DemonGoddess

Haven't gotten to the indepth reorganization yet. We've started THAT now. If you read what's posted in the announcements section about this, you'll see that the way it's being done is methodical. We'll be getting to each section, but please remember that we're looking at 100,000 individual STORIES throughout all these subdomains. That's alot to sort through. Not to mention, we're looking at several different things PER STORY uploaded. As to the search function...yes, the one we have is bloody awful. However, there are plans to replace it in the future. It worked for the size this all was way back in the beginning, but does NOT work in the way we need with the size we are now. We're definitely aware of this, it's on a very long list of "to do's" that are being addressed.

Review id # 2035456837 Review board

php chat programs tend to eat up resources more than a little. However, we can still look into different options and alternatives.

Challenges/Requests There's a very good reason WHY those categories were removed throughout the archive, and guest posting enabled in forum for the replacements for them. It has everything to do with how each program handles posted chapter data inserts. The archive treats each chapter (post) as a file, whereas the forum does not. So, what that means is each posted chapter is actually larger than it really should be, because it is a file within a database table row, while a post in forum is a text area in a forum row. It makes that data insert much larger than it actually SHOULD be. *sighs* the joys of outdated archaic programs.... If you're still in the validation queue, that would be why you're not allowed to do anything yet if you've tried logging in. You have to make sure you check spam/junk mail folders for forum validation mail as well, since mail programs commonly put a forum user validation email in those types of folders. There's a second step to that, where the user is then put into an admin validation queue, so that user information can be verified.

The new federal building and courthouse in SF

First of all, once again I'd like to thank those of you who've so kindly volunteered to help. It's going to make this task much easier. We'll be doing this a subdomain at a time, and a top level IN that subdomain at a time. Keep an eye on this post for when we're ready to move on the next section. What we will be doing: For each story that you will be looking at, you'll be looking at and then doing the following: Misplaced or not Check briefly the story content to be sure it's in the right subcategory and/or subdomain. If it's not, then post a topic in Misplaced Stories with a link to it, and then tell me where it actually should be. It'll be moved to a special category that will be created for these stories, to be reinserted later to the tables in the subdomain it belongs to. If it's simply in the wrong category in the same subdomain, I can move it immediately. Let me know which category / subcategory it actually it belongs to and there it will go. Trolls If the fiction is an obvious troll fic, then put a link to it in the Trolls subforum. That way, the archive mods are aware of it, and can deal with both the user and the ficcie. Glitched The other thing you'll want to do with each story, (multi page stories), is follow the page links and check and see if the author is linked to still in the chapter. There are many, many glitched stories, where there is author data everywhere, including in the first couple chapters, then all of a sudden the author link disappears. When this happens, the author can't even access the chapter. If you find something like this, post it in the Glitched Stories forum, and say which chapter or chapters are affected. The chapter can then be fixed so that it is once again linked to the author. At some point in 2003 (also 2005 & 2006), many of you may remember when the database was corrupted. This was as the result of database crashes, and the glitches you see are in what was able to be restored, but was corrupted from the crash. Those will be stories with consistent weird wording errors, like "pounpounding" and other words you see like that. Post those in a separate topic, per story, with reference as to which chapter the glitch is in. Those actually will end up having to be edited directly in the table, provided that the chapter data isn't so long the db won't allow it. But, at least those that I can fix, will be fixed. Orphan Stories Orphan stories are stories which have NO author data attached to them. Generally those are caused by the user having been deleted at some point, usually for a TOS violation, but the fiction still remains in the archive. Those need to be deleted. So, again, links to the stories, and then all the tables with associated data from that story will have it removed. I don't just delete a story, I also have to delete chapters, reviews, and ratings. Those are four separate tables. 'un' Stories If the story content is something like an RP, RP request, challenge/request, beta request, searching for a fic; put a link to it in the "un" stories forum. Those will ALL be deleted. Duplicate Stories When looking in a category page listing, you'll sometimes see a duplicate story. There's quite a lot of that throughout the archive. With those, provide a link to each story, and then I'll be merging the data from one to the other, so the other keeps all the reviews, the ratings will increased exponentially according to the data in the other story, and the VIEWS will be increased according to what is there for the story data being merged. Once that's all done, the duplicate story will then be deleted. Of course, as long as it's all where it's supposed to be, and there's nothing else weird about it, that needs extra attention? Move on to the next story in the subcategory you're working on. Review Boards Next, we'll be eyeballing the review boards. Because some authors allow anonymous reviews, the software simply has no way to combat spambots. So, should you see spam posts in a review board, provide a link to that board in the Spam Activity forum, and reference the review number or numbers. Those will be deleted. If you spot a flamer in the user's review board, post that in forum where one would report a TOS violation. Again, the archive mods will see to it that it gets handled appropriately. We will be starting in the BOOKS subdomain, top level category A through F. Please post in response to this topic, which of the subcategories you'll be taking on. That way, there isn't duplication of work. Also, once you're done with the subcategories you've selected, if there are more available to work, you can choose more, or wait 'til we get to the next top level category. That's entirely up to you, and how much time you honestly have for this. None of you should feel obligated to take on more than your real life permits you, so please keep that in mind when selecting your work categories. Happy hunting!

