snowgall | Another archive down?

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Another archive down?

Anybody know what's happened to www.thequidditchpitch.org?

It seems like every few months another classic fanfic archive is in danger of closing. I know that these archives have nostalgic value (and indeed, as someone who's very concerned about accurate dating and records, I prefer having the original places of publication still available online) but it really seems to me that it would be prudent to try to get the owners of these sites to allow transfer to AO3 through the Open Doors project. Short term solutions like funding drives are just that - short term, and I worry about the long term availability of these fics.

But I'm pretty new here, so what do I know?

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It seems clear to me that you're right, unfortunately. I think the idea of losing all of the old archives is pretty tragic, but what can you do? Moving forward, AO3 seems like the least bad solution. Unless we're both missing something.

Well, if we're missing something, we're missing it together :)

I do hope that these fics don't get lost for good.

I believe the quidditch pitch was a sister site also owned by the same person as hpfandom, so the loss of QP may be related to the current difficulties with hexfiles/hpfandom?

(disclaimer, I know it was a sister site to ANOTHER fanfic site, and my brain is saying hpfandom, but I could be mistaken as to that)

Oh, yeah maybe so. I mean, I don't know for sure which archives are owned by which people either, but this sounds plausible.

But this just shows why moving to AO3 is preferable. One person owning several archives means that the fate of all those fics rests in one person's hands - if they go broke or give up on fandom or whatever, then we're all up a tree.

(I know you know this - I'm just sorta whining out loud :/ )

I haven't found any mention on line yet as to why tqp failed but I know that hexfiles and its sister hp fandom have been mentioned as related and were deeply infected sites that are now trying to migrate the data to a safer and less expensive option. The project can be found here, the owner might know about tqp so worth asking (also worth helping)

HPFandom and TheHexFiles are looking for volunteers!

The fanfiction archives HPFandom (http://hpfandom.net) and TheHexFiles (http://www.thehexfiles.net) are both looking for volunteers to help move fics over to Archive Of Our Own (http://archiveofourown.org) (AO3) using the Open Doors (http://transformativeworks.org/projects/opendoors) project.

separatrix, HPF & THF's owner, will not be able to take on this project herself due to health issues so it's up to us fans to come together and move as much as we can in only 3 months before both sites close permanently.

If you are seriously interested in helping out please drop a comment at either

hpfdotnet or

hex_companion and let us know.

Useful links for someone thinking about volunteering:
The Open Doors Special Collections Gallery (http://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/collections/special-collections-gallery) - Archives saved with Open Doors, where the archives will end up, hopefully.
Importing Works with an Archivist Account (http://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/node/66) - A tutorial of what we'll be doing.

The archives use an early version of eFiction so each chapter has a different ID number so chaptered fics will need to be imported differently than oneshots.
- How do I import a chaptered work? (http://archiveofourown.org/faq/importing-and-mass-editing?language_id=en#importchaptered) (Up to 100 chapters at a time.)
- How do I import multiple works in one go? (http://archiveofourown.org/faq/importing-and-mass-editing?language_id=en#importmultipleworks) (Up to 10 oneshots at a time.)

I don't know anything about that archive but to allow transfer to ao3 would be the best solution.
I love ao3, I pretty much only read there, except for lj of course, and I love when fests post their fics there, not just the long ones. I love the collections, it's so easy to look for something to read. :)

Oh definitely. AO3 is by far the most comfortable place to read fics, and is easily searchable and feels stable.

I will say that of all the old archive sites, I mind thehexfiles the least. That is, something about their color scheme is oddly soothing to me, and makes me nostalgic for fics I've read there. I still prefer AO3 for all the usual reasons, but thehexfiles ain't so bad :)

I totally agree that transferring to AO3 would be the best solution. I hope they will do that before allowing the fics to be lost.

Me too! I was very disappointed when the owner of THF and HPF changed her mind about starting the transfer. There were many people willing to volunteer, so it's a shame to lose that potential.

Yeah :/

Do you know what the reasoning for changing their mind? It seems with the help offered it would have been a good time to do the transfer.

I really wish I knew. From reading between the lines, it seems like it might be that even *thinking* about transferring to AO3 is overwhelming to her, with or without help.

And I know what that's like, as I have struggled with ADD, and this often makes me feel like starting anything new is impossible, no matter how easy other people tell me it will be.

