What Happened to Dream Valley?

[jillrose]

I've been meaning to ask this question for quite some time...

I began online collecting adventures in 1999, when Dream Valley was the #1 guide on the Internet for G1 MLP.  I sustained itself as the top hit on Google for "My Little Pony" for years, and in the hayday of the MLPTP, everyone used its images for referencing and wish lists.

I was out of the collecting realm roughly from 2006-2013.  And at some point, Dream Valley had just vanished!  I know that sometimes, web developers just don't want to maintain their sites anymore, but I can't help but wonder if there was more backstory to this?? I remember the site owner as having an entire network of her own websites, in what could almost be considered "ahead of her time" fashion.

Does anyone know anything further about its disappearance?

[DreamvalleyMLP]

I remember there being a message at the top of the frontpage, stating that the maintenance and the cost had become a bit too much (maybe with other priorities in her life?). It was left up for a while without maintenance, and then she probably just let the domain name and hosting service expire.

It stopped somewhere in the early G3 years.

[sunshinedim]

I remember there being a message at the top of the frontpage, stating that the maintenance and the cost had become a bit too much (maybe with other priorities in her life?). It was left up for a while without maintenance, and then she probably just let the domain name and hosting service expire.

It stopped somewhere in the early G3 years.

I remember being able to view the site during the start of G4 to be honest.

[Beth3346]

yeah it definitely worked during the start of the G4 years. i started collecting in 2010 and i used it as a resource for a few years.

[starbritesprinkles]

It's been gone for quite some time, but you can still view most of it on the Wayback Machine, inaccurate info and all (see below).

https://web.archive.org/web/20161029203353/https://www.kimsites.net/dreamvalley/index.html

Woosie (Earth pony) is aqua with curly yellow hair (pink tail ring), and gold eyes. Her symbol is two yellow mice talking. She came with a pale purple bird pick with pink hair and sea green squirrel. There is also another version of Woosie who was not sold in the U.S. Her body is lavender, and her eyes and mice symbol are dark pink, but her hair is still yellow and her tail ring is still pink.

That is false and has been proven so, but she never changed it. I have lavender Woosie from childhood, and I know that my parents have never traveled abroad to buy me ponies.

 I would guess that, as above-mentioned with the cost, she felt like the site may no longer be relevant with the forums and the Wiki. Which is unfortunate because it was a good resource for photos and generalized info, and we still have inaccuracies in the Wiki too.

There was someone who was working on preserving the site, but I can't remember who it was or whether or not the project got finished.

EDITED A COUPLE OF TIMES TO ADD THINGS THAT I FORGOT.

[BlackCurtains]

I used Dream Valley back in 2003 when I was thinking of selling or trading my ponies for Kenner LPS. Learning what I did about my ponies on DV made me keep them instead. Little did I know that 8 years later I'd become a pony collector I wish I had found the Arena back then.

[Carrehz]

It stopped being updated around the early G3 era, it was still online up until late 2016-ish. I think this was the final update:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161106041733/http://www.kimsites.net/dreamvalley/

According to that, it went down because Kim was no longer able to maintain any of her websites, for undisclosed reasons. I don't think we ever got any more info than that; I hope she's alright.

[Taffeta]

The thing about DV is that it was a site of its time. In 1996 when it came online, it was something important and special. One thing Kim did that most mainstream website hosts now do not do is her own research. What she wrote for the US line was based on her memories, the paperwork she had from her childhood, and so on. It had errors, but she did it from scratch before anyone else did.

Most of the ID sites people rely on now, bar the Wiki which is communal, are based on someone who knows very little about MLP. Almost all the ID sites I've seen built since then have been based on someone hitting up google and mashing together information they found on other sites - including DV, and almost all use her 'years' framework. Kim did actually know what she was talking about. She just didn't have all the information that we have now...something modern mainstream sites can't claim.

I wasn't sorry to see DV come down, but I do respect what it was originally. The bigger problem is that the community has not moved on from it, and keeps going back to it.

