fandom Meta: archiving stories directly from LJ

[arrow00]

So, this is all (once again) cesperanza's fault. It all started with a posting she made in which...well, I'll let you read it for yourself if you're interested, but what came to me while reading it was we need better archiving. Not that existing archives aren't beautiful and whatnot, but there is no tie in with LJ, and the LJ community is thriving, and many

Comments

[karieflybabe]

This is why I have a separate journal for my stories, to control confusion. It may be simple to others but I like it just fine. I use a variation of your proposed template.

Title:
Author: KarieAuthoress
email: karierauthoress@gmail.com
Permission to archive: Yes, but please tell me where.
Fandom: The Sentinel
Genre:
Pairing:
Summary:
Warnings:
Notes:

For all my stories, I do this.

For TS writers though, I think there is an LJ community who is at least attempting to help us keep track of some of our stories.

I'll keep an eye on this for later...

[arrow00]

Even with a separate journal, though, I've noticed (back when I only posted fic to mine) that people didn't realize they could find all my stories listed cleanly using the tags and the memories. Even though the links were right there in the menu! Also, it's not centralized or searchable like an archive would be.

I like your template very much. It's what I had in mind. I would have to encourage people to rate their stories in a readable way and also include pairings.

[karieflybabe]

I actually picked up my template from Wonderful World Of Makebelieve back when I wanted to start posted my TS fic somewhere.

I agree about the tags, especially on some journal styles where there are no tags to click on and search. That can often be frustrating. Or if a writer doesn't use tags at all.

My only concern is most likely a technical one, something about the wording of your proposal. Clarification would be appreciated. Where would these stories be archived and in what format? I ask for a couple of reasons, but I want to make sure I don't put my foot in my mouth in the asking.

Nifty Tool

[morgandawn]

I am guessing here - but the tool itself will be flexible enough so you can archive into an existing archive (like the ones currently in place for DS and Sentinel) or, if there is no archive, the tool can be used to pull stories into a new archive. of course the people running the archive will have to agree to fans using the tool to push/pull the stories to the right destination

Re: Nifty Tool

[arrow00]

Nope, that's right. Hopefully owners of existing archives will allow me to run the script on their server and stuff the stories into their archives. If there isn't an existing archive or if the owners don't want to participate, we could create one on an independent server (someplace not corporate-owned, so we would have control.) But I'm hoping for the first alternative.

And, yes, participating authors would know the ultimate destination before opting in. The destination would not change without notifying authors and allowing them to "opt out" of having their stories moved.

The format would be html, the same formatting that appears on the writer's lj. I would just grab everything from between the cut tags. So I would require that the writer *use* lj-cut to indicate the start of their story.

I will write up a requirements document once I have ironed out the technical issues. But please feel free to continue to ask any questions you might have, because they reveal areas that need fleshing out.

Re: Nifty Tool

[karieflybabe]

Ok, well here's another one for you, and this is crucial to me in my continuing work as a writer of fanfic now. What about stories being posted to Insane Journal?

Am I going to have to switch back to using both LJ and IJ in order to continue participation should I decide to "opt in" to this?

Re: Nifty Tool

[arrow00]

I believe insanejournal runs on the same engine as livejournal; at least, it looks like it outputs html the same way. if that's so, and if they have friending just like LJ, then there's no reason I couldn't plug into insanejournal as well as any other lj-type journals (such as greatestjournal).

However, I will be running the pilot program off of LJ, and hammering out the kinks there, since LJ has the most users. Other journals would come after the primary functionality had been worked out.

Re: Nifty Tool

[karieflybabe]

Suits...

The only concern I would have right now would be using the other archives and html... 852 prospect and WWOMB use text format for a reason. They do not except html.

Re: Nifty Tool

[arrow00]

Both of those archives serve up html, it's just that when you submit stories you have to do so as text files.

852prospect, once you have submitted the files, saves them as .html files on the server. What I propose is to work with the archive server itself to save the stories as html on the server in the same format and stick the meta information in the db.

In the case of WWOMB it's slightly more complicated, because I believe it saves text with boldface and italic tags in the db and then formats the text on output. So, yeah, I'd have to swap out the p tags for line returns, but leave the itals and bold. I'm not sure, too, how to resolve the user issue (WWOMB has actual users who can log in and edit their stories after the fact. So there's the issue of mapping ljuser name to WWOMB username.)