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| INTERVIEW OF CISCO SERRET WEBMASTER of CRYPTOZOOLOGY.COM | ||
| By Jerry D. Coleman 2004 | ||
1. Would you tell us the history of Cryptozoology. Com, in as far as who originally created the site, when and how you first became involved? I've always been a fan of dinosaurs, Tasmanian tigers, yeti, and bigfoot, etc. When I first got on the internet, I typed in www.cryptozoology.com, expecting to see some big website all about Cryptozoology. Instead, I got "www.cryptozoology.com could not be found". Dumbfounded, I did a search on the domain name, and I was surprised to see that no one had ever taken the name. So after I got some money together, I paid for the domain, and then started to work on a site. The first article I wrote for it was an article on the thylacine. I was contacted by Craig Heinselman who wanted to know who I was and what I was planning for cryptozoology.com. We then kept up a long friendship through email, with him giving suggestions, and me asking advice. I finally got the actual website "live" in October of 1999. Since then the site has gone through various "makeovers", and it'll be going through another change soon. 2. How many members do you presently have and how many 'hits' per month do you receive on an average? What are your best and worst months? That is assuming there is a pattern. There are 718 registered members, although you gotta assume many of those are duplicates or of people that have dropped out. So I suspect its about 200-400 *real* members who visit the site on a regular basis. We get about 5 million hits a month, from about 100,000 visitors a month. Its hard to see a pattern because the main pattern is of increasing popularity every month. We're getting about double the traffic every year. 3. I've noticed more and more posts appear non-related to Cryptozoology, would you say this is a fair observation, and if so how do you think this may effect the site, if at all? I have set up non-Cryptozoological topics in the forum area on purpose. The problem we were having was that subjects such as religion, politics, and current events kept getting into the forums, where people would get upset because they weren't Cryptozoological. We tried to address this issue by aggressive moderating, and warning users, and in some instances banning people. But the problem just became more and more unmanageable. So our solution was to create specific forums for these "off topic" discussions, and that has worked very well for us. It helps to keep the Cryptozoological forums focused on Cryptozoological discussions without the need for a lot of man-hours spent moderating. So although some people get confused when they see "Creationism" and "Politics" areas in the forum, believe me, if they weren't there, then politics and creationism would be all over the place in the Cryptozoological forums. People generally want to talk about what they want to talk about. 4. Do you have any future plans for the site and if so could you share them with us? Moving the site from a PHP/Linux server to a Microsoft/ASP.NET server. Improving the forum system. Creating contacts with Cryptozoological organizations. Getting the site's "look and feel" redesigned by a professional. 5. What is the longest or most interesting Cryptozoology related thread you have ever seen posted on Cryptozoology.com? Please explain. The longest threads I think were when Erik Beckjord posted his theories on bigfoot. A lot of people disagreed with him, and with Erik's propensity to carry on an argument of infinitude, it created some very long threads that actually slowed the server down to a great degree. I had to get rid of him and his threads for the sake of the site. The more interesting big threads had to do with the Patterson film. Every once in a while a big Patterson film thread will develop. Many familiar topics will "recur" on the forum, its just the nature of a website where new people are constantly coming in. 6. A site as popular and as interesting as Cryptozoology.com must have ran into a few obstacles along the way, could you tell us what they were, of course without revealing any specific names or time-frames? There are some "authorities" that feel I have no right to own and run cryptozoology.com, and they have attempted to either stop me, interfere with the operation of the website, or tried to convince me to quit or sell the domain name. The problem is, I doubt that these people would use cryptozoology.com for the good of the community, and instead try to turn it into a money making venture for themselves. I have never profited from cryptozoology.com, other than some gifts several members have sent me over the years, often on Christmas. 7. Many have seen your site featured on television shows and mentioned in newspaper articles; what were they about and how do you personally feel about the reporting of the site? What I've seen has been pretty accurate. They highlight the sense of community here and of the fun stuff to look at, but they also sometimes remark on the deficiencies in the site - cryptozoology.com has a long ways to go until it becomes a good all around resource for all things Cryptozoological. 8. So far, you have been able to run Cryptozoology.com without any advertising, do you feel this can continue or are there plans on the horizon you can not avoid? I have no plans to put advertising on this site. Unless I become homeless and destitute, this site will always remain advertiser free. We do advertise events and books, etc, but we never get any payment for that. Rather, we advertise things on our own that we feel are of interest to the Cryptozoological community. 9. Generally speaking, what are the duties of the committee, administrators and staff at Cryptozoology.com? I'm the programmer, general web maintenance person. The Committee handles questions as to the direction of the site, the posting of articles, and any other big changes or additions. In the past, I made "all" the decisions, and I have made mistakes. So, by having a committee, when a mistake is made, I get to spread the blame around! All members of the committee are Administrators, but I also have a couple "added on" administrators who can also administer the site. Administrators do things such as moderate the forums, clear or delete gallery pictures, manage the glossary, etc. There are several "staff" members, whose duty is mainly to police the chat room. The chat room has been the #1 source of problems on the site, and that's why its severely restricted now. New members are not even given information on how to gain access to the chat room. If they *really* want to get access to the chat room, they need to contact me. That way, if there is a trouble maker in the chat room, I can pretty much figure out who it is. 10. How do you maintain such a high level of respect and personal commonsense input as seen on your site? I really don't think I have that much control, other than outright banning people. Most of the people that have become members here are just naturally nice people, who really do most of the work of bringing into line anyone that gets too out of control. 11. Continuing on with that thought of question #9, has there been times you have had to ban individuals? If so, please tell us how often and why? Once in a while we get a kid (or adult) with a social dysfunction. The type of kids that will throw eggs at passing cars are often on the internet also. Of all the people that have come into and through cryptozoology.com in the past few years, I have only had to outright ban perhaps 4 people. 12. You have stated you're not a Cryptozoologist, then what interests pulled you to this topic or help to continue your devotion to it? Cryptozoology has always been of great interest to me. I'm not sure why, but news of a sighting of a "strange creature" or of "mysterious footprints" have always drawn me in, like a good mystery novel. I think we all have a primal connection to nature, and when an unknown creature is seen, it perks up something deep in our psyches. We feel a "need" to discover what "it" is out there... 13. What personal cryptid do you believe in if any and why? The thylacine (yea I know its not a "true" cryptid, but its cryptid enough for me) I think has an outside chance of still existing deep in the bush in Tasmania. Tasmania is still mostly wild and overgrown, and it didn't *officially* die off that long ago. 14. Have you ever seen a creature you thought was an unknown? If so please explain. Nope! I did see a flying saucer once but I have no interest in ufos. Go figure. 15. If there is one sentence, one statement or one overall concept you wish people to understand about the site [Cryptozoology.com] what would it be? I like to think of this site as a friendly little coffee shop in the corner of internet-land, where Cryptozoology fans and Cryptozoologist's can come and discuss Cryptozoology without fear of harassment or ridicule. 16. Please take this opportunity, here, to add anything you wish. Thank you! Cryptozoology.com is for the community. Cryptozoology.com, in itself, has no agenda. Cryptozoology.com is what its members make it. |
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