The Guardian of Forever

[Captain X]

Since we're about a week away from opening the website to the public, I thought I'd announce our existence. Check out the site here. The short introduction at the top of the index page pretty much explains our purpose, which is as a kind of ad-free alternative to FanFiction.Net for Star Trek stories, with at least some quality control. Just read through the Submissions page for more details.

As you'll notice, for now the fiction pages are being kept completely blank, until the website opens on February 14th - my Valentine to the fandom. We do have some stuff that's all ready to go come opening day, but until then I'm afraid that we aren't accepting any new submissions, especially since the new email addresses aren't set up yet anyway.

In the meantime, feel free to check the site out, and ask any questions or make any comments you might have here.

 

[McCovey Cove]

It's an interesting idea, but the limitations on what you can submit will prevent me from submitting. Best of luck with the site!

-- ZC

 

[McCovey Cove]

Oh, one other thing: Unless you have written authorization from the MPAA, you cannot use their rating system. Many fanfic sites have had to switch to 'original' rating systems because they receive cease & desist notices from the MPAA. ESRB has also trademarked their ratings, as well.

Just a heads' up to spare you some grief.

-- ZC

 

[Mistral]

the HTML coding is a hassle. I barely function in WORD. I may try to adapt, though. The site is beautiful and you have many interesting links. Might I suggest http://unitedtrek.org - I'm sure they would be happy to provide a link. Just ask, they're pretty good guys.

 

[Lilith]

Pretty neat idea. Fanfic is great in that it's free, easy to use and actually has a pretty good reviewsystem, but it fails on the facets of reliable reviews, adult ratings and a decent quality/quantity ratio.

I have to ask though, what's with the non-canon pairings? Sure Riker and Troi get married eventually, but they we both single for the majority of the series. Does it mean we can submit stories that deal with Riker/Sora (the genderneutral thingy), but not with Troi/original character, because we never saw the latter on tv?

I would dare to argue that there's a lot we didn't see on tv and different people come up with different "off screen" stories.

In a similar vain, what's preventing someone who does have on of those 'non-canon' pairings from slapping an AU notification on it? In an alternate universe, who knows what's possible...

Don't get me wrong, kudos for trying to filter out the nonsense "put them together for the hell of it" fic, but there are well written, well thought out stories out there that include unusual (and yes, even freaky) pairings.

I'll definitely check next week, there's so very little quality TNG fic around these days and the site looks pretty nifty

 

[Captain X]

I'm mainly concerned with slash pairings and the like, so something that could've actually happened on the show - like Riker/Sora or Troi/alien-of-the-week would probably be fine. Mainly the quality control here is other readers. If someone happens to read something and thinks it might violate one or more of the submission rules, they can contact me and I can read through it myself to see if it warrents removal.

As for the HTML, that link I provided to an online editor works pretty well - all yo uhave to do is copy-paste what you have into it basically, and hit that <> button and it will convert it for you.

 

[Lilith]

Captain X said:
I'm mainly concerned with slash pairings and the like, so something that could've actually happened on the show - like Riker/Sora or Troi/alien-of-the-week would probably be fine.

Oi, I'm out then Though my entire fanfic premise is trying to make a pairing that has no basis in canon fit into the canon stories as we know it. The thing is, you don't see everything on tv. But fair enough if you don't want slash on the site I guess.

Mainly the quality control here is other readers. If someone happens to read something and thinks it might violate one or more of the submission rules, they can contact me and I can read through it myself to see if it warrents removal.

But quality has nothing to do with pairing. Quality is about spelling, grammar, plotbuilding, proper punctuation and staying true to characters and the Trek universe laws.

For instance, I have a pretty long Crusher/Troi fic, which I dare to say is of decent quality. I'm 11 chapters in and so far it hasn't clashed with onscreen canon yet. By your rules, it doesn't count as a quality story, or qualifies for submission on account of being slash. What if I put an AU label on it, can I submit it then?

