ffn-archivists-corner

[ffn-archivists-corner]

FanFiction.net is not gone.

Right now it's a victim of DNS (Domain Name Service) spoofing. This means that a malicious party is trying to steal traffic from FFn by purchasing a very similar domain.

Correction:

The new "fake" site that people are seeing still belongs to FanFiction.net—they just misconfigured their servers and are not redirecting traffic from the bare fanfiction.net to the main site at www.fanfiction.net. There is likely no malicious agent. Didn't mean to scare anyone! Just wanted to let people know the site wasn't deleted!

So if you want to read fanfiction and not see leaves, you have have to type out "www.fanfiction.net".

Please share so people stop panicking.

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Good news for ffn (and a goodbye?)

Hi, everyone! ^-^

There have finally been OFFICIAL updates on the fictionpress twitter! 🎉

(It seems they had various network/software/hardware problems and they had to deal with COVID too, so it’s understandable; they have listed also their intentions for the future months... included a graphic revamp of the site?)

This said, I want to thank every person who came forward to help. Yes, ffn is probably not going anywhere anytime soon (and in the future it may even do better than just trudge forward with just enough care to not sink according to the news, which it’s a bonus), but if one thing emerged from this it’s that the spirit of fandom, our love for it after all the bad things that happened in the past (the oldest among us survived more than one heart-breaking purge), is strong. And, IMO, it’s a heart-warming fact! ^-^

In addition, I have been recently contacted by a person (whose identity I won’t reveal to protect them and their activities) who wanted to reassure us from the anxiety of losing the fics we hold dear, that we have nothing to fear: even if the worst were to happen… it’s all saved. Not all heroes wear capes indeed.

(And they were quite amused by our well-meant attempts ^-^)

Obviously, for safety (*cough*legal*cough*) reasons, most of these preserving efforts (different from the archive.org ones) aren’t public and, even if we could access them, probably for most of us they would seem impossible to use because they’re designed for programmers. But the information is there. (And there is much information… TB range information XD that’s another reason why they can’t go around advertising it).

This concerns ffn & AO3, though. As far as the person was aware, there are no current projects for fictionpress though they mentioned that retrieving it won’t be difficult (time consuming, sure, but not difficult since it runs on ffn same software). Likewise, the forums are not something they have focused on… so, if you want to help maybe it’s in this direction that you should look into.

But some of you may ask, how could you know they’re really telling the truth?!? Well, since they offered me to have a copy of one of the projects (not for publicity distribution, even if I were to accept, sorry) to reassure the community, this means only two things: or they are the best actor and worst scammer of the year… or they are being honest (and considering how clear they answers to my questions were, I highly trust in the latter).

In addition,

So, in short:

we can rest easy, and put aside our hard disk, usb, gdrive and various and go back to read, draw, gif and write for our blorbos;

if you still want to do something, concentrate your efforts on the Forums;

having a copy of a fic for PERSONAL use is always a good idea (after all, you may never know when an author would remove their fics… so, hold dear to your favorites <3) and in the sidebar there’s a list of really good solutions to do it (FicHub, FicLab, FanFicFare…);

and lastly NO, you CANNOT post other people fics on AO3, not even if they haven’t update in a decade, so stop pestering other authors about it and don’t break AO3 TOS please ^-^

We can still keep the tradition of the annual ffn panic, though ;) I think it would be a nice idea to celebrate each year the anniversary of the death-not-death on ffn XD

Till next time ♡

P.S. this said, I won’t delete this blog… it has been a few crazy days, but they were nice ones (you are all lovely people) <3 Plus, it could still be useful for tips to download fics and I want to leave this post where people may find it and read it. Not to mention that I may unearth it if there will be different news in the future (or next year to celebrate the anniversary of another year of not-death of ffn) ;)

I may act as intermediary with that person, in case anyone has any questions, but I can’t guarantee you that I would be able to give the answer you were seeking. (And, in the next days, I still may add the last people who contacted me about the fandom they downloaded in the sidebar, just for completion’s sake and fairness, but that would be all.)

[ffn-archivists-corner]

@haruka89, this could be the (not good) answer to what we were talking before about the Wayback Machine?

Some thoughts on the latest FFN hysteria

I see people took an unsubstantiated tumblr post as ~proof~ FFN was about to go down for good. Sheesh. Some thoughts:

Yes, you can copy text from FFN and from every other site that tries to block c&p. If your browser can display it, you can copy it.

OTW/AO3 only import archives with archivist permission. FFN will never grant this. Don’t count on OTW to save FFN if and when it eventually goes down.

No, you cannot post other people’s work to AO3 without permission. If you save copies of things, you’re looking at sitting on a private personal collection and maybe sending out individual fics to people who ask or donating the lot to a library in 30 years.

Add links to the Wayback machine.

Write up your fandom and its greatest hits on Fanlore so later people know what to even look for.

The time for preservation is now because that’s always true. Don’t wait for an emergency. That day will come even if not right now.

FFN hasn’t been good about communicating with users in twenty years. Radio silence is nothing new.

“FFN is dying” hysteria happens at least once a year.

