January 1, 2001: Sadly, this is not the reopening of the Clearinghouse. Something has gone wrong with my browser--it now freezes up while it can't find a URL, and sometimes crashes my computer. I'm working on that problem now. I don't know when I'll have it fixed and the Clearinghouse reopened, but the Clearinghouse will reopen. As a testament to that, I've gone ahead and paid to eliminate the delay page that previously showed up when you typed in the Clearinghouse's V3 URL. We're in this for the long haul, folks. I'll see you soon,
November 15, 2000: Due to a major software failure, the reopening has been pushed back to sometime in December. Thank you for your patience, and once again, please hold your site submissions in reserve until we have officially reopened.
It is long past time for an overhaul.
So, to that end, I am officially closing the Clearinghouse to new submissions, effective immediately. This update contains the 14 sites that I have received over the past six months that have not been rejected or dropped off the face of the earth, in the following sections:
I have also put up an overall Excuse page update, with the best of what I have read over the past six months. All of these stories will be going up in the Bookshelf section.
The Clearinghouse overhaul will consist primarily of three items:
1. A concrete entry format. Over the two and a half years the Clearinghouse has been in operation, I have received a few complaints about my rather free-wheeling style of site descriptions, both from webmasters offended by my word choices and readers who followed my categories only to find, for example, one Highlander story in among a hundred Final Fantasy works. So, I will be going through the listings and redoing every entry in the Clearinghouse--all 450-odd of them--in a format similar to this one:
Site name and link
Categories: This will list every category this site is listed under at the Clearinghouse, in descending order of relevance (read: story count).
Story count: The total number of stories I counted at the site. Expect a rough estimate, as opposed to a precise number. Also, expect me to reverse a previous trend and begin discounting poetry in my story counts.
Comments: Any particular observations I have about the site. These tend toward either the good or the neutral. Be warned, however--I can be downright merciless when it comes to sites that are difficult to navigate.
(Date this entry last updated in italics)
For an example of how this will look with an actual site:
Club Jade
Categories: Star Wars
Story count: 70
Comments: The homepage for the Internet extension of the infamous AOL Star Wars fan club known as the Star Ladies. Club
Jade is the home to some of the more talented Star Wars authors on the Internet.
(10/9/00)
I haven't acted on any of the broken link notifications I've received over the past six months, because I will be cleaning these up as I go through with the overhaul, and I saw no point in basically doing the same work twice. I have retained these e-mails, and will be making use of the URL corrections contained therein as I progress.
2. A master list. The biggie, from my POV. This will make entry maintainence, particularly with cross-category sites, far easier for me than it has been. I should have maintained one of these from the first; however, the first one I tried, when I was originally assembling the Clearinghouse, was in Word as opposed to plain HTML (further proof that I am The World's Biggest Idiot), which gave me no end of headaches, delayed the opening for a full three months, and soured me on the whole concept until it was a bit too late. This list will be maintained regularly and will be available from the main page.
3. The resources page. I will have this up when I reopen, and I plan to make it the Clearinghouse's biggest feature after the links themselves. Along those lines, look for the Site Fights logo on the Welcome Mat to disappear in favor of a button link to the Viewable with Any Browser Campaign, and a few updates to my 'Net-related rants.
The internal structure of the Clearinghouse is also going to undergo a fairly radical change; those who are linked to pages inside the Clearinghouse as opposed to the Welcome Mat had best take this latest opportunity to change their links, because this time, I will not provide redirection pages. I will be contacting any webmasters I find not following my wishes in this regard.
The external appearance of the Clearinghouse, aside from the new entry format, will probably remain as is, with a few changes; I have no artistic talent, so the odds of my brandishing a new logo (with a new color layout to go with it) are fairly remote, and I like the way the main page looks.
I hope to reopen the Clearinghouse in early to mid-November. If you have any thoughts about my plans or this site, now is the time to let me know.
Until November, I remain...
July 20, 2000: sigh It wouldn't be the Clearinghouse if I didn't drop off the face of the earth for a few months, would it? No new material today, I just wanted to let you know that new material is coming, and soon. This weekend, look for roughly three months' worth of excuses, at least one new rant, and the opening of the resources page.
Also, over the next week I will try to clear my mailbox and deal with the backlog of submissions and broken links in preparation for a major overhaul of the site during August.
Until Sunday,
April 2, 2000: My apologies for the delay; I was laid low by a cold this past week. Now, then.
Though it was not recorded here, the Square section update took place and was posted as scheduled. This week, I have twenty-one new sites in the following sections:
Next week will see the comics and cartoon sections updated, and I hope to finally open the resources page. The week after that, look for new Babylon 5 and Buffy sites.
And, one final note. Another April Fool's Day has come and gone, with the requisite hoaxes and practical jokes. Some of the tricksters this year really stood out, and I would like to take a moment to salute one of them: Mea, webmaster of V4: Past, Present, and Future, who actually enlisted the PTB's behind the Voltron TV series to lend further credence to one of the best pranks I've seen in quite a while.
Until next week,
March 5, 2000: Well, one would think that I'd have learned by now that I'm a terrible juggler. Something's going to be done about that.
Folks, we have eighteen new sites in the following sections:
I should also note the addition of Phoenix Virtual Television, which encompasses most of the TV section.
From now on, weekly updates will alternate between adding new sites and updating the entries of existing ones. Next week I will finally update the Square entries and, if I have time, start in on the Comics section. I will also take care of the backlog of broken link notifications that have been piling up in my mailbox and, I hope, get the resources section up. (Don't hold your breath on the last one, though.) The weekend after that, look for new Star Wars sites.
Until next week,
February 12, 2000: Well, two out of three isn't too bad :P Chalk it up to just plain laziness, I'm afraid. Shouldn't happen again. The Phantasy Star entries have been updated, and I have 20 new sites in the following sections:
I'm still looking for opinions on a reader recommendations section--how should it be done, should it be done at all, etc. Also, I'm in search of a quality free-/shareware HTML editor for Macintosh and a description of it for the Resources page, which is nearing completion and should be up in the next week or two.
I also have two rants--one on NC-17 rated stories and one on plagiarism and fanfic based on novels--slowly making their way down the pipeline.
Next week, look for the Square section update and new sites in the Star Trek section. I hope.
January 19, 2000: I owe everyone an apology. I have been sitting on this update for over a month, and I have no real excuse for it other than to say that I got bogged down while attempting a section update and did not touch the site again for some time. Anyway, I have a few things this update, so let's get to it.
To begin, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to invite you all to join me in giving a final salute to Guestworld, providers of the Clearinghouse guestbook, for failing to recognize the existence of my account for a stretch of a week straight, then summarily deleting all of my entries without warning--twice--in the space of a day. How many fingers are on that salute is entirely up to you, but may I recommend the fewer, the better.
In response to this rousing display of customer service, I have pulled the guestbook from the Clearinghouse pages for the forseeable future. In its place will be a writing and HTML resources page, which I will hopefully complete by the end of the month. I am also considering a reader recommendation area, and would like to hear any thoughts you might have on the feasibility and/or format of such a section.
I have thirteen new sites in the following sections:
Before the mid-December breakdown, I finished entry updates in the Other Games, Fighting Games, and Other RPGs sections.
There will be no update this weekend, as I'm going to try to get my bearings and make some progress on another project I'm working on. For the weekend of 1/29, look for new X-Files sites, and updates in the Square and Phantasy Star sections (I hope).
Until then,
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