All that said, Kim was very inflexible about correcting her site information, and in the late 1990s, information was constantly being added and changed as international people came online more and more. DV didn't take kindly to people in the UK and internationally trying to help her correct the errors with her website. There were so few of us then that she could ignore us. I think we could have ignored DV, too, except that a large swathe of the community then took DV as gospel, and anyone selling anything DV didn't include was potentially a scammer. Remember, it was a lot harder back then to provide photo evidence of an item, and even when that evidence was provided, there was only DV to submit it to. That's literally the only reason I set up my website. Because somewhere had to include proper UK and international info, and DV just wouldn't do it.

I was on hiatus at some point around 2003-4, when the existing UK community peoples got together and pushed back against her inaccuracies. I don't know exactly what went down, but by then there were enough people to make themselves heard. Kim took down her international section then, and replaced it with a ranty note of some kind.

DV coming down was a good thing. People using it on the wayback is a bad thing. It's keeping the false information in circulation, and encouraging its use. DV did not have all the answers. It was an old site made in a time before we had resources that we have now. DV's biggest issue was not wanting to keep up with the mad flow of information in the late 1990s, and not being willing to change information that was wrong.

That kind of source should be remembered as a trailblazer, but allowed to fade as an information resource.

Our current pony knowledge as a community outstrips DV now. But our collective mainstream ID sites would be better if people let DV go and moved on.

[DreamvalleyMLP]

Cool to hear that it even included early G4, I had no idea. Once G3 stopped being updated, I didn't visit the site anymore.

The pic of snoozing Twilight Sparkle is new to me. I only remember the version with the main image of Glory and baby.

[Carrehz]

Are people still using DV via Wayback for actual info? o.O That's odd. I know people have asked for Wayback links for nostalgia purposes - nothing wrong with that - but not sure why anyone'd use it for IDing purposes, etc over more up-to-date sites since those do exist.

There was never any G4 info (photos, etc) on DV. I think it was acknowledged on there in some way or another (I seem to recall a fanlisting link) but it was in a "this site is static, but I do still like ponies, but don't email me about the new stuff cause I'm not adding those to the site" sort of a way.

[lovebeam]

That's so cool that woyback machine still has it. It was my bible when i first started collecting ponies.

[Taffeta]

Are people still using DV via Wayback for actual info? o.O That's odd. I know people have asked for Wayback links for nostalgia purposes - nothing wrong with that - but not sure why anyone'd use it for IDing purposes, etc over more up-to-date sites since those do exist.
=

I did hear it over the years after DV went down, but not so much recently.

The sad thing is that in some ways, though, consulting DV on the wayback is not much different from using MLPMerch or Strawberry Reef to ID G1 ponies. All mainstream ID sites since DV throwback to DV. They've not really moved forward.

Kim's biggest issue was not amending errors in a time when her site determined whether a pony existed or not. It wasn't the ability to collate or utilise information from her own research.

[Gator]

I basically printed out most of Dream Valley when I was younger and made my own notebook/check off book.  I just loved looking at all the backyard artwork she had posted.

[Barnacle_lady]

I still use the checklists G1 to G3 I edited them the way I like and they are good files for on my phone when I am on a convention.
But for info on G1 I have no need to look up that site. I can access different sources like people in the pony community and a few books.
For a quick g1 search I use the wiki.

[Taffeta]

I also had it printed. I printed it in bits each time I went to the library, originally, back in 1997 when I'd go there for an hour internet use before we had the net at home.

(I'm old, waah).

I was 15 then xD. I found the TP and DV. I honestly wish things hadn't ended up so messed up with DV and its information because as a 15 year old I flat out worshipped this site. And to begin with Kim did add stuff. My sister and I were credited for information back in 1997 under our real names *gasp* because we didn't have pony handles at that point

I used DV in part to write out my collection notebook in 1998, but I was also adding in the UK stuff I knew about (which wasn't everything, I was genuinely working out UK variations as I went along for most of 1997-9 because DV only had bits and pieces, even when the information was OK). I even had a pose guide noted in the back so I could keep track of where the US and UK had different poses.

And that one page of 'rumour' ponies which were unidentified. Actually, a lot of those came from mailing list discussions I think. Only a few came from DV, like the German Rainbow ponies and 'pretty bow' (heh).

DV was the first site that told me Medley and Glory etc did exist.