โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ PART III
11: You said that the forums have changed a lot. What do you think are the biggest changes and do you like them or maybe not?
Before, people would post things in the forum to get information or feedback about something but they didn't really try to bond with others. Now, I feel like there's a somewhat large group of people who all interact and know each other, which is cool. Before, there was also a group of people who engaged regularly but it was taking place in the chatroom instead of the forum. Every evening, there were always the same ~25 people who would hang out. This was before Twitch/Youtube times!
12: Can you say something about the members of PPG? Are the most adults or not? And which countries are the most active now and which were that in the beginning?
The average age is 28 years old. The median may be around 23 or 24. The most active countries are currently China, Italy, Germany, France, USA, Netherlands. I don't recall exactly what it was before, but I remember Finland, South Korea and Poland being high, and China being low. France, Italy and Germany always did well.
13: Do you think that you will win the trivia week one time? ๐ Do you do the test alone or with your wife or friends? And do you train for it maybe?
I'm still not winning this week but yes I hope I get to win too at some point ๐. I play alone, I guess it's become part of my daily routine in the morning.
14: Which members that deactivated do you miss the most?
I had few deep interactions and can't think of a particular name, but I suppose the most recent one would be Michael. Whose account was officially permanently deleted a few days ago, by the way.
15: What happens if your computer crashes at home or you forget all PPG passwords after a vacation? Will the website stop?
Penpal-Gate doesn't run on a computer at home, it's hosted in a datacenter. Complete backups are generated daily in case a serious failure occurs. Its former datacenter actually burned down one day, 8 years ago. Thankfully I had these backups which allowed me to put the site back online in less than 48 hours. Only pictures were lost, but everything text related was saved! PPG could have disappeared completely that day.
The website should be able to run (almost) indefinitely without any human intervention, but if I die and stop paying the bills it should shut down abruptly after a month or so ๐.
Have a great weekend!
