Aphelion Author Index 2013

[TaoPhoenix]

Okay, most of the Flash stories are fixed. Another misc couple of hours will finish it off. Not enough to announce a big new thing - mostly fixing the import glitch.

That's all I have for this week.

Catch y'all in a couple of days except maybe a note or two.

[kailhofer]

All righty, let's do this!

This is the first version with the new program. For you technical types out there, it's Version 7a. There will be a couple more 7.x versions to come fairly soon.

Thanks to a suggestion by Richard Tornello, I made a "Stable" link.

http://www.freevoteusa.com/AphelionArch ... index.html

That "stable" link is now on the archives page. I figure it's better than what we had, so why not use it.

[kailhofer]

Nate, in your new role of Short Story Maven, a wee part of that includes reposting the "back issues". In case you were busy and missed some of my posts, I can't easily get issue data once an issue leaves "go live" here on the site. My fault for not getting May - if I had my Eureka moment one week earlier I could have done it, but I missed it! (He says, intending to get June in there!)

But there's also a bit of a gap from the first half of this year now.

I don't need it right away - besides other "life stuff", I have plenty to do for a couple of versions. But maybe some time about July would be nice to put the First Half to bed! Feel free to post notes here in this thread as you like.

From what I've seen of this job so far, the Shorts Editor formats and posts all shorts, all serials, the editorial, and the features page (I don't know about the actual features themselves... we haven't had any new ones since I started doing it). To me, back issues pages sounds like something an Archives Editor should handle. Am I crazy on that?

Every issue has all the pages saved, even after the flip. Do you need me to send you a link?

I will get to it eventually, but honestly, it's very low on my agenda. Nothing personal, but this is a busy job already.

[TaoPhoenix]

Nate, in your new role of Short Story Maven, a wee part of that includes reposting the "back issues". In case you were busy and missed some of my posts, I can't easily get issue data once an issue leaves "go live" here on the site. My fault for not getting May - if I had my Eureka moment one week earlier I could have done it, but I missed it! (He says, intending to get June in there!)

But there's also a bit of a gap from the first half of this year now.

I don't need it right away - besides other "life stuff", I have plenty to do for a couple of versions. But maybe some time about July would be nice to put the First Half to bed! Feel free to post notes here in this thread as you like.

From what I've seen of this job so far, the Shorts Editor formats and posts all shorts, all serials, the editorial, and the features page (I don't know about the actual features themselves... we haven't had any new ones since I started doing it). To me, back issues pages sounds like something an Archives Editor should handle. Am I crazy on that?

Every issue has all the pages saved, even after the flip. Do you need me to send you a link?

I will get to it eventually, but honestly, it's very low on my agenda. Nothing personal, but this is a busy job already.

Let's call this a bit of unclarity with people moving duties around. I thought the serials, editorial, and features (yes, when we get some! More on that in a min!) were all produced by different people and uploaded into a common pool at which point Rob "WebMaven" recopied them all into the "front page" per section. Then they had to get recopied and reassembled into an "oldish" like this one from last Dec-Jan:
http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/oldishs/ap169v16.htm

So it was far from clear to me how that step happens. I am not so happy shuffling stuff on the server - I don't want to make mistakes that will cause problems. Right now my process is pretty "light" and doesn't touch the raw data, only organizes it.

Are there directories with an issue's complete contents? I'm happy to look at that - the main reason I need the Old Isssues in some form is as the proof of what was there to begin with, and the links to the stories. (The "story blurbs" don't affect my project.) So sure, send me a link and we can poke at it!

[kailhofer]

Every issue has a folder with the shorts, serials, features, etc. indexes in it for that issue. Rob copies those files into a different spot to make the issue live after he's made a cover. The next month, there's a new issue folder with new copies of the index pages for the new month. I will send you a link and the "key" to getting the files. I haven't made a back issues page yet, but I'm assuming I would copy an old one or a template, then copy into it the links from the individual index pages for the month.

