Which fics have "vanished"?

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Which fics have "vanished"?

Postby ssokolow » Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:09 am

I've started a little site I call the Vanished FanFiction Archive where I intend to host fanfics which no longer have a home.
I've already got a few fics up (most notably, Cevn's Trial by Tenderness), but now I'm asking for help. Based on the criteria stated on the site, what fics should be there but aren't?
Providing copies of the fics in question is appreciated, but it's by no means a requirement for requesting that something be added.
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Postby Sunshine Temple » Wed Nov 01, 2006 2:53 pm

First off you should only host fics that you have the writer's permision to host.
That is the critical thing.
Now since you're trying to host fics that have lost their original websites this could be hard, but not getting permision to host would be wrong and alienate the comunity (as it should).
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Postby TerraEpon » Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:42 am

I think, IMO, that if the author can't be contacted, then they could be put up, with a clear disclaimer.
I honestly don't see why they should be lost to time, sort of like abandonware for fanfiction (maybe not the best analogy, but it's what comes to mind).
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:48 am

Sunshine wrote:First off you should only host fics that you have the writer's permision to host.
That is the critical thing.
Now since you're trying to host fics that have lost their original websites this could be hard, but not getting permision to host would be wrong and alienate the comunity (as it should).

Yup.
The only way to host fanfiction without the author's explicit permission is 50 years after the author's death.
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Postby Atlan » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:57 am

Well, asuming you get permission, you should get Fire's stuff. Sailor Ranko and Destiny's Child are on fanfiction.net, but quite a few of his arnt, espically his oneshots.
The Saotome Gambit seems to have had a lot of people looking for it recently, so perhaps that author's fics.
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Postby Bliss » Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:33 am

*shrugs* I think Celeste Byrd's fics would qualify... though the only one I really remember was Project NK Ranma.
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Postby TerraEpon » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:16 pm

mondu_the_fat wrote:The only way to host fanfiction without the author's explicit permission is 50 years after the author's death.

This is fanfiction -- it's /already/ a grey area of the law. If you're going to get into that, you shouldn't host fanfiction at all, your own or not (unless it's an actual parody)
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:57 pm

Just because its a grey area of the law, doesn't give you the right to violate someone else's copyright.
I'm pretty sure a lot of authors/artists here will be up in arms when their work is stolen. Yes, that may be a double standard, but that still doesn't mean violating copyright isn't wrong. Just because they don't own the source material does not make it ok to steal their ideas/work.
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Postby camk4evr » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:51 pm

mondu_the_fat wrote:The only way to host fanfiction without the author's explicit permission is 50 years after the author's death.

Actually, last time I checked copyright laws (which may have changed as it's been many years) copyright expires after 75 years of no activity/use of the copyrighted material -IE if DC were to stop usin Superman tomorrow then, in 2081 Marvel could decide to 'create a Superman comic (actually, probably not as I think Superman is trademarked not just copyrighted). After an auther dies, ownership of their written works reverts family/estate gains.
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Postby ssokolow » Thu Nov 02, 2006 9:58 pm

Yup. The only way to host fanfiction without the author's explicit permission is 50 years after the author's death.
And unfortunately, by that time, it would probably be too late. Are you aware of the whole "orphaned works" debate regarding copyright? There's also the fact that some countries don't have a "public domain" clause. I'll respect the authors as far as I reasonably can, and I'll be adding some disclaimers and policy statements shortly, but I'm not just going to sit around and let amazing stuff fall off the web. It took me MONTHS to figure out how to squeeze the last few chapters of Trial by Tenderness out of the wayback machine.
I would put my policy here (which would probably assuage most of your worries) but as I'm about to explain, I'm stuck using a text-mode browser and it limits the number of lines I can put in a textarea.
The first two steps mimic the results from an extremely persistant automated archive, the third mimics any reasonable archive site including the abandonware sites that have survived since the beginning. That's my policy and I've already compromised as far as I'm willing to. Were I a dictator, using robots.txt to prevent archival would be illegal. (things like phpBB would be required by law to have a "retrieve content diff since..." link to compensate for how unfeasible it is to spider a forum)
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Much of Albinoni's work was lost in World War II with the destruction of the Dresden State Library, thus little is known of his life and music after the mid 1720s. The Albinoni Adagio in G Minor is a 1945 reconstruction by Remo Giazotto of a fragment from a slow movement of a trio sonata he discovered among the ruins of the State Library.

