FKFIC-L website

Archive
Name:	FKFIC-L website/archive
Date(s):	1995-96
Archivist:	Darkangel
Founder:	Darkangel
Type:	fan fiction archive
Fandom:	Forever Knight
URL:	http://www.evil.org/fkfic/
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The FKFIC-L website was created by Darkangel (co-founder of JADFE), probably some time in 1995, and lasted until May 1996. It primarily archived Forever Knight fan fiction that had been posted to the [email protected] mailing list.

The site also included war digests up to that date, as well as transcripts of some of the actual episodes. (These had been written by Victoria Meredith and Allison Sabo, with help from Janet Dorndoff and Sara Welsh.)

History

When the FKFIC-L mailing list was established on 12 May 1993, all posts made to it were automatically archived on the PSU servers. This was standard practice for all PSU lists. That meant that any fan at the time who wanted to find a story had an archive they could access; and there were FAQs posted telling people how to do this.

However, around 1996 or so, some of the fan lists run by PSU were so very active that the university indicated that they were thinking of discontinuing them. In order to have the various Forever Knight lists continue, the list owners agreed to drop the auto-archive feature. It was at that point that a fan-run archive became necessary.

The FKFIC-L site was in existence for about a year. However, on 27 April 1996, in the post "WWW stuff", Darkangel notified the members of FORKNI-L that she was discontinuing it:

This is probably the worst message I've ever had to post to a group. Or three groups, as is the case...

The FKFIC-L web site is shutting down. I'm sorry. I just don't have the time or, honestly, the desire, any longer. From what I understand, the FTP site (which I don't know the address of, sorry) is kept very up-to-date, so you can find stories there. Also, I have a CD-ROM writer and, because I can't bear to delete it all, I'll be putting everything I currently have onto CD. (If you want a copy, it's $25 a pop - email me for details.) This includes the HTML pages, so if you want an instant fkfic-l site, you can make one.

I will maintain a JADFE archive, since that's my group and I feel responsible for it. Any author who's posted to JADFE and wants their stuff on the web site should contact me. (I'm NOT going through my hundreds of unarchived stories to figure out which ones were from JADFE. Sorry.) JADFE will remain active, but mostly because James Walkswithwind is sweet enough to keep up with the subscription requests. (So thank her, not me.)

Once again, I'm sorry for doing this to you all. I know how I'd feel if some of the fandom sites I frequented shut down. But also understand that I have a Real Life, and have been disenchanted with FK since the third season began. (In fact, I stopped watching it two eps into 3rd season.)

I hope you all don't hate me too much. And thanks for having given me the pleasure of reading all the lovely fiction written during my eighteen months of FK net-fandom. Keep the faith, eh?

Misunderstandings

At least some people seem to have mistakenly assumed that it was [email protected] itself that was going off-line, eliciting the following comment from Laurie Fenster:

Folks, _fkfic-l_ isn't going anywhere, as far as I know. Darkangel (Steffi) has very kindly maintained an fk fiction _website_ for the last year or so (http://www.evil.org or something like that). She has moved on to other interests, and maintaining a website on something you're no longer interested in is a major inconvenience. I suspect/hope? someone with the necessary computer knowledge and/or server capacity will volunteer to fill this void.

However, this has nothing to do with fkfic-l, which will continue until Listmom Jaye and/or Laurie Salopek or psu decide otherwise. And FK fiction continues to be archived at the ftp site (ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/people/lms5), though the last time I was there, it was not as inclusive as the web site.

-- excerpted from LC Fenster's post, "Clarification; fkfic-l vs. Darkangel's site", posted to FORKNI-L on 29 April 1996[1]

Comments on the Site Closure

Darkangel's post elicited some comments on list.

Gods, I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.

Sorry, Darkangel. But this site was where I *found* FK fandom, first learned who all of you were, decided I wanted to join...

I'm really sorry you feel you can't continue the web site any longer. The FTP site is great, but the organization that went into the web site was phenomenal

-- excepted from "Mourning the Web site" by J.S. Levin/Stormsinger, posted to FORKNI-L on 27 April 1996

I want to thank DarkAngel for having the guts to have kept the fiction web page going as long as it did. I'm sorry to see it go. There's at leat one group of FK potential-purchasers who did some serious downloading and reading from that page to determine whether what they wanted from FK was what the audience wanted and how it would affect the package they put together.

-- excerpted from "Monday Reminders - Long Post" by Susan M Garrett, posted to FORKNI-L on 6 May 1996