FortuneCity Rescue (unofficial)

[morgandawn]

FortuneCity - an early free website went down suddenly in early May, taking with it a number of historical fandom websites. As with Geocities, there is an unofficial effort underway to at least document the URLs of the websites. With the URLs in hand, websites can  be resurrected  by plugging the URL into the WayBack Machine.  But first we need to record the URLs - the Google cached versions will soon go away (some are already gone). More about this here. 

If you want to help, head over to the Google spreadsheet,* claim a fandom, read the instructions (second tab, lower left corner) and pitch in.   If you don’t have time to grab the URLs from Google, we definitely need help adding the ones we have gathered to the FortuneCity Fanlore page.

Come on fandom. We cannot afford to lose fannish works of art like The A-Team Coloring Book.

*Full link to the Google Spreadsheet is here.

Edited to note: We're putting search tips on the Instructions tab (look for the tab in the lower left corner). Scroll down to read all the notes/tips/suggestions.

Edited to add: If you do screencap pages, focus on pages that are not in the Wayback Machine. You can run the URL through the WayBack machine here.  If you need help getting the screncaps onto Fanlore send me an email or leave a note here with the number of screencaps and a way to contact you. I'll pass the info on up to the Wiki Committee since organizing a larger scale Fanlore data entry project is beyond our scope.

Edited to add: If you want to screencap missing artwork or images on a website:

For some cached Google sites, the images no longer show up even though the text will appear. The images are still in Google however. Here is a method to find them – and screencap if needed. Most often handy for archiving a fan artists website that has just gone offline.

Step 1: Google:
Site:fortunecity.com/websiteURL

Step 2: Click on Images (to the left on Google on my screen) to show just the images on that website

Step 3: You can screencap whatever images are still there using whatever program works on your computer.

Example: http://fanlore.org/wiki/File:Zawiah_google_screencap.png

Edited to note: there are a lot of old school anime fandoms on FortuneCity. If you know of anime fans or anime fan communities that might like to help, please spread the word. If a fandom is not listed on the Google spreadsheet, just go ahead and add it and claim it.

Last update: 5/20/2012 8AM PST

Comments

[elf]

A few quick pokes around Google says I'm not having any luck finding pages (and I'm kinda swamped right now), but I'd be happy to help getting data onto the Fanlore page and doing other archiving when people have managed to come up with links.

I'll also do some link-hunting this weekend but I'm not sure where to start; I never spent any time at FortuneCity.

[morgandawn]

I have some links ((I printed the Google pages as pdfs). Should I email a few to you?

[elf]

Sure, but I won't be able to do much with them for a few days at least.

[morgandawn]

contact me when you've got time and I';ll send you whatever is up next.

[onceamy]

I'm (still) having health issues, but can we add new fandoms to the spreadsheet and claim them? I notice my beloved wrestling fandom is not there (not that I found much, alas).

[morgandawn]

yep, anyone can edit the spreadsheet. so add away.

[aethel]

I tried searching for Sherlock Holmes, but didn't find much that was fannish. I did find a Willow/Oz fic, though.

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/jarman/556/html/fanfic/karenfic/willoz/close1.htm

P.S. OTW is going to signal-boost the project!

I am so sorry

[wendelah1]

But I managed to delete my fandom while trying sign up to help. The X-Files. If someone could add that back, I promise to stay away from the spreadsheet so I don't inadvertently delete anything else. Obviously I am death to spreadsheets. I am embarrassed beyond belief. We don't use them in nursing. Yes, a very poor excuse. So Sorry.

I will, however, work on The X-Files. I just won't put it on the spreadsheet. If someone can tell me how, I will add the useful urls to the appropriate Fanlore page. Relatively few sites were on Fortune City (I think we were heavy geocities users) and a lot of those may be so old they weren't crawled by Wayback. I'll make some screen shots of stuff that is currently cached and seems worth saving and maybe someone can show me how to make a page for them at Fanlore. Believe it or not, I can be taught.

I also have plenty of time! I will try to do some other fandoms, too, and will publicize this in my journal and elsewhere. I can be contacted at my user name at gmail dot com.

