The Value of Encouragement March 18, 2001 In the past week I have seen several sites I visit on a daily basis shut down for a variety of reasons. The collaspe of E-Front has resulted in hundreds of sites going under; not the least of which was Windows 98.com. WinFiles, long one of my favorite sources for software downloads, was taken over by CNET and is no longer being updated. ShyFonts, while not a site I visited often, was a favorite of many and shut down simply because the author/webmaster got tired of all the work - with no encouragement by the 1000's of visitors every day. Softseek.com, another great source of shareware downloads, had gone the way of the Dodo bird by merging with ZD Net. Chris over at Lockergnome as noticed the same thing and being as sentimental as he is - has drawn up a quicky "manifesto" regarding free stuff on the interenet. . And one of my own sites got scrapped because the provider of the free web space just decided to scrap it. While this was simple to rectify - just upload to another free web space provider; it made me realize that without constant monitoring by the website site owner/creator it is only a matter of time before his/her creation ceases to exit. What the heck is this article about? - you ask; must be more to it than Witt whinning about some websites folding. Well yes, there is - but it's a bit convoluted. If you recall I did some complaining about Themestream's payment policy changes a few articles back and then a bit of a switch when I realized how much I and every other author here at Themestreams, loves the support/feedback they get in the comments sections of their articles. Now here's the point of the article folks - every website creator or freeware author loves that feedback as well; in fact it's what keeps 90% of them going. They sure aren't doing it for the money because almost non of them make any money. So next time you come across a freebie program or a website you like - take a few seconds to email the author or sign the guestbook to encourage the people who are putting in endless hours to create the the thousands of sites and freebie programs you enjoy. End of sermon.