Hi!

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.

As you know, since you're on the FORKNI-L list, the Archive was started in response to the prospective disappearance of so many FK sites when Yahoo announced that GeoCities was closing (and later Fortune City also). Everything was reported to the list: this isn't simply some private project of Steph's and mine. The whole list knows about it.

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?

Edited (deleted comment from havocthecat) 2023-04-24 03:27 am (UTC)

Hi!

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!

I've been told that Mel's health was poor; and that, for years, she basically did nothing with the archive at all, except to pay the hosting service. Someone apparently helped her work out her finances; and I dare say they (or multiple "theys") acted as gatekeepers. "Complex layers of interaction" is a phrase I find totally believable having once tried to contact her about something or other.

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.)

Edited (adding a bit of new info) 2023-04-27 08:35 am (UTC)

No, I didn't mean Steph K. (Mel's silent partner was from a previous generation of online fandom, compared to Steph.)

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.

I've changed the Light Cousins' links to say "Brightknightie".

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.

Edited 2023-05-02 11:27 pm (UTC)