SimCityPolska shutting down

[kbieniu7 266]

Dear Fellow Players,

I'm Kamil, known as kbieniu7 at other SimCity websites. I'm one of the admins of SimCityPolska and have to make a sad announcement.

For last ten years we've been running a website which became the main scene of the Polish part of SimCity 4 Community, as well as one of several bigger download sections with hundreds of plugins uploaded.

Having a great number of users, Mayor Diaries and events at the very beginning, with each passing year we encountered lower and lower activity at our website. That happened not only among us, it's been well visible in other communities too. Thanks to effort and donations from older users, we managed to keep the forum and the download section alive (although with many holes in them). In recent years, however, the decline has been so deep that we practically stopped seeing any activity out there. Because of that fact, combined with raising costs and less and less of our personal time to keep it running, with a heavy hearth we decided to shut the site down.

We won't do it instantly. Instead, we will start by closing the discussion board within next weeks. We acknowledge that we share a big download section with hundreds of files and that it would be unfair for the Players to just let them dissappear. We want to run trough the content, choose the best files, pack some of them into packages and reupload at other websites (presumably here at Simtropolis and SC4Devotion).

Actually, that may be a thing that we should have done years before. We knew that our download section wasn't the easiest one to navigate trough, especially with image hosting sites "blackouts", but because of real-life affairs, we did not have enough time to do this. Now, as we take that ultimate decision, we will try to save at least a part of it.

Probably, by the end of the year, SimCityPolska will disappear. What I could encourage you to do is to visit the website, take a look at BAT&LOT section and download the files that might seem interesting to you, as long as they are still available.

Speaking of the community, we probably keep the facebook profile running for a while, although we can't see much to be saved and we think that there is no point in opening any new Polish-speaking place.

We hope that you understand this decision. Many thanks to anyone who has ever visited SimCityPolska. That was a pleasure to host and act in this part of the SimCity 4 Community.

Best Regards,
SimCityPolska Administration Team

[catty-cb 4,392]

23 hours ago, bnkam7 said:

....Actually, that may be a thing that we should have done years before. We knew that our download section wasn't the easiest one to navigate trough, especially with image hosting sites "blackouts", but because of real-life affairs, we did not have enough time to do this. Now, as we take that ultimate decision, we will try to save at least a part of it.

Sorry to hear your sad news, I was spending quite a bit of time in your downloads section as for a number of years I've been indexing the community exchanges and had been indexing yours, the index is still in draft format am attaching it to this post in case it proves useful for anyone

WebLinks-draft-simcitypolska.xlsx

[kschmidt 6,164]

On 19-5-2018 at 2:21 PM, bnkam7 said:

Dear Fellow Players,

I'm Kamil, known as kbieniu7 at other SimCity websites. I'm one of the admins of SimCityPolska and have to make a sad announcement.

For last ten years we've been running a website which became the main scene of the Polish part of SimCity 4 Community, as well as one of several bigger download sections with hundreds of plugins uploaded.

Having a great number of users, Mayor Diaries and events at the very beginning, with each passing year we encountered lower and lower activity at our website. That happened not only among us, it's been well visible in other communities too. Thanks to effort and donations from older users, we managed to keep the forum and the download section alive (although with many holes in them). In recent years, however, the decline has been so deep that we practically stopped seeing any activity out there. Because of that fact, combined with raising costs and less and less of our personal time to keep it running, with a heavy hearth we decided to shut the site down.

We won't do it instantly. Instead, we will start by closing the discussion board within next weeks. We acknowledge that we share a big download section with hundreds of files and that it would be unfair for the Players to just let them dissappear. We want to run trough the content, choose the best files, pack some of them into packages and reupload at other websites (presumably here at Simtropolis and SC4Devotion).

Actually, that may be a thing that we should have done years before. We knew that our download section wasn't the easiest one to navigate trough, especially with image hosting sites "blackouts", but because of real-life affairs, we did not have enough time to do this. Now, as we take that ultimate decision, we will try to save at least a part of it.

Probably, by the end of the year, SimCityPolska will disappear. What I could encourage you to do is to visit the website, take a look at BAT&LOT section and download the files that might seem interesting to you, as long as they are still available.

Speaking of the community, we probably keep the facebook profile running for a while, although we can't see much to be saved and we think that there is no point in opening any new Polish-speaking place.

We hope that you understand this decision. Many thanks to anyone who has ever visited SimCityPolska. That was a pleasure to host and act in this part of the SimCity 4 Community.

Best Regards,
SimCityPolska Administration Team

Sory to hear this ! Yes, site navigation for a non polish was as with any foreign langage laborious.Transfer to Simtropolis may beside the files be a oppetunity  to set op a polish speaking club so socializing is still posible in privat !  Wish you wel with your time  of sorrow !

