How did this webpage begin...?
The main theme is parties, right?
Is there an editorial team?
Why you are doing this?
No banner ads?

Features (What's possible?)
History (What happend?)
Masthead (Who's responsible?)

Around May 1996 I started to scan some of my flyers and uploaded them to an AOL Server as the very first version of this webpage. I also entered party infos as HTML code manually. If you like to take a look into history: see more...

Inserting everything by hand became tedious after a while. One year later I began a new job as a web-developer at a cool online company (living source, Freiburg). The very first database driven version of this site was realized with PHP/FI and Solid.

Since July 1997 this site has been hosted on my domain www.goatrance.de - the idea being to create a kind of community for party people.

Yes. In the early days I focussed on interesting stuff about Goa, some party reports with pictures, separate flyer pages, some sound examples - a collection of different content. That's what "most of the amateur" websites look like in the beginning. :) After a while my focus moved to the theme "all about parties". The trigger was the creation of the partybase in July 1997.

Partybase is an SQL driven database of party info. The advantage was less work to keep it up to date and the visitors would see instantly updated info.

The party newsletter started in August '98. Subscribers get a regular email about all new party submissions. A few months later the lift and travel section started; users could add a request or offer a lift to any party in the database.

Meeting point and "tell a friend" arose in 2000 and I continue to work on new features to this day. Stay tuned :)

300,000 users visited this site in Jun. 2005 and viewed 2,900,000 pages. That's a feedback by itself ;)

No. All content at the site comes from the visitors, except for news regarding the site - which is written by me.

The parties and the people who go to them are the focus of goabase. Anybody who organises or knows about a party can add it here.

The rest (which is the bulk of it!) is entered by visitors and members using the meeting point, lifts & travel, the party reports, uploaded party photos etc.

Sometimes the moderators and I have to clean the database and delete rubbish left by disrespectful users, but this is surprisingly rare.

The site is like a playground for me where I am free to realize new ideas and it can be a lot of fun.

I enjoy trying out new concepts and getting regular feedback from the users for this stuff. As a spin-off I hear about all the best parties :)

Collecting flyers has always been my passion. More then 4,500 flyers are online, fully supported by the partybase with a lot of search options.

• Recent world wide Goa parties with line-up, location, flyer and details
  
  
• Bilingual: English and german version - translates the current page if switched
• Party search: DJs, live acts, town and country
  
  
• The party newsletter gives a bulletin of new parties from the preferred country
  
  
• The personal party timer lists all marked parties
  
  
• An user can subscribe via a double opt-in email system to the member area which allows
  • partytimer - all marked parties by the member are saved as a personal party diary
  • other members can see the partytimer and arrange meetings
  • send and receive messages with other members
  • chat
  
  
  
• Meeting-Point for every party for announcments and discussion
  
  
• Lifts and travel to to request or offer to provide lifts
  
  
• After the party is over:photos, reports, feedback und votes can be submitted
  
  
• Huge flyer collection with thumbnail and full view
  
  
• Submit of new parties with flyer upload and password-save (for later editing) formular
  
  
• And other goodies like linkbase, guestbook and forums