ratcreature: RatCreature as Harry Potter in a Quidditch uniform. (hp)
RatCreature ([personal profile] ratcreature) wrote2005-11-16 05:41 pm

HP archives

Sometimes I really yearn for the more or less centralized fandom infrastructure like I was used to in The Sentinel.

I'm reading the results for a poll about HP fic archives and recs, and there was a question on which archives one regularly visits, including also an open option for people to fill in archives not listed.

I hadn't even heard of (let alone visited) many of the archives people mentioned, and ended up googling a whole bunch. And okay, it's understandable that I didn't know all of them as most are pairing specific, but not for my favorite pairings. And I know of a bunch of other archives that didn't appear in that poll too, and when I looked up the ones I didn't know, I found yet more archives. Some rather small, others quite large. I get that HP is really, really huge, and that specialized archives may be practical for fans with strong pairing preferences, and yet -- I'm not an OTP person in HP, I have read and enjoyed stories with most of those pairings, and some I even read quite frequently, but I'm not even aware of all the archives.

Surely there don't need to be *four* (or maybe more) Harry/Ginny archives? I'm not much into pure H/G romance stories, but if it's an interesting action/adventure story that's also a H/G romance for example, I like that pairing fine, certainly more than some others. And yet I knew of only one of those archives appearing in the poll (PhoenixSong), and otherwise mainly read H/G stories at The Sugar Quill and Fiction Alley. Now I know that there are several other Harry/Ginny archives, namely Sink Into Your Eyes (which apparently is so widely known that the poll author only listed it with its cryptic acronym SIYE in the poll), Written with a Quill, Sealed with a Kiss (which still seems quite new?), Simply Undeniable (also for Ron/Hermione), and The Broom Cupboard (that one seems to be a message board rather than an archive, though people listed it as the latter).

Personally I think that kind of thing, where you have half a dozen or more archives for a single pairing, is really inconvenient. What is wrong with having larger archives with good search functions? I get that huge archives in fandoms like HP are a lot of work, and that hosting costs are probably a factor too, but that's why archives can be group managed, no? Why do people found the fifth Harry/Ginny archive or the fourth Snape/Hermione archive? I just don't get it. It's not like more archives equals reaching more readers, at least for me it's rather the opposite, I'm not likely to regularly check multiple archives, much less multiple archives for a single pairing.

Other HP archives I didn't know about: Checkmated (for Ron/Hermione), Magical Theory and Fire and Ice (both for Draco/Ginny), Dark Sarcasm and Whispers (both for Snape/Hermione, whereas I only knew of Ashwinder for that pairing), Apparition Point (I couldn't figure out if that's in any way specific by browsing the site briefly), Portkey (Harry/Hermione), The Quidditch Pitch (seems to be for romance, but not pairing specific, and accepts het, slash and threesomes), Hand Me My Robes (seems for explicit het, not pairing specific), Malfoy Slash Archive (I only knew of the Malfoy Family Archive), Thin Line (for Snape/Sirius), Godric's Hat (for gen), and the list goes actually on for a bit more... also, there's a Snape MPreg archive?!

Unrelated to the sheer number of archives, am I the only one annoyed that (some) HP archives tend to name their categories in fairly cryptic ways? So that they have to include an explanation sheet what those categories are?
birdsflying: (academia)

[personal profile] birdsflying 2005-11-16 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
I'm writing my undergrad thesis on archiving and fandom and this whole thing is fascinating from an academic point of view. I wonder if it's a side effect of the dissemination of fandom - we're larger and more spread out and there's a hell of a lot of people who have never been in fandom before and so don't have the fannish memory of centralised archives etc. There's also. hrm, this is probably just myself, but there's also a lack of..information retrival in fandom now, I think. Tagging helps but tagging is still a new social retrival tool and people just don't think to search anymore, expecting it to appear (or they go and make one so it appears.)

(of course, as a fan and a ex-archivist, the multiple archive thing drives me *nuts*)

[identity profile] jacquez.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 09:09 am (UTC)(link)
I used to run a fanfic archive for HP. (It's still up, but the upload/search stuff has been broken for ages, and I never fixed it due to lack of time.)

I started it out of aggravation at the lack of a good, central, basic archive like Sentinel had. I wish I had the time to sit down and figure out what broke, but I don't, and so it languishes.

