Has anyone else noticed that anything beyond the really popular pairings is getting really hard to find?  Well, you've got your occasional LiveJournal place that you can post your fics like that, but still...

  One of my favorite fanfiction sites until its closing was 'All About Spike'.  It was perfect, had absolutely every pairing possible.  And now, it's closed.  I say, we need a new 'All About Spike!'.  We need a site that's just Spike, in all his glory, in every pairing you can imagine.  I'm only putting this up on the forum because, well....I know absolutely nothing about websites.  lol.  I was wondering if there was anyone out there who could help me make this little dream of mine come true.  Anyone know how to build a website and have plenty of free time?

I petition for a new All Spike site.

oooh!! i so agree!! i think that would be awesome, and though i don't know an awful lot about websites, i'd be willing to help load stories or something simple like that!! i second your motion!!!

That sounds awesome! :) It would rock! If I can do something to help whomever is going to start this, just let me know! :)

Silly bint is opening an archive and she doesn't know whether or not to make it open to all pairings or just spuffy. She asked which she should do on the tag board on the spuffy realm. Ye should go and give your opinions!

 I think there are already some all-Spike sites. Can't recall the names ATM, but I know one of them got a mention somewhere on the forum recently.  AAS isn't closed, BTW, just no longer being updated.  I wouldn't mind seeing another AAS too, but for entirely different reasons...

Love's Bitch is for all Spike related stories...any pairings. http://spike.vampyrehaven.net/index.php 

LOL...and, Patti, I agree!

Went to the Love's Bitch site you listed, and the last update was some time in October.  There were scattered updates, but the next large update was the prior July.  So it's more like AAS, serving as an archive rather than a living breathing site.

I know less than nothing about websites, but I think the idea has merit.  Mostly I'm not interested much in other parings, but in Spike as he relates to others besides Buffy (not necessarily in a sexual way) but in where he has been and where he is going.

The only reason it doesn't get many updates is because not that many people know about it. I am SURE the owners would like more people to be posting/reviewing etc.

I'm sure that's true - I know I have promisedmyself I would post there more, but alas....

I have a vampire fiction site and it had a good number of people, then my old server flaked on me and when I moved it most people flaked out on me too. Anyway, even I haven't posted there in awhile because of being discouraged.

Twilight you could always make an LiveJournal based AAS. Its a bit easier and a lot less coding and no worries with any of the web-based servers (except for when LJ has the occasional hiccup) and no bandwidth usage or monthly payments and such. I'm web-retarded so I went the easier route by making a LJ community.

If you want to attempt it on livejournal, I could code up a layout and such if you'd like. I just redid the one I started for ALL pairings, no matter who, since there are so many pairing specific sites out there. (got tired of no place to post my WillOz stuffies).

I just added custom features to: http://community.livejournal.com/btvsatsdotcom/

I put in a random quote generator and an html sidebar so I can post icons/images etc and I'm currently looking into coding a tagboard and seeing if that might be possible as well as a few other things. I'm also thinking of setting up a temp webpage as a front page type thing and then have it point to the LJ com -- it will just take a BUTTLOAD of coding and maintenance since I will have to make specific links and connect them to the lj tags so they can find specific stories and such.

Aaaaand I sort of hijacked the thread...sorry ><

Can always run over to Just Rewards - course they have to win at FFA or be  a showcase but hey we have spara, spawn, spillow, sparmony, spru,  spiley, spangel, spander, oh yeah and spuffy 

lmao

lol...yeah, i love Just Rewards...but it would be great to have a place where everyone could post, and where you could post *all* of your work in one place... :)

:um:Not sure but I think AAF do other pairings a sides from just Buffy and Spike prehaps I'll go check.....And I know this one does

www.sabershadowkat

I'm at Shaber's site now, reading Spuffy lol. I like the Angelus/Spike stories as well. And Angel/Willow.

 lol...yeah, i love Just Rewards...but it would be great to have a place where everyone could post, and where you could post *all* of your work in one place...

DoS, you're killing me here woman! That is what the LJ com is for! *pouts*

Look, the sites are there, ok. I don't read anything but B/S, and even I know several sites where you can post all pairings, or all Spike pairings or whatever. Plus the lj-comms.

