SITE SUCKS YOU PATHETIC GAY FREAKS
Message: HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU GODDAMN IDIOTS SAY YOUR PATHETIC
EXCUSE
FOR A WEBSITE IS BETTER THAN ZHQ!?!?!? ZHQ IS THE BEST SITE OF
ANY KIND
ON THE WEB, AND YOUR SITE IS A BUNCH OF SHIT!!!!! ZHQ BEATS OUT
IGN64
AND NINTENDO.COM, WHEREAS YOUR SITE IS THE SCUM ON THE BOTTOM OF
THE
POND!!!!!!!!! DELETE YOUR SITE, BECAUSE IT'LL BE A BIG
IMPROVEMENT YOU
PERVERTED GAY FAGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: joel ladouceur <lol71@hotmail.com>
Subject: I want Niel to personally answer this letter
Now you yourself Niel, said that Ice's Zelda Central has
more Zelda
1 and 2 info than ZHQ(why else would you say that Conrad's
Classic
Hyrule would blow it away if you didn't think it had more info
than
your shit pit). Well NO DUH you said it would blow it away! All
Conrad is going to do(and probably already has) is copy Ice's
great
ideas of how to display and write the info, then incorporate his
own
in with them.
Then after Conrad is all done everybody will see what
"Conrad's
AWESOME Zelda info" really is...PLAGIARISM!
Signed: A follower of the Ice's Zelda Central movement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuation of Conrad's letter:
Okay... I'm thinking that any of us with half a shred of
maturity will see
that there's a serious problem in the making. It's not our
fault, but
some younger users are trying to start a war between our sites.
Those who haven't matured to a certain level probably see this as
an
exciting opportunity to have a war and blow the other guy's
brains off.
Fortunately for self-respect by people of most all mindsets, ZHQ
and
it appears ICZ are run by people who have a higher level of
dignity.
So, what are our attitudes? Here's what I witness (in order
of worse to
best):
#1: First of all, I think the letters above display the
worst possible
scenerio. Mudslinging. One site loses. The
other wins but is tarnished.
#2: It appears ICZ has a letters page. And recently,
the staff did some
pure bashing of the other site.
djhdmd writes : You can get a bunch of pix at Realms of Hyrule if you ask.
Ice: Uh, thanks, but I've got enough.
Navie: This guy's always talking about Realms of Hyrule. What do they have that we don't, huh? NOTHING! Niether does ZHQ, for that matter.
JMK: That's right, ZHQ SUCKS!! They think they are SO D*MN COOL... they're a bunch of freaks if you ask me.
SCNWO: In the next few months, ZHQ will suffer a slow, painful loss of fans, while IZC will flourish. Trust me.
Stalfos333: ZHQ needs to fire about 15 guys, and hire people who can actually do stuff.
J-Man: IZC is to ZHQ,what an A-Bomb is to a small,third-world villiage.We are,with out a doubt,over a million times better than ZHQ.And,with the addition of SCNWO and Stalfos333,we will open up a can of Whoop A** on ZHQ!!!!!
Ice: How'd you people get off on ZHQ?
#3: Not much better, Niels says Classic Hyrule will blow away IZC
(which is
only slightly better because it's got equal focus on
self-promotion
instead of mainly putting down the other site (and says at least
one good
thing: ICZ has Zelda 1 and 2 information).
"Wanna catch a cold!"
Stephen writes:
I am a big fan of Ice's Zelda Central, I was just wondering your
thoughts on
Ice's Zelda Central. I would trust your opinion seeing that you
have a
great huge page and know how to make them. If you don't like it
what is
wrong with the site. I know I recently wrote this in a Letters
section but I
simply would like to know soon. I asure you I am not Ice, you can
compare
our IP address I am not Ice I might wanna be but sadly am not.
Thanks for
your time</p>
Niels says: Ice's?
No, seriously, sorry for all the supposedly funny Ice jokes. I
don't
know what's with this, but a fan artist e-mailed me saying some
weird stuff
and I decided just to joke with it. I didn't even have the
address, as Ice's
Zelda Central hadn't even been submitted for the Warp Tile by
then!
I assure you that in the meanwhile I've visited Ice's website,
and it's
definitely a lot better than some other pages out there. For
example,
there's a decent amount of Zelda 1 and 2 info,
which is a
rarity on the net nowadays (though Conrad's Classic Hyrule will
blow it
away). However, I can now say that SCNWO's fanart plainly sucks
in
comparison to what Rhonda Bowlin (hi Rhonda, will you do more?)
has done for
our Fan Art Gallery.
Conrad's comments:
Well, I can see why Niels joked with Ice's web site on the
9/11/98 Letters
page. He didn't even know of Ice's being a serious web site
at that time.
Yes, he also pretended to not know of Ice's site on the 9/14/98
page, but
in the very same file he later gives a little review of it.
#4: Posting put-down mail. Not a whole heap of a lot better
than
putting-down directly. Offender: Niels.
"Gotta freeze 'em all!"
