Gossamer's Ten-Year Anniversary!

[Gossamer]

The Gossamer archivists are proud to announce Gossamer's 10-year
anniversary today. Born on May 4, 1995 out of the necessity to organize
and maintain X-Files fan fiction for posterity, Gossamer reflects the
ideals of Vincent Juodvalkis (its original founder) and
alt.tv.x-files.creative (the community from which it sprang.) Despite
the ever-changing world around it, Gossamer has only changed management
twice--in August, 1996 and June, 1997. Its current administrators
(Vera, Deirdre, and Chael) have been involved with the project since
1996.

Each archivist has made their mark on Gossamer... Natasha built the
database, wrote WordPerfect macros to generate story listings, and
established the site layout. Vera established the FTP site and has been
a phenomenal resource behind the scenes. Steph, Michelle, and Amy split
off WIP's, serials, and other specialty content into independently
managed archives. Chael automated many aspects of story submissions and
story listing generation. Gem and Lisa cleaned up and databased
thousands of submissions, communicating with hundreds of authors along
the way. Deirdre redesigned the site layout several times and has
handled submissions and maintained the database for the past six years.
Many, many other volunteers have aided Gossamer's development over the
years.

Gossamer was nearly crushed under the weight of its own success when
traffic exceeded 60,000 hits per site per day in the late 1990's. We
scrambled to set up new sites as our providers became upset with the
amount of traffic. We set up the Update archive to reduce the stress on
the primary archives. Despite the gravity of the issues we faced,
Gossamer has never requested or accepted donations or advertising.

Thankfully, since the end of the show traffic has slowed to a manageable
330,000 story hits per month. Total site traffic is about 760,000 hits
per month. Gossamer transfers 13.4 GB per month in stories and 30.9 GB
per month overall. Stories account for 43% of all site traffic. There
are over 6,000 authors and 33,000 stories archived at Gossamer.

The face of fanfic online has changed dramatically during our tenure.
Many waves of authors and archivists have hit the scene with different-
-and perfectly valid--views on the way archiving should be done. We
have been watching the other archives to see what works and what
doesn't. We intend to improve the usability of Gossamer without
sacrificing its practical, no-nonsense design. Over the coming months,
we plan to roll out several small, but meaningful changes to Gossamer.
Here is a summary of those changes:

INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR PAGES - The author listings will be re-organized.
Each author will have a separate page listing only their stories. If
you are archived under multiple names, the only way to group your
stories together is to change them to the same author name. A beta
test of the new listings is available on the Tooms archive:

<http://tooms.gossamer.org/new-author.html>

NEW RATING SYSTEM - Due to concerns over rating systems in general and
the inability of our current system to adequately describe story
content, we will implement a new *optional* content keyword system.
Authors will be able to describe the type and degree of content that
exists in the story. For example, "Substantial Language. Mild
Sexuality. Mild Violence."

NEW SEARCH ENGINE - We will begin work on a new, more effective search
engine soon. There are no plans to provide full-text searching.

IMPROVE OTHER LISTINGS - We will review and tweak all of the other story
listings as we get time. One thought is to break the episode listings
into seasons for better navigation.

UPDATE HELP DESK - Deirdre did a fantastic job updating the help desk a
couple of years ago. It needs a few minor updates. For example, the
WIP, Specialty, and Update archives are all officially unmaintained at
this point. The new content keyword system will need to be described as
well.

SPECIALTY STORIES - We are considering re-integrating the specialty
stories into the completed story archives since the Specialty archive is
no longer maintained.

As always, Gossamer is dedicated to archiving the majority of X-Files
fan fiction without favoritism or distraction. We strive to provide an
appropriate balance between the needs of authors, readers, and
archivists. We appreciate the community's support over the years and
look forward to providing many more years of service.

Best Regards,
Deirdre, Vera, and Chael
The Gossamer Project, http://gossamer.org/

[Red_Scully]

wow! happy anniversary to Gossamer, and a thousand thank yous to everyone
who is or has been involved in the project - you are loved more than you
know. Here's to another ten years!

xx red

[lynx]

"Red_Scully" <ds...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4278...@212.67.96.135...

Happy Anniversary from me too! I can't tell you how much I have appreciated
Gossamer over the years.
Wonderful job, guys!
--
lynx (mulderite)

[Ursu...@gmail.com]

Thank you, Deirdre, Vera, and Chael for all you are doing! Thank you to
all the people who have contributed in the past and who will come
forward in the future.

Happy tenth birthday, Gossamer! I hope to some day celebrate your
coming of age at twenty one!

Ursula

[patf...@hotmail.com]

Yes! Happy Birthday, Gossamer! Not only an archive for the X-files
stories, but a place to go read and enjoy the tales of our favorite
agents.

I only discovered Gossamer and the related sites almost two years ago,
so there's still lots of reading I haven't done. It's also an
excellent place to refer fellow Philes to whatever type of story
they're looking for.

Thanks, people. You really do make this a fun avocation.

Pattie

[dee]

Bravo! I would like to thank you for the hours and hours of enjoyment
I've derived from reading the fics in Gossamer. It is also one of the
easiest site to navigate. You did a tremendous job making it user
friendly. I have always wondered about the cost of maintaining such a
huge site without advertising.

Thank you very much!

[ML]

[ML]

Thank you x 10 from a reader and writer both! Hardly a day goes by
when I don't visit Gossamer to read a little. I just saw the new beta
version of the author's pages, and it looks great!

We are so very lucky to have this wonderful archive. Long may you
continue to be our XF library!

Best wishes,
ML

[Laura Hale]

patf...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I only discovered Gossamer and the related sites almost two years ago,
> so there's still lots of reading I haven't done. It's also an
> excellent place to refer fellow Philes to whatever type of story
> they're looking for.

Gossamer is great. :) You can read for ages and still not get close to
reading everything... even in a limited genre or pairing.

Laura

[xphil...@gmail.com]

Wow!!! Congrats and many, many thanks to all of you for the wonderful
job you all do. Gossamer is truly a gem and I appreciate having it
there!
angie

[wisty]

Cheers to everyone involved with this wonderful groundbreaking archive!!!.
ten years of brilliant entertainment and a source of neverending joy. Happy
tenth birthday and may you have many more. Lisa
"Gossamer" <no-...@gossamer.org> wrote in message
news:200505040608...@trogdor.ilovefreebsd.com...

[mori...@cablespeed.com]

[dryad]

Your hard work is very very very much appreciated!!

Dryad