SquidgeWorld Archive

So you might notice that my previous post about database corruption, posted yesterday, is gone. Why?

Because the f*cking database corrupted again soon after I checked and double-checked yesterday that things were fine.

This morning I took the site down and did some major rework, and things appear to be working normally. Database backups are working just fine again, and there doesn't appear to be any corruption. I ran through some additional things that will hopefully prevent corruption from rearing it's ugly head yet again. And I hope I didn't just jinks it.

Sometime today I'll get the fics that were lost (4, all mine) reloaded. And there was one person whose account was lost as they signed up a couple of hours ago. But other than that, there should be no data loss.

Questions? If so, come find me sobbing in the corner.

So when AO3 was down last night, I was reading off of here instead - because there are a metric shitton (that's a technical term, y'all!) of fics on SqWA that just aren't on AO3. And as my iPad glared brightly, I realized that no - SquidgeWorld has no dark mode.

Well, now it does!

If you, like me, crave a dark mode for reading at night, this is for you. Simply scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see a menu heading called "Customize" with the link, "Choose Skin ↓" menu item. Click on that, and you'll see the two skins here on SquidgeWorld, SqWA Skin and Dark Mode Skin. There's also "Default", but that's just SqWA Skin. Simply click on the "Dark Mode Skin" option, and that skin will appear on a new page. Scroll to the bottom again, and click the "Use" button which is on the lower right (there are three buttons: Use, Preview, and Set for Session) and you will have the Dark Mode Skin set for yourself.

To change back, go back to the "Choose Skin ↓" menu item and click "Default", and you'll be back in the regular skin.

Questions? Ping me!

Based on some discussions with another person about tagging, I thought I'd bring a question to those folks who are interested. This will be posted as both a blogpost on SquidgeWorld, as well as a blogpost over at SquidgeStatus's Dreamwidth account.

Alternate Universe. There's a tag that brings up all kinds of responses. I mean, who doesn't like an amazing coffee shop AU, or maybe Steve McGarrett is a Sentinel and Danny Williams is a guide? It brings up all sorts of possibilities.

But it gives me a bit of a headache as well. And that's why I would like some input.

In Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve (WWOMB), which of course is now SquidgeWorld Archive (SqWA), we had many different AU type tags. There's the easy ones that are true equivalents - so "Alternate universe" and "AU" mean exactly the same, so I kept "Alternate Universe" and made "AU" an equivalent. But there are others that I had a hard time with. Are they generic enough to make equivalent of Alternate Universe, or should they be standalone? And that's where you come in.

Below is a list of every current AU tag in SqWA, and either "standalone" or "equivalent of X". I made these choices on my own, but I can already see changing some. But I need another brain, because goodness knows I'm not using mine 100% these days. So if you would be so kind as to look over these and if any make you feel one way or another (especially if it contradicts what I've already chosen), please yell at me so I can change it.

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence: equivalent to Alternate Universe
Alternate Universe - Dark: equivalent to Alternate Universe
Alternate Universe - Time Travel: equivalent to "Time Travel" tag.
Alternate Universe: standalone and parent to other tags
AU - Arthurian Fantasy: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - ATF: equivalent to Alternate Universe. NOTE: ATF = Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms, so profession AU
AU - Canon Divergent: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Centaurs: standalone
AU - Children: standalone
AU - Fantasy: standalone
AU - First Meeting: equivalent to "First Meeting" tag
AU - Fusion: equivalent to "fusion" tag
AU - Gender Bender: equivalent to "Gender-Bender" tag
AU - High School: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Human: standalone
AU - Humanoid Animals: standalone
AU - Immortality: equivalent to "immortality" tag
AU - Magic: standalone
AU - Mpreg: equivalent to "mpreg" tag
AU - Not Dead: standalone
AU - Occupation: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Out Of Time: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Rentboy: standalone
AU - Sentinel/Guide: standalone
AU - Shape Shifters: equivalent to "Supernatural - shape shifting"
AU - Slave!Fic: equivalent to "SlaveFic"
AU - Teen Age: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Time Travel: equivalent to "Time Travel" tag
AU - Vampires: equivalent to "Supernatural - Vampires"
AU - Wake Up Gay: standalone
AU - Were Animals: standalone
AU - Zombies: equivalent to "zombies"
AU: equivalent to Alternate Universe