 

[Mistral]

If you want to play lesbian games with the characters have fun. I just try to write stories about Star Trek. If he doesn't want Slash stories-its his website, know what I mean?
When you say quality is about staying true to the characters-which episode had Troi and Crusher showing interest in each other-romantically speaking? I'm just curious. I've read a bit of slash and never really understood it. So what is the basis to make it acceptable to his website? As an AU, maybe its a universe where all the men have died off? a la the graphic novel "Y", maybe?

 

[Lilith]

Mistral said:
If you want to play lesbian games with the characters have fun. I just try to write stories about Star Trek. If he doesn't want Slash stories-its his website, know what I mean?

Yup and as I said before, fair enough, I'm just trying to figure out if it's slash, or lack of quality he's after, since one doesn't exclude the other. Similarly, slash doesn't exclude Star Trek.
I'm not playing "lesbian games", there's barely any sex in the story (about a 500 words in a 25.000 word story). It is first and foremost a Trek story. Some chapters deal with romance, others with 'Trek-mysteries'. The novel coming up is Trek as its core, I dare to say, in spite of what pairings might, or might not be mentioned in the background.

When you say quality is about staying true to the characters-which episode had Troi and Crusher showing interest in each other-romantically speaking? I'm just curious.

Nor did we see anything showing an absolute "hetero" disposition. Even today people realize they're gay (or rather bisexual) after having been married for ten years, with three kids, a dog and a white-picket fence. For instance, Riker's attraction to that gender-neutral alien seemed out of character at first, simply because before that he'd been portrayed as the kind of guy only to fall for big boobs and a tiny waist.

I've read a bit of slash and never really understood it. So what is the basis to make it acceptable to his website? As an AU, maybe its a universe where all the men have died off? a la the graphic novel "Y", maybe?

I'm not trying to 'make' it acceptable to his website, I'm asking in what form it would be acceptible. Why? Because there are very few well put-together, quality-striving Trek fanfic collections out there. If slash is under no circumstance acceptible, then fine (though, what about fics about Jadzia and her former girlfriend, or Crusher and Odan in a female body?)

Also, not all men need to die off for a same-sex relationship to have merrit, but this isn't really the topic for that type of discussion

 

[DavidFalkayn]

The person who owns a particular website, naturally, gets to set whatever rules he/she deems appropriate--no argument there at all.

Regarding canon and non-canon pairings: my personal yardstick when I read a story involving a non-canon pairing either 'slash' or hetero- is a simple one--does it come across as believable to me. In other words, did the author do a good job in setting the pairing up to where I feel like it comes across naturally in the story and would be 'in character' for the participants. To me, this is why it's usually better to go with original characters and/or canon characters who've only seen limited screen time. In other words, it's much more easy for me to develop the character of Elizabeth Shelby as a hedonistic pleasure seeker with internal demons than to do the same for Beverly Crusher because Crusher has so much more canon 'baggage' accompanying her--you as the writer don't have as much freedom to maneuver with the major players as you do with the Shelbys and the Tauriks and Sitos who appear in only one or two episodes.

Having said that, I've seen some very good non-canon pairings involving the big names--some of which I don't really view as being that much non-canon. I think you can make a very strong case for stories involving a future Archer-T'Pol relationship for instance. I'll also go out on a limb and say that a good writer could also write a plausible story developing Hoshi/T'Pol that would stay 99.9% within canon!

All fanfiction is noncanon by its very definition. Where the disagreements lie is in how far a given story deviates from canon. For me, if you capture the essence of the series and characters and if, when I read your story, I feel like I'm watching an episode of Star Trek--in whatever incarnation it might be--then you've done your job as a writer.

 

[Captain X]

I'm against pairings that don't stay true to what we saw of their characters on screen, Archer/T'Pol among them, so it's not like I'm just picking on slash fans or anything, it goes for all pairings inconsistant with the characters. If it's your own characters, then it isn't a problem - some of my first writing involved a lesbian couple, but they were both my own original characters.

