What's Up With Archive!

Ok, so I have a lot of changes planned. This page is here to outline those changes. I would love it if you read it all throught and e-mailed me!

Ok, I have *several* ideas for the archive. I haven't had a chance to completely think them all through, but I'm gonna list what I have.

Site Design- I'm gonna go for a new look. I haven't decided what yet, when I do I would *love* any help you guys can give me. So, Caroline (rat and design goddess) and anyone else who would like to help, go on ahead and e-mail me offlist with ideas, what you can do, etc…. I'll keep a list and whatnot.
Here's the options I'm considering so far for the new theme of the site, I'll make a poll at the Yahoo!Groups site and you guys can vote. I've included examples of where I got the ideas in the first place. I am in no way going to copy the sites, but they do serve as inspiration.

• Romantic- The list mainly focuses on the romance side of things, not just K & A but all the characters. You can check out http://www.moonromance.com/ for an example of a romantic theme.
• Futuristic- Of course, KAEX isn't all romance. Voltron is a futuristic storyline. My best examples are Lioness' own KAEX Central Station at http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Ginza/2233/main.html and Arus' site at http://www.arus.org/voltron/main.html
• Combination- So this all unsurprisingly leads to a combination of the two themes. I, unfortunately, have yet to find a site that reflects this idea. That shouldn't be a problem, though.

Fan Art Archive- Yes, this *will* get done ASAP. But I'm gonna need a little help.

1. First thing's first, the format. I've already stated that the picture pages themselves will be in thumbnail format. Basically, you go to the section, click onn a thumbnail and it'll open up into the full size picture. Below it will be artist name, contact info (either e-mail or message board), any details about the piece that should be known. Here are the sections I've come up with (this is subject to change) [BTW- Lynne, if you could send me your ideas again, I lost the e-mail and there was some suggestions that I really liked. I just have a horrible memory]:
• By Artist- Basically, it'll be like a personal page. I'd love to get bio info and what not. I'm thinking artist interviews, maybe? Stuff like inspiration, fave eps, fave medium, ect…. I really like this idea b/c a lot of artists don't have they're own website, so KAEX could act like it for them! [Note: these ideas will apply to authors, see way below for details.]
• By Story- All art in this section will eventually be placed in the stories themselves as well.
• Past- Artwork of the characters before the Voltron Storyline
• Present- Set in the Voltron Storyline
• Future- After the present storyline. Wedding pictures, future children, ect…
• By Character(s)
• Fantasy- I believe there's a picture of Keith as Robinhood. That would go here.
• Misc- Pictures of the Castle, of planets, ect….
• Adult Art- Any Art that can be Rated R or NC-17 will be in this section and THIS SECTION ONLY. Rating Guidelines are covered in another e- mail.
• Feature Piece of the Month- This'll be chosen at random. I'll probably just put the name of each piece of art on a little piece of paper, mix the papers up and pick one.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm leaving out, so feel free to e-mail me.
2. Artists- Please, please, *please* e-mail me and tell me if I have permission to archive your art or not. Even if I don't have permission, I'd appreciate an e-mail telling me so. That way I don't have to track you down. If I *do* have permission, please send me your e-mail in the following format.

Site Organization- Ok, so here's my game plan. The new design for the site will be formalized, I shall then apply this design to creating a basic Art Archive. Once that's done comes the big stuff. Yes, that's right, I've got more up my sleeves. I am going to completely overhaul the site. Probably move it as well. Right now I'm looking at Tripod, which I know is owned by the same company as Angelfire, but I find Tripod's site management format more agreeable. I don't know, I just like it. But if anyone can recommend anyother good free hosts, e-mail me. I put my foot down on Geocities though. Personal reasons that have nothing to do with Yahoo. I actually kinda like Yahoo. *ducks* I'm also writing a blanket disclaimer that will go at the bottom of *all* pages. Even the stories. It'll be in small font. It's just a bunch of legal stuff to cover me and you.

