Crimes of Websites Past
So, a while back 
galaxysoup and I were reminiscing about the horrors of classic fannish website design. Remember when Geocities was a thing and disclaimer pages made you hunt for the second comma in the thirteenth line? Remember purple text on black background, blinking gifs and flashing text, cheesy ornamental buttons, weird graphics and crazy fonts?
Well, as it turns out, I still have evidence of some of my transgressions. Here they are, for your amusement!
You Too Can Learn HTML
My first attempt at coding a website did not show great promise.
You Too Can Learn HTML, The Revenge: X-Files Versus Readability
Especially because I succumbed to the dark background craze, and evidently only had one image of these guys. Why is Krycek’s face so bumpy?
Quoth the Raven
I quickly decided this would not do and found a nice dramatic pre-fab website design featuring a woman, a scarf and a raven. And of course a dark background. Nothing could keep me from dark backgrounds, obviously.
The Red and the Black Archive
Believe it or not: This was an entirely unremarkable look for an author’s page in an XF fanfic archive to have, at the time.
Eroica Overload
I also made a website for a friend, which seems unkind in retrospect. While it did fit the fandom, the combination of rose imagery, font choice and gold was perhaps a tiny bit much.
Art Nouveau Green
When I kept writing stories, Raven Lady’s scarf grew too restrictive, and I had to switch to Pen Lady. I remember I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the green, but the design seemed nice and simple.
My Current (Abandoned) Website
My most recent website is more or less abandoned, but does still exist. I include it for research purposes. I still quite like it, but the AO3 has made individual author’s pages largely unnecessary, IMO.
Sooo… what do you think?
View poll: Times were different, MacLeod. I was different.
Do you have any early website crimes to share? Show us the evidence!!
galaxysoup and I were reminiscing about the horrors of classic fannish website design. Remember when Geocities was a thing and disclaimer pages made you hunt for the second comma in the thirteenth line? Remember purple text on black background, blinking gifs and flashing text, cheesy ornamental buttons, weird graphics and crazy fonts?
Well, as it turns out, I still have evidence of some of my transgressions. Here they are, for your amusement!
You Too Can Learn HTML
My first attempt at coding a website did not show great promise.
You Too Can Learn HTML, The Revenge: X-Files Versus Readability
Especially because I succumbed to the dark background craze, and evidently only had one image of these guys. Why is Krycek’s face so bumpy?
Quoth the Raven
I quickly decided this would not do and found a nice dramatic pre-fab website design featuring a woman, a scarf and a raven. And of course a dark background. Nothing could keep me from dark backgrounds, obviously.
The Red and the Black Archive
Believe it or not: This was an entirely unremarkable look for an author’s page in an XF fanfic archive to have, at the time.
Eroica Overload
I also made a website for a friend, which seems unkind in retrospect. While it did fit the fandom, the combination of rose imagery, font choice and gold was perhaps a tiny bit much.
Art Nouveau Green
When I kept writing stories, Raven Lady’s scarf grew too restrictive, and I had to switch to Pen Lady. I remember I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the green, but the design seemed nice and simple.
My Current (Abandoned) Website
My most recent website is more or less abandoned, but does still exist. I include it for research purposes. I still quite like it, but the AO3 has made individual author’s pages largely unnecessary, IMO.
Sooo… what do you think?
View poll: Times were different, MacLeod. I was different.
Do you have any early website crimes to share? Show us the evidence!!