What Is Pompedia
In order to understand what Pompedia is, we need to looks back at how I got here;
It all started in 1979....
That was the year the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders exploded into pop culture. Like most of America, I was completely captivated by the phenomenon — the movies, the merchandise, the magic. Years later, in 1992, at a sports card show,I came across a pack of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader trading cards. Seeing them instantly reignited that old passion and brought back a flood of memories. Those cards sat in a drawer for a while, but after I graduated college in 1993 and had a little more money, I started digging. This was right at the dawn of the internet. I managed to track down an original copy of the 1978 Dallas Cheerleaders poster, and as I stared at it, one question kept running through my mind: Who are these women? What are their names?
That single question became the beginning of a much larger quest. I started looking for historical information that might lead to answering my original question. Answering that question was like pulling the thread on a sweater. It opened up an extensive history that I had no idea that existed. I found so much merchandise and resources for information that I was able to start reconstructing the early years. I created a website called "the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Anthology" (on Geo-cities, now defunct) and published my research. I was able to capture the attention of several alumni that assisted me greatly with additional information and point out mistakes I had made along the way. I also created a fan page on Yahoo-Groups (also now defunct) where fans could join and discuss past and current squad thoughts that also had a small record of DCC alumni that would give some insights.
After the collapse of these websites, I decided to actually invest in publishing my own site. I wanted to expand beyond just the Cowboys to include all the cheerleaders in the NFL. I created an online forum called MyFavoriteCheerleader.com that exploded with interest. It grew at a phenomenal rate that presented issues I wasn't prepared for. The host domain deleted the massive amount of photos in one directory... we rebuilt, then the database got corrupted (I believe hacked) and that ended the run.
I was standing at a crossroad. Do I scrap it and just walk away leaving decades of research to evaporate or do I regroup and carry on? I searched for a more reliable, and stable platform what I found in Mediawiki. I launched Pompedia.org as an independent project. I locked out all other individuals because I felt so bad to have lost their contributions in the past. I thought that this way if it were to catastrophically fail again it would only affect me. That ran for a short time before I decided to let it go... but the desire to continue was still there, with several additional setbacks Pompedia is still standing.
The Challenges:
The goal of Pompedia is simple... to attempt to document the individual contribution for each season, give them recognition and preserve it. I am not looking for any notoriety, and this is obviously not a "get rich" endeavor. There have been a lot of time and money invested over several decades. Research is an ongoing goal but a website like this has it's problems. The biggest problem is theft. This is a wiki and I understand that... fine... if you use the material give credit... something I myself am working on. But to rip the photos and past them on your website as if there are your own is just wrong. Preventative measures have been implemented such as the black frame around the profile picture and the "Pompedia" name incorporated as well... Another problem are bot attacks from other countries. Large scale "scrapers" chew up bandwidth that sometime brings Pompedia to it's knees... Luckily Cloudfare has been implemented and most countries outside the US have been blocked, reducing the server load.
I have tried to reach out to alumni groups but have been given the cold shoulder for information. I guess I pose as a threat of some kind, but I can assure you I am not. I operate as ethical as I can with any information that is entrusted with me. Some individuals have reached out to request their names and images be removed from Pompedia... I try to comply as much as possible by either changing the name or the photo (most likely if there is no other source on the internet) The exception would be if there are many other examples of images and name posted apart from here, that they will not remove the information. Removing it from my website alone will not erase your online presence.