Kind regards !

kschmidt

[Propfam 2,288]

On 5/23/2018 at 4:19 AM, kschmidt said:

Sory to hear this ! Yes, site navigation for a non polish was as with any foreign langage laborious.Transfer to Simtropolis may beside the files be a oppetunity  to set op a polish speaking club so socializing is still posible in privat !  Wish you wel with your time  of sorrow !

Kind regards !

kschmidt

You might want to follow the PLEX, although it's shutdown because of accidental error, not unpopularity. PLEX admin decided to transfer all of their files to the STEX. The result, the files are preserved.

Your decision to shutdown your community making the SC4 defunct community bigger.

Thanks.

[The British Sausage 5,449]

A big shame!

Some of the most interesting BATs can be found on SimCity Polska, while the industrial section -- though small -- has some insanely good industry and some MEGA lots!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@bnkam7

I apologize for the delay, but I now have full approval from @Dirktator to proceed with the plan you and I have discussed via PM.

That means we will create a separate section on the STEX named SimCityPolska (or however you want it to look (it can have spaces)). It can also have sub categories so you can let me know what you would like those to be. As we discussed there are likely several members here who will be willing to help move your files over, test them for dependencies, gather in game screenshots, and post the original descriptions in Polish along with (at a minimum) a Google translation.

So, you now have full support from the ST staff to migrate every single file to our STEX and you can recruit any of our willing members to help with the job. For any members who upload files on your behalf we staff can then change the author after the fact. Let me know if you do plan to make a Polska Team account name as I mentioned in the PM.

You can begin discussion here in this thread or create a new one to work out the logistics of how to be sure all the files get moved so peeps aren't duplicating each others efforts.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

I've set up the main category which can be used immediately. Once we know what the sub categories are to be we can move any uploaded files into them.

 

Once there you will see this:

^ So, we'll want to change this to whatever y'all want it to say. Just let me know and I can edit it.

[matias93 7,535]

Just to avoid redundances: remember that some files originated from the Polish community are already on the STEX, so maybe we could start by identifiying and moving them to the new section...

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, matias93 said:

Just to avoid redundances: remember that some files originated from the Polish community are already on the STEX, so maybe we could start by identifiying and moving them to the new section...

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

For more than 15 years now, community sites dedicated to SC4 have each helped sustain interest in a creative hobby from many parts of the world. SimCityPolska has been another piece of the jigsaw, and it'll be very sad to see the site go. However, we understand the reasons behind the decision, and a website isn't sustainable without constant care and attention, along with the all-important funding for hosting and maintenance.

As Cori said above, as staff it is our pleasure to offer a new platform for the SimCityPolska community. Then in the same way as SimPeg, people can continue to find and enjoy the legacy BATs, lots, mods and maps how the authors intended. When people shared their creations many years ago, they probably never envisioned them still being around to this day. But I believe it is our duty to turn this into a reality, given content preservation and accessibility is a key focus point.

[Silur 3,304]

I say a big THANK YOU to all the owners and participants of the SC Polska website. 
A lot of beautiful things are there!
Very few SC4 lovers in the world today.
Now there were only Simtropolis, Devotion and France. 
China, Japan, and Korea sites died a long time ago.
Life is life  

SC4 Polska must have own chapter here according Corina - YES!
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU 

[AsimPika3172 1,136]

Thank you @bnkam7 for making nice files for SimCity 4 games!  Bye-bye SimCity Polska! 

[kschmidt 6,164]

9 hours ago, Silur said:

I say a big THANK YOU to all the owners and participants of the SC Polska website. 
A lot of beautiful things are there!
Very few SC4 lovers in the world today.
Now there were only Simtropolis, Devotion and France. 
China, Japan, and Korea sites died a long time ago.
Life is life  

SC4 Polska must have own chapter here according Corina - YES!
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU 

Asia bat´s most relocated to simtropolis !

Japan, some lost other relocated see Japanese links page https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=361.0

SimCity.cn stille up and running but user access difficult !

Last european SC4 site not mentioned Capital Sims.net http://SimCity.capitalsim.net/

SimCity  Plaza with SimCity Kurier files http://www.simcityplaza.de/index.php/simcitykurier

So not yet dead !

Sincerely yours,

kschmidt

[dabadon5 295]

SimCity Polska was a really great site. It was difficult to get through because of the language barriers, but had very good content.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Always wonderful to see the best minds of our community at work. 15 years ago few envisioned that all of us SC4 players would still be here playing it and discussing it so actively, but as long as all of us remain interested it is critical to preserve content and provide a platform for the community.

[Glenni 1,444]

Aw no!=( I loved simcitypolska, it had such great wall to wall content, and commieblocks!  Best of luck though, Kamil, and thanks for keeping the site up! =)

[DavidDHetzel 1,816]

Yes, SCP Lots! The AC Industrial lots need to be saved especially!.