Anyways, all reorgination will apply the new design and layout, obviously. Once again, a list:
1. I'm gonna split up the archive. Right now, all the stories are listed on one page and it's a bit unyieldy as a 250KB file. There will be five main sections [Note- the only sections that are FOR SURE are the Author and Adult sections, I haven't really decided if I like the format for categorizing by story yet, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated]:

• By Author- Each author will have a personal page listing all stories, top ten lists, ect…. Basically same stuff as artists. If an author has artwork in the Art section, then this page will be both their Art and Fan Fiction personal page.
Completed Stories- All completed stories can be found here. This section is further divided.
• Series- All completed stories for a series will be here. If there is an uncompleted story for the series, a link will be given to the uncompleted section.
• Single Stories- Either stories with one part or multiple parts that *are not* part of a series but are finished. Top Ten lists. YKY lists, ect… will also be housed here.
• Uncompleted Stories- Basically everything that's above, but the stories aren't finished.
• Series- Any uncompleted Sections of a series will be here.
• Multi part stories- Multipart stories that have yet to be completed.
• By Series- If you want to read a series and don't give a darn if there's uncompleted parts, go here.
• Adult section- I really don't like this title, it makes the section sound taboo or something. Any creative names? Anyways, in order to protect/warn younger internet users, and adult users who find this kind of material offensive, all rated R and NC-17 stories will be housed here. There'll be a warning page and whatnot. This is mainly for my own peace of mind b/c I know the problems that can be associated with mature material. Since there are very few stories of this nature, I will simply list them all alphabetically until the amount of stories require's categorizing.
  Now I already foresee a problem for this- There are many series and multi-part stories that may have mature parts, but the story as a whole is not. How to solve this? Well, I've got two ideas-
1. Reread the questionable parts. I've noticed some that may be rated incorrectly. I'm gonna go by the movie ratings. I'll cover rating's more in the fan-fic guidelines e-mail.
2. Write a tamer version/summary of that section. That can go in the general archive and I'll provide a link to the less tame version for those that wish to read it (with a warning page in between, of course). Other stuff I want to include in all sections is summaries of the stories. This is completely at the author's discretion.

Ok. That's it for the Fan Fiction Section.
Numbah 2!- Member links section. I'm just gonna start putting summaries of the sites. I won't get around to this for awhile.
3. Rings- Is the Love's Labor Won ring still working, Rayne? Ok, I really don't know if I'm gonna do anything new with this. I don't think I can.
4. Link to the Archives and Acknowledgements- I might add some more banners to the Links and the KAEXers Rock! button. And the Acknowledgements page will eventually host all my thankyou's that I placed on the main page.
5. Fanfiction/Fan Art Guidelines- New section that I'll be posting while I work on redesign. SEE BELOW for more details!!!
6. Writer's/Artist's Resource- I'd love to get articles written by Voltron writer's and artists. There will also be links to general sites of fan work. I've already got a set of links, but feel free to e-mail me any sites you might find helpful.
7. Voltron Resource- This goes with #6 kinda. Basically I hope to get episode summaries and character descriptions. This is to help writers and artists who are trying to remember a specificaspect of Voltron or looking for inspiration, etc…. I've got a lot of ideas for this section and the previous one, but they're gonna have to wait awhile.

Random Note: Ok. As I'm sure many of you've noticed, I've got a template for formatting new stories. I'm going to upload this template into the KAEX files section, both in html and .txt form so that you can see what I do, the templates[1,2,3] can also be found at the website.

Fan Fiction/Fan Art Guidelines- I wish to put guidelines into effect July 1st. Right now these are just roughs. I wish to get feedback on these guidelines, what to change, what to add, what to take away, etc…. I will send the formal guidelines on June 25th.
The thing is, since I'm going to be doing personal pages, I'll eventually request that all authors fill out a form like the artist form. The only reason I am not doing so right now is because I wish to concentrate on the redesign, getting the fan art archive up and running, and writing up formal guidelines. So these guidelines (both fan fic and fan art) are *really* rough. I'm just putting them out for feedback really. The guidelines will mainly be needed for new members anyways. Once I get these finalized and do the redesign and art archive, I will have a process for setting up personal pages for the authors. Did that all make sense? I'm a bit delirious ya know.

Here are some guidelines I would simply love to have people follow when sending a story to the list/uploading fan art. An * means I require it/would really love you if did this. Everything else is purely optional. You can put this stuff in any order you want and you don't even have to include the subject name (i.e. you don't need to put Title: **** or Part: ***, just write how you normally would and make it clear), but when I place it in the archive I will reorganize according to the template.

