Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Rsenespanol

One more interview with a non English Runescape fan site. This time it is with Emmanuel, founder, owner and developer of Rsenespanol, a fan site for Spanish speaking Runescape players. Enjoy!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: Runescape help for Spanish speaking players.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
A: The lack of Spanish fansites and my desire to learn php.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: Rsenespanol started in a free hosting site at the mid 2007.
I bought the domain on January 6, 2008 and that's the official born date of Rsenespanol.
The first milestone was getting visitors without any kind of publicity, that encouraged me to keep updating the site and add more content.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: I wasn't member at that time so it was originally targeted at Free to Play players.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: My friend Jacques (snake_armor) convinced me to add member guides. Then our goal changed to cover member content as well.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No, but this was my first serious site.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The first version of the site was static html with some php to handle the templates and a little guestbook made in php.
Then we added a very simple forum wich was later replaced for the actual SMF forum.
As we added more content it became more difficult to update the old guides so we switched to Wordpress.
Now we use Wordpress with embedded php.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: Besides help in Spanish, no, pretty much every possible service has been done, so we just focus on offering those services in Spanish.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: It's not finished yet, but I have been working on a database and definitely this will be the most complex addition to the site.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: I'm happy with all the site, but I will be really proud when the site is completed. We still have some guides missing.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started it with my brother Ricardo_Mz.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
A: Yes.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: Probably around 5-10 hours per week.

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Finding enough free time.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: We have 3 Editors, 3 Forum Moderators, and almost 50 contributors. I don't choose them, we have a list of needed guides and anybody can help.

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: I have 3 Editors with access to Wordpress (Ricardo_Mz, Dalabeba and Coocaa), they help me to upload the guides received.

Q: Did you even had to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Not fansite owners directly but some of their users come to our CC and spam a little -.-

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: It started as a hobby, but when we moved to paid hosting I added some ads to support the site. It's still a hobby, but now it support itself.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: It's nice that Jagex try to help us, but I think they are too picky, they want me to remove links to my own sites.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: Yes, when I am not too busy with university.

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: I always liked pking even if I never were good at it =P, on my main I do a little of everything except pking.

Q: What's you Runescape goals, if any?
A: Runecrafting cape.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: I usually use Runescape wiki.

Q: Do you read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: Sometimes, but I don't follow any in particular.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I'm from Mexico and I'm studying software engineering.


Thank you very much, Emmanuel!