Forever Knight Website Archive

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Archive
Name: Forever Knight Website Archive
Date(s): 6 February 2010 (official debut) - present
Archivist: Greer Watson
Founder: Greer Watson & Stephanie Kellerman
Type: website archive
Fandom: Forever Knight
URL: Forever Knight Website Archive
Screen capture of the ToC page of the Forever Knight Website Archive.
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The Forever Knight Website Archive is a collection of fan websites related to the television series Forever Knight. It is hosted at www.foreverknight.org, and linked to the index page of that site.[note 1]

The following description of the Archive[1] is provided at the top of its table of contents:

"The Forever Knight Website Archive was inspired by Yahoo!’s advance warning of their decision to close GeoCities on 26 October 2009. Many websites connected with Forever Knight fandom were going to be affected. Although some were converted to paid sites or moved elsewhere by their owners, the majority were simply going to disappear: some had owners who were no longer active in the fandom; other people did not know how to save their sites and had nowhere to post them. In the belief that the forced closure of these sites would be a major loss to the fans for whose benefit they had been started, it was decided to save them.

Some additional sites that are no longer available elsewhere have also been included in the archive. These have been provided by fans who preserved copies."

History

On 23 April 2009, Yahoo! announced that it would be closing its free GeoCities webhosting service. In late June, they announced 26 October 2009 as the closure date.[2] After that, all free GeoCities sites would disappear.

On 8 August 2009, Nancy A. Taylor posted a query to ForKNI-L:

Due to the coming demise of Geocities' personal web pages, I was wondering if anyone who has a Geocities site has moved yet or has plans to do so in the near future. It would be a real shame to lose so many FK web sites, even if they haven't been updated in a while. None of us wants to lose the history of our fandom! [...] [I]s anyone going to save these sites? I'd especially hate to lose the War archives and faction archives.[3]

On 25 August 2009, Stephanie Kellerman posted an offer of webspace to ForKNI-L, and her website http://www.foreverknight.org therefore became the home of the Archive.[4]

Sites were collected by Greer Watson until GeoCities finally went down on 27 October 2009; and editing and uploading proceeded into the following year. Some additional material was provided by other fans who had saved sites that had subsequently disappeared from the Web.

The Forever Knight Website Archive officially debuted on 6 February 2010 with an announcement on ForKNI-L.[5]

Ownership and Permissions

The people involved in the Forever Knight Website Archive and the collection of the material within it consider all websites, fan fiction, fan art, and other material collected to remain the property of their creators. They are simply being saved from the GeoCities debacle.

In many instances, it proved possible to contact the websites' or stories' owners and get explicit approval of the move. However, in other cases there was either no e-mail address on the site, or there was no response.

As the project progressed, updates were made periodically to ForKNI-L. Collection proceeded with the knowledge of list members; and the names of websites saved were posted to the list.

Method of Collection

Sites collected directly off the Web were saved manually by (a) saving the source HTML text of each page, and (b) right-clicking on each graphic, screen capture, or sound file. Much the same method was used for the few sites where all or part was retrieved from the Internet Archive, except that it was not possible to right-click on graphics, which instead were e-mailed. On some websites, it was necessary to collect some of the contents from the server rather than the web page.

Editing and Alterations

In general, all sites required some editing before they could be posted to the Forever Knight Website Archive:

  • the removal of those portions of code added by the Yahoo! server to generate the frame containing the sidebar that had advertising
  • changing internal absolute links to relative links (where necessary)[note 2]

The following changes were intended to make the sites more useful to fans while remaining in accord with the website owner's original intentions:

  • correcting typos on links so that missing pictures could be seen, and missing stories could be read
  • updating external links to other websites that still exist on the Web, including those being added to the Archive

In some instances, the internal structure of the site (folders and subfolders) was altered, but without changing the appearance of any of the webpages. However, there were certain sites that presented particular challenges or dilemmas.

Merc Central

Merc Central, the faction site for the Mercenaries Guild, had existed just prior to data collection, but had suddenly disappeared from the Yahoo! server. There was an imperfect copy on the Wayback Machine; and a copy of an earlier version of the site was offered by a ForKNI-L list member, Desiree. The decision was made, therefore, to merge the two versions, adding new graphics where necessary. The current Merc Central site, though similar to earlier versions, is more accurately described as the latest edition.

