They Say What They Say

I've been giving my delicious bookmarks a bit of a spring clean - editing tags and the like, and as can happen I was quite dismayed when I found that the links to couple of my favourite stories had died because the authors had apparently deleted their journals!

Oh noes! I cried and ran off to the wayback machine to see if I could resurrect them. One of them I had no trouble finding, but the other was a multi-chapter story and it was looking very much like only about half the chapters had been archived. I wibbled for a moment and was just about to give up in despair when I did what I do best: I applied the google-fu mad skillz that are an integral part of my professional life, hoping that the author had posted it to some other comm or archive. To my delight it popped up on a fic finder list. Apparently the author had changed her LJ username and all her fic could now be found under her new name. After that I did a similar search for the other fic and the same thing had happened.

I have now updated my bookmarks to reflect the new links and names, but the whole thing really just served to remind me of the transitory nature of the internet and fandom in particular. People come and go; websites get updated regularly or not at all; archives hang around for years, even after interested in the fandom has petered out, or have a short, brilliant life span before they fall over due to technical difficulties or sheer apathy, never to be seen again. Fics are posted and read, filed away for future reference and either forgotten about or have vanished when one is in the mood to read that great fic one loved to pieces three fandoms ago.

Once upon a time I'd save all my favourite stores from my current favourite fandoms to my hard drive, all neatly organised in folders by the name of the author. But as my interest in a fandom would start to wane I'd stop saving the fic and eventually I'd delete all the save fic to make space for whatever fandom had taken its place. While I was hinting around for my passport tonight I stumbled across a CD of Sports Night fic that I made several years ago after my interest in the fandom began to die and I wanted to make room on my hard drive for fic from my new fandom. I haven't read those stories in years, and these days if I do find an SN fic that piques my interest I'll save it to my delicious bookmarks rather than my hard drive. But there's no guarantee that the fic will be there if and when I want to read it again. I guess it's the risk I take being part of what is, in the face of it, a fairly transitory thing. Who knows what tomorrow will bring or what fic will survive as we all move on with both fandom and our lives.

I've been giving my delicious bookmarks a bit of a spring clean - editing tags and the like, and as can happen I was quite dismayed when I found that the links to couple of my favourite stories had died because the authors had apparently deleted their journals!

Oh noes! I cried and ran off to the wayback machine to see if I could resurrect them. One of them I had no trouble finding, but the other was a multi-chapter story and it was looking very much like only about half the chapters had been archived. I wibbled for a moment and was just about to give up in despair when I did what I do best: I applied the google-fu mad skillz that are an integral part of my professional life, hoping that the author had posted it to some other comm or archive. To my delight it popped up on a fic finder list. Apparently the author had changed her LJ username and all her fic could now be found under her new name. After that I did a similar search for the other fic and the same thing had happened.

I have now updated my bookmarks to reflect the new links and names, but the whole thing really just served to remind me of the transitory nature of the internet and fandom in particular. People come and go; websites get updated regularly or not at all; archives hang around for years, even after interested in the fandom has petered out, or have a short, brilliant life span before they fall over due to technical difficulties or sheer apathy, never to be seen again. Fics are posted and read, filed away for future reference and either forgotten about or have vanished when one is in the mood to read that great fic one loved to pieces three fandoms ago.

Once upon a time I'd save all my favourite stores from my current favourite fandoms to my hard drive, all neatly organised in folders by the name of the author. But as my interest in a fandom would start to wane I'd stop saving the fic and eventually I'd delete all the save fic to make space for whatever fandom had taken its place. While I was hinting around for my passport tonight I stumbled across a CD of Sports Night fic that I made several years ago after my interest in the fandom began to die and I wanted to make room on my hard drive for fic from my new fandom. I haven't read those stories in years, and these days if I do find an SN fic that piques my interest I'll save it to my delicious bookmarks rather than my hard drive. But there's no guarantee that the fic will be there if and when I want to read it again. I guess it's the risk I take being part of what is, in the face of it, a fairly transitory thing. Who knows what tomorrow will bring or what fic will survive as we all move on with both fandom and our lives.