Aphelion

Wow! That works. I take it you plan to fill in the blanks and then do the same with the story title index -- ? That would be marvelous!

What there is of it (i.e., much more than the "official" Author Index covers) is cool. Be sure to PM Mr. Wynne to see if we can make the Alpha2 the live version ASAP...

TaoPhoenix wrote:In a perfect world, how do we want the entries sorted in the right hand pane? They're scattered a bit but currently mostly in issue order. Do we want them by issue to eventually tie to the back issues list, or Alphabetical by first (major) title word?

I vote alphabetical. I can easily imagine searching for a story by title or author; not by issue number or date. That's just me, though. Is there a way to incorporate all of that information, maybe as a cross-reference of some kind?

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote:

TaoPhoenix wrote:In a perfect world, how do we want the entries sorted in the right hand pane? They're scattered a bit but currently mostly in issue order. Do we want them by issue to eventually tie to the back issues list, or Alphabetical by first (major) title word?

I vote alphabetical. I can easily imagine searching for a story by title or author; not by issue number or date. That's just me, though. Is there a way to incorporate all of that information, maybe as a cross-reference of some kind?

Hi Lester,
I thrashed something out in my note to Mark in the other post. It's way faster to initially build it by issue because it ends up like a Word Search when you start out first by Alpha. But as it gets more solid, it's not all that hard to paste a second copy below/above it flipped by title.

I am biased because most of my entries in the index are from the Al Majius series, and should be read in the order written, not alphabetically (i.e., by issue number or issue date works better for me, most of the time). Of course what I really should do is add an index to the Majius stories to the "Series" section...

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Mark Edgemon wrote:

TaoPhoenix wrote:So if you want to get your feet wet, dig up good ol' Robin Lipinski, and begin a spreadsheet of all his poem titles. The links won't be there yet, but that's the breakthrough - make the work modular so that parts of it will get there. Then pick your choice of say the top 7 most prolific poets in Aphelion and do the same thing.

Got it...on it!

(Smacks Forehead)
D'oh!
If you have had any non-Flash stories published in the main 'zine, get me a list! : ) (You too Lester!)

Tao, here's the list, as far as I can find or remember it:

Pretty Little Foxes Apr 20 2011

Cigar (poem) Jun 22 2010

Plantigrade People (poem) and song (mp3) Mar 19, 2010

A Lifetime of Memories May 25 2010

There's another story, called "The Pool," but I wasn't sure if I ever submitted it here. If so, I couldn't find it.

How does it handle those stories by more than one author? For example, http://aphelion-webzine.com/serials/200 ... ators.html was written by a bunch of us.

Is this capable of scanning forum entries, like the Flash Index, so I wouldn't have to keep getting Robert to unlock the site just to update the list of URLs (that is the index right now)?

Then the worrysome one for me, does this constitute any publication on this other site? Would it be married into Aphelion so that even though it's hosted somewhere else, it still seems in every respect like it's a part of Aphelion? I'm thinking of Author's rights here, and it is NOT something I am in any way an expert in.

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote: Tao, here's the list, as far as I can find or remember it:

Pretty Little Foxes Apr 20 2011

Cigar (poem) Jun 22 2010

Plantigrade People (poem) and song (mp3) Mar 19, 2010

A Lifetime of Memories May 25 2010

There's another story, called "The Pool," but I wasn't sure if I ever submitted it here. If so, I couldn't find it.

That's great Lester, I'll hold onto this info for when I do the next update. Are those dates you submitted them or the dates the issues came out? With that few of items I might be able to "Wayback" my way into the issue numbers/months if you don't magically happen to know them by issue month.

I found those in the index; those are the dates they were published.

TaoPhoenix wrote:I'm at 735 authors and counting!

Does your automated stuff use the Back Issues index, or are you looking directly at the ap999v99 folders to get at the old index files? I could start adding to the Back Issues index page, if it helps.

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Robert_Moriyama wrote:

TaoPhoenix wrote:I'm at 735 authors and counting!

Does your automated stuff use the Back Issues index, or are you looking directly at the ap999v99 folders to get at the old index files? I could start adding to the Back Issues index page, if it helps.

Well, in a sense only the output is automated - inbound it's hand copied snips one by one. So yes, I am going through each of the Back Issues and re-splicing them into each author's "node". That pretty much means that after about Jan2010 it goes "dark" for me. I was telling Iain the same thing.

I don't yet have visibility rights to the story/other folders. One idea I had was to try to use a drive reader to automatically pull in info into a spreadsheet, but that would take some R&D. It's never a bad idea to have this be the 2013 year of updated archives, so we need the back issues too, but it might be useful to flip me read rights to the folders so I can poke at those while you are adding the back issues.

