Archives

[wiseheart]

Yep, this seems to be my ranting day, all right.

FF.net is down - well, more or less. Most stories you want to click on produce the insert "Story not found". When you try to check out the reviews, you get "no reviews", although the counter clearly shows there are 6 pages of them. Some stories do show up, but it's entirely random. Sometimes not even the front page is accessible.

It's frustrating. I'd be happy and willing to invest a great deal of time and effort to run an archive but don't have the frelling web skills to set up one. And I'd so love to have a place where I could put all my stuff, regardless of henre or rating. Other than my own, tiny, unimpressive website, that is.

Comments

[echoriath.livejournal.com]

Poor Soledad ((hugs)) I know, some days it just seems the entire galaxy has targeted you as their Person O'the Day. Doubt it makes you feel better, but I do know several others (apart from those on Edhellond who seem to get our own share and then some) who get targeted really often.

It's not fair, and ranting/venting is SOOOOOO good for the soul. I like throwing a pillow down and kicking it around myself. *g*

I wish we all had more time to make the archive a reality. We have the talent, but it seems just not the time. Other than setting up a really simple archive again, not like Stories of Arda or anything, just *really* basic -- that much I could do. But the group seemed to want more and that's a bit beyond my time right now. Frustrating, as I'd love to see us get a domain and put it to good use as well!

No solutions coming from me, per norm. But I hear you!

Here. Lord Gildor just gave me some chocolate to pass around. I think you should have the very first dibs on that! ;D Sit, cool off in some nice shade, watch some of those gorgeous Elves...talk to a few and I hope you have a better day. ((hugs))

Love,
Levade

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Just *how* basic are we talking about? I'd be happy with a temporary solution, too, for the time being. Just to have the text files of group members' stories posted on the same place. We can always move on and do something more sophisticated later.

[echoriath.livejournal.com]

Just *how* basic are we talking about? I'd be happy with a temporary solution, too, for the time being. Just to have the text files of group members' stories posted on the same place. We can always move on and do something more sophisticated later

If it's temporary? Very basic, which doesn't mean it can't look nice.

Two examples, both simple, but figure that you would add a splash page (Intro page) and that would allow visitors to enter beyond that to the stories themselves. Doesn't really matter how it's organised -- that's always up for interpretation, and everyone has preferences. Your old Edhellond site was set up along this idea.

http://www.geocities.com/dragonconfused/


http://www.qresearch.org.uk/personal/tolkienfiction.htm

No feedback forms, or reviews (though certainly an email link could be added very easily for each author), nothing really but stories. Like I said, basic and simple. Nice thing with sites like this? They're stable (depending on the ISP). Not a lot of code and programming to muck up someone who might be on a slower dial-up or older system. Loading would be done manually (FTP) and coding would be up to that person(s).

I'm doing this with another couple of authors too -- we're tired of trolling through ff.net, HASA or any of the others "Supersites" just to find our stuff.

I kind of miss the days when authors had their own websites and they were joined by webrings. It took longer for a visitor to get there, but you know....we lost a lot of control and individual taste when we let the gargantuan sites take over for us.

So I suppose what I and a few others are doing is "old school".

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Your old Edhellond site was set up along this idea.

Yeah, and would it work, I wouldn't even think to touch it. But it doesn't. Something with having transferred from Freewebs to Topcities, if I understood correctly. We probably would have to take the whole thing down and re-set the archive at Topcities. 150 MB of free space are a lot, especially, when all we want is to post text.

I'd gladly do the uploading part, could anyone talk me through the technicalities. I'm such an idiot, unfortunately...

I kind of miss the days when authors had their own websites and they were joined by webrings. It took longer for a visitor to get there, but you know....we lost a lot of control and individual taste when we let the gargantuan sites take over for us.

Agreed. Alas, most readers are either busy or impatient and want everything on the same place.