Okay, so no upgrade. As soon as school stops kicking my butt I'll rectify that. It's gotten to the point where all I think about are derivatives and I absolutely detest math.
Anyway, count on an upgrade toward the end of July. My Calc class runs a little long.
Since the site isn't going to be moved to the new server anytime soon, I've decided to upgrade the archive script sometime this weekend. I'll be sure to do it in the early morning hours when it's unlikely that anyone will be visiting. If you want to preview new versions in advance, I always upgrade my test archive first, followed by the Otaku Institute sites. I have the most to lose with this one.
1) You can now submit yaoi/yuri fanfics of any rating. I originally disallowed fics over T (PG-13) because I was afraid that authors would receive flames. This archive has only general and het fanfics at the moment. Hopefully, the general population has grown up a little since then. I'll re-add the ones I moved to OISA someday soon.
2) I fixed the help page so that it accurately reflects this archive. I tend to copy and paste a lot so that's why it used Otaku Institute terminology.
The entire process is going to take awhile. I asked customer support how long it would take since they have to do it instead of me, and I didn't receive definite answer. So, I'm going to re-open submissions. I make weekly backups of everything so, in the event of a data loss, it won't be too bad.
Yes, everything's still in limbo. I have to make a manual backup of everything (not that I don't usually do it) so PLEASE don't add/change anything after 8pm EST.
For updates, please see the archive of my mailing list. It's a lot easier to post there than to post on three different sites. You don't have to join the ML; the archive is accessible to everyone.
This is pretty much a plea for you NOT to add or change anything on the site until February 16th. I have to change over to a new server and it might take awhile for the URLs to switch over to it. This means that whatever you add/change might be lost after my domain is pointing to the new server. Actually, it's probably better for everyone to wait until I give the "all clear."
At least I was able to actually get to the end of the upgrade script, but things aren't working correctly so I have to figure out how to change that. You can read fanfics (submissions are still closed for now), but there may be periodic outages.
Oh, before I forget, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.
12/26/07: I think I've fixed everything so submissions are open again. If you get any errors, or if any pages fail to load, then contact me.
I thought I had posted a note about this, but it seems to have mysteriously disappeared...
The upgrade was a complete disaster and forced me to restore from backup three times before I gave up. What little help I could find on the eFiction forums resulted in try #4. Now, since no one will answer my post, I have to figure out how to fix things on my own. No, I really don't know what I'm doing, but there aren't many other options.
Submissions will be closed as I try a manual upgrade sometime ths week. I figure that there will be very little site traffic (if there were any to begin with) so it's the perfect time.
I'm going to upgrade this archive to version 3. The benefits outweigh the potential difficulties of upgrading at this point. But before I can do this, I need to create a new skin that's compatible with the new version (I did this for the DBFLSA (now OISA) so it's only fair). Hopefully this will be done by the end of the month. Once I upgrade I'm going to integrate the off-site fanfiction into the archive and also add the rest of the fanfics from the old, non-automated DBFL (about 150) and some fanfics from the 2004 Sennenki fanfiction contest that never happpened.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc., leave a comment or e-mail me.
Recently I've had a few submissions not show up on the site like they were supposed to. The listing was there, but the actual story was not. Please check after uploading/copy&pasting your story to make sure it's really up on the site. If you get errors at the top of the page stating that the file doesn't exit, try adding the text again by editing your story. If the problem persists, e-mail me by using the "contact us" link in the navigation.
Update (11/14/07): I think I've fixed the upload problem. The permissions somehow changed for the directory that all the stories are saved in so that no one except me could write to it. If you try to submit your fanfic to the archive again it will (hopefully) work. If you have any problems please contact me.
The submission rules aren't there to look pretty, people. I'm not going to approve your submission if you don't follow them, especially the ones about content. I thought I'd made a news post about the importance of the rules when I posted it on the other archives, but apparently not.
I want everyone to know that the submission rules for this site are not identical to the ones found on The Otaku Institute and The Otaku Institute Same-Sex Archive even though the three sites do share some of the same rules. Each site has rules that are specific to that particular archive since they all have different focuses. So you need to read the rules on each site in their entirety so that you won't accidentally break any of them.
Here is a list of the universal archive rules:
- You can add fanfics, songs, lists, etc. to an archive as long as they match the theme of the archive. You can't add incomplete chapters, author's notes as separate entries, advertisements, etc. Also, your authors notes must be less than 5% of the total text of your submission.
- You can submit fanfics that don't match the theme of the archive but they have to be e-mailed to me with via attachment (HTML or plain text) with all of the submission's information.
- It is recommended that you have your work edited by someone else as you may miss mistakes. Spellcheck is also recommended.
- Plagiarism is very serious and is not allowed. Those who are found to be plagiarists will be deleted and banned from the site.
- Fanfics that contain sexual content must be marked with an M (R) or AO (NC-17) rating depending on the level of detail.
- Story titles and summaries must be no higher than PT (PG) level.
- You are not allowed to submit part of your fanfic and then link to the rest on another site.
I combined the vidfic category with the songfic category since there weren't many fanfics in either and they're so similar. I also created a new category, drabbles, for those who write fanfics with small wordcounts (under 1000 words or a series of chapters each under 1000 words). Previously I didn't allow these fanfics, but I've seen this type in other archives so it's obviously something people are interested in. I'll update the submission rules and/or the help page to add the requirements for submission to the new category.