I dunno how to assign "read rights", but will look into it... It's silly for the Archives Editor to be unable to access years of material.

TaoPhoenix wrote:

kailhofer wrote:Here's a sample of how the Flash Archive would look. I made it a separate "workbook" (or whatever they're called in the program) both so I can give it to you and also to retain a couple of modular options. The program *is* indeed modern "freemium" - you can do a lot of stuff for free but this web site global export is in fact in the paid version, though it really isn't much - something like $40. So far I'm borrowing your existing hard work with the Aphelion links to the stories. But it does copy links & titles pretty well.
Here's the "compacted" variation.
http://www.freevoteusa.com/FlashArchive ... index.html

Expanded Version (Mark, see this)
http://www.freevoteusa.com/FlashArchive ... index.html

I'd have to say that this is damn cool.

Can it take that same info and relate it into the other index by author that you're making? That way an author (or anyone looking) would also see his or her flash stories, too.

I see that I kind of shot myself in the foot, though, since all the example stories were linked under the challenge title and not under my name. I didn't want anyone to think I was doing it to promote myself, but now selfishly I wish someone could see that I wrote them.

Tao -- welcome to the admin society!

TaoPhoenix wrote:


Sorry Lester, I'm still a bit lost. Were these in regular magazine issues, or entries in the Flash Challenge? I'm treating the Flash entries differently. : )

Also it would be nice to have a copy of the Plantigrade People mp3 song on hand. Maybe you could email it to me? : )

Those titles are regulars, not flash entries, listed with month issued.
Song on the way.

TaoPhoenix wrote:
Lester, can you do me a favor and quickly list which file links and issue numbers those go to? P.S. Remember that I can't yet see "indexes" past Jan2010, though Robert M. is looking into it. Then with those I can just add them into your section.

Tao, all I can find is the forum comments for each of the items; I can't find the items themselves, as they're still in the invisible part of the archives -- we both have the same problem. So, you've got all I can give you. Sorry.

I will try to get another year added to the Back Issues index this weekend... (he said, after intending to do so for the past several years).

TaoPhoenix wrote:P.S. Can I get a "Sticky" or "Announcement" posting for this thread? I just got an Author question, and that sorta means we're out of our sandbox!

It's now an Announcement. For future reference, though, look at the bottom right of the page and you'll see a little box labeled "Quick Tools."

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote: It's now an Announcement. For future reference, though, look at the bottom right of the page and you'll see a little box labeled "Quick Tools."

Heh I'm on Firefox and I don't see any cute little box labeled "Quick Tools". But since it's an announcement, that's plenty because it will either be the first or second one tied with the Spam-Killing one. It just saves 15 seconds at a whack.

Sorry; it's "Quick-mod tools:".

You can only see it from a forum page, not the Index page, but here's what it looks like:I also use Firefox. If you aren't seeing that feature, then whoever set up your admin privileges might have limited your abilities.
No matter; if you need any other such stuff done, gimme a holler.

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Robert_Moriyama wrote:I will try to get another year added to the Back Issues index this weekend... (he said, after intending to do so for the past several years).

Hi Robert,
I see you have a couple new issues posted up. Just be careful on the sequencing - for better or worse every other issue goes "up" to get newer, and the two you just posted seem to be going "down".

Well, #$&!@&^!! (Easy fix -- fortunately, you caught it before I had more than a few lines to rearrange.)

TaoPhoenix wrote:
Hang on, before I become a moron, I saw something...Mark E. just noted that I apparently recently earned "Red" privs, maybe that popped up in the last day or so. And even if by some incredible miracle it was already there, I'd never even seen that box before. So either way I'm glad for your help : )

What?! You got so busy you didn't notice all those new tools at your disposal? Take a few minutes and look around. That box (and a few other things) weren't available to you previously. You've also got a couple extra buttons at the top of each forum post.

Helpful hint: when you want to log into Admin Control, open it in a new tab, or you may not be able to see the whole page.

Have fun, and play safe!

TaoPhoenix wrote:Let's hear it for Nate "N. J." Kailhofer! He's coming up on his 68th challenge, and if we can beg and plead with him despite that he only gets about 4-6 entries per month, by about July he will have ruled over his 75th Challenge! We're just not gonna see his like again, so let's hear it for Nate K! Louder! I want you in the hospital for voice issues!

Wow, I'm all a-blush. (not exactly the normal use for that smiley, but close enough) Thank you.

Honestly, I'd lost track of how many there have been. I couldn't have done it without the best bunch of authors I'd ever want to meet. They really make it happen, not me, and I'm proud to be associated with them.