Someone writes:
Hi Niels I just wanted you
to know that the Ice's Zelda Palace sucks a lot (each time you
open a link
you have a gazillion commanditary windows that open). And then
this guy
Ice (it's such a ...... name for a a ...... guy) is the
stupidest guy on
earth.
Niels says: Ice's?
#5: Nuetral. When Neils originally wrote his to-be-infamous
responce,
"Ice's", I don't think it should be taken as a serious
insult against ICZ.
This wasn't really bad, because Niels probably assumed (as I did
when I
read the page) that Ice's was a third rate site made by some
loser:
possibly the same "Someone" that wrote that letter.
Okay, those were the bad/semi-bad things I've witnessed.
Here's a brighter
picture:
First, my own attitude. I am for Zelda being appreciated by
many people,
and for people to enjoy Zelda by enjoying visits to Zelda web
sites. I
chose to do this by joining ZHQ.
Does ZHQ have problems being slow to update? Yes, it
does. And I
contribute to the problem in the sense that I haven't done much
work on
Classic Hyrule recently (due to the fact I'm often working more
than
twelve hours a day, and don't have a computer system at home that
I can
really work on the pages there. Hopefully soon, though,
I'll put some
money into the 386 and give it a good keyboard. That
combined with my
new buying of a use hard dr... anyway...) So, I
intend to make some
serious Zelda WWW progress real soon-like.
Thus being said, will I quit ZHQ and join another Zelda web site
because
of slow updates? (Note: ICZ and I have had no contacts of
this sort. ZHQ
members: don't read anything into that question.) No, I
won't. I've
already spent a good deal of time on ZHQ. Bailing out of
ZHQ now would
seriously hurt ZHQ, which is an organization I am quite involved
with.
More importantly than that, for the sake of the question asked at
the
beginning of this paragraph, is that leaving ZHQ would hurt a
very large
Zelda web site. It would not help the online Zelda world by
me hurting
the large web site.
So, I am glad to learn of ICZ. I hope that Shiek and I will
be able to, in
a cooperative way, mutually compete with each other to be better
than the
other, for the purposes of mutual excellence. Being a
person who does not
want to read about Zelda 5/Z64 before I play it, I find ICZ to be
pretty
much the only good alternative to ZHQ that I've found in quite
some time.
I still haven't looked it over much yet, and don't intend to
until I
finish Classic Hyrule since I feel CH needs my attention more,
but I very
much look forward to visiting ICZ and spending some time there.
From my conversations with Niels, webmaster of ZHQ (I know, you
all knew
that, but I called him by his title not to introduce him but to
announce
his title, as his title is significant because that's why I'm
mentioning
him, and this is a horribly long run-on sentence whose
parethesied part
should probably just be deleted for the sake of clarity), Niels
feels the
same way I do: We're all in favor of any serious
competition. (That
doesn't necessarily mean competetion ready to kick us out: It
simply means
any competition where serious effort is being given.)
Now, I haven't conversed with Ice, but this is what I have
witnessed about
him:
#1: Quoted from Ice's Zelda Central: <
"For God so loved the world, He sent
His only begotten Son, that whosoever
beleiveth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting
life." - John 3:16
Wow. Posted on a main page. Ice,
my respect as a Christian to you. Nice going.
Now, if I can accurately read anything into this (and with
Christian
hypocracy being what it is, maybe I can't), I'd guess that Ice
would be
in favor of establishing an atmosphere condusive to friendship.
friendly-type of atmosphere. So I read (pronounced: reed,
not red) into
that: Cooperation, not compete-to-death.
#2: ICZ links ZHQ as a #1 site to go to. I quote from ICZ's
links page:
After you go here,
you'll probably never come back here again (please do, though).
This is the number 1 stop for any Zelda fan. A must-see. these
guys have been around forever, and Niels has gathered, like,
twenty or something people to help him out on this marvelous
page.
#3: Ice didn't join the rest of his staff in ZHQ bashing in the
ICZ Letters
page I quoted from above.
Thus, my guess is that Ice is in favor of both sites rocking :),
rather than
the ZHQ-bloodshed that seems prevelant in the rest of his staff
:(
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, now all you guys (does ICZ have any gals I'm writing to?)
are
wondering about the glorious way I'm going to conclude this
letter. Well,
stop that!
Um... I of course don't have authority to get my say
written on either ZHQ
nor ICZ, but I think it would be good if one or even both of the
webmasters consider posting somewhere something about the fact
that the
two sites aren't trying to kill each other. ICZ/ZHQ seems
to be on the
road to the age-old Nintendo/Sega arguement from many years
back. But
we're all in this for the same mutually cooperative purpose (as I
see it):
A tribute/promotion/whatever to Zelda. We're not in it for
the mutually-
competition task of gaining money which would be helped by the
other site
dying off.
That, and that I for one wanted to exchange a few nice words
between the
sites. ICZ: I'd compliment you more, but I really haven't
gotten to look
at the site much yet. I thank you for updating your Zelda 1
section with
my accomplishments. I admire.. I guess it's Sheik's work
that I'm
admiring? Anyways, best of luck to you.
--Conrad VanderWoude
