Dear person who pointed out a broken link...

[turps]

Why mail me complaining that one of the links at the MX archive has been broken for months? Fair enough if you went to read something today and the link was broken, mail me, I want people to do that. But keep trying for months then mail me to say I should get it fixed. WTF!

I can't keep track of *every* link at the archive. I wish I could but there's over 200 stories in there, sorted by title, writer and pairing. I always check each link when I upload something but sometimes a tag gets changed by accident, I won't know unless I go to use that link or someone tells me. Guess what? I don't read every story every bloody day, some I read once and never again.

I have a life. Yes I love my archive and I'm proud of it. But get real, I don't get paid for maintaining it. It's not my #1 priority, I do it because I love MX, it's a pleasure to do it, my small contribution to the fandom. That does *not* mean I'm here to get pissy mails about a mistake.Yes it's my mistake, and I will fix it, but you have *no* right to insinuate that I let things slide.

I do a lot of work for little reward at the archive. But I've made some fantastic friends because of it, and sometimes I even get e-mails praising the place. That's what makes it worthwhile, and that's the only reason I don't turn round and delete the whole fucking thing.

So yes, thank you for using my site, but next time you mail, forget the side order of snark.

I'm usually optimistic about fans/fandom but sometimes you get one that just makes me think why do I bother?

Sigh. Okay vent over, I feel better now.

Comments

[jenrfic.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think people forget that the people who make the sites or write the fiction have lives outside of the internet. They expect everything to work all the time and their favorit fics to be avalible all the time.

When something goes wrong they go nuts because their little world is out of wack until it's fixed. *shrug*

Like on my sentinel lists, if one of the sites goes down everyone is like: "OH MY GOD THE SITE IS DOWN THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!! AHHH WHERE'S MY FIC!!" and I'm sitting here going ahh apparetently something happen with the site and it will be back up soon. Deal with it people. The world isn't going to end if you can't read your fic.

Most of the time when a site goes down there's NOTHING the person that made it can do about it. It has to do with the server it's on or whatever hosting service the person is using. I've moved my archives at least a dosin times so far. I KNOW people are annoyed with all those moves but there's nothing I can do about it. I had to move the site due to verious reasons.

I think there's also another thing where... people forget that they are talking to other people when they send emails or they forget that someone spend time and sometimes money on makeing the sites.... because there's no in person contact it's easy to pretend you are talking ot a object rather than a person...

Jen R

[turps33.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. Some people don't seem to realise that a lot of hard work goes into the site/stories that they read. That's one of my pet peeves actually, especially when you write a long story and in a LoC are asked when the sequel is coming. Yeah it's a compliment, but writing takes time, at least if you try to do it right. No one can spent 24/7 online, they shouldn't be expected to either.

Tell me about the sites going down. I've seen that on Storyfinders all the time too btw. Once my MX archive went down while Populli's servers were being changed. There wasn't a thing that I could do about it but wait. Yet I received more mails about the site being down than I had in the last year. People only write when something goes wrong in my opinion.

Again I agree about forgetting that there's a person at the other end of a mail. It takes nothing to be polite, it's so easy to be misunderstood in a mail that it's worth thinking before hitting send.

I really think if some of the complainers spent time coding and making sites, as well as writing they'd stop moaning so much. The fanfic world is like it is because of people giving up there time to create things. They do it for the love of writing or to help fandom, not money, and their actions should be respected.

Climbing down from my soap box now.

[ochretones.livejournal.com]

I can totally see where you're coming from, Terri. I have more than 4 sites on Mutant X and it is such a pain sometimes when visitors act all high and mighty like you're their servant or something, whining at you for not getting one link right. I even get people venting at me for not hosting their music videos. I mean, come on, I pay for that webspace out of my own measly college allowance! Ugh. Fandom can be a fun place, but it takes just a few people to turn it into a nightmare sometimes.

Just ignore those stupid people. The MX slash archive is one of the best and most maintained fic archives out there, so any kind of criticism or complaints really ain't justified. :)