ASSTR Archive Torrent

Municipaladin

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Oct 14, 2023, 12:55:31 AM10/14/23

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A while back, I was able to find a magnet link for an archive of the repository. Have there been any efforts to restore the repository using that torrent? If not, it should be accessible on Reddit. It was posted by an archivist and user.

Eli the Bearded

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Oct 14, 2023, 2:41:39 AM10/14/23

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Yeah, I think someone did. Since it was done as a site slurp there are
some weirdnesses in there. I recall things like multple (static) copies
of some index.html files because server side page generation offered
directory listings with multiple sorting options.

Another trouble is the archive was a few years old.

Elijah
------
still seeding that torrent

Y Lee Coyote

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Oct 14, 2023, 3:51:39 AM10/14/23

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That 2017 copy of ASSTR can be found here
https://xefig.com/
and a temporary index to
https://asslr.org

Also see
https://forum.asslr.org/

True, that the last few years are missing but it far better than nothing.

Don't Let "Perfect" Be the Enemy of "Good"!

Y.

Valid return address is <YLeeCoyote (at) juno.com>
(Posting address is for the spammers)

See my stories at: https://yleecoyote.asslr.org/
Status page at: https://yleecoyote.weebly.com/

P & E

Jaxah

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Oct 14, 2023, 4:09:06 AM10/14/23

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On Saturday, 14 October 2023 at 05:55:31 UTC+1, Municipaladin wrote:
> Have there been any efforts to restore the repository using that torrent? If not, it should be accessible on Reddit. It was posted by an archivist and user.

Literally what Eli said, the archive is a weird ass mix and going through and fixing everything in the archive is a massive undertaking. I know, I started it, but it's so bad, I just gave up.

Unfortunately, the content is so frowned upon now that companies cannot host it. Anything that handles money (ads, donations, whatever) are at the whims of the money handlers, which has nuked many sites from server hosts and any that are up now is due to new policies to ban fictional text stories with underage characters.

So, I perma torrent the ASSTR archive, and make the archive browsable on xefig.com, but that is running on my own server, not part of any hosts. Yes, there is a possibility of my ISP nuking me, but that's why I torrent. Get a copy for yourself.

If there is something that you find that isn't rendering correctly, let me know and I'll try to fix it.

Bottledfones

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Oct 15, 2023, 11:48:36 PM10/15/23

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I wonder how archiveofourown.org aka AO3 is able to accept so many donations TWICE a year when their stories contain topics just as bad as asstr. And by bad I mean underage, blood and gore, etc. I don't know if you've ever visited this website but it is absolutely full of this type of content yet it remains incredibly popular and a non profit because it receives more than enough donations to sustain itself. What might AO3 be doing differently that it can continue to operate without much hassle it seems

Jaxah

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Oct 16, 2023, 2:49:26 AM10/16/23

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From AO3 website faq:
----------
Question 3:
Do you have any other restrictions on what stories you accept?

Answer:
I no longer accept stories involving characters under the age of 18 in sexual situations. The characters must be unambiguously over 18, and I will be interpreting what constitutes “sexual situations” quite liberally.

Because of legal threats I have received in the past, I am no longer accepting any fan fiction. The fan fiction that is already in the archive will remain for now; I may decide to delete it at a later time.
----------

Now, that policy is one thing and reality is another. I know full well that underaged stuff is still being added to. Perhaps not new stories? Not sure.

The other is something that they hide behind: non-profit status. This is from their news section:
----------
The tl;dr is that the OTW and AO3 are not currently implicated by KOSA and many of the other bills because of our nonprofit status (most of the proposed laws only apply to for-profit institutions). This means the operations of the OTW and the AO3 wouldn’t be directly impacted by these bills
----------

This might be why they focus on donations and not ads - to prove their non-profit status.
I imagine that if they were to add ads, just due to site traffic they would exceed non-profit status rapidly.

Still, the existence of AO3 as it is, is potentially at threat from lawmakers, and they can and will delete stuff to stay open.
That said, AO3 also allow for downloads of stories in various formats (e-pub, pdf, etc) so you can archive your favourites yourself - taking copies is the only way for these places to exist beyond the virtual grave.

Huh, I bet AO3 is, by a significant magnitude, larger than ASSTR. I wonder just how big it would be to scrape it all and have a site backup 🤔

Jaxah

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Oct 25, 2023, 7:38:26 PM10/25/23

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While I've been having fun with bots on xefig, I've been coming up against lots of 404s - stuff missing in the asstr.org archive.

And lets be frank, the 2017 archive is an attrocious mess.

So I'm thinking of setting up a version control system - probably Fossil as there are ... a lot of files (over 800k), and we will be able to clone, contribute and commit changes.

From there I'll set up the website so it is running from the latest version nightly, and the asstr.org archive can become something more useful.

And yes, this would mean that the archive could then also expand with new stuff.

Thoughts? Would people be interested in helping out and contributing to something like this?