[ffn-archivists-corner]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1U5gIxoCxBN0AVF16PYUFfjNDXkT6Hqc-?usp=sharing

I saw your post. Not done with crossovers yet. But here is freakazoid. All of it as of 9/20/22

best of luck.

Oh! Okay!

Thanks!!

Im not sure there is any organized effort for preservation, but this sure is something.

Based (presumably) on these posts

1

2

3

Also! hope this is okay @ffn-archivists-corner I think this might interest you? I dont know if there is any particular organized effort, but you seem to be a blog focused on this situation.

[ffn-archivists-corner]

also - & sorry if this is a stupid question, but it seemed worth clarifying - but with that preferred file name format you mentioned, do we include the spaces in titles or author names or not?

Not a stupid question ;)

Honestly I'm not sure. I mentioned that format because it was the one suggested by people with experience in archiving (you can find it in one of the reblog of the main post going around), but in their example they used all one word names...

Anyone can chime in on this one?

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Lots of Reddit threads on FFN recently having trouble.

Last May there were posts about FFN being abandoned. Anyone have links to those?

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Lots of Reddit threads on FFN recently having trouble.

Last May there were posts about FFN being abandoned. Anyone have links to those?

[ffn-archivists-corner]

You are right on the repack. ^-^’

About the Wayback Machine I don’t know, I never archived pages there to be honest. I think I read some comments of people saying that they were struggling to add them (for the Cloudflare issue?), but I don’t remember if someone found a way around it or if it was really a problem to begin with.

Since saving at the Internet Archive doesn't work right now (did anybody check if that is also for the forums?), maybe someone should check what IS already backed up on the Internet Archive? There should be a way to see what pages are saved for the ffnet domain. (Same might go for fictionpress? but I don't go there, so)

I think I already reblogged a few people linking to the repacks of ffn (maybe of fictionpress too? I don't remember at the moment).

There were also at least one person who said was going to try to check them, and I think mentioned that one of their problem was that they're a bit unwieldy due to their dimension.

If there are news on that front, I'll try to reblog them ;)

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Lots of Reddit threads on FFN recently having trouble.

Last May there were posts about FFN being abandoned. Anyone have links to those?

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Some thoughts on the latest FFN hysteria

I see people took an unsubstantiated tumblr post as ~proof~ FFN was about to go down for good. Sheesh. Some thoughts:

Yes, you can copy text from FFN and from every other site that tries to block c&p. If your browser can display it, you can copy it.

OTW/AO3 only import archives with archivist permission. FFN will never grant this. Don’t count on OTW to save FFN if and when it eventually goes down.

No, you cannot post other people’s work to AO3 without permission. If you save copies of things, you’re looking at sitting on a private personal collection and maybe sending out individual fics to people who ask or donating the lot to a library in 30 years.

Add links to the Wayback machine.

Write up your fandom and its greatest hits on Fanlore so later people know what to even look for.

The time for preservation is now because that’s always true. Don’t wait for an emergency. That day will come even if not right now.

FFN hasn’t been good about communicating with users in twenty years. Radio silence is nothing new.

“FFN is dying” hysteria happens at least once a year.

[ffn-archivists-corner]

@tante-bete

Let’s hope! ^-^

Another thing you could try to ask: how easy it is to download fics from a specific fandom or searching from them in the scrape? Are there problems in opening the files once they’re downloaded?

Lots of Reddit threads on FFN recently having trouble.

Last May there were posts about FFN being abandoned. Anyone have links to those?

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Hey, I don't know how we're keeping track of things, and I'm notoriously unreliable, but I've started backing up the Life With Derek (TV show) archive from FFN. I'm just doing FicHub epub download -- Calibre keeps telling me that it can't download anything >;<' LMK how to keep you updated.

I will add you for now, if you end up not doing it, just let me know (an ask like this one works well, also to keep me updated).

Don't know your platform, but there's also the add-on FicLab or other similar to it.

Here is a link (it's the second-to-last by @prismatic-bell) on what to communicate if you end up doing only one part of it (for example, if you start from the last page and fics go from 2000 to 2010, and you end up doing only to Dec 2003, you just need to tell that you completed copying to that date). ^-^

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Hello! I wanted to let you know that an attempt to archive the Thunderbirds TV fics is underway. I started a google spreadsheet and I am getting assistance from some lovely members of the fandom, as well.

Added! And good luck! ;)

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Crusader Kings, Wolf Quest, and Zoo Tycoon fandoms complete as of Sept 20, 2022 (Games Section). Planning on getting X-COM next, but I'm unlikely to finish it tonight. I've been using FicLab and downloading them as Epubs

Added! ;)

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also i won't finish it tonight but can you mark master and commander (movies) as in-progress

Added! ;)

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crossing lines, king & maxwell (both tv) archived using ficlab

Added to both! ;)

[ffn-archivists-corner]

Hey I'm planning to spearhead rescue of the NiGHTS (games) fandom. Do y'all have a discord or smth so ppl who wanna help can talk with each other?

I'll add you to it!

About a discord I don't know (it's not a platform I use). I think I saw some people mention a few fandom specific thing, but I don't know if it was discord or something else.

If there is someone who know anything, chime in! ;)