Hellsing was made a top level category for a reason. It had enough stories to where it earned it's place on the main Anime archive page. Just as with the other categories which are now top level categories. The stories are all there, just as they were before. In order to move them around within that part of the archive, so that your story ends up in it's more proper category, read this particular FAQ. Looking at your profile, they would now go to the Crossovers category that is a sub of the Hellsing top level category.

X-Men is done. pair specific categories are now subcategories of the pair types per top level. The movies categories have been merged into one for all the movies. Comics, I'm not quite sure what to do with. I know what I'd LIKE to do, what makes sense to me, but there's not enough there yet to split it up. So, there are categories added to allow for misc titles not listed. That's the extent of the changes there for now. Other than that, the initial recategorization is done. NOW, it's on the WORK. Sorting all of those stories in each subdomain.

corrected it, thanks. Normally, I do try and do that for manta2g as English is NOT her first language, and occasionally we'll see some odd spelling from her unintentionally.

If the user put this up in each and every category, that's spamming. Thanks for letting us know, this'll get handled.

Part of what you're seeing is people either haven't moved their stories, or don't know how to. That's no problem, since that's the next thing that we'll be getting to, is moving everything around to where things have been set UP for them.

whatever's easiest for you. I'll actually be posting up directions for when we start cleaning up either later tonight (I just got home from work, still night for me) or tomorrow after some sleep. I've got one more subdomain to go through for this part, and then we can actually start with the cleanup.

Thank you . It'll still help me.

I get excruciating migraines monthly. Latest one started yesterday, so I'm in for at least another week of hell. They last me no less than 7 days at a stretch. Now that I've gotten older, that is. It USED to be, that my headache FREE days were maybe 7 days out of a month. If I was lucky. To quickly bring up your blood sugar, drink some orange juice. Having diabetics in my family, that's a very old trick that is used to bring UP the blood sugar when it crashes like that. For headaches, I've tried all kinds of prescription stuff, and none of it has ever worked for me the way it's supposed to. So, I stay with the OTC stuff, particularly naproxen (Aleve). IT works better than the other stuff. It doesn't make it go away (NOTHING makes 'em go away), but it takes enough of the edge off the pain to make it so it's easier for me to deal with. I also tend to have the muscle from my neck down to my tailbone get very tight and stiff from these as well. That just makes it hurt more. Some days it feels like one giant charlie horse. So, a hot soak to loosen up the muscles helps. Since the neck area gets particularly tight, my mom told me one of HER old tricks to help loosen all that up and help provide a little relief. Take an old tube sock, put dried beans or rice in it and tie it off at the end. Microwave it for a minute or so, until it's as hot as you can stand it. Put it behind your neck and slowly roll your head from side to side. That loosens things up ALOT. Which helps. Your best bet, of course, since you get these chronically is to see a doctor for them. Just because the prescription stuff doesn't work for mine, doesn't mean it won't for yours.

Changes in tv zone: Angel, CSI, Smallville, Stargate: SG-1, and Supernatural are all top level categories. The other 2nd level categories have been split as in the other multi title archives.