Fan Fic Guidelines:
-Here's the basic run down of stuff I hope/want to see:

• *Title
• *Part/Chapter
• Total # of Parts/Chapters
• *Author
• E-mail
• Website
• *Disclaimer
• *Rating
• Summary
• Categories
• *Archive/Archival Permission
• Author Notes

-Here's that stuff in more detail:

• *Title: What the heck is your story called? Full title or abbreviation, doesn't matter.
• *Part/Chapter: I really love numbers. They make archiving *so* much easier.
• Total # of Parts/Chapters: If you don't know, then a ? is just fine.
• *Author: That's you!
• E-mail: whatever e-mail address you want people to contact you with. I'll assume it's the e-mail you used to send your story to the list, so you only need to state this if you wish to use a different address for feedback or would prefer that no e-mail be included. If no e-mail is to be included, I shall put a message board on your personal page so that people may write feedback. Website: Got a website? Tell me about it! This only applies if your site isn't mentioned at the archive.
• *Disclaimer: While I'll have the blanket disclaimer, it's in your best interest to include your own. I have one that I've created that I will upload into the KAEX files. Feel free to use it.
• *Rating: Due to the fact that I'm going to start seperating the R and NC-17 stories from the rest of the archive this is essential, I only will require this for R & NC-17 stories, but I suggest you rate all your fics. If you say it's lime/lemon, I'll assume it's R. I also suggest telling *why* it's rated as such. There are some stories are rated R or NC-17, but not for sexual reasons and people may be willing to read such stories. Since I rarely have time to actually read any of the stories I archive, I will depend on your ratings and e-mails from others to point out the mature stories. If I discover/have been told that you've sent a story and either:
  • A) Falsely rated it lower than it should be or
  • B) Didn't even bother to put a rating when it *obviously* needed one,
  
  I will remove all you that story from the archive and will only reconsider archiving it after 1 month. If you do it again, I will remove *all* stories and will not rearchive them or any new stories for three months. I feel very strongly about the issue of protecting minors from adult material & warning those who do not appreciate such material and I don't like being duped. If you have a problem with this policy, please e-mail me privately.
  NOTE: Ratings are based of of MPAA ratings. A Ratings guideline is below and will be included at the web site.
  NOTE2: Any stories sent/archived before July 1st will not be subject to punishment. If anyone finds a story that has been incorrectly rated, please e-mail me ASAP so that I can note it.
• Summary: A summary of this particular part or the story as a whole.
• Categories: My inspiration for this and many other changes I'm making comes from Suze The Archive Goddess' JQ Archive Site: http://jq.showe.org/index.html She truly is a goddess. Anyway, categories are simply a way to warn reader's about what they might find. Kinda like a summary, but fewer words. There is a Category guideline below.
• *Archival Permission: I haven't finalized my archiving policy in regards to permission, especially since I need to work on the author form, but I think it will eventually go like this-
  1. If you filled out the form, I will assume archival permission. Unless of course the form said no archive permission given.
  2. If you filled out a form, gave permission, but do not wish to have a particulart story archived, please state so when you send the story. Archival permission will still be assumed for all subsequent stories unless permission is revoked entirely. Revoking all permission can only be done by e-mailing me directly.
  3. If you did not fill out a form I will archive only if
  • a) You give archive permission in the first part of the story. This will need to be done in the first part of EVERY NEW STORY. Even those that are part of a series.
  • b) fill out a form giving me permission to archive all your work.
  4. If permission is revoked and the writer wishes to have currently archived stories removed from the Archive an e-mail must be sent to the archivist stating so.
  5. If the writer only wishes certain stories to be removed from the archive, they must send their request to me privately.
• Author Notes: Any special messages for reader's, thank you's, etc…..

Here's things you may wish to write to me privately about:

Formatting: Alright, if you code your own story, I will try to keep it the same way you coded it. I'll probably just upload the HTML file as is with only a few changes. I can't guarantee anything though. If you indented something, that means I'll be using the paragraph markup if I reformat, so instead of an indent for each new paragraph, you'll get a space between them. I could indent, but that takes messy code and I'd rather not deal with it. Any special formatting requests you have should be sent to me privately. For non-html docs, if you're using * or any other special symbols to represent a certain text effect, say so at the beginning of the story and I'll use that effect when I code. Example: You use * for bold, I'll bold that text when I format. If want thoughts or song lyrics italicized, say so in your author notes or e-mail me. If you don't state so then I won't do it.

A couple things about my formatting. I automatically make things black background with white text. If you have sent your story in html code and with different colors, I will try to keep it that way from now on. If you send it in .txt format, you can e-mail me privately if you wish to use other backgrounds and text colors. I can also use picture's and textures as backgrounds, you just need to send me the file.

