Crimes of Websites Past
Apr. 12th, 2019 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rheasilviaSo, 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?
Do you have any early website crimes to share? Show us the evidence!!
galaxysoup and I were reminiscing about 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
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!!
no subject
Date: 2019-04-15 04:39 pm (UTC)...
omg argh, there is another version archived, when I had a different URL between the Geocities site and moving to host st.net on yahoo (from where it then went to slashcity.org, where it still is). It had a Dreambook (=guestbook), part of that is also archived. I have gotten rid of sp.net in archive.org with a robots.txt, but I can't of course do it for that one. And I'm not linking, because it had my RL name, too.
sp had a subtitle, that I had mercifully forgotten about.
Jewels in a Dark Night
OMG so much cringe about myself now. I really really blame the VC fandom for all of this.
I can also find my earliest usenet postings, done from my university email address. They're from 1995. And OMG. *hides from self*
(thank you for traumatizing me)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-16 01:30 pm (UTC)Jewels in a Dark Night, huh? Poetic! ;-) But yes, it was definitely VC fandom's fault. Fandoms have a lot to answer for - I personally blame XF for the surfeit of dark backgrounds, for one thing.
thank you for traumatizing me
Pretty sure (past) you tramatized yourself! ;-)
I read some old-ish stuff of mine a few weeks ago, btw, and while I remain untraumatized, I am amazed at how detailed and honest I used to be when giving feedback. Was it just me or was this a general thing? I would tell authors both what I liked and what I did not like about their story, what worked for me and what didn't, and why it didn't work. These days I only mention the positives, and now I am wondering whether I personalky was just unusued to the ways of US-centric fandom back then, or whether fandom as a whole moved away from the nuanced feedback/discussion.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-16 04:21 pm (UTC)BUT I WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN! I HAD SUCCESSFULLY FORGOTTEN!!
:)
And nah, dark backgrounds were everywhere. Even sites like Reddit etc, have night mode with dark backgrounds that you can switch to. I liked having grey backgrounds - ok, I still do, but once I found f.lux, which lets you regulate your monitor brightness, I can deal with brighter pages, ie, white background. Otherwise, all that brightness starts to hurt my eyes.
I didn't send that much feedback, but yeah, I remember being critical, too. Don't think I'd dare to do this these days. Partially I think because back then, I sent feedback via email, so it was clearly intended just for the author, and in private. Nowadays, you need to comment on the story in public, and even if the author doesn't mind, other readers might eat you for it.
But I would say that the nuanced feedback/discussion stuff died with the mailing lists - at least that's where I saw these discussions happening. Some of it came to LJ, but after the move away from there, it's totally gone. And a lot of young fandom blood nowadays, from what I can see on tumblr, is ... _YOUNG_. Painfully so.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-17 03:39 pm (UTC)And in all honesty, there are a lot of fans - new/young and old - who are unable to differentiate between critical feedback and a personal attack.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-16 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-17 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 06:27 pm (UTC)*feels old*