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Again, here's where the element of personal perception comes in. I can point to several on-screen developments of Archer and T'Pol that would support the development of a relationship between those characters for a writer doing a "season 5" or later continuation of Enterprise and be able to justify it completely within canon. Same thing with Hoshi/T'Pol--although, to be fair, you don't have as much--1st season's pretty much it if you're looking for on-screen character justifications to build off of--to be honest, you could probably make a stronger case for Trip/Reed.

Original characters or minor canon characters are easier to work with by their very nature--they don't have the canon baggage.

But as I said earlier, the owner of the site sets the guidelines--which is as it should be. While this discussion on pairings, canon, etc. is a good one, I'm wondering if we're getting off topic a mite? Maybe a new thread should be started?

 

[Captain X]

I'm not going to get into that. My luck, I'd end up getting banned or something.

I'm not going to read every submission, nor are the people helping me with the site, but if something is brought to my attention and I feel it's inappropriate for the site, I'll take it down and send a message to the author explaining why.

 

[hellsgate]

This belongs in WEBSITES/DESIGN, doesn't it?

 

[Captain X]

Since it concerns fan fiction, I'd say it has just as much a place here as anywhere.

 

[RevdKathy]

We usually keep one-off website promotions here if they're promotions of a new fanfic site, since that's relevent to the forum. If you want to debate the layout of the site, its graphic quality etc, by all means start a thread in websites. And I don't encourage people to start multiple threads on a website.

 

[hellsgate]

I'd have chosen a different site-title as "Guardian Of Forever" might confuse some people who remember the recently dismantled database site. I'm QUITE surprised that I've gotten away with "Star Trek: New Worlds" as long as I have without a solitary comment from someone's lawyer, even under "Fair Use" not-for-profit statutes.

http://www.stguardian.to/

 

[Captain X]

I asked him first, out of respect, and he gave me his blessing.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

It's a nice idea Captain X, however, the execution seems to fall a little short.

While quality control is nice, it tightens the target-group of users, so you really have to make submitting a story as easy as possible. Most writers don't want to HTML their story, as it is fine as it is. A simple TinyMCE editor on the site can make all the difference. Just put it in a very simple php script, and you don't have to worry about people messing up the 'title' tags as well.

Also, your HTML is not valid (w3c validation of submission.html) and it doesn't have a doctype. If you expect writers to use your rules and use HTML, then please use the rules yourself and use correct HTML. That way, people can be sure of how their story will look, instead of relying on an unknown (quirks) parse model, since that is what will happen if invalid HTML is found. Another reason you might want to parse submissions, since any invalid HTML on their part may break your site or navigation.

Another thing about the quality control: You don't allow 'slash', but you do allow 'ficlets', why is that? It seems to me that if you only want stories of high quality, you should restrict the words to 20.000 (something) or above. I realize some people like 'ficlets', but there's only so much quality you can cram in a few thousand words or less. And are stories whereby the authors fill up the space with song lyrics from the internet allowed? Because those are usually low quality as well.

The main problem is, that Fanfiction.net has a selector system. Just select 20.000 words, no weird pairings and a certain rating and you're set. Most bad fanfiction is filtered out that way, and you soon learn to recognize the rest at a glance. Also, submitting to Fanfiction.net is easier (barely).

So, what is the _extra_ your site has got going for it? If there is none, what could it be? Perhaps the ability to upload an image with each chapter? Some authors really seem to rant about that on fanfiction.net...

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

One little nitpick: I read the following on your submission page:

Paragraph: place the tag <p> before each paragraph. If you don't, everything will appear as one massive block of text. This will produce a space between paragraphs as in the block or modified block style of writing. You don't need a </p> tag with this one, just make sure <p> is at the start of every paragraph and it will work fine.

Please don't advise your users to negate the closing paragraph tag. At best, it will make the stories unreadable in correct browsers (in other words: any other browser then Internet Explorer) and at worst, the whole page may fail with an error (depending on your doctype).

Linebreaks <br/> are self-closing. Paragraphs <p>...</p> are not.