rodo's journal

Remember my last post on support requests?

So, my problem is that I want to update my website. I have wanted to for some time, but for some reason it's always an insane amount of trouble. I have to download a new client every time I do it, for example. The website is hosted by Host Europe, and the only Windows compatible FTP client they offer instructions for is FileZilla, which I use, because their login information is kind of confusing and I can't figure out where to enter what to use other clients. FileZilla is telling me, no matter how often I check, that my login info is incorrect. I double and triple checked everything; the login info is correct. It's not the firewall, I use the right settings and everything.

The Host Europe people checked and told me everything is working on their end (after I had finally managed to convince them that I'm not too dumb to type a password).

The FileZilla people are stumped.

I guess I will have to give up on the website. It's really not much good when I can't do anything with it. It's just sitting there and costs me money (not much, but I could buy two books a year with it instead).

*grrrrrrr* I hate my life.

☞ Please remind me to never try an old fandom ever again. I just finished the Hornblower TV series and was desperate for fic. Well, I looked and found a number of promising rec lists, an archive and a very long list of stories. The very long list of stories, unfortunately, contained no useful information beyond title and author. The archive had no fics that interested me, but at least it wasn't frozen in 2002 and about the rec lists ... at least half the links were dead. The others led to stories that I had no interest in. It's especially sad because the first link I clicked on seemed to be exactly the kind of story I was looking for. The author seems to have deleted all her fics, of course. I tried ff.net too, but the Sues put an end to that. *sigh* Never again.

☞ PS: Has anybody any idea how the ancient file size label translates to word count?

☞ Why the translation exchange post on ff.de is doomed to fail: People offer to translate from English to German and authors offer stories to be translated from German to English.

Has anyone else been having problems with IJ lately? It's been down a lot every day in the past few days for me.

And I really want to answer to the people who commented on my latest entry.

Ich bin jetzt schon eine ganze Weile auf fanfiktion.de. Seit Herbst 2004, um genau zu sein, also anderthalb Jahre nachdem ich das Fandom über Animexx entdeckt habe. Über lange Zeit war es nicht mein Hauptarchiv, aber seit ich einige meiner Sachen nicht mehr auf Animexx posten konnte und ich es dort generell nicht mehr so gut fand (aber das wäre ein Thema für einen anderen Post), ist ff.de quasi mein Hauptarchiv. ff.net taugt schließlich nicht wirklich als Alternative für Deutschsprachiges und mit anderen Seiten konnte ich mich auch nicht anfreunden. Findet außer mir noch irgendwer, dass myfanfiction.de vom Layout her zu myspacig ist?. Außerdem ist „Depression“ kein Genre, und es ist auch mit Sicherheit nicht das, was sie im Blurb angeben.

Aber nun zum Thema. Die Punkte sind nicht vollkommen durchdacht und wahrscheinlich würde mir noch mehr einfallen, wenn ich etwas länger darüber nachdenken würde:

( 8 Kritikpunkte zu ff.de, ohne besondere Reihenfolge )

Wahrscheinlich bin ich einfach zu verwöhnt durch InsaneJournal, LiveJournal und meine eigene Webseite, bei denen ich (größtenteils) machen kann was ich will und mich nicht mit dämlichen Beschränkungen herumärgern muss. Außerdem zeigt das OTW-Archiv, dass diese Optionen durchaus technisch umzusetzen sind.

For those of you who didn't know yet:

The beta version of Fanlore, the OTW's wiki has been launched.

My reaction for now: *points at icon*

Confessions of a Reader

As some of you might have noticed, I don't comment much. On anything. I know that this is generally considered to be a bad thing in fandom, but I can't help it. I just refuse to comment when all I have to say is "Well, it was good", because for some reason people don't appreciate comments like that. I've often been told that I am just not enthusiastic enough when I try to tell people that their stuff was... well, good.

Another reason why I don't comment much is that most of the time, I simply don't have anything to say. Yes, really. It's nothing personal, I just can't come up with something witty or thoughtful enough to add to what you, dear reader, already said in your post. So don't feel insulted if I don't reply to your posts most of the time.

I guess this is the reason why I always feel slightly insulted when people de-friend me because I didn't comment enough. I can understand it if you de-friend me because you're not interested in reading my journal, God knows I don't write nearly as much as I would like to, but because I don't comment? Sorry, I just don't understand it. But maybe that's because I don't expect anyone to comment on my journal, friend or not.

And even though I do write, I still spend most of my time online as a reader. A reader who is not worth much, in the eyes of some, because I don't comment. So I have a proposition for you: If you want to know if I read your story/entry/whatever, and if you're a paid user, why not put a poll at the end of the post, asking your readers if they read it, and if they liked it or disliked it, while still encouraging them to comment?

Okay, Animexx hat es tatsächlich geschafft, die bescheuertste neue Regel für den Fanfiction-Bereich zu erstellen die mir bisher untergekommen ist. Sie lautet wie folgt:

Hallo,

es wird eine neue Regelung bezüglich FFs, die zum Inhalt die Verwaltigung an Minderjährigen in HARRY POTTER FFs geben.
Diese sind absofort verboten.
Der Grund ist der, dass durch die Realverfilmung sich der eigentlich fiktive Gegenstand zu leicht auf reales übertragen lässt und wir uns deshalb genötigt sehen dies nicht länger zuzulassen (und nein, ich habe mir das nicht ausgedacht). ⁽¹⁾

( Meine Kritik )

⁽¹⁾ Quelle: http://animexx.onlinewelten.com/forum/?forum=1&kategorie=2&thread=195662

Seems like I haven't updated in ages. Again.

This time, there's a simple reason for that: I was busy.

( NaNovember )
( December )

Happy New Year to all of you,

doro_chan

theljstaff posted an update on lj_biz, the first one that was actually written in English and not some obscure form of legalese. I really would like to congratulate them on this, but then I remember that it's a requirement for successful communication and not some sort of shiny extra.

Apart from that, LJ reinstated elaboration, who posted the e-mail LJ send her in the comments at lj_biz. I can't say it made me trust LJ again, because apparently they still insist that her picture was against the rules. The only reason she got reinstated is, as far as I can tell, the fact that she should not have been banned instantly. Her picture got deleted, by the way, and I suppose we'll never see it since it would get her permanently suspended this time if she linked it and somebody found out.

It worries me that LJ seems to use a definition of what an underage character in a drawing should look like that most people, especially in anime fandoms, would not agree on. I suppose nobody would really mind if they said they did not want any explicit drawings of minors. The problem is that they don't understand the concept of bishounen and the anime/manga style of drawing, both of which make characters look younger to the untrained eye.

Okay, LJ's really going to have a problem.

For those of you who speak German: There's an article about Strikethrough/Boldthrough on the website of Der Spiegel (the most important newsmag in Germany).