[TaoPhoenix]

Every issue has a folder with the shorts, serials, features, etc. indexes in it for that issue. Rob copies those files into a different spot to make the issue live after he's made a cover. The next month, there's a new issue folder with new copies of the index pages for the new month. I will send you a link and the "key" to getting the files. I haven't made a back issues page yet, but I'm assuming I would copy an old one or a template, then copy into it the links from the individual index pages for the month.

Hmm. I see that info, so I'll study that. I'll have to do some planning to organize the process.

Meanwhile, I see the individual stories & poems etc, so that does make the other part much easier!

More news soon!

[TaoPhoenix]

Hmm. One of my original experiments went into exporting the info into various forms for analytical filtering. However, enough strange details are popping up, so that angle will go on the back burner for a while.

I'm going back to the missing info for a while.

[TaoPhoenix]

Okay, having gotten past the import, I got some real stuff done.

This update has:
- main 'zine short stories from 2010
- Seanan McGuire's Thoughts on Writing essays
- Proof of Concept for what to do with the Flash entries by author. See Nate Kailhofer's entry in the main list. I cloned the challenges by month (but there's a funny title bug on the node label). Then the idea I had a while back was to re-filter them first out of the challenges, then I can just move them up next to the regular name. Since some 40 people enter all the Flash challenges, it's not so bad to have them all in a subnode because they have extra info such as the challenge month.

Bugs:
- Exports are still a big unknown. Especially with the Flash entries - to use the same format I'd have to flip them later into "____ _____ Flash" to use the spreadsheet concept I was working on. But there are other problems.

- Because Flash stories are now counted twice, if anyone wants story count data I'll have to figure out the math how to do that. Because for example in earlier drafts I had about 1500 files which meant about 1400 stories, but now there's a large duplication.

- Besides the other stuff, there's a large gap still in 2004. I also have everyone's notes from the past few days. Like my other updates, it's important just to keep the files fresh. For anyone who is version-crazy, I'll probably do one more alpha7c with a lot of half-built stuff and then Alpha 8 will start to close into something usable.

Easy ref link:
http://www.freevoteusa.com/AphelionArch ... index.html

[TaoPhoenix]

I am slowly beginning an email campaign along with my archives. I figure one email in X years isn't so bad!

My first hit email was bad right off the bat, so at some point I'll try to go update the bios to take out the bad email addresses. For the next few updates there might be a few odd looking flag icons that I'll be using for tracking as well as the regular archive stuff.

[TaoPhoenix]

Hallo gang.

Fairly soon I'll retire the old index author page, because it's creaking badly by now! I got hold of a couple of writers in the "A's" section and one of the first two to reply asked why he wasn't on the page! If you don't know where to look, the new list is a bit tricky to find.

It will still be there, just behind a bit of a "menu" page. The Issues is in decent shape, and I'm growing proud of my new index which is close to recognizably useful by this point.

Edit: Done. I kept it as simple as possible. When faced with a menu people have to think about it for seven seconds, as opposed to the big list of names (which they invariably won't be on!)

[TaoPhoenix]

That "stable" link is now on the archives page. I figure it's better than what we had, so why not use it.

Sure, and it's passing the point where the old list is going to cause a couple of headaches as I send out my email campaign. So I'll be looking at that and make a "menu" front end page soon.

[TaoPhoenix]

There's a browser cache bug/effect, where at least for me in Firefox, it keeps trying to pull in old copies of the index page. So in weeks when I am posting a couple of new versions every few days like this week, there's just a chance that you're not seeing the latest copy of the page.

I'll leave this note here for now, but if anyone is really gung-ho about this, I can try to walk he/she/it through clearing browser caches, etc.

[TaoPhoenix]

Version 7c is up, but it's rather ugly. That's because something half built is looks worse than if it was never there at all. By now I have about a third of the Flash challenges re-filtered by author. (It's the second one - there's a funny title glitch!)

Also another fifty of Dan's editorials are in.

[TaoPhoenix]

It's popped up a couple of times now.

Everyone who has written pieces in a pen name that wants it "brought to light" let me know!

[Lester Curtis]

Everyone who has written pieces in a pen name that wants it "brought to light" let me know!

You've lost me, Tao. Explain? Is this about our Secret Identities?

