greerwatson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greerwatson) wrote2023-04-18 01:23 am
greerwatson) wrote2023-04-18 01:23 am
Entry tags:
Vanishing websites
About a month ago, my website mysteriously disappeared. Along with all the rest of the Forever Knight Website Archive, including three main FK fic archives, most War archives and faction sites, sundry personal sites saved from GeoCities and Fortune City, and so on and so forth.
My first reaction was to e-mail Stephanie Kellerman, who had been hosting the Website Archive on her site, www.foreverknight.org. The e-mail bounced. I posted to the FORKNI-L mailing list (on which Steph had been active last fall). No response—well, except for concern and sympathy from other FK fans. I then googled and found an obituary.
Whether the Stephanie Kellerman who died is our Steph Kellerman from FK fandom is something I have no way of knowing. That's one of the difficulties with fannish friendships. You may not actually know the person's RL name; and, even if you do, you probably don't have a street address for them. However, the obituary included the usual little bio, which said the deceased knew computers and had four grandchildren—and, although my correspondence with Steph had been mainly about the Website Archive, things did occasionally get mentioned round the edges (so to speak); and it fits.
Anyway, I do plan to put my website up somewhere in the near future on some webhosting service yet to be decided. At the moment, I'm doing some revisions here and there; so it will probably be a few weeks.
When I do, I want to get a large enough site to be able to rehost the other things that have gone. As I did a lot of the collecting and editing of the old GeoCities sites, I have back-ups. I even, in a fit of concern, went page by page through the big fanfic archive copying absolutely everything (I hope!); so that's not lost either.
It'll take time to put everything back up; and, when I do, there'll be a new domain name since Steph's "www.foreverknight.org" has apparently been paid for until 2026, and I'm certainly not going to wait until then! It will all mean an appalling lot of editing in various wikis; but c'est la vie, I suppose, if one finds oneself called to be an archivist.
My first reaction was to e-mail Stephanie Kellerman, who had been hosting the Website Archive on her site, www.foreverknight.org. The e-mail bounced. I posted to the FORKNI-L mailing list (on which Steph had been active last fall). No response—well, except for concern and sympathy from other FK fans. I then googled and found an obituary.
Whether the Stephanie Kellerman who died is our Steph Kellerman from FK fandom is something I have no way of knowing. That's one of the difficulties with fannish friendships. You may not actually know the person's RL name; and, even if you do, you probably don't have a street address for them. However, the obituary included the usual little bio, which said the deceased knew computers and had four grandchildren—and, although my correspondence with Steph had been mainly about the Website Archive, things did occasionally get mentioned round the edges (so to speak); and it fits.
Anyway, I do plan to put my website up somewhere in the near future on some webhosting service yet to be decided. At the moment, I'm doing some revisions here and there; so it will probably be a few weeks.
When I do, I want to get a large enough site to be able to rehost the other things that have gone. As I did a lot of the collecting and editing of the old GeoCities sites, I have back-ups. I even, in a fit of concern, went page by page through the big fanfic archive copying absolutely everything (I hope!); so that's not lost either.
It'll take time to put everything back up; and, when I do, there'll be a new domain name since Steph's "www.foreverknight.org" has apparently been paid for until 2026, and I'm certainly not going to wait until then! It will all mean an appalling lot of editing in various wikis; but c'est la vie, I suppose, if one finds oneself called to be an archivist.
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Have you considered WordPress?
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Well, that comes later. First I have to get my own site restored; and then I can reassemble the Website Archive. The fiddly editing will come ... eventually.
Still, I did the work once: I can do it again.
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I feel that I need to point out that many people have been hoping and praying for years for many of those old files to finally go away, especially the list archives.
All those decades ago, when we had no idea what the internet would become, and many of us were just teenagers, many of us said and did foolish things on the internet, and did them with our real names, and regret it bitterly now. Not all of us work in tolerant professions, or live in tolerant places. I have seen people lose job opportunities, and be at risk for being able to live in certain places, because of having their real names searched and connected to old fanfic or email list hijinks. It is not fair; it is real.
Just because someone used his or her real name online decades ago, before we knew better, doesn't mean that he or she wants it to be revived and searchable now, in connection with the kinds of things people said and did in fandom then.
Please, please, please, do not resurrect anything with real names on it. Most especially, please respect that anyone who is using an alias today is doing so for good reasons and does not want that blown apart with direct connections to their real name.
It's one thing to download files for one's own enjoyment. It's another to upload them for the entire world. When we were on the mailing lists all those years ago, we didn't know there would be archives. We didn't know that employers and landlords would judge us.
Thank you.
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Most of the websites we saved are fic archives, faction sites, war sites, and tribute sites. If anyone wants me to take down any personal pages, I can remove them. (We did that for the NatPack.) If anyone wants me to pseudonymize them, I can try to do that, too—though I can't guarantee to catch everything.
As far as the list archives are concerned, they aren't in the Forever Knight Website Archive.
