Looking for Lost Fics for website.

[jasonjkay]

Hi, I recently tried to go onto Jeffrey "one shot" Wongs page to look at the pictures and found it was down. Now I have most of his fics saved on my computer but I thought what if anybody else wants to read his amazing story 'just wont die'?

I have decided to add a page to my website that will host any lost fics that I have saved on my hard drive, but the problem is im not quite sure what story is lost or not. I need your help to either:

a)List all the stories you know are lost and no longer online.
b)Send me your saved versions of any stories you have that are no longer available. This includes any fics only accesable using the wayback machine. Any fics I get sent that I already have myself will be compared and the most complete or legible will be hosted onto the site.

I hope we can all help each other by preserving some great stories that would otherwise dissapear.

Email: Jedi.information@mindless.com

[Drawde2]

While I happen to agree with this sort of thing, it's not a good idea. Many fanfic authors are violently opposed to people hosting other's fics without permission. And if a fic has vanished, they consider that to be no permission.

They have no problem with sending a fic they have archived, as long as it's not posted on a forum or website.

[Makoto]

I'd say that if the most recent version of One-Shot's page you can find archived has a contact email address other than one ending in @fanfic.net, try emailing him and asking him.

BTW, our server (fanfic.net) is only supposed to be down for the time being, and our admin is working on getting it running at a new location... but there's no timeframe for that, currently.

[jasonjkay]

so you guys don't think I should do this? Im just asking because this could take a lot of work to sort through, finding lost fics, and if it's just going to make authors angry then maybe I shouldn't waste the time? Anyway I definately plan to upload Ranma chan fics that have either gone missing or are harder to find which I admit I have done for a few stories. Im just in the planning stages at the moment on the new page for lost fics so It doesn't matter if I stop, it was just a thought I had yesterday.

[frice2000]

Personally I think if the story is easily findable through something like Archive.org you hosting it isn't a particularly huge ethics violation. If the author simply stopped maintaing a website and it closed down and is only available by scrounging through the depths of Google searches and slow ass Archive.org copies and you're not making money from the site I don't think it's a huge deal. If on the other hand the author said clearly in their stories they only wanted them in specific locations or if they purposely deleted them I think you should respect their wishes. Ideally it'd be best to try to get in contact with the authors first to ask permission however. If you do end up hosting them without permission definetly say you are doing so, have a policy of taking them off if requested, and give a bunch of links to where they could be originally found before opening the story.

Quite a nice archive you have by the way. I've recommended it to people on a few occasions. One of the best Onna-Ranma archives I'm familiar with.

[Makoto]

In One-Shot's case, I was merely saying that you should try to contact him. Check the archived versions of his webpage, and if he has any non-fanfic.net email addresses listed, try emailing him at those addresses and ask him if you can archive his stories (or even the images, too).

Some authors prefer to be rather strict on where their work can be archived, so it's always best to ask first, as much as possible.

[Drawde2]

I've seen others say they're going to do this here and on TFF. Many of the posts in response were essentially (though not always literally) saying they consider someone archiving other's fics without permission plagerism, even if you fully explain you're just archiving it. Even if the site's been dead for years and no one can find any current contact info, and there's nothing specifically stating not to archive the fics.

Just warning you that you'll catch a LOT of flak doing this.

[TerraEpon]

Those people have no idea about the definition of plagiarism.

[frice2000]

By that same logic Drawde if a person made a lost book of which there were next to no copies available in a library you think the author can complain and get it removed? You can say it's a violation of copyright somewhat arguably but thats falls apart in that this is fanfiction and regardless of how brilliant a story is the author doesn't technically own the characters in the story anyway.

As to plagiarism as a definition of this that word is grossly inapprioate. We aren't talking about stealing ideas and situations from others and passing it off as your own work. You're taking a rare story and making it publically available while citing who it is from and where it was originally published. Of course in this case you're citing the entire story so it's fuzzier but I don't think that term quite fits here.

Again, personally i say go for it. Most of the stories can be found anyway in places the author did not want or intend and you're saving people the trouble of tracking them down. Just think when you do this you need an extra page between your hosted story link and the hosted fic. Just a disclaimer page saying where it was originally posted and it's author as well as contact info for you that states you'll take it down if the author requests it to be. That along with the other exceptions I mentioned earlier should make the practice ethical enough in my eyes for stories no longer readily available.

[Makoto]

Drawde's not saying that's his logic, just that that's what those people he's referring to believed, and that the OP might receive a lot of flak from them, or others who believe the same.

[Spokavriel]

Copyright and property rights use to apply to the creator of a work and only had anything that could be invoked over it required someone trying to make a proffit off it before they could do squat.

I suggest doing a slightly different site version. Have 3 areas. 1 area with stories you already got permission for. a second area for stories you have not been able to make contact on the stories over and a third section that is Read Only. No copying (There are ways to set up pages like that) for stories you have been refused permission to share. Sure no one else would be able to make a copy from the one you put up in there but if it can be read it can be transcribed. That has been known since the creation of writing.

[jasonjkay]

Well you all make interesting points

Personally I think if the story is easily findable through something like Archive.org you hosting it isn't a particularly huge ethics violation.

Quite a nice archive you have by the way. I've recommended it to people on a few occasions. One of the best Onna-Ranma archives I'm familiar with.

As far as ethics are concerned, it's always been a bit off in my mind. People write these things taking charachters and locations from their favorite series, sometimes copying the events word for word in sections like a novelisation, yet often the authors or creators of the original works are not bothered. Why do some fanfac writers get all huffy when somebody steals an idea from them? Yes I can understand when its just a straight copy of the story with only a few changes but just taking ideas, well everybody does that to some extent, its just what you do with those ideas that make it good.

Anyway ive gone off topic a bit, they are not making any money from these fics, so it's not like they lose anything. Especially if they had it at a public site like fanfiction.net. If it was a story on there webpage, and the webpage dissapeared, then they cant complain that im taking visitors away from there site. I don't really see what the problem is.

Oh and thanks for recommending my site, it's nice to be appreciated.

I suggest doing a slightly different site version. Have 3 areas. 1 area with stories you already got permission for. a second area for stories you have not been able to make contact on the stories over and a third section that is Read Only. No copying (There are ways to set up pages like that) for stories you have been refused permission to share. Sure no one else would be able to make a copy from the one you put up in there but if it can be read it can be transcribed. That has been known since the creation of writing.

Ok I could try ding something like that, gaining permission is going to take a heck of a long time, especially as I still need to find the stories that are no longer easy to find. (web archives like wayback machine don't count as it can be quite hard to find and navigate lost pages, as it doesn't always archive everything on the website.

Finally I just have to say, I have taken what you all say in advisement and will continue. I have emailed Jeffrey "OneShot" Wong but I don't really expect an answer.

[Drawde2]

Drawde's not saying that's his logic, just that that's what those people he's referring to believed, and that the OP might receive a lot of flak from them, or others who believe the same.

Exactly. Personally I see no problem with it, as long as the author hasn't said not to. But, from reading other posts where someone said they were going to do an archive like that, a lot of fanfic authors don't like it. And I mean REALLY don't like it. Every time the archivist backed down because of the response. Even when the archivist said he was going to do everything he could to track down the original author, and only post ones where he couldn't find them.

[WG_Writer]

Personally I think that now is the time to do it, we lost 4 web hosts, anifics, fanfic, yahoo and geocities (the latter two did merge but were seperate for a while) we could use a good site to have for lost fics, even if we only get just a few good ones. As an author you have my support so long as you give credit and do not post my email address.