Crimes of Websites Past

[rheasilvia]

So, a while back galaxysoup and I were reminiscing about the horrors of classic fannish website design. Remember when Geocities was a thing and disclaimer pages made you hunt for the second comma in the thirteenth line? Remember purple text on black background, blinking gifs and flashing text, cheesy ornamental buttons, weird graphics and crazy fonts?

Well, as it turns out, I still have evidence of some of my transgressions. Here they are, for your amusement!

You Too Can Learn HTML

My first attempt at coding a website did not show great promise.



You Too Can Learn HTML, The Revenge: X-Files Versus Readability

Especially because I succumbed to the dark background craze, and evidently only had one image of these guys. Why is Krycek’s face so bumpy?



Quoth the Raven

I quickly decided this would not do and found a nice dramatic pre-fab website design featuring a woman, a scarf and a raven. And of course a dark background. Nothing could keep me from dark backgrounds, obviously.



The Red and the Black Archive

Believe it or not: This was an entirely unremarkable look for an author’s page in an XF fanfic archive to have, at the time.



Eroica Overload

I also made a website for a friend, which seems unkind in retrospect. While it did fit the fandom, the combination of rose imagery, font choice and gold was perhaps a tiny bit much.



Art Nouveau Green

When I kept writing stories, Raven Lady’s scarf grew too restrictive, and I had to switch to Pen Lady. I remember I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the green, but the design seemed nice and simple.



My Current (Abandoned) Website

My most recent website is more or less abandoned, but does still exist. I include it for research purposes. I still quite like it, but the AO3 has made individual author’s pages largely unnecessary, IMO.





Sooo… what do you think?

Poll #21797 Times were different, MacLeod. I was different.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

View Respondents

But why?

View Answers

You Too Can Learn HTML
4 (14.8%)

X-Files Versus Readability
5 (18.5%)

The Red and the Black Archive
5 (18.5%)

Quoth the Raven
1 (3.7%)

Eroica Overload
4 (14.8%)

Art Nouveau Green
6 (22.2%)

All of the above!
8 (29.6%)

OMG. WHY.
1 (3.7%)

None of the above!
0 (0.0%)

NO SHAME.
22 (81.5%)

Spar….kles?
3 (11.1%)

SPARKLES!!
16 (59.3%)

Do you have any early website crimes to share? Show us the evidence!!

Comments

[lynndyre]

I think I read things on those websites! Especially the Eroica one looks very familiar. These are great! XD

[mekare]

Oooh these designs take me back. I never had a site of my own but I clearly remember the designs in the style of the X-files example and Red and Black Archive.

I still love how many personal sites there were, how many people taught themselves coding and had web rings and rec pages. While I appreciate AO3 a lot, I still have that underlying aüpprehension of putting all the eggs into one basket.... so I am all for keeping the individual sites up!

[rheasilvia]

Heeee, fandom is such a village! :-) And how much do I love it that so many people remember those days? Fannish dinosaurdom for the win!

While I do kind of hope someone else comes forward with their own transgressions of websites past, I am resolved: I regret nothing. ;-)

[rheasilvia]

It seems so jarring today, but yes, there were so many archives that looked just like it. Not to mention that I remember many a website with flashing, garishly colored text on a black background. In fact, I feel very virtuous in comparison. ;-)

I still love how many personal sites there were, how many people taught themselves coding and had web rings and rec pages.

Yes, me too! There were so many rec pages, and rec page indexes - of course there just wasn't a good way to find stories apart from them, but it also felt like it brought people closer together, somehow. On the one and only con I went to, I met people I only knew through their websites and rec pages, and it was great. :-)

And you have a very good point - who knows what may happen, fandom may well need those individual pages again some day.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Hahaha I used to have an awful X-files website with black green color scheme and an animated lightning background. And of course, webrings, guestbook, and a permanent under construction gif. Those were the days! Your sites looked a lot better than mine.

[mekare]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed the archive will never vanish but who knows....

[eva_rosen]

The raven lady should have been the host of a The Cure rpf site (if there was one. What am I saying, of course there was). But hey, neither of these were that terrible. Except the Red and Black archive, OMG.

[riventhorn]

Haha, yes I remember sites like this! And also all the fandom specific archives, like Fiction Alley for HP. What I find fascinating is how it is only once things have evolved that the older stuff suddenly seems so funny. At the time, all of this was like Really Cool.

