Won't someone think of the reccers?
Many of us who maintain permanent recs pages (like my multi-fandom page: Recs Recs Recs) have notes on the page asking anybody who finds a broken link to email and let us know. It's not often that people actually do this, but occasionally I'll get a heads up from somebody, and that's fantastic, because trying to keep story links up to date is a never-ending task. This task is only made more difficult, of course, when companies that provide webspace or archive space are so cruel as to change their URL structure (*shakes fist at fanfiction.net*) or disappear entirely.
Zvi linked to an article this morning about how yahoo is closing down its Geocities webpages by the end of the year. For those of you newish to the internet, once upon a time GeoCities was fairly popular for websites (at least in the fannish corner of the web), but over the years - and especially since the rise of journaling sites, which allowed people with almost no technical expertise to maintain websites of their own - GeoCities, like other similar services, fell out of favor and is now going away permanently. And what that means to me, as a reccer, is that I'll soon be scurrying around, trying to find alternate links for stories I've recced that are currently hosted on disappearing websites.
And now, for my plea to authors.
No, it's not your job to maintain recs pages for reccers, and yes, some of you writers clearly wish your older stories would disappear from memory, and yes, some of my favorite authors have, themselves, disappeared (at least from fandom). However, for those of you who do have a stake in your stories continuing to be read, see what you can do to make it easy for the readers to find you and reccers to update their links.
*Don't let your websites get shut down without backing up your files.
*If you move your site, provide re-directs if possible.
*Make sure current links to your work appear on your journals, preferably on your user info page.
*Back-up your fiction on less-likely-to-disappear archives like the OTW's Archive of Our Own (currently in closed beta).
And if you re-organize the structure of your website and all the URL's change? Take pity on the poor reccers, and provide a heads up on your blog or journal that the old links aren't going to work anymore. We'll be very, very, very grateful.
Zvi linked to an article this morning about how yahoo is closing down its Geocities webpages by the end of the year. For those of you newish to the internet, once upon a time GeoCities was fairly popular for websites (at least in the fannish corner of the web), but over the years - and especially since the rise of journaling sites, which allowed people with almost no technical expertise to maintain websites of their own - GeoCities, like other similar services, fell out of favor and is now going away permanently. And what that means to me, as a reccer, is that I'll soon be scurrying around, trying to find alternate links for stories I've recced that are currently hosted on disappearing websites.
And now, for my plea to authors.
No, it's not your job to maintain recs pages for reccers, and yes, some of you writers clearly wish your older stories would disappear from memory, and yes, some of my favorite authors have, themselves, disappeared (at least from fandom). However, for those of you who do have a stake in your stories continuing to be read, see what you can do to make it easy for the readers to find you and reccers to update their links.
*Don't let your websites get shut down without backing up your files.
*If you move your site, provide re-directs if possible.
*Make sure current links to your work appear on your journals, preferably on your user info page.
*Back-up your fiction on less-likely-to-disappear archives like the OTW's Archive of Our Own (currently in closed beta).
And if you re-organize the structure of your website and all the URL's change? Take pity on the poor reccers, and provide a heads up on your blog or journal that the old links aren't going to work anymore. We'll be very, very, very grateful.