[tariely 4,496]

I'm kinda glad I came late to this thread as I could see CorinaMarie's post and know that SCPolska will migrate to the STEX. I've been a steady user of your site, loving the different flavour of the lots there, that allow us to build more European, Old World towns and cities. I want to thank you for all the hours (days !) of pleasure those lots gave me and I hope to see some of your excellent batlotters keep on batlotting and uploading their creations here.

[Jackspital 391]

So sad to see the site go, right when i was starting to love the content i had just discovered on there. All the best to the Simpolska team, thanks for the great lots and bats you've given us! 

[sejr99999 8,343]

thank you SimcityPolska for all the great content   I think I downloaded everything from your exchange and enjoyed all of it

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

6 hours ago, sejr99999 said:

 I think I downloaded everything from your exchange ...

Per our agreement with Kamil, Simtropolis now has a designated category on the STEX (SimCityPolska Files) for all of their content. They have a total of 455 files of which we have 126. So, if you have any of the ones we are missing, please contact me. Maybe you could zip them all up and provide them via Dropbox or WeTransfer.com or some other large file sharing host.

[tariely 4,496]

I also have a lot of SimPolska files.  I'll check which one you might not have.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

7 minutes ago, tariely said:

I also have a lot of SimPolska files.  I'll check which one you might not have.

You can browse thru that section here and if we don't have it you can upload it. Ideally mention the original author if that can be found in ReadMe or by way of other means. CB or I will prolly create a special account called SimCityPolska something-or-other and reassign that as the upload/author for them or if known and they are/were  a member here we'll change it to that person.

[tariely 4,496]

(it is very sad to see all those SimCity sites shutting down. I'm glad Simtropolis can take the slack but it will be more important than ever to keep it financially afloat...)

[tariely 4,496]

systemOK, a rough count through my stash clocks at 381 folders -- I know there are doublons and I must check further because I have a double entry stash -- Categories (of which SimCityPolska is one) and Authors ; but I think I should have a lot of stuff you don't.

[Allein 329]

Hi !

When I try to download this one it results in a "file not found" error.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

15 minutes ago, A. Gates said:

When I try to download this one it results in a "file not found" error.

Same for me and I also get the really (really) non-helpful Error code: 3D161/G. I'll beep @Cyclone Boom who is our expert at finding out if it's fixable or if we need to make an appeal to our members to see if anyone has the file and can send it to us.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@A. Gates

Good news!

I've managed to source a backup of the file as it was included on Vol 5 of the STEX Collections disc. So I'm pleased to say it's now all fixed up.

It turns out the issue was due to the zip being named with a special ń character (PKO BP Poznań.zip). This is something we've noticed for other older files too such as those containing the Simoleon § symbol in their file name. Basically in a previous major site upgrade, these records were truncated so they no longer referred to the file on the server. Then to make matters worse (much worse in fact), most if not all of these weren't copied over when the site migrated to a new storage setup.

So if anyone notices other broken STEX files, we'll do our best to restore them as such. As Cori said, should there be no backup, we'll appreciate some help with sourcing them to achieve the same goal. To spread awareness we'd add a warning message on the file to inform downloaders so they'll realise the issue at hand.

Thanks for letting us know.

[Allein 329]

Thank you !

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

It appears we are on our own to insure all of SimCityPolska's files get hosted here in the dedicated STEX section. For whatever reason Kamil hasn't logged in to ST since 5 June, 2018. I had checked a few days after this topic was started and their website was offline. (Possibly overwhelmed with binge downloaders.) I checked just now and it goes to a Sign In page, but since I'm not a member I can't say for sure if it is accessible.

So, I feel it's time to recruit and organize a team to make sure every possible file from their site gets hosted on our STEX. The most important roll would be the Project Leader who would coordinate the team and form a plan to make sure all files are uploaded without duplicates. The spreadsheet listing of files in Cathy's post above could be used as a template. I believe the Leader roll would be best filled by someone who is already a Staff member of ST because they have permissions in place to change the author/uploader name for files. This means anyone on the new team could upload files and the staff member would then change it to the author's name if they are a member of ST. For files where the original author is not a member here, we can create a single account called SimCityPolska Team (or such) and then assign the file to that account with a note in the description of who the true author is. Per Kamil (in a PM to me prior to posting this topic) there will be many files lacking pictures. Dependency linkys might also need checking.

The BIG question is: Who among our staff is willing to take on this project? Please send me a PM (and include @Cyclone Boom in the recipients line) if you have the time and dedication it will take to see this thru.

On another note, the intro to the SimCityPolska Files section still says:

Quote

SimCityPolska Files

 

 

Description Draft for SimCityPolska Files:

This is where we will put a description. This text will be replaced once we decide what to say.

-Cori

Anyone can post here with a better suggestion for what it ought to say.