Nunkies Anonymous

The eponymous Nunkies Anonymous faction site had, over time, existed in various versions with a variety of subsections. Not all remained part of the extant version on the Web; but they had been recorded at one time or another by the Internet Archive and were available on the Wayback Machine. As with Merc Central, the decision was made to merge all existing material in order to produce a maximally useful and interesting website for fans. The version in the Forever Knight Website Archive is therefore a new edition.

In addition, The Jewelled Peach—the fan fiction archive for the faction, which had been on a different server and long since disappeared—was also located on the Wayback Machine. As the background graphic had vanished, leaving a white page with yellow text, it was decided to add it to the Archive as well, with the background recoloured to improve legibility.

KnightWalker

April French's website, Knightwalker: April's Forever Knight Fanfiction (archived original version, accessed 16/July/2010) had been abandoned in the middle of a major revision. The version currently in the Forever Knight Website Archive is therefore a new edition of the site, which she has completely revised.

Individual Stories

Although, in most cases, websites were saved in their entirety, even when portions of the site did not pertain to Forever Knight, there were some instances where this was not practicable. Some individual Forever Knight-related fan fiction was found on large multi-fandom sites that archived stories from multiple authors; others were crossover stories from sites whose primary focus was a different fandom. In either case, the story itself was saved but not the rest of the site. Individual fan fiction is collected in a separate subsection of the Forever Knight Website Archive.

Contents of the Site in 2010

The following is a list of the websites that were in the Forever Knight Website Archive when it officially debuted.

Sites already on www.foreverknight.org

Sites provided by Desiree

Moved directly to the Archive

Sites collected by Greer Watson

It should be noted that, in terms of their web addresses, some of these were actually pages or subsections of websites with a single owner; but they were usually listed separately in Links pages since they had different names and contained different material.

Forever Knight Mailing Lists

Faction Sites

Faction Archives

(To be considered a faction archive, the site must not only have a faction affiliation but also include stories by several different writers.)

War-Related Websites

Forever Knight-focused Personal Websites

Sites in this section may include some material that is not related to Forever Knight.

Multi-Fandom Personal Websites

Although the sites in this section include some Forever Knight-related material, much of the site is devoted to personal material or other fandoms.

Sims

Additional Material

Since the debut of the archive, some additional websites have been added. In 2012, Stephanie Kellerman discontinued her other Forever Knight website, FKVoyage.com, and moved its contents to the Archive, including the FTP site. In 2013 were also added a copy of www.fkfanfic.com (made in 2001); a number of Fortune City sites that had been saved after that hosting service disappeared; and some sites restored from copies on the Wayback Machine or provided by other fans.

Mirror Sites

From FKVoyage.com

Major Archive

Additional GeoCities Sites

Fortune City sites

Faction sites

Personal sites

Individual Stories

Campaigns & Petitions

Other

Sites from Other Sources

Most of these sites have been restored (sometimes heavily restored) from copies on the Wayback Machine, with additional material provided by other fans, taken from other websites, located using Google, or recreated by the editor.

Faction sites

War Sites

Personal sites

Other

Notes & References

Notes

  1. ^ The contents of this page have largely been adapted from the page on the Forever Knight Website Archive in the Forever Knight Wiki.
  2. ^ An absolute link includes the entire web address, which for these pages and the images on them means a GeoCities address. As a result, when someone clicked on one of these links to go to a new page, they were taken to it through the GeoCities server. Similarly, it meant that the browser put images on the page by accessing them on the GeoCities server. Once Yahoo! deleted GeoCities, none of the files were on the server any more. Therefore, in order for pictures to show on the page, or someone to click onto another page in the site, this all had to be rewritten.

References

  1. ^ "Forever Knight Website Archive". 2013-01-12. Archived from the original on 2013-01-12.
  2. ^ GeoCities Wikipedia (accessed 16 July 2010).
  3. ^ "FORKNI-L – Digest - 8 Aug 2009 to 9 Aug 2009 (#2009-131)". 2013-01-09. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09.
  4. ^ "FORKNI-L – Digest - 24 Aug 2009 to 25 Aug 2009 (#2009-142)". 2013-01-09. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09.
  5. ^ "FORKNI-L – Sat, 6 Feb 2010". 2013-01-09. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09.
  6. ^ "WELCOME TO THE NEW JADFE ARCHIVES". 2013-01-13. Archived from the original on 2013-01-13.
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