Also, I fixed the fanart page so that there aren't any broken images. The problem cropped up after I got a subdomain for the DBFL. Eventually this page will be moved to the Otaku Institute, but I don't know when that will be.
Okay, so the archive is now 43 fanfics lighter. I removed all of the stories that were written about other fandoms, but the original stories are still up.
I also decided not to upgrade this archive to eFiction 3.0 since I don't really need to. Not much was added to that version beyond a lot of customization options. I also don't want to screw up this archive if the upgrade goes wrong the way it almost did for the slash archive. If you see a big difference between the functionality of this archive and OI (or OISA) and it bugs you, you can contact me about it.
Starting today I'm letting people add their fanfics to the new site. I'm also in the process moving all non-Dragon Ball fanfics from this one to that one. Until I get all of them (and their reviews) they'll still be up. I should be finished by the end of the week.
The Otaku Institute has rules that are different from the ones found here, so read the submission rules, the terms of service (regulations), and the help page (psychiatry) carefully.
Until I get around to changing the splash page, you won't find the URL by going to http://www.gokugirl.com.
Since I don't want people adding or editing fanfics while I'm trying to do things with the database, I'm not going to allow people to add new stories or edit existing ones. If you have the login page bookmarked, please don't login.
You can still read fanfics like normal. That's not going to be affected for the most part, though there will be a little downtime in the future.
I've decided to create a general anime, manga, video game fanfic archive. This doesn't mean that I'm getting rid of the general archive, just that I'm going to be reorganizing my sites again.
The new archive is going to be called The Otaku Institute. It will become the main fanfic archive. The DB Slash Archive will become a sister-site of the Institute (and will have its name changed). All of the non-Dragon Ball fics in the general archive will be moved to the Institute and I will start to allow all DB/DBZ/DBGT slash fics on the gen archive (and I don't want to see flames on any of them).
In addition to this, I'm going to be upgrading both of my existing archives to the newest version of eFiction. Currently I'm experimenting with the upgrade so that I won't screw anything up during the real thing. I also need to create new skins and update my old ones. It might even be January before I get to it.
If anyone's got questions/comments/concerns, feel free to contact me. I know it's an e-mail link instead of a convienient form, but don't be lazy.Recently someone posted a message to the guestbook about the quality of some of the submissions. All of the newer submissions I screen but there were older ones that were screwed up when I upgraded the archive script. If you see a fanfics that are of poor quality could you PLEASE e-mail about them (include the author and the story) at webmaster@gokugirl.com? How can I improve something if I don't know about it?
On Another Note: the next version of eFiction is going to be released sometime in October. This means a little downtime for submitters as I'm going to delete the login link so that the upgrade doesn't go badly. The features the new version has are good and there's a "report this" link to make that entire process easier. I assume that more people would report problems if they didn't have to go through the hassle of logging into their e-mail account (:cough:lazy:cough).
Silver Vegeta is my second anime-themed eFiction skin (the first is a Rurouni Kenshin skin called SA-MU-RAI). What's unique about this one is that there are two different layouts in the stylesheet. I was having some problems with IE (as per usual) and since I didn't want to give up on my idea I came up with a different design for it. It's plain because I was annoyed at the time and figured if people wanted to see a decent design that they could download a browser that actually works the way it's supposed to. To see the skin the way I originally designed it, load the site in Firefox, Netscape, or Opera.
To see a screen shot, click here. As usual, if there's any weirdness going on be sure to tell me.
Another Issue: I fixed the problem with people using bots to spam the challenge page. I should have applied the fix a while ago but I was lazy and look what happened. Now you have to be a registered member of this site (and be logged in) to issue a challenge.
I also stopped procrastinating and added more of the old fanfics I have. There are still a lot more left, unfortunately.
I'm thinking about starting up a banner exchange. I did this a few years ago but then everything fell apart. How many people would be interested in this? To discuss this topic, please follow this link to the forum.
Okay, this is entirely my fault. When I moved this archive to a sub-directory I forgot to edit the settings. Anyway, the chapter dropdown menu in multi-chaptered fanfics should be working again. Sorry about this.
I spent a week reworking this skin because of several issues that I (and probably more than a few other people) had with it.
1. My CSS was bloated with a lot of redundant declarations. I slimmed it down so the pages should load a little faster now. This skin was the first time I ever used layers instead of tables so I didn't really know what I was doing at the time.
2. I did something different with how the fanfics display since it was probably annoying to read them in a little narrow column. This took the most work since Internet Explorer was being difficult (as usual). Now once you get beyond the navigation sidebar, the fanfic should fill the entire content area.
If there are any bugs please be sure to tell me. How do I know what to fix (if anything) if everyone pretends that the problems don't exist?
Known Issues:
*Category pages and author pages that have series as well as stories are not displaying correctly (the story listings are partially beneath the navigation). I'm working on this. If anyone can provide any assistance, I'll be grateful.
*Some fanfics are missing chapters due to me upgrading the archiving script to 2.0. Likewise, some fanfics are missing linebreaks (they look like one giant paragraph). This is also due to the upgrade. If you see any fanfics like this, please tell me.