Joe Schlared's excellent ACCEPT fansite is now offline. Schlared explains his decision in the following statement:

"There are several key reasons for this decision and I'm not going to take the time to list all the reasons, but I'll hit the key reasons for anyone who may be interested. I should mention that this decision does not come lightly by any means. I've struggled with this decision for the past 18 months or so.

Perhaps most importantly is the fact that Accept is no longer a band that is together. The most this site can accomplish is to be the best reference site or online history of the band possible. There's nothing wrong with an "archive" type of reference site, it's just not the type of site that I personally am interested in running. I am more of a hands on webmaster interested in updating the site on a daily or weekly basis.

I'll never be able to get away from that "fan page" label that has always been attached to this site. For whatever reason, a lot of negativity surrounds fan pages these days. I miss the 90s!!! *crying my eyes out* :-) Visitors to the website will remind you of the fact. Also places that link band sites often will be hesitant to list fan pages or not even list them at all. What people fail to realize is that official sites are "fan pages" as well. What I had been doing is no different than an "official" website. Members of the band provided me with information, and I relayed that on this site. It works the same way with an official site- Accept's last official site was ran by a fan like you and me and he was relayed information from the band. But all people want is that domain name tag. If Wolf Hoffman (former Accept guitarist) himself ran a site that's address was 'geocities.com/userwebpages/guitarplayer/html' and he didn't label it as an 'official' page, then many people wouldn't want anything to do with it. The wolfhoffmann.com would take priority just because of that name.

Finally, I rarely listen to music anymore and haven't listened to Accept regularly in 4-5 years. So during that time period I've only been 'addicted' to the Accept online community and what I could do for the band and the fans on the internet, rather than being interested in the music itself.

The Accept message forum will remain online but 'hidden' and posting disabled. Really this shouldn't be a shock to anyone since nobody posted there. People felt more compelled to post their thoughts about Accept on other message boards rather than the Accept message board.

In the coming weeks I will be saving files, moving stuff around, perhaps moving to a different provider.... but I will keep the domain the same just in the event that something changes and the site returns. Another "official" site is not something that is being planned, at least not in the near future. So the next best thing I guess anyone reading this can hope for is that someone else who would be willing to host a stagnant archive comes forward.

I will still be in contact with the band, and still accept news, photos, audio/video content (the e-mail link is below). What I will do is just hold on to everything that comes my way, and should I feel a need to return the website, I will return it with all the updates submitted in the downtime period.

In closing I would like to thank Wolf and Gaby Hoffmann, Peter Baltes (former Accept bassist) and all the Accept fans worldwide who made contributions to this website. They did all the work. All I did was spend a small amount of time and money sharing the contributions."