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On Hiatus

hi⋅a⋅tus /haɪˈeɪtəs/
–noun. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.

Oh, hiatus. I first became familiar with this wonderful word during the winter of 2007, if I recall correctly. It was a word which I learned from a website called Eevee's Headquaters. You may have heard of it; it was quite a popular site and still is now. Well, during December, the owner of Eevee's HQ changed the splash to this:

Hiatus
Hmmz, yes, EHQ is on hiatus. ^-^; Why? Well, if I were to be totally honest, it's pretty much the stress of having a site, parents who don't understand the fact that you can't just leave it alone for a year, and manymanymany more things. xD

This seemed ok, at the time; a little frustrating because we couldn't see the content and we weren't quite sure why the site had to be hiatus'd instead of just putting a notice on the splash or updates page that the website would be inactive. I heard later on that there were security risks involved with this particular website, but I'm not sure if it was ever veridied. In any case, Eevee's HQ sort of... shut down.

Now, I mentioned before that Eevee's HQ was a very popular website. It had plenty of affiliates and viewers. Eventually, some people thought "Hey... I'm tired of running my website. Can't I just do this hiatus thing and leave it?" And so it was; a good amount of Pokemon webmasters closed their websites and told people that there wasn't enough time in their lives for a site, that they had outgrown Pokemon, that they were 'updating' (I think this horribly vague and useless explanation was my least favorite one), or whatever, and proceeded to do whatever. Some of them reopened, but a good amount were on an indefinite hiatus, never to be resumed.

In case you were as in shock as I was, yes, it became a fad to close down your website for an indefinite period of time.

I was outraged at this because a good number of websites which I liked were suddenly made unavailable because hey, this one popular website took a break! It was a site (get it? It's a pun on sight and site and oh just ignore it) to see; there were a lot of websites on hiatus. They often had nothing more than a cryptic "This site is now on hiatus. I'll be back when I'm back into Pokemon/I have time for a site/ I can update the site/Penguins give me a Thai massage/I can get a Canadian Pokemon hater to sing the Pokemon theme song in Catalan" and a plugboard (yet another fad from 2007 to maybe 2008) and chatbox thing. One of the few polite things that hiatus-ing webmasters did was link to their affiliates (sometimes, if they weren't lazy) and give them permission to remove their affiliate link since they would be down for a good amount of time. Not every website did this, but hey, it was nice among the ridiculous trend of SUDDEN CLOSING.

Eventually, Eevee's HQ came back looking spiffier and with new stuff. When those other hiatus'd webmasters saw this, they thought "Whoa! That site is back! Yeesh, I better go back, too!" and pulled their site out of hiatus, sometimes with new stuff, often not. In other words, viewers wasted a good of time unable to see the site's content, many of the less popular sites lost a good amount of readers and closed, and no (smart) webmasters ever hiatus'd again.

So, what's the point of this page? Well, I guess it's a lesson about fads. Don't follow website fads, because internet trends are a fickle thing. I remember in 2001 that having stuff follow your cursor, be it flames, butterflies, or Pokemon, was all the rage. Today, you will be skewered by your fans and non-fans if you dare to have such a thing. In 2003, I recall that there wasn't a website without the 'Skating Pikachu' applet or the 'Catch a Pikachu' Javascript thing or the stupid radio button 'Catch a Pidgey' thing. Once again, today you will find such things only on very old or very new sites (and the new sites usually ripped the old stuff on). Heck, this is a fad which is still sort of alive today, but which I think may have been strongest in 2004 to 2005: Oekakis. I think Mew's Hangout was among the first Pokemon site to have Oekakis, and it was immensely popular. Every Pokemon website had an Oekaki, even if they only had 5 users. People were questioned (and the owner of the Cave of Dragonflies will certainly tell you about this) for NOT having Oekakis. In due time, it was ok to not have an oekaki, and I've noticed that many sites which once had them no longer do and most new sites don't have them anymore. These things were all once very popular, but you'd be hard pressed to find any reputable Pokemon site with them. Why? They were fads. Everyone had them, they had their moment, and now they are gone.

Another lesson here is that you should really think before copying a webmaster. Seriously, think: "Is this a good idea? Am I doing this just because someone else did? Will this help my site or my users at all?" Ask a friend or on a forum if you're not sure; sometimes fads like these are harmless and can be removed with time, but sometimes fads like the hiatus can cause a promising website with a good webmaster to shut down. Besides, it's tacky to have each site have the same thing. Once again, here's a story from 'the good ol' days': in 2003 and some vague time forward, each new Pokemon site was a clone of Serebii.net. I mean this in the most literal way: besides having a different layout and maybe some stuff like the 'Catch a Pidgey' thing, they just copy and pasted news from Serebii. Now, most of these websites never prospered because they didn't do it as well as Serebii.net did. Serebii had the news first, they were already very well-known, and they also already had a huge amount of content (though the opinion of said content varies dramatically between fans). The Serebii-clones, as they were called, didn't have a ghost of a chance competing against Serebii, and they soon faded out of existence. This goes back to my earlier point: think before copying. Actually, I'll retcon that: don't copy at all. It may take you more time to get pages, but come up with your own content. Whatever it is, find your niche. Don't copy and paste from Serebii, don't use that neat quiz made by your favorite website, don't use a pre-made layout, do it yourself! That is what gets you visitors, that is what makes your site notable, and in my opinion, that is what having a website is all about.

My final words... hiatuses suck. They are a horrible, horrible fad and I can't express how annoyed I was to see that a good amount of sites I loved were gone. Really, there is no reason to go on hiatus. None at all. Just because you won't update for two months doesn't mean that I won't magically not want or need to see your site anymore. Although I can think of a few good reasons to temporarily close your site, they are so so specific and so unlikely to happen that I'd rather not tell. Seriously, don't put your site on hiatus. It also makes a mockery of other Pokemon sites. I lost respect for those webmasters who shut down their site because I saw that they were just following a trend and would probably close their site three months later. It's hard to trust in new Pokemon fan sites because there is always the thought that three months later, they will close. My closing words would be: trends and hiatuses suck.