Sigh.
ext_841: (Default)

[identity profile] cathexys.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 11:02 am (UTC)(link)
considering i just bemoaned the same thing in another fandom , i don't think i have much to add :-)

seriously, it's frustrating for writers and readers, i think, b/c niot only do readers have to check various archives, writers have to decide where they'll put theirs.

i yearn for the good ole centralized days!!!

[identity profile] glockgal.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps the pairing-centric archives were created many times over because of the policies and ToS stuff? Like, one Harry/Ginny archive might only archive a certain type or standard of fiction that goes through an approval system, where as someone wanted to create a do-it-yourself database archive of Harry/Ginny. So they did. *G*

I dunno, I think the HP fandom is widespread enough to warrant multiple shipping archives, because then it's more 'mom and pop' and less Wal-Mart. It is really annoying to have to troll around different sites, though. What HP needs is something like CFAN (http://www.subreality.com/cfan.htm"). Defunct and catering to a much smaller fandom community, granted, but still a nice place to gather links for further exploration.

Of course, who would ever volunteer for a non-paying job like that? *G* You'd have, like. No life, ahahaha.

[identity profile] angylinni.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 02:43 pm (UTC)(link)
usually, that's exactly the problem. HP Fandom is very much into subcultures, and inevitably, those within the subcultures clash. Another reason people form archives is because their fics for some reason or another were rejected at archive X and they got pissy and wanted to start a new one that only hosted the fics "they" approved of.

I run my own archive, Overcoming Rivalry (http://www.soulsdream.com/rivalry), for minor character het and genfic simply because I found that in the bigger archives, the level of quality was sadly lacking. I think it's the only one of it's kind, specifically focusing on the minor characters. I'm also a mod at Hand Me My Robes (http://www.handmemyrobes.com), which was started in part because it was very difficult to find het smut.

[identity profile] our-innocence.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I think part of it is because a lot of pairing specific archives have different rating rules and other regulations.

Some won't take NC-17, some only take R and NC-17. Some allow Mpreg. Some allow underage pregnancy and sex. Some of the focus on one or two pairings. Still others are built around certain pairings, but allow other stories and ships as well [It's Always the Quite Ones (http://www.quietones.org) is a good example, IMHO. It's mainly Blaise/Hermione/Draco and all possible permutations, but they allow pretty much anything not horrifically written.]

I have stories on 24 different archives, ranging from multi-fandom sites, like The Pit of Voles and the Freedom of Speech, to General HP, such as MNFF, HPFF, Character Specific, like Métamorphose [Tonks stories] and ship specific, such as Table for Three. My only criteria for joining an archive is that I don't have to pass a test to get in, owing to the fact that I'm incredibly lazy and have over 80 stories, and don't feel like having to prove myself.

So I think that sometimes there's a stupid amount of archives for pairings, but on the other hand, since many have [occasionally random] rules to them, allowing the existence of one or two- each catered to specific genre tastes, like fluff, smut, or darkfic- is fine.

[identity profile] white-serpent.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 03:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Interesting. And, ah, history.

So, there have always been minor archives. But most of the "larger" minor archives arose in mid- to late 2001. Several of the earlier ones were directly related to spats with fanfiction.net, and, naturally, things cascaded from there. (Have a spat with your new major archive? Form your own!)

To some degree, additional archives were inescapable. ff.net used to allow NC-17 fic; then they removed it. That led to archives such as the Restricted Section, as FictionAlley also didn't allow NC-17. In an attempt not to stigmatize slash, ff.net does not have a "slash" category. This makes slash stories harder to find, and leads to the existence of slash-only archives like ISF.

There's also, quite frankly, a volume issue. How do you find anything good when there are several hundred thousand fics to search through? Somehow, another archive with "standards" seems like it makes things easier, but it really actually doesn't.

My problem with the creation of pairing-centric archives is in part a selfish one. I have a preferred pairing, and I will read anything in that pairing. However, I will also read most other pairings, and I will read genfic. So, the fact that everything is fractured everywhere means it's generally too much effort for me to keep track of things and read them.

