CSI - General [232] CSI - Ship Ahoy! [645] CSI - Slashed [577] CSI - Bitextual [11]
CSI: Miami - General [19] CSI: Miami - Ship Ahoy! [184] CSI: Miami - Slashed [143]
CSI: NY - General [14] CSI: NY - Ship Ahoy! [81] CSI: NY - Slashed [44]
Crossovers [116]
Challenges [4]
In order to see this site in its full glory, you will need to download and install cheapskate font if you don't have it already. If this looks different, you have it installed.
Latest update
I've made some housekeeping changes, including:
- updated the help page to reflect the new names that pages have (just in case you couldn't figure out that 'edit personal information' and 'edit bio' meant the same thing ;) )
- fixed the issue with the skins that meant that the menu wasn't wrapping in smaller resolutions
- uploaded a new version of series.php, which had unfortunately not uploaded properly, so you should now be able to add series
- I think I've now caught most of the places where links were still wrong. The new site handles non eFiction pages like links etc that we'd added to the old site in a totally different way than it used to, meaning that any links to those pages built into the old version of the skins had to be changed. And, of course, I missed a few the first time around.
I've also added a new skin - called 'elegantcsi' - which doesn't use as many images, so is a bit better for those on dial up.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to report things like this. We do appreciate it, as we're never going to be able to catch everything ourselves. I would ask, however, that when you do contact us, you remain polite. I realise that sometimes things might be a bit frustrating, but there's really no excuse to be rude to any of the archivists, all of whom are giving up their free time (and money in some cases) to run the site for you. Being rude is never a good way to get someone to take you seriously and look into any issues that you might be having.
Thank you.
Story submissions now turned back on
As the title says - everything seems to be in working order, so I've turned story submissions back on.
CSI Forensics Version 2
We've completed the upgrade, and while we know there are a few issues to tweak, the functionality is all there, new and improved.
First of all, I'd like to thank Aithine, who once again proved invaluable in helping me update and who supplied a lot of technical support during the upgrade of Wraithbait that made this upgrade even possible.
There are a number of changes -- which you are welcome to poke around and discover! Feel free to sign up, sign in, and play!
FYI: a quick look at the four biggest changes.
First, there is a new and improved search facility! Yay! There are still some issues around the way that it searches - searches on rating or word length don't work, and if there is nothing with your search terms the engine returns all stories in the archive, but these are eFiction issues rather than anything we can do anything about.
Series and challenges are now handled differently. There is a new challenges function and you can now add stories separately and connect them using the series function rather than having to submit them as additional 'chapters' as you did previously.
Please bear in mind that because of the new way the site handles series and chapters within stories, links to particular chapters will no longer work. Links to a story as a whole should be fine.
You can now have more than one author on a story as long as each author has an account on the site -- no more creating a new 'x-and-y' account!
Lastly, you can now submit stories in more than one category -- if your story is both Gil/Sara and Catherine/Nick you formerly had to pick one of the two and submit the story as a whole under Multiple Relationships. Now you can simply submit it under each relationship category. Additionally, the category formerly known as Cross-genre, for stories containing both slash and het relationships, is now known as Bitextual.
Two very important things...
I will be upgrading the archive to a more up to date version of eFiction this weekend. This means that:
- story submissions are currently turned off. This means that you will not be able to add new stories or edit stories that are currently on the site. This will ensure that we can clear the queue and back up the site in plenty of time before the upgrade. Once the upgrade is complete and the dust has settled, we'll turn them back on again
- the site will be down for some of the weekend.
I've also turned off anonymous reviews, because apparently some very pathetic people have nothing better than flame authors. We encourage concrit, but there is a world of difference between giving constructive critical feedback on a story and being a complete ass on the internet.
The former helps authors improve. The latter creates a stack of work for the archivists, who have to go in and delete individual flames, and makes us cranky and inclined to bite. So, we've resorted to turning the ability to leave unsigned reviews off until the new archive is up and running. At that point we'll be able to capture their IP addresses and ban the pathetic ones from accessing the site.
The downside to a moderated archive
One of the upsides to a moderated archive is that hopefully the stories that reach the site comply with our rules, which means that things are in the right place, there are no character bashing stories and that all stories archived at least meet some very minimum quality standards.
Of course, one of the downsides is that almost every story that is submitted has to be read by one of the archivists before it can be validated. And as the archive is dependent upon volunteers, that means that the archivists have to do this in their often limited free time.
We've asked in previous news posts that authors wait at least a week before they contact us, chasing up a story that's in the queue. There's a good reason for that - if we're pressed for time, particularly with holidays and real life commitments, then the weekend may be the only free time we have that can be spent on the site, which means that if you submit a story just after we've cleared the queue, it may be a few days before we get a chance to get to it again.
Most of you have been very, very good at recognising that we're all volunteers, and we're very grateful for it. However, there have been a number of occasions in the last couple of weeks where people have contacted us within a matter of hours or a couple of days of stories being submitted, so I thought it would be a good idea to remind you of the 'wait a week' guidelines. Running the site is a hobby for the archivists too - often a thankless one - and as most of us work, raise children or are studying in addition to the time spent on the archive, those things obviously need to take priority.
I'd also like to remind people that the site does record when stories are added. If it didn't, then you wouldn't have anything in the 'most recent additions' part of the site, because without an 'added' or 'updated' date, the software wouldn't be able to tell what is new and what isn't.
Which also means, of course, that there isn't a great deal of point in mailing us and saying, 'My story's been in the queue for more than a week now' when the site shows that it was submitted yesterday :)
If anyone would like to volunteer to help out to speed things up, please see this news post. We're always looking for people who have a strong grasp of the basics of writing and a lot of tact to join the archiving team.
Thank you :)
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