I haven't posted the October, November, & December challenge stories because I have to have Robert lift the ban on multiple URLs in a message. I mean, he's never said no or anything, but I hate leaving the door wide open for spammers while I'm doing it, and it is a little annoying to have to ask each time. If post them without updating the Flash Index, would you be able to add those stories to your new indexing system without too much work? For that, all I have to do is unlock the thread and post them from my saved copies.

The 4th version is looking very cool.

kailhofer wrote:

TaoPhoenix wrote:Let's hear it for Nate "N. J." Kailhofer! He's coming up on his 68th challenge, and if we can beg and plead with him despite that he only gets about 4-6 entries per month, by about July he will have ruled over his 75th Challenge! We're just not gonna see his like again, so let's hear it for Nate K! Louder! I want you in the hospital for voice issues!

Wow, I'm all a-blush. (not exactly the normal use for that smiley, but close enough) Thank you.

Honestly, I'd lost track of how many there have been. I couldn't have done it without the best bunch of authors I'd ever want to meet. They really make it happen, not me, and I'm proud to be associated with them.

I haven't posted the October, November, & December challenge stories because I have to have Robert lift the ban on multiple URLs in a message. I mean, he's never said no or anything, but I hate leaving the door wide open for spammers while I'm doing it, and it is a little annoying to have to ask each time. If post them without updating the Flash Index, would you be able to add those stories to your new indexing system without too much work? For that, all I have to do is unlock the thread and post them from my saved copies.

The 4th version is looking very cool.

Given the very manageable volume of spammers since The Great Registration Revolution (what, a total of two in several days?), I think I can take the multiple-link limit off and leave it off until and unless things get nasty again. Go, update, and sin no more -- sorry, wrong speech.

We now have access to everything up to the December 2010 / January 2011 issue. (Search function on the Back Issue page should be able to find 2010 items.)

Er, the previous message should have said "to the end of 2010". However, the Back Issue Index NOW covers up to the end of 2011. Honest.

I think I'll go lie down now...

Of course I really should be working on the February issue -- which will be easier now that I can see all the 2012 material without using FTP or searching the directories on my computer...

Now current up to the Oct. 2012 issue . . . the index shows links for more recent issues, but they take you to Oct. 2012.

That will get fixed soon, I'm sure. Tao, Robert, and anyone else in on that project -- my hat's off to you for a great job!

Lester Curtis wrote:Now current up to the Oct. 2012 issue . . . the index shows links for more recent issues, but they take you to Oct. 2012.

That will get fixed soon, I'm sure. Tao, Robert, and anyone else in on that project -- my hat's off to you for a great job!

Actually, the index links for November 2011 and December 2011 / January 2012 are correct -- I just forgot to change the month and issue number in the headings. (Sigh)

Speaking of a new Aphelion book . . . I've been thinking for a while that an annual Best Of collection would be nice . . . not just flash, but put up the editors' picks from each year. No rush to put them in print; they could be released as e-books first and see how that works out.

There's some damn fine writing in those collections . . . some of it is even mine!

You're close Lester but I recommend something bigger than an annual - they already do that with "Best of SF" list that ha a better "pedigree". I'm more thinking of something by Black Dog & Leventhal (Or Norton) that specializes in huge page count that can do 5-year sweeps at a time. We got the couple 5-year sweeps in the bag, and by the time we finish promoting them we' got' the third 5-year sweep on deck.

You're close Lester but I recommend something bigger than an annual - they already do that with "Best of SF" list that ha a better "pedigree". I'm more thinking of something by Black Dog & Leventhal (Or Norton) that specializes in huge page count that can do 5-year sweeps at a time. We got the couple 5-year sweeps in the bag, and by the time we finish promoting them we' got' the third 5-year sweep on deck.

Tao, was this yours? You clicked the "Edit" button instead of "Quote". No matter.

The beauty of e-publishing is that there are no limits in length -- also, we don't have to measure ourselves by anyone else's standards.

Think of this: put out a series of "Annual Best of Aphelion" e-books. See how they get received by readers; try to do some promoting. If they do well, we could have a print version made up of a compilation of multiple years' worth, or collect the most popular stories from each year and make one anthology out of those.

Someone would have to format the material, but that only needs done once, and then it's all cut-and-paste.

TaoPhoenix wrote:
Yeah Lester, that's mine... I have found myself a couple of times clicking "edit" when I am supposed to be "quoting" and maybe I messed something up. Rambling Trivia: I have a minor fondness for "huge dense page counts". (I get a bit grumpy to see 200 page books which give a quarter of the page to white space layouts. As a teen/young man I got hold of a Norton Anthology of English Lit. printed on "Bible Paper". It looked like it should have been 650 pages. Wrong. It was up near 1800+ or something.

Same idea with Black Dog & Leventhal - I have a book of some 5300 chess problems in 1100+ pages for only a normal price of $22.95. That's just cool. So I could see one of those