You want to open one of your own, that's great; sometimes a site has to close and the more we have, the bigger the chance that the fandom will survive. But we don't NEED it in the sense that there aren't any other places to post non-B/S fics. And quite honestly, I get the feeling that by implying that we despreatly need another All-Pairings site, the people running the ones already there are starting to feel a bit dismissed.

No one is gonna stop you from opening a new site, and certainly not because "a site like that already exsists". In fact, I think there are bunches of people who will be more than happy to help out and encourage you. But that's because having more places to read is great, and new sites are exciting and fun - not because there is no alternative.

Also, AAS, not the same as any of the newer sites. They had a very strickt quality-control. You want to bring that back? Personally I'll probably kiss your feet, but be prepared to be called an elitist and to be spat at every time someone has a bad day. Well, at least by all those who got rejected, or have friends who got rejected. (The great pissing constest about the self-posting archives and their 1000 word rule anyone? And that one didn't even involve anything subjective.)

  Diabola, do you have a problem with someone suggesting a new site on the message board?  As far as I can tell, my little comment continued into a plenty friendly and even helpful conversation.

  Yes, I realize there are other pairing sites, but alot of those haven't been active since early 2006 or before.  I realize that there are more livejournal communities out there like that now, but I didn't want a livejournal community.  I was thinking website. I wanted to start a fresh, new site that could be Spike/everyone else.  Simple as that, that's what I wanted.  I'm soon being taught how to build a website and wondered if anyone wanted to help.

No, I don't have a problem with that at all. Sorry if my comment sounded as if I meant that. A new site is a great idea, and like I said, I think there will be lots of people who will be happy to help out. I for one will be here if anyone needs infos about hosting or coding.

The whole thread gave the impression that some people thought that there weren't any sites like that, and that when others started posting links, those were dismissed. It wasn't anyone specific doing that, and not even in so many words - hell, maybe no one even intended it to sound like that - but reading the whole thing, that's how it sounded. The discussion is fine, it was just this impression of need for a site like that, that bugged me a bit. Saying that there are several great sites who offer the same service, does in no way mean that your idea is any less good, or any less welcome.

Also, this was just me speaking as Dia, completely unrelated to being a mod. If I was speaking for the BSV and asking someone to close a thread or whatever, I would make it clear that that's what I'm doing. This one: just little old me wanting to play with the other kids. ;-)

Cool, ty ;)

  Any help or advice you could give on coding and everything would be great.  I've never done this before, and I'm hoping to find someone who actually knows what they're doing.  lol.

 DoS, you're killing me here woman! That is what the LJ com is for! *pouts*

TSB, I know and I *love* the new comm for that...but it would be nice to have an actual site (current and up-to-date) for all pairings...and i know that a few exist, but as was stated before, most of them have not been updated in a very long time....

TC, I'm excited about the idea, looking forward to seeing it happen!!

*hugs*

DoS

Ok, really not trying to attack anyone here or anything. I'm sure you don't mean anything by it, but this latest post is a good example for what caused my earlier problem.

Imagine you're one of the people running one of those other all pairing sites. Do you think you would like hearing that your site doesn't do it for the readers/writers? If those sites don't get updated that's usually not the fault of the people running the site, but the result of no one posting there. So for them to learn that there ARE people who want to post appropiate stories, but that their sites don't do it for those people, so instead of posting there, those writers are going to open their own site. Well, I'd be hurt if I was in their place. Opening another site is fine, great even, but stop making it sound like all the ones that already exist are worthless.

im sorry, didn't intend to offend anyone...

but i get the impression with a few of those sites (without saying any names) that they may have actually been abandoned at this point, because no one ever mentions them at all...

i would think that if someone is running a site like that, they should try to get the name out there a little more, that sort of thing, so that everyone knows they're still up and running....i mean, i started posting at a couple of them, but when there were no reviews at all, and then i looked closer and saw that the last post before mine was like 6 months earlier...I stopped posting there...

and it wasn't just the posted stories...it was the news/notes sections from the mods, too, that had not been updated....leading me to believe that the site had pretty much been abandoned...

again, i'm sorry if i've offended anyone, but i'm just stating my opinion....