I will try to generate an example page of how I format in a couple days. But if you look at most of the new stories, you can see what I do.

Fan Art Guidelines- There are two ways you can submit Fan Art. E-mail me an attachment of the piece, or upload it into the KAEX files.
-Basic Rundown of things I would like to see in either submission format, again * means I'd really love to see it:

• *Artist name
• *Title
• *Story
• E-mail
• Website
• *Disclaimer
• *Rating
• Description
• Categories
• *Archive/Archival Permission
• Artist Notes

-Details:

• *Artist name: If you upload to KAEX, then this is done for you. If you e-mail me, be sure to include your name.
• *Title: Same as above
• *Story: Only required if it's drawn to illustrate a specific story. Please indicate what story and part.
• E-mail: If you e-mail me the form then there is no need for this.
• Website: If you e-mail me the form then there is no need for this.
• *Disclaimer: While I'll have the blanket disclaimer, it's in your best interest to include your own. I have one that I've created that I will upload into the KAEX files. Feel free to use it.
• *Rating: Same as with Fan Fiction, although it'll be easier for me catch you if you rate incorrectly because I will see the whole picture before I archive.
• Description: A description of the piece of art. You might want to mention the materials used.
• Categories: Same as fan fiction.
• *Archive/Archival Permission:
  1. If you filled out the form, I will assume archival permission. Unless of course the form said no archive permission given.
  2. If you did not fill out a form I will archive only if
     • a) you e-mailed it to me.
     • b) you give permission in the description when you upload.
     • c) fill out a form giving me permission to archive all your work.
  3. If you filled out a form, gave permission, but do not wish to have a particulart piece archived, please state so when you upload the piece. Archival permission will still be assumed for all subsequent pieces unless permission is revoked entirely. Revoking all permission can only be done by e-mailing me directly.
  4. If permission is revoked and the artist wishes to have all currently archived pieces removed from the Archive an e-mail must be sent to the archivist stating so.
  5. If the artist wishes only certain pieces be removed, they must e-mail me privately stating so.
• Artist Notes: Special messages, thank you's…Can be combined with Description.

Am I done? Heck no!

Rating's Guideline- These are based of the MPAA rating's system. I basically rewrote them to fit fanfiction. Please visit http://www.mpaa.org for more details. You don't need to follow the G, PG, PG-13 guidelines to the letter, but you know my feelings on mis-rated R and NC-17 fics.

• G: General Audiences. The G rating is not a "certificate of approval," nor does it signify a children's story. Some snippets of language may go beyond polite conversation but they are common everyday expressions. No stronger words are present in G-rated films. The violence is at a minimum. Nudity and sex scenes are not present; nor is there any drug use content.
• PG: There may be some profanity in these stories. There may be some violence or brief nudity that is employed in a nonsexual manner. There is no drug use.
• PG-13: Leaps beyond the boundaries of the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, or other contents, but does not quite fit within the restricted R category. Any drug use content will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. If nudity is sexually oriented, the story will generally not be found in the PG-13 category. If violence is too rough or persistent, the story/art goes into the R (restricted) rating. A story's single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, shall initially require at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive should give serious consideration to an R rating but is not necessary.
• R: Restricted, under 17 requires the permission of parent or guardian before reading/viewing this piece. This piece definitely contains some adult material. May include hard language, or tough violence, or nudity within sensual scenes, or drug abuse or other elements, or a combination of some of the above.
• NC-17: No One 17 And Under Permitted to view this piece. The piece is patently too adult for their youngsters under 17. No children should read/view it. NC-17 does not necessarily mean "obscene or pornographic" in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words. The reasons for the application of an NC-17 rating can be violence or sex or aberrational behavior or drug abuse or any other elements which, when present, most would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by children.

Category Guidelines- Optional stuff. Culled from the various fan fiction domains that I've been exposed to, most especially http://jq.showe.org/index.html. I've come up with a few categories of my own. If you think there's a category I left out, e-mail me!

• A- Angst/Sad Stuff. Any piece that includes major heartache or sad storylines.
• E- Adventure/Episodic. Pieces that are action-adventure based and/or close to what you would see in the actual series.
• H- Humor. Any piece primarily created for humerous effect.
• HR- Romance. Parties involved in the romance may