[TaoPhoenix]

Everyone who has written pieces in a pen name that wants it "brought to light" let me know!

You've lost me, Tao. Explain? Is this about our Secret Identities?

Yep. So if you have a name like Csíkszentmihályi Solzhenitsyn, we totally understand if you write under a pen name!

[TaoPhoenix]

I have to pay my renewal fee for my storage domain name. That should be back up soon!

[davidsonhero]

What's the ETA on the index Tao? It still appears to be down.

John

[Robert_Moriyama]

I have to pay my renewal fee for my storage domain name. That should be back up soon!

Will there also be a similar post called "Domain Has Fallen", with a different action star and stuff blowing up that stayed intact in this one? (Hollywood, land of originality ("Armageddon" / "Deep Impact" being the best example until "Olympus Has Fallen" / "White House Down").)

They can always turn something off faster than they can turn it back on... Let's just hope the pendejos didn't purge all the files (or you had backups).

[TaoPhoenix]

What's the ETA on the index Tao? It still appears to be down.
John

I have to pay my renewal fee for my storage domain name. That should be back up soon!

Will there also be a similar post called "Domain Has Fallen", with a different action star and stuff blowing up that stayed intact in this one? (Hollywood, land of originality ("Armageddon" / "Deep Impact" being the best example until "Olympus Has Fallen" / "White House Down").)

They can always turn something off faster than they can turn it back on... Let's just hope the pendejos didn't purge all the files (or you had backups).

Eek! Sorry gang!
But I just paid the bill (it wasn't expensive, more just picking a day when the jitters went down). Register.com actually isn't bad and it looks like everything is there - they just put a global block on everything and don't seem to mess with the files. Besides I also have thorough backups - that page is "cold exported" from my software (that I just paid the license for, and that should be confirmed later today.)

I'm happy to give the Editorioso copies of the master Zip file from the exports later, I was just holding back while my many revisions are so confusing! (We saw part of that earlier!)

So try now. But a tip - *refresh your browser cache* because if y'all just looked at it apparently today, you might not see the fresh (proper site) data. The rep at Register.com says try Control-F5 which works sometimes. (I have a "Function toggle" on my keyboard but I tested it and it's there.)

[davidsonhero]

I can see it now Tao. No cache clearing required either.

Thank you.

John

Re: Pen Names
TaoPhoenix wrote:

Everyone who has written pieces in a pen name that wants it "brought to light" let me know!

Lester Curtis wrote:

You've lost me, Tao. Explain? Is this about our Secret Identities?

Sorry,but I can't tell you the works I wrote over the course of my two previous lives centuries ago back in old England by other names, that's a secret ...or I simply don't remember anymore... kharma rules, you knows...

Just jesting, anyway...

My chosen pen name is Papermate! There...I said it!

[Lester Curtis]

My chosen pen name is Papermate! There...I said it!

Huh! I suppose that explains why mine is "Pilot"!

[TaoPhoenix]

Hallo gang.

And the licensed copy with the payment fee came through, so that means we should be good to go for a while!

[TaoPhoenix]

Misc note - This time I did manage to get the current month (July) in, so I'm all set when it flips this time!

I'll be doing more writing/voting/archiving stuff again these next few days.

[TaoPhoenix]

Cool off from the dog days of summer with a refreshing new issue of Aphelion. Don't miss the debut of a new shared universe series, "The Aphelion Project", over in serials!

Haha, just in time too!

Yee ha!

Chow down time for me!

[TaoPhoenix]

I have only chipped a little at this this month, but I have July's info saved in reference, so I am okay when we flip.

I just went on, but I had to go through archives. I had no direct link to that spot just a blank page. The screen show the names for a nano second and then vaporizes.

So I have no basis for spamming Iain, YET! Thought why would I for this? If You, Iain, feel ignored, let me know. I can a lot of verbiage to your email throw.


RT

[Wormtongue]

So I have no basis for spamming Iain, YET! Thought why would I for this? If You, Iain, feel ignored, let me know. I can a lot of verbiage to your email throw.
RT

Quite all right, Rick. No need to put yourself to any bother on my account