I was actually strongly opposed to the creation of the Snape Slash Fleet in late 2001. It did end up having the effect I feared-- it fractured the Snape slash fandom into the popular pairings and the other pairings, and people became more and more ship-adherent. (Admittedly, I was also opposed to it having come out of a fandom where people were very strongly ship-adherent and had major and bitter ship wars.) Oh, well. Try to stop the tide, I guess.

It's not just the archives that split, though. Mailing lists did it as well. We went from a few "centralized" mailing lists-- e.g., hpslash, HP_Fanfiction, snapefans, etc.-- to pairing-centric mailing lists, five or six per pairing... and then people stopped reading most of the mailing lists altogether and moved on to livejournal.

What bothers me even more than the several dozen archives is the fact that so many stories are only available on livejournal.

In any case, I agree centralized archives are superior. And good search tools are necessary.

At this point, I assume people form "archives" as an excuse to collect their favorite reading material in one place so they don't have to visit twenty or thirty archives to get to it. I've considered it myself.

And, no, you're not the only one annoyed by cryptic archive names.

[identity profile] our-innocence.livejournal.com 2005-11-16 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, with the advent of eFiction, it's now a hundred times easier to create said archives.

Some archives are personal or only open to certain authors, where there be a test [such as Portkey] or just friends who want to share a space [I've seen quite a few of these.] I'm not a fan of archives wherein you have to email the story to the authors, personally, because giving feedback is usually harder, since the review options becomes moot.

It does get frustating, I imagine, to have to pick and choose. For me, ir's easier, since I write mainly genfic, although I do have a lot of romance pieces under my belt. However, since I tend to write rarepairs, it's also a lot easier for me to find the one or two sites dedicated to my pairs as well.

I think that one main problem might be, with the romance sites, a refusal to compromise on certain regulations. We're online; it's not as hard to say no to someone. So tantrums are thrown, and one side says "It's my archive, and you have to follow my rules, or you can leave, and the other side says "The hell with this, I'll make my own." So perhaps the blame comes from both sides.

ext_2858: Meilin from Cardcaptor Sakura (Default)

[identity profile] meril.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
And to make it even more confusing (and to add an anecdote to the data, heh) the Snapefans ML almost ended up with an adjunct fic archive back in 2002. For various reasons (some of them kind of wanky) it didn't, thankfully.

I have no clue whatsoever what caused the further splintering after that, as I left the fandom.
ext_2858: Meilin from Cardcaptor Sakura (randomness)

[identity profile] meril.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
It's strange that you mention this right now. A person on my flist who used to be active in HP fandom wrote her first HP fic in a long time (a couple of years, IIRC) and she had to ask her flist where to archive it other than Fiction Alley and ff.net.

To be honest, I don't know where to stick fic anymore either, HP, anime, or anything else.

[identity profile] larilee.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
Ashwinder is actually one archive of SycophantHex.com. Other archives under that grouping include Occlumency (Snape either alone or with anyone else but Hermione), Pureblood (Malfoy family), Wolfsbane (Remus Lupin stories), The Burrow (stories pertaining to the Weasley family), Lumos (other characters or genfic), Chaos (crossovers, other fandoms and original fiction) and Eros & Sappho (slash and femslash pairings). Ashwinder, as you’ve pointed out, deals only with HGSS stories.

[identity profile] glockgal.livejournal.com 2005-11-17 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
Except of course when it's so small that you can find, like, no fic of the kind you like.

Ahah, it's true! When I was in the Tour of Duty fandom, it was so small that only consisted of - you, you guessed it - Mary Sue, 897697384-chapter fics. So my sister and I pioneered slash and created the first ToD fic archive. And before we ran away screaming in terror from the fandom, we created a tiny army of melodramatic, neurotic, psychopath slashers.

*proudly dusts hands together* Mission accomplished! *lol*

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/ari_/ 2005-11-18 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
I think, at least on the het side of things, it's also to do with the huge fandom wars HP has over pairings. I'm sure quite a few H/Hr shippers would rather have an archive where they get *no* R/Hr shippers at all, and vice versa, because god forbid they might get feedback from the other side bashing them for their paring, or that the other pairing might have more and better-written fic or whatever.

The slash side of HP used to be halfway decently organized, but that seems to be falling apart (or already has), too. Thankfully, I fell out of the fandom this summer...