Re: I am so sorry

[onceamy]

Oh! I just claimed it! But feel free to take it back :D

Re: I am so sorry

[wendelah1]

Hi! Maybe we can work on it together? I finally found a working link on Wayback for the Noromo site, The Bee Squad. Complete with sparkling bees. And a Noromo Webring and so on. I'm entranced.

Re: I am so sorry

[onceamy]

Certainly, I'm happy to work with you on it! My email is awils_1 (at) xsmail (dot) com, if you feel like sharing what you've found so far! I have a spreadsheet going but they are yucky to use.

[onceamy]

I'm planning to reach out to the ZineList -- there are old timers there that may have had FortuneCity pages back in the day.

[dmarley]

I can't work on the project myself right now, but I've saved nearly every piece of fanfic and e-mail I ever read and received since the mid 90s. I did a search for "fortunecity" on my current hard drive and here's what I found, more or less arranged in order of fandom. I haven't checked any of these to see if they're still viable on the Wayback Machine, but whoever picks up the fandoms in question might find something useful. Best of luck to everyone working on the project.

Author Page: Juxian Tang (Star Trek: Voyager)
URL: http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/gilliams/831

Nick Lea in ONCE A THIEF, the TV series
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/sheppard/29/index.html

Story Page: Alliana, "What Friends Are For" (Stargate SG1 story)
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/polanski/974/Stargate/SFanFiction/friends1.html

SG1 Tea Room Site
http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/highwater/1117

The MKC BlackNet, The uncensored SK FanFic Archive (SwatKats)
http://roswell.fortunecity.com/goldendawn/282/fanfic/index.html

Twin Peaks
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/parkstreet/170/trees.htm

Oddbalz & Mayhem Fanzine List (MFU, Sentinel, Pros, ST)
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/literary/196/senfic/obmzines.html

The X-Files Links (I've already sent copies of these to the people working on the X-Files URLs)

The Krycek File
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/lavender/29/Randym7.html

The Krycek File Library
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/lavender/29/library.htm

Our Untitled X Files FanFiction Attic
http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hellraiser/127/

X-Files Fanfic Links Page
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/wells/75/

Author Page: Ratfink
http://www.fortunecity.de/tatooine/godzilla/52/ratfink.htm

X-Files Episode Transcripts
http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/dakota/281/xfscript.html

The Magic Bullet (X-Files University Newsletter)
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chupacabras/107/index.html

2000 *Spooky* Awards
http://members.fortunecity.com/spookyawards/index.html

[morgandawn]

Thank you. Added as many of the non-X-files ones that I could find.

[espresso_addict]

I've signed up to do Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but to be honest I'm not really sure what I'm doing. The great majority of sites I'm uncovering appear to be just episode guides, very brief summaries of the entire show, or small collections of gifs. Are we looking to document everything fannish, or just larger sites, or sites with some content that could be considered transformative or meta?

Also how many hits are we aiming to examine, at minimum? The instructions say five pages, but that could be 5x10, 5x20 or 5x100 hits, depending on how you've got Google set up.

[morgandawn]

totally up to you how deep into Google you want to go. I am using "fanfiction" "fan art" and "music vid"/"Music video" to find sites with more fan created content (not all at once but sequentially). I am getting a much better hit rate.

edited to add: as to what to document: I am leaning towards documenting pages with fan created content (fic, vids, art, along with meta commentary/essays/reviews). However, if the only Miami Vice fansite I could find was a fan created episode guide, I might include that.

[espresso_addict]

Ok, I'll see what I can unearth!

[greerwatson.livejournal.com]

I've certainly been including tribute sites—the sort with a gallery of screencaps, an episode guide, cast bios, links to other sites, etc. That's a form of fan site that used to be extremely common; and the bigger ones could be important entry sites for new fans. Also, episode guides often had long, detailed fan-written plot summaries, and perhaps some meta at the bottom about the episode, fan response to it, and the like.

[melannen]

I just did a first pass on Doctor Who fandom, but I'm running in to a lot of sites that aren't on the Wayback machine, or only have the front page archived but not the content. Some of them are still fully cached on google; some of them aren't.