The top level categories for originals are now all on the originals main page. They became top level categories because of the sheer volume of stories they each had. So, to find those, you would (if you're another part of the archive) use the menu to browse to originals and switch your subdirectory, and you'll see them all there right on the main page for original fiction. As to the Gravitation het category, thing is, until we're done sorting through all those stories that were originally in ONE category, it'll be hard to say if it lives or dies yet. If there are stories in the archive for it, it'll stay. If not, it'll die. It's honestly that simple. Same goes with pair specific type categories, wherever they happen to live. If, after we've gone through each and every section, they don't meet the criteria of 10 or more stories, the stories will get merged into their parent pair type category, and that pair specific category will be gone. As I've explained before, what you're seeing now, is the recategorization, which is a very necessary occurrence before even ATTEMPTING to clean up the archive as a whole. We're looking at approximately 100,000 individual story uploads across all those subdomains. This is only the beginning of a large task. Something that's a positive already from all this, is that it's defnitely helped the overall health of the archive database itself. By changing levels, and subleveling more, what happens is that the queries that are in the script, are not looking for everything all at once anymore. So, by changing the structure, it makes the queries work better, which in turn means that the database isn't overloaded with too many queries at one time. Which slows things down alot. Causes time outs as well as other things. Also causes white space in tables, which is a very bad thing. White space can CRASH a database. Unrecoverably. Hell, I pay extra so that I have a faster than normal broadband connection, and I can SEE a definite difference in speed of execution for page draws. Now, as I can see such a huge difference with my connection, imagine someone who still has dialup. THEIR page draw and script execution time will have increased even more visibly than what I have seen with my connection. When one considers that in September of last year, for example, this thing was ready to implode in on itself, there is a real need for what is being done. Yes, there have been things done since then to help forestall any major problems with the database, but they have been small fixes, and only bought us some time to implement larger fixes which have a positive long term effect on the database itself. This particular fix, which is the largest one to date, will stabilize the database to the point of buying us time to do what needs to be done to the code itself. Rather than a continuous scramble to keep the thing from teetering on the brink of implosion, which means NONE of us have time to get to the coding. Because you all hear from me the most doesn't mean squat, by the way, insofar as what we each do. It just means that I'm the most vocal (and therefore the most visible) of the three of us. manta2g with her overall abilities with programming, xax with his overall abilities with query structure, and me, I'm an old hand with making data work efficiently in a database and restructuring things to make that happen. But, our strengths individually with this sort of thing all complement each other. So, you see, while you may see/hear from me most, it doesn't by any means mean that I'm the only one doing things. I can say with certainty that the task I'm doing now, would've moved at a snail's pace comparatively, had I not asked xax for some queries to simplify and speed things up in data manipulation. It also would be much slower if I didn't have the coded utility provided for me by manta2g to simplify other tasks as well, that this entire task requires of me. pffft. I'd still be working somewhere in Naruto if I didn't have those extra tools provided to me. Instead of being maybe a day or two away from finishing up this initial task, before we get to actually cleaning things up. I'd be looking at weeks left to this part instead.

Vampire, Fantasy, and Dark Fic are all top level categories.

Challenges and requests are set up to be done in the forum. Those forums per zone and top level category, are set to NOT require login. So, the user can pop over, post their challenge, and be done without ever having to make a forum login. Gravitation has 3 het pairs in it (Tohma/Mika, Hiroshi/Ayaka, Claude (K) and his wife). Plus, there are other minor female characters in the manga and anime as well. Yes, it is a YAOI manga/anime, but that doesn't mean that there aren't het pairs within the storyline itself, as there are. Okay.... For Originals, I did it in such a way as to compensate for that bedamned blighted near useless thing we call a search engine in the archive. So, say for example, you specialize in writing angst, and you prefer writing het. You'd then put your fiction in the angst top level, with the subcategory of het. It'll help make things easier to find. For Poetry (which is also now a top level, among others), I've set up different second level categories based on poetry TYPE. i.e. haiku, sonnet, etc.

Okay, what I'm looking for specifically are links to these things. If, for example, you go the next chapter and there is no author data, that would be a glitched story. If it doesn't navigate to the next page (where there is a link for a page), that's also a glitched story. Can't fix if if I don't know where it is.....

What this means is that we are in the process of doing things. When it comes to single character categories, those won't be happening. Sorry.

Finished up movies zone. PotC and Star Wars are both now top level categories. Again, keep in mind that this is the BEGINNING of what is coming up, which is the overall cleanup. In order to clean it UP, it has to be properly categorized first. Non English will stay the same, no need for changes there. Originals will have SEVERAL categories become top level categories, with the ability to sort where they're placed with the overall schema set up everywhere else so far. Also, there will just be the general misc type stuff which remain where it is.

The other thing, is if this beta insists on posting your work, I'll put it all together to show all of this, to where it can't be implied it wasn't stolen...and into the Hall of Shame it will go. I'm evil like that.

Absolutely you should post it first. Plagiarism is plagiarism, and your beta shouldn't steal your work.

I'd restore it to what it was before the beta tried to make it her own thing isntead of yours, and then take it from there, I think.

Your offer of help is certainly appreciated. . Once I'm done with this initial recategorization, then we start cleanup. You can be sure that at that point I will be asking for your help.