But it's a real shame, as yes, this would have been the perfect time to do it.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I find it genuinely upsetting when I go to read an older fic only to find out it's just gone, perhaps forever. Whether it's a personal fave or something I've never read before, it's such a loss. I'm getting to the point where I'm tempted to copy/paste/save everything I come across and enjoy for fear that it might be gone soon.

Oh yes, please do! I have done this with a few of my favorites, but not all. I should really go back and grab some more - there's no guarantee that these fics will still be available otherwise.

I'm not sure if this represents an obscene sense of entitlement, but I feel like I shouldn't have to read fic in fear that it could disappear at any moment.

Yeah, I'm sure readers' opinions and writers' opinions will likely diverge on this issue, but FWIW, I'm with you.

Well, the Hex and HPF have struggled for the last few years. In all honesty, I didn't know The Quidditch Pitch was still up and running. So many sites have fallen by the wayside. Most of them have been pairing oriented, or at least specific to one fandom. As we move further from when the last book was published, there are fewer people in fandom. I don't believe HP fandom is dying, but some of the sites are bound to do so.

With the presence of AO3 and how awesome it all is, I think people are looking to simplify their archiving and going for maximum readerage (that's soo not a word). Years ago ff dot net was big and it still is, but since they have gotten less friendly to authors and readers wishing to read on ereaders, many folks have migrated away from there and AO3 has done a spectacular job of picking up the slack. I'm just thankful that the fics on these sites can be uploaded to AO3 and archived there. It would be a shame to lose them all.

Yeah, I don't believe HP fandom is dying either. Many fans are simply multi-fandom, and it's a natural progression to use an archive like AO3 which is more all-encompassing. And it's a much better interface all around. So just because fewer fans are using THF and HPF, it doesn't mean that the fandom is dying.

The problem is that although these fics *can* be uploaded to AO3, I am very much afraid that they *won't* be. Without the site owner's cooperation, I don't think the fans can do anything themselves, and it would be up to all the individual authors, many of whom are no longer active.

I don't know the owner of THF and HPF personally, but I wish that someone could convince her to let the fans go ahead and help with a transfer to AO3.

I have no idea who owns the Quidditch Pitch, but it would be worth asking. I believe that the same person owns The Hex and HPF and she is very amenable to having the files moved to AO3, but she cannot do it herself, so I think a bunch of folks are trying to help move them over the next 3 months. Or so I heard.

Well I'm confused, because I volunteered to help with the transfer of files from THF to AO3, but then the next I had heard she had changed her mind.

See this post.

And then this one.

That's why I'm frustrated :/

Edited 2015-06-24 01:00 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realize she had changed her mind. Well, that's too bad. I have half a dozen little fics on The Hex, but I'm pretty sure I also have them on AO3. Darn! I hate it when archives shut down.

Some VERY good points there; and yeah, AO3 has taken up a lot of that slack, to the point where you can download as ePub files, MOBI files, AND PDF files, all of the same fic!!

Fanfiction sites can and do disappear without warning. I saved some of my favorite stories but lost many more when the Quidditch Pitch, Checkmated, and Simply Undeniable went down. Re/the Quidditch Pitch, I thought maybe the site had become too expensive to maintain.

Oh yeah, I know that these sites become expensive, which is why I would wish that the owners would facilitate the transfer of files to AO3.

With TQP, it's just that I didn't see any warning messages that it was going down. I had just visited there a few months back and it was still up. With THF and HPF, I saw mentions in fandom spaces that these archives were at risk. Maybe I just missed it for TQP. I dunno.

I visited the QP site a week before it disappeared and there was nothing.

Good to know! I wondered if I had just missed something. :)

"But I'm pretty new here, so what do I know?"
Respectfully, this doesn't matter; if we all had that kind of attitude, we'd never save/rescue anything; we need to just say "Screw it!" and jump in with both feet, if we're ever going to get anything done....

Indeed!

I still don't know what happened to the Quidditch Pitch, but I am glad to report that the owner of the Hexfiles and HPF finally did allow the Open Doors project to archive all of those fics on AO3. So at least some got saved!

There are still more independent archives out there which would be nice to have backups of. Like Fictionalley (which went down a few months ago, and then came back) and skyehawke (which might be multi-fandom? not sure). Anyway, we can hope!

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Another archive down?

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It may be a bit late now for tqp but...

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the quidditch pitch

Re: the quidditch pitch

Re: the quidditch pitch

Re: the quidditch pitch

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