To elaborate on what I mentioned a little earlier, Starting shortly after I posted, I lost the ability to read FukuFics on my computer (timeouts) and I'm completely stumped because it's not specific to any one browser, and it works on any other computer (my brother's, my mother's, the router), but it means that I have to SSH into my router and use Lynx (a text-mode browser. no mouse, no CSS, no graphics) to read replies. (Links2 supports mouse, but for some reason, I can't log into FukuFics using it)
Here's a screenshot to illustrate my point: (as you can see, I'm using a notepad-like program to compose my reply [url=http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot1sa3.png Image[/url]
*shrugs* I think Celeste Byrd's fics would qualify... though the only one I really remember was Project NK Ranma.
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Postby TerraEpon » Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:46 am

mondu_the_fat wrote:Just because its a grey area of the law, doesn't give you the right to violate someone else's copyright.
I'm pretty sure a lot of authors/artists here will be up in arms when their work is stolen. Yes, that may be a double standard, but that still doesn't mean violating copyright isn't wrong. Just because they don't own the source material does not make it ok to steal their ideas/work.
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Who said ANYTHING about stealing? Having it offered at a website isn't stealing, especially when there's nothing specific in the fic against such a practice.
I really don't quite understand why people are such against it. This isn't piracy here, it's about keeping things from oblivion. Why is it ok for the wayback machine, not to mention Google, to do it? There's precident here.
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Postby ValkyrieHamster » Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:02 am

Why would there be a problem with hosting fanfiction as long as you attribute the work to the correct author? 0_o
Especially if it's to keep great fanfiction from fading away forever.
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Postby camk4evr » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:41 am

Mostly it's just for courtesy's sake but there are/were some author's who, when they quit writing fanfiction, didn't want their work to still be in 'circulation' after they stopped (which is why you can't find the on the archive site where they were kept).
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Postby ssokolow » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:59 am

camk4evr wrote:Mostly it's just for courtesy's sake but there are/were some author's who, when they quit writing fanfiction, didn't want their work to still be in 'circulation' after they stopped (which is why you can't find the on the archive site where they were kept).

And not only do I consider that rude, but unreasonable considering that, failing all else, I can request and receive practically any fic from somebody's personal archive if I ask enough places.
If somebody likes it, it's going to stay in circulation so it might as well not be a black art to find it.
As I like to put it, once made, history cannot be unmade, especially considering the human tendency to cross-reference. I don't expect everyone to think the way I do, and I don't intend to archive every fic out there. Just the ones that are good enough for people to want to read/re-read them after they are gone.
Besides, my main focus is on vanished fanfiction, not pulled fanfiction. (the difference being whether it was lost to action or inaction on the author's part) Ideally, I'd archive every vanished fic, and any pulled fic which I got a request for.
Of course, I doubt I'm normal. How many other people would be crazy enough to spend months trying to remember, index, and collect every TV show, book, manga, comic, fanfic, amateur original fic, and video game that they've ever enjoyed since the day they were born? (It's a long-term project and I'm still working on it. The hardest ones are the ones which I read in the children's section of the public library)
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Postby ssokolow » Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:58 pm

Atlan wrote:Well, asuming you get permission, you should get Fire's stuff. Sailor Ranko and Destiny's Child are on fanfiction.net, but quite a few of his arnt, espically his oneshots.
The Saotome Gambit seems to have had a lot of people looking for it recently, so perhaps that author's fics.

Last I checked, his e-mail wasn't working. I've added a fanart-enabled Sailor Ranko to my "Crippled" section and a copy of The Saotome Gambit (with an almost-complete fanart collection) to the "Vanished" section.
I'll work on reconstructing the fanart-enabled Teneina Tenshi no Teze and preparing the oneshots as soon as I get some sleep.
Edit: I've added Teineina Tenshi no Teze to the VFFA and I'll start adding the short fics once I get some work out of the way.
Last edited by ssokolow on Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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