So one thing about coming from our old software (eFiction on The WWOMB) to the new software (OTW Code here on SquidgeWorld), is that there are duplicate tags everywhere. Take a look at what we have for the more minor character in the Harry Potter universe, Arthur Weasley:

As you can see, there are four entries for the same character. There are entries for a generic Arthur Weasley, one for the Harry Potter Movies, and one for the Harry Potter book series, and one that's a generic "Harry Potter 'verse". What I will be doing over the next few months - yes, it's going to take months - is to migrate these characters, making the individual "Movies" and "book series" type entries, making them "child" entries of a main "'verse" type entry. That's why you see one of these listed in bold (the new "parent" entry that encompasses all entries) and three nonbolded child entries. This not only pertains to characters like Arthur Weasley who appears in both the movies and books, but also to characters like Angel, the titular character from the Angel series, as well as Buffy the Vampire series, and countless crossovers, such as The Sentinel and Criminal Minds.

What does this mean for you reading stories? Basically, this means that when you search for the character "Arthur Weasley [Harry Potter - Books]", it will find all entries for his character for the books and movie verse, both. If you want to read only fics pertaining to the movie 'verse, then you can search only for the Harry Potter movieverse fandom.

What does this mean for you as an author? You can use the tags that you wish. But if you can choose the more generic characters in your tags, like "Arthur Weasley [Harry Potter 'verse]", that makes it easier on the Archive.

So... Because some of you have only used the eFiction software (which is what ran Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve), and even those of us that have use the AO3 based software before may not have used all functionality (collections, gift exchanges, etc), I've put together a bunch of tutorials. More tutorials than you would have ever expected, but they're out there.

If you are interested, head over to the "Posting And Editing", section of The SquidgeWorld Archive FAQ.

Questions? You know where to hit me up!

Currently, Internet Service Providers (ISP) GMX.com and BlueYonder.co.uk are blocking emails sent from SqWA. This impacts people who want to reset passwords for their accounts, as well as receive daily kudos and comments. I'm working with my ISP to see if I can get around it. But until then, you will have to use a non-gmx.com or blueyonder.co.uk email address to access the archive. And if you need suggestions, here's a list of the best free email accounts and services for 2020.

A couple suggestions for new works as people post them:

1) Over on The WWOMB, there was a whole classification of crossover stories where the fandoms were listed as one, aka "N.C.I.S./The Sentinel". But that isn't the format that we should be using here, since we have everything we need with the new software package. So if you have a crossover between two fandoms, just list those two fandoms, and don't use the old fandom names. So in the case above, you would list both "N.C.I.S." as well as "The Sentinel" for your two fandoms.

2) Again on The WWOMB, we had a naming convention for characters and relationships that included the fandom, like "Dr. Perry Cox [Scrubs]". All of those characters are imported, and believe me, the fandom names helped me migrate folks to the correct fandoms, which was a huge job. But going forward, if you want to add a character that's not in the system, say "Sean Kelly" from Scrubs, or a relationship like "Elliott Reid/Sean Kelly" from Scrubs, then just add it without the fandom name. Now that we're up and running, we don't need the fandom included as part of the name.

And again, if you are importing from AO3 to SqWA (or SqWA to AO3), use the information in this post as a guide.

So a few folks, myself included, have wondered how to import works from the AO3 to SquidgeWorld Archive (or vice versa) without getting the terms of service header. I, myself, was stumped, but the good folks over at AO3 happily gave us a suggestion. So if you're going to import one of your stories that's at URL:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9999999999

Then in the "Import Works" box, you're going to put that URL along with this suffix:

?tos=yes&view_adult=true

So your entire URL to import is going to look like this:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9999999999?tos=yes&view_adult=true

Once you have that as your import URL, you'll fill in the rest of the fields and choose to import the works. Your work will import in raw form, but if there are comments and kudos, please note that those will not be imoprted. So what you need to do is once you have the work imported, you'll edit it before fully submitting it. All you need to do is find the start of your work and delete everything from just before the start to the top of the HTML-encoded work, and then do the same thing from the last word of your work to the bottom of the HTML-encoded work. What's left is your actual story.

Questions? Hit me up!