Reining in the Controversy.

[Paolo]

Freedom of expression is a nice idea, but unfortunately, it doesn't work in the real world all of the time.

What got the stories taken offline, as we have said before, was that someone complained to the hosting company that runs the DNS.

For those that don't know how the Internet works, go Google it and read up.

The company refused to host the Archive because of story content. It didn't matter to them if the stories were tagged, or how they were described ,nor how many warnings were in place. They simply shut it down because DNS serving is THEIR business, and regardless of OUR rights, they pulled the plug.

Putting the stories back online isn't as easy as loading up a file folder full of stories and telling an FTP client to move them to a "new home" online. There is a lot of work that has to be done to get code in place to:

Organize them.

Accept new ones.

Make the old ones readable again.

Index the whole mess so that you can FIND what you want, and weed out what you don't want.

This is what Talula has been busting his virtual nuts on for weeks on end now.

He does have something in the works, and so far, it looks great and even user-friendly for someone as "code inept" as I am!

Be patient.

[Paolo]

Getting back to this Tonya person -

She claimed to be a published author, which, according to her, announcing that here got her banned for life.

That was not the case; she came on the Archive doing self-promotion and linking to a pay site. That is spamming, and that results in banning.

Apparently, she isn't mature enough to realize that. However, she has her little thread on Tribe.net with something like 4 followers.

More power to them if they wish to start their own site.

I hope they do, and do well.

[dark_soul (imported)]

I understand you, Paolo, I also I have a website and a lot of work to make changes and stuff but even given the number of stories.

Apparently this whole problem should then be a lack of discretion of a manager host. Too bad but there are many host sites where if you could file stories to smooth talk just a matter that is more to these sites would give some to you very cheap accommodation, as I mentioned, before starting to remove stories that do not make a small Investigacions sites ensure you do not erase the stories if someone complains, among this group are obviously the porn host.

There are very cheap per year and then could put the whole content of the stories if major problems, besides ahorrias you do not think a lot of work and leave us all readers and authors happy.

[volt1960 (imported)]

I just want to say a big thanks to Talula and others that are working now to build a better, bigger story archive for the near future!

[Cainanite (imported)]

I just want to say a big thanks to Talula and others that are working now to build a better, bigger story archive for the near future!

Quite right. talula has put in a metric ton of very impressive work. He deserves an equal ton of praise for the job he's done.

I hope everybody gets to see it soon.

[StefanIsMe (imported)]

I have thus far tried very hard to stay out of this discussion, just because there are plenty of you folks keeping this very important (to me, and others) subject alive.

However I do also see that Talula's work behind the scenes (I've just read in this thread of all the work He is doing) deserves all the hooray's and thank-you's possible, so throw mine in too:

THANK YOU TALULA !!!!!!!!!!!!

I wish I could be there with you guys this weekend, but work again is absolutely overwhelming this time of year (all the September delivery school yearbooks are printing) and my press is running 24/7... so I cannot put my two cents towards the discussion.

Suffice to say, I deeply hope something is resolved that lets all stories be read again (and new ones brought it) but WHATEVER happens, I love this place, and I love you guys.

Thank you.

[ClassyBitch (imported)]

This is what Talula has been busting his virtual nuts on ...

Did you all know that some crows (not minor or miner birds, as far as I know) drop nuts at road intersections, wait for cars to run over them, and then swoop down to eat their contents?

Anyhow, thanks to T and P and everyone at EA for all the hard busting, both real and virtual.

[Paolo]

I'm only going to say this one more time:

It was either pull ALL of the stories, or the Archive would not have come back online as fast as it did.

As for p

utting the stories back online,

they WILL be back online. We have formulated a plan that will do just this, and hopefully protect us from the same sort of issue that REQUIRED us to remove the story archive in this case just so we could even GET back online to begin with.

I will not tolerate any more comments on what should have been done, and/or what wasn't done for a system that had been working and serving stories for over 10 years.

Plans are in the works, so there's no point in rehashing what happened.

Thank you.

[kristoff]

New software is being prepared for the fiction archive that will be more flexible and useful, and allow greater options in handling of stories. As the software becomes available - is finished with coding and testing - the system will be brought back on line. At that time, new submissions will be accepted. Refinements to the software will continue after it starts.

The stories, however, will not be reloaded en masse. They will need to be individually moderated in order to fit into the new system - software requirements, not censoring. We will, however, take a close look at some minor stories, and where necessary we will discuss them, and if necessary act on them. Our proclivity will be to keep stories wherever possible. This whole process, depending upon the availability of moderators, will probably take the better part of a year. One requirement is that Archive registration will be necessary to enter the story archive. One must assert that they are of legal age to enter the forums, that their consumption of our site is legal in their jurisdiction; they will have to do so again to enter the fiction board. This will keep the board private to members. We will however provide limited material for Google to track with lots of tags in order to draw traffic to the site.

I am open to questions about what we (the board and others) have decided. I am not into huge discussions about the right or wrong of our choices - we did consider all suggestions made. We have chosen a course and will stick to it.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Whatever works for the folks in charge is good enough for me. That's always been my primary interest as far as restoring the stories to the site...

Thank to all TPTB for their efforts