We don't have your own site archived, if that is a concern. However, I see your stories are in Mel's archive under your full name. I'll change that. Do you prefer your first name with an initial for your surname (which I've seen in a number of places) or would you prefer I change it to "Brightknightie"? And, if the latter, do you want it capitalized or not?
Brightknightie's request
I would best of all like all of my items deleted, please! Many times, I asked Mel (and her silent partner / immediate successor) to delete my stories from her archive; my requests were ignored. I learned to stop asking, and to stop looking in that direction, because it upset me so much. Mel and her silent partner didn't precisely get my stories with my permission to start; they lifted my stories, and many others' stories, from the old FTP Site, which, yes, did have my permission from 1996. The history gets more complex after that, for sure, as human interactions always do, but that's how it began, as I remember it, in '97 or '98, whenever it was that Mel and her silent partner first put up that site.
It was so long ago, and the internet was so different, and I was so very young.
If that desired removal is not possible, then the next best would be to please remove my name from all the things. Depending on the file set-up, I hope that find-and-replace would help make that not too difficult, given the surname. Again, if deletion can't be done, then if it's available to replace my entire name -- first and last and also my college-issued email address -- with "Brightknightie," that would be the next best option, and would happily free me up to stop trying to manage the "split pseudonym" driven by the presence of my name elsewhere, as I've done for well over a decade now, and I could finally consolidate under the one pseudonym. (Failing that, then the next choice after that would be the capitalized initial in place of the surname.)
I have been trying, on and off, to remove my surname from fannish items and recover control of my stories for at least two decades. Often, I get very discouraged, and shut my eyes to it and hope it all just goes away... as it almost, finally, did? That is not an effective strategy, obviously, but it is one way of handling emotional stress. And during periods when I'm safely employed, and the files in question aren't ranking high on the search engines, then it's less worrisome, and feels less urgent -- until the day of a layoff or other misfortune.
I haven't read the email lists regularly since the early '00s. I've stayed subscribed mainly from affection and nostalgia, and to promote the fest. There have been times when I have skimmed digests, but mostly I haven't in a long time.
I'm still in touch with a number of folks from those days who left the email lists by '00. I am not the only one who had complex layers of interactions with Mel and her silent partner.
Thank you!
Re: Brightknightie's request
I don't know who Mel's "silent partner" was. If you mean Steph Kellerman, then I'm pretty sure she simply saved a copy of the entire archive back in 2001 as a back-up-in-case, and put it up later so that the fandom would not lose its main archive. On the other hand, she was certainly archivist for the FTP site for many years. I've checked: she took your stories down from that archive. It would not have been difficult. The FTP site has quite a simple structure: each author's stories are in a separate folder.
However, the file set-up for Mel's archive is goddawful, to put it mildly. The folders aren't too hard to navigate; but the names of the story files are arcane. And, of course, anyone who googles your name will find it in the index, so that has to be changed. Except that the nominal index actually links to two complete sets of pages, alphabetized, one set for authors and one for titles.
Now, obviously, your name appears on only one of the author index pages and all your stories are listed there en bloc; so once I find you, I find them. However, the title index is a much bigger matter. Each story has its own separate mention on the page for the initial letter of its title; and, of course, in each case, you are listed as author. This means I'll need to locate each story individually on whichever title index page it's listed on; and you've been prolific.
I don't know how Mel generated these index pages; but their source code is extremely difficult to read—just one step short of a wall of text. Finding anything on them is not quite impossible; but it requires close, painstaking, time-consuming perusal. It's an eye-crossing, migraine-inducing task.
I've just spent about three hours doing a find-and-replace for your presence in the FK Wiki where we had you down as first-name-plus-final-initial. (At least for wikis there's a search box!) You are now "Brightknightie" there. By my judgment, having had a look at the source code for the sundry archive pages I'll have to fiddle with, it will probably take me several times as long to deal with things there. Days of work, in other words, a few hours at a time.
I'm an archivist by nature. I don't think anyone volunteers to take over an archive unless they are psychologically inclined towards the preservation of facts and artifacts. From my perspective, if I'm going to go to so many hours of trouble, I'm going to do a find-and-replace.
So I'll pseudonymize you as "Brightknightie" everywhere I can think of. Are any of your stories likely to be in faction archives as well?
Edited to add: I've checked the Light Cousins' site. Their fiction section has links to your website. I've changed the author's name to match what you've got there.
Nibbling round the edges, here, easy stuff first. (I need to go to bed. It's ridiculously late.)
Re: Brightknightie's request
If a method of deletion becomes available, I'd like to let my request remain for that possibility.
>" I've checked the Light Cousins' site. Their fiction section has links to your website. I've changed the author's name to match what you've got there."
Thank you for checking the LC site. Theirs is the only faction site likely to have my name. Again, if the references cannot simply be deleted, I'd appreciate it if you would, when you have time, change any of theirs to Brightknightie, too, so that I can at last deal with my own website and split pseudonym. My choices on my own site have been driven in large part by the presence of my name on files controlled by others; if the name fully goes away elsewhere, so that it is not a breadcrumb trail to my door, and from there to my present presence, then I can also make new choices with my own files.