[identity profile] jan-aq.livejournal.com 2005-11-21 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
There used to be "Floo My Baby! A Harry potter link Archive" that had tons of the links listed that someone collected and put together (like thousands, all that I had ever heard of), but I just went there to see if was still alive to give you the url and it seems to be gone. :\

There's this one, the HPANA Top Harry potter Sites, which is more of a listing with ranks http://www.hpana-media.com/topsites/index.php

But yeah, a centralized list of ALL the archives and sites would be nice. I had thought about doing it once but yeah, no.

[identity profile] jan-aq.livejournal.com 2005-11-22 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
From the snitch.

I read all the comments and I think that we share similar thoughts about this. I wish that there was some centralized place where you can find and search for everything. I believe that having a specific pairing or type of story doesn't need so many archives, but at the same time, I rejoice in the fact that there are so many archives and so many stories. I was in smaller fandoms before HP and it didn't take long to read everything and exhaust them (Batman? Star Wars Luke and Vader fanfiction anyone? Angel and Connor fanfiction took only a DAY to clean out). :\

But perhaps NOT having a centralized place might protect the more daring types of stories from being found on smaller, hidden archives if say, JKR or her Laywers or Warner Bros decided to make it a quest to erradicate them from the net. Or if they wanted to delete ALL fanfiction.

I actually don't visit many of the other archives at all. I mean I do VISIT lots of them, probably all of them, but I only end up reading things on only a few types of archives besides my own. Of the smaller archives, I actually have only read things from:

-The Wizard's Playground, which is a HP fanfiction archive safe for children, sometimes it's a relief to read innocent things (http://hpficforkids.magnoliamama.com/index.php)

-Naice a Nilme, a LotR Aragon and Legolas angst archive, no slash (http://www.naiceanilme.com/index.php)

And Potions and Snitches, which is my own archive for Snape and Harry Gen stories. (http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/)

I guess that I am one of those people who started a specialized, specialized archive since a complete Snape and Harry archive in general, OR a really big Harry Potter archive with the Snape and Harry category (no slash) could have covered this area, but I found that that wouldn't cut it for me, and there really wasn't a big one at the time that I personally could work on and improve and make right.

I actually pondered the decision to make Potions and Snitches for awhile, and when I did decide to make it it was only because a large number of people were into it (Severitus type fics are like a huge subgenre, I'm sure you know) and there wasn't anything like it out there already. There was no Snape and Harry Gen archive, or website, or giant rec list. This Gen genre was actually big enough to support one. So when I did decide to do it, I decided that it would become a resource for the people in the fandom, that it would be the most complete Snape and Harry Gen place I could make it.

So while I want to tell all the Harry/Ginny archives to band together and make one great, giant archive already and split the costs and work, I can't for fear of being hypocrytical. XD

I actually started off in Star Trek fanfiction, going from people's personal websites before I found Fanfiction.net, and because it's so big and as centralized as you can get for all fanfiction, I'm regretably dependant on it. It's true that they have made strides with C2 groups and other things, but I still don't like the way things are there.

Of the Harry Potter large archives, I've only actually used Fiction Alley and Sugar Quill. All the others seem to have the same exact stories from fanfiction.net, too few members and stories, or have that administration problem of deleting people's stories without warning.

If I wrote non Potions and Snitches stories, I wouldn't know where to put them, it's kind of a stiffler.

[identity profile] jan-aq.livejournal.com 2005-11-23 07:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Hahaha, archived in some "ghetto". I'd love some big main archives for HP fanfiction. I think that it's just a weird fandom how it all turned out, mostly the way FictionAlley is structured with searches being so hard, and the NC-17 issues with all the archives. And all the ones that you'd think would be "main" HP fanfiction archives because of their domains, just aren't.

Yeah I mean Angel and Connor not Angel/Connor. XD Where's the fics? i've found a few good ones. What does ATS mean? Isn't it ATV? I'm not so into that fandom, I just like Angel and Connor fics.

ouuu thanks for that link to dcfic_index. I looove Batman. *_*

[identity profile] jan-aq.livejournal.com 2005-12-08 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I guess FictionAlley is the new Harry potter hub since they now have a combined search for all areas. Well, I don't think they have NC-17 content on there so maybe not.