[maggie33]

Oh, wow, I remember The Red and the Black Archive - that brings back memories. And I've just now realized that you're the author of Men At Some Time - my favorite Once A Thief fic ever. And I see it's on AO3, so I'm going to re-read it now. :)

[trobadora]

Wow, that takes me back!

[demitas]

Oh man the memories, lol.

I guess old-school web design is kind of making a comeback? (Article from Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell fame on the topic) I'm... not sure I'm ready to go back, personally, haha. But then again I'm on a weird early '90s aesthetic kick right now, so maybe it's only a matter of time before I succumb.

[lynndyre]

I love it so much! (and, I mean, ten thousand year pining is a good fandom for prehistoric fannish reunion parties XD)

[firestar]

Oh my god, the flashbacks. XD While I was never in X-Files fandom, it still reminds me of something. Maybe a Stargate archive? Hmmm.

[asya_ana]

These were DELIGHTFUL. Although we can't always be trusted, I do love the way everyone had such ownership over their space. <3

[anotherslashfan]

Ah, this brings back so many memories of my first years browsing for fanfic online! I also definitely visited your websites to read your stories, both version You Too Can Learn HTML (for The Gift of an Enemy) and the most recent one (for Learning How To Lose).

[rheasilvia]

You too?? That color scheme seems to have been more or less mandatory! And I remember the animated lightning - wow, that was everywhere for a little while. Like snowflakes and sparkles - a very stylish choice!

I'd forgotten about the "under contruction" gifs. They really were everywhere!

Now I'm feeling nostalgic. ;-)

[rheasilvia]

Hee, you are right, she totally should have been! She was not the perfect match for X-Files, really, but at least the color scheme fit, as well as the general witchiness vibes.

YES, OMG, the archive was an extreme case. I take no responsibility for that one! :-)

[rheasilvia]

There were *so many archives*. I remember making the rounds, checking all the archives and all the rec pages to see if anything new had been posted, and then checking again...

It really was pretty cool, absolutely! Even when I had trouble reading some of the more extreme color combinations, and the sites that went overboard with the animated backgrounds and flashing gifs tended to make me nervous. (The disclaimer pages that forced you to read half a novella to find the link to the stories did always make me roll my eyes a bit, though.)

[rheasilvia]

How cool is it that you remember that specific archive?! It's so wonderful how many fannish veterans are still around today, still fannish and falling for new fandoms. :-)

OMG, you remember that story? Heee! I loved Once a Thief so much - it really was something special, even though fandom did not linger there very long IIRC.

[rheasilvia]

Your icon! *dies* Who or what is Hoschi?

[rheasilvia]

Oh dear, really, is it making a comeback? I am definitely not ready! The link seems to lead to a 404 page, so I am not sure which aspects of yesterday's excesses are looking attractive to today's pioneering young designers, but I certainly hope it isn't the color schemes. Or the blinking text and flashing backgrounds. O_O

The memories, though. Yes! From the safe distance of today, I am rather fond of those websites. :-)

[demitas]

Scroll down from the 404 header to get to the article :)

(Poorly named title for such a large header, since I also thought it was a 404 page when I first went there.)

[rheasilvia]

I knoowww! It seems simultaneously like yesterday and a hundred years ago. :-)

I don't have any other archive pages saved, sadly (I don't even know why on earth I saved that one, though I am glad I did for historic reasons). If I remember correctly, though, that XF archive's look was a fairly common and popular one for smaller (non-automated) archives, at least in the scifi corner of the world.

[rheasilvia]

I don't know if delightful is precisely the word I would choose, but they certainly do have me all nostalgic! :-) At the time, they felt very modern and stylish - even the RatB archive.

Although we can't always be trusted, I do love the way everyone had such ownership over their space.

I love the way you phrased that! :-) Yes! In a very real way, it was a truly pioneering time.

[rheasilvia]

Yes! Finding fanfic was such a different experience back then - I remember it well! And I love how many people who were already in fandom back then are still around today - and that we seem to find ourselves again and again. It makes me happy. <3

(BTW, I didn't have The Gift of an Enemy on my website until well after the first one - Quoth the Raven was the first site it went up on. I always kept the stories themselves very clean and simple, though; merely text with a white background, no frills. That may be why it reminds you more of the bare-bones site than the Raven Lady. *g*)