Sorting through the rubble of CatholicBoy.com

[Cassie Carter]

So many disasters have happened over the years to throw my Jim Carroll files into disarray.

I have been sorting through the dozens of copies/versions of my JC files and It's obvious I have more NEW stuff for the website than OLD (previously existing) stuff for the website, and both the NEW and OLD files are scattered all over the place. (Actually a lot of the new stuff I have shared here and I'm reconstructing stuff from that!)

Multiple hard drive crashes, website crashes and server disasters (notably I lost the images database - just GONE!), multiple failed attempts at moving the website to content management systems. Lots of mental chaos too. I note that the first bits of disorganization coincided with 9/11 #1, with no recovery before the first of several hard drive and server disasters. And then 9/11 #2 happened and of course amidst all of this the whole 9-to-5 job thing piled on top, and there was just no hope for it. What a mess.

Anyway, I confess all of this, first, because I desperately need your help identifying a lot of stuff. Will you help me? The gallery database disaster destroyed all of the documentation for all of the images, a large portion of which were contributed by you all. There's also a bunch of reviews by fan contributors that got disconnected from identifying information. Changes in mailing list hosts did NOT help. In 2001 we were on Yahoo Groups. I think Smartgroups was after that - or maybe that was before YahooGroups? -- and then Google Groups, where we are now. The archives for Yahoo Groups and Smartgroups are gone. Anyway, more digital chaos.

Second, I'm telling you about this because rebuilding CatholicBoy.com is an enormous job and it's going to take awhile.When I was a young whippersnapper and the site was hand-coded, I would "redo" the website on a regular basis (and immediately update the site whenever I had anything new). It would take maybe a couple of weeks to refresh the entire website, maybe an hour to add something new. Well, I just spent a month organizing the files so that I'm where I would have started "redoing" the website when I was a whippersnapper.  (This week I started working on the "new" files.) The good news is that most of the files are now "there" on the new site and just need to be cleaned up. The bad news is all of the links and images are broken. If I keep plugging along without getting discouraged or . . . the biggest risk, getting DISTRACTED by all the new stuff that is so freaking cool I must. add. it. now. . . .  

ANYWAY . . . the old site is so broken that it's barely usable, but at least a lot of it is there. 

I would like to know: should I keep the old site hobbling along while I'm rebuilding (as I'm doing now), or should I make the new site the main site even though it's nowhere near complete?

Compare:

OLD CATHOLICBOY.COM: https://www.catholicboy.com/

NEW CATHOLICBOY.COM: https://www.catholicboy.com/WP/

Let me know:

1. Will you help me identify stuff you contributed? (And maybe stuff you remember others contributed?)
2. Should OLD or NEW site be the default CatholicBoy.com while I'm rebuilding?

Thanks,

Cassie

P.S. It is only logical that I have more new stuff than old stuff. The website launched in 1996.