...and shutting up now :P

I think my site is at least partly an example of that. I couldn't help that my old hostess flaked on me and all my members, only a couple of us had posted fics before I had to reopen the site on my domain. But NO ONE re-joined even though it would have taken all of two minutes and it was just me and Thianna posting our fics... and then she stopped writing, so yeah. I can't keep my site up-to-date with no authors coming over there to post their fics, and I'm even somewhat lenient about the vampire thing. I just ask you be posting several vampire fics before you post a non-vampire fic.

And NO, I'm not just trying to pimp my site, I'm just adding my two sense because some of what Dia said is how I feel and am showing my support of her. My site is out there and I've advertised it, but people didn't want to use it or just joined then didn't do anything. Now not even I see the point in posting there if I'm going to be the only one. And I still pay 10 dollars a month to keep this domain....

Ok, Twilight, this are some tips for selecting a host I wrote for someone who was considering opening an archive not too long ago. Some of this stuff is only important if you want it to be a self-posting archive, but the space and the bandwith should be the same no matter how you organize your archive.

When you check out the "paid-for" webhosts, you will see that most of them offer several different packages. You'll need one that allows you the use of PHP scripts and a MySQL database. (if you decide to go for self-posting)

You'll want at least 500MB to 1GB diskspace with your hosting package. The BSV is only up to around 150/200 MB right now, but unlike most archives, we do not allow our members to upload graphics onto our server.

Some of the packages come with a seperate size-restriction for the database. You know how Pari @ SR had to get rid of all the reader!only accounts to free up database space? Many readers aren't too keen on being left out that way, even if it is just so they can show up on a Reviewer-Top-Ten, or simply feel more like a member of the archive. The database at the BSV currently comes up to nearly 20MB, and while you wouldn't have the forum to add to your db's size, the biggest chunk (over half of it) is taken up by the reviews. And reviews are something that will just increase and increase in number. So I'd say see that you databse either has no size-constriction of it's own, or that it allows for at least 30 - 50MB. (Actually, seeing how a all pairings archive will probably end up much larger than the BSV, maybe you better change this to 100MB.)

Bandwith: Once word has spread, your archive will attrackt a lot of people (hopefully), and all of them will want to look at the different pages and stories. With bandwith in this context, we usually mean the amont of data that can be downloaded (viewing a page is downloading it) every month. With the BSV we easily get up to 30GB per month, so your host should allow for at least 50GB. (You can usually just pay extra if you have more traffic that the hosting-package allows, but why pay extra when another host offers more bandwith for the same price.)

To choose a webhost, it is probably best to just check out a few of the sites that offer user-reviews for the different hosts. Take a closer look at the top 3 or 5, and find one whith a good ballance of service/speed/support/price. Just google for: webhost reviews - or: host reviews - or something like that. Here is an example: http://www.webhostingtoplist.com/

From personal experience I can tell you, that http://www.websitesource.com seems pretty stable and has a good support. Stay as far away from globat.com as possible, they are slow, unreliable and their suppost has to be the worst I've ever seen. The German branch of 1and1.com is the most reliable host I've seen so far, with only 2 downtimes in 8 years (both lasting only a few hours, and being caused by a misunderstanding with their accounting). I'm not sure if the american branch is as reliable though, so that's pretty useless information I guess. :lol:

Feel free to email me a list of webhosts that you think sound good, and I'll take a look and let you know if any of them are an especially good or bad choice.

IMPORTANT: Check with your choosen webhost if their security settings will allow you to submit data containing the word "curl " via a form. I won't go into the whole explanation as to why this is a problem, but with some hosts it is, and all forms will cut off the text as soon as that word appears. And believe me, it appears in more than a few fics.

If you want to have less work with the archive (ok, so this is only less work once it is up and running), you'll probably want a self-posting archive - like BSC, BSV, SR, ... (The first BSV back when, or SA would be examples of non-self-posting archives). Most of those self-posting archives use efiction (not the BSV, but most of the others). I'm not going to explain that one, :lol:, as I'm sure you either already read up on it, or at least the guys at efiction.org can do it a lot better than me. http://www.efiction.org/

They have a forum that you might want to check out to see if with their help you'll be able to fix any problems that might occur. (Or maybe you know how to code php-scripts and have no need for a pre-prepared one, in that case sorry for mentioning efiction.)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. It's easier to answer specific questions, especially since I wont have to guess how much you already know. ;-)

Good luck with the site!