Is there someone collecting google cache copies of non-archived pages? I'd save them myself, but I know me, and they'd end up lost on some old drive that I forgot I still owned.

Also, with sites that have neither cache nor archive, should we list the URLs anyway, just as a memorial?

Yes to screencaps

[morgandawn]

Best bet is to screencap those that are not on the wayback machine and that you find interesting/have time to screencap. Then come back here and ask for help creating pages and/or archiving the screencaps. We're shorthanded (for now) and I know that this and the Geocities Rescue project can use a lot of love to put the screencaps to use on Fanlore (I still have some from Geocities but do not have bandwidth to do any more Fanlore editing). Perhaps the Fanlore committee can coordinate/manage the next phase. URLs are important for now because there are archives that require URls that are not available to the public - but you need a URL to start.

Re: Yes to screencaps

[onceamy]

Most of the Google Cache results look rather bare, as all the images have disappeared. Do we bother screencapping these? I haven't but I can go back and do it.

Re: Yes to screencaps

[morgandawn]

I've been screencapping pages with text content or something that catches my eye. I am not doing a lot (and definitely not ones that are archived on the Wayback machine.

Which reminds me, I need to post a note about how to screencap the missing images/art. Even the Wayback machine is missing a lot of images/art.

[bridgetmkennitt]

I updated the Fanlore page with a Charmed url and several Sailor Moon ones.

[wendelah1]

I've found a site with many Fortune City URL listings. It was about 15 pages back on my Google search. Unfortunately, little of the content is relevant to my project but it might be helpful to others: Astanda Directory Project. It has 2,000+ "relevant" hits. I've spotted sites for Forever Knight, General Hospital, My Little Pony, Sailor Moon. I'm going to bookmark it and go through it once I've exhausted my X-Files searches, but in the meantime, maybe some other people want to give it a look?

[greerwatson.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble getting the spreadsheet to work. Has someone added DC Comics and Marvel Comics to the list yet? I'm sure there are fansites out there for both.

[morgandawn]

looks like they've been added.

Tech note

[espresso_addict]

It might be worth noting that the instructions in the spreadsheet (unless I've misunderstood them) suggest searching "fortunecity.com" yet they also hosted at other addresses including ".co.uk" ".es" ".it" ".se" (see here). I've tried repeating one of my searches on "fortunecity.co.uk" and got a different set of sites, also offline.

Also the same source states that the WBM couldn't archive certain domains on .com, some of which seem to have extensive fannish presence:

challenge
cratervalley
lavender
littleitaly
marina
olympia
skyscraper
tatooine
victorian

Re: Tech note

[morgandawn]

added the URLs to the instructions. Thanks

The WBM list is iffy as I've found numerous websites archived in the WBM with those domains. But in general, I am finding more sites are *not* archived than those that are. :-(

Re: Tech note

[greerwatson.livejournal.com]

Sadly true. And those that are archived all too often only have the index page. And those that do have more pages are missing pretty well all the graphics.

Yessss. The Wayback Machine is not all it's writ up to be.

Re: Tech note

[espresso_addict]

I'd got the wrong impression of the WBM in the past, as it covers most of my fansites reasonably thoroughly -- but I have bothered to get most of them indexed by dmoz, which is one of the sources used by their spiders.

Re: Tech note

[espresso_addict]

The .co.uk search might be most useful for fandoms with UK sources eg Blake's 7, Doctor Who, Harry Potter.

[greerwatson.livejournal.com]

Not sure where to list this: My Own Little Corner of Toontown: http://web.archive.org/web/19981201051306/http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/challenger/3/

Mercifully, it's archived (though without most of the graphics), so you can figure it out. I think the site owner is a Gargoyles fan, cowriting fanfic and original fic in a shared universe, and also into RPGs. From the cached pages, the site had over 80 pages originally.

[greerwatson.livejournal.com]

Also not sure where to put Pen's Attic (http://web.archive.org/web/20080704032530/http://rivendell.fortunecity.com/meridian/104/index.html).