>"Nibbling round the edges, here, easy stuff first. (I need to go to bed. It's ridiculously late.)"
I don't wish to make you miss sleep or otherwise disrupt higher priorities. Everyone has obligations and occupations; new things must get in line accordingly. This is not an emergency.
Re: Brightknightie's request
It does occur to me, though, that there are some pages in the FK Wiki that do have your first name on them. These are articles:
- "Amy's Forever Knight Fanfiction Recommendation of the Month"
- "Amy's Script-Based Forever Knight Timeline"
- "Amy's Forever Knight "Stuff" List"
These are the actual titles you use on your website; so I can't cite them in any other way. (At least they don't have the initial of your surname.)These are all very interesting pages/sections of the Bright Knight site. I've found them very useful; and I'm sure other people have too. Please give me the heads up when you revise your site so I can make the changes to the wiki articles.
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There are people whose jobs will not tolerate evidence of fannish activities, even the most vanilla kind; probably the majority. There are people who are dealing with stalkers. As
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That was when it was pointed out that much of what would be lost would not be personal sites but ones associated with the fandom more generally, specifically the War sites and faction sites. That was when Steph stepped up to offer space in her website; and I took months collecting sites and sending them to her. The War sites, though they had been created by (usually) the warleader of the day, were basically RPG logs with some ancillary material; and as many as 400 people might have taken part in each game. The Wars were a big part of FK fandom culture: no one on list demurred at our saving them.
As for the faction sites, we contacted faction leaders (or someone in the faction who'd step up to that role) and made any changes they wanted. I recall the NatPack wanted to have some pages of photos removed as well as a birthday list; and, of course, we did that.
We tried to contact as many owners of personal sites as possible; and no one ever refused us permission to include their site in the archive. We did sometimes edit someone's name or remove personal stuff. On the other hand, there were people who basically just said, "Oh, that old thing! You can do what you like with it!" And others expressed their gratitude, since (like the others on list) they'd not been able to save their sites using Yahoo's instructions.
All archived sites were reported to the list, along with their new URLs. This is not just some private endeavour of Steph's and mine. Every step of the way we discussed what we were doing with the members of the FORKNI-L list. The general reaction was relief that someone was stepping up to save the fandom's history.
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One shortcut you might want to use - for those pages that have been backed up already via the Wayback Machine, just create a browsable index and point to the archived versions. Fans did this for a Stargate SG1 archive that went offline. They then used AO3 bookmarking feature to index and tag the stories. You don't have to do anything that labor intensive - just a page with an index would be good.
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Actually, sticking the folders up on my new site won't be all that hard. I have them neatly in folders, just as I sent them to Steph years ago; and the index page uses internal links, so it should still work okay for those sites (and will be easily edited to link to the sites on the Wayback Machine). Furthermore, I plan to run at least the smaller sites manually through the Wayback Machine lest trouble happen again, e.g. the new webhost disappearing.
It's the wiki links that are the real bugger. A few years ago, I made wiki articles (on the FK Wiki) for each author; and those pages had links so people could find the stories. Whether I'll ever have the time to go back and edit them ... well, not right now, that's for sure!
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I stumbled through the wiki onto some still-working links to war archives, which I didn't even know existed, and my name does appear in those though googling doesn't get hits, at least not first page. (Not sure how these things get indexed.) At any rate, it was personally really joyful for me to stumble across that stuff because I had forgotten all about it. So I appreciate trying to preserve the fandom's history and also be responsive to any individualized concerns on specific content.
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If you want to p.m. me your RL name and an e-mail address, I can see if I can find the stories for you and send you copies. They may still be available off-line.
On the whole, I prefer to pseudonymize people rather than pull things. There are still those who want to read those old stories! Which people originally did give Mel permission to archive, after all. Also, when it comes to matters like wars, people sent those permission slips McLisa was so insistent on. Twenty-five years later you change your mind? You aren't even dealing with the same volunteers who archived things back then!
I do occasionally wonder why people demand archivists give hours of their time to "fix' something that they did themselves. (Yes, it can take hours.) Then I remember that people who coach Little League teams get yelled at by parents, and people who hand out sleeping bags to homeless people sometimes get cursed at.
By the way, although it takes time to pseudonymize things in wikis and fic archives, doing so in Wars is so impractical as to be impossible. Names could have been written into in any story by any faction, after all, especially party scenes and the like.
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Back then, I think none of us understood how findable we'd become, the ramifications that could have, and that the internet would be how it is today.
Thanks for the kind offer to see if my old stuff! I'll have to think on that. I was like 18 years old so it's probably pretty bad LOL (feeling some secondhand embarrassment for my young self :-D.)
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It might be safer if you do PM me your RL name so I can check. I'm pretty sure Mel shortened Brightknightie's RL surname to an initial; but there it is in full, back again, in the copy that I have. That's because, when she decided to hand over to Steph, she didn't e-mail her a zip of the site: Steph had made a copy way-back-when, and used that instead. I doubt if Steph had any idea that, some years later, Brightknightie had asked to have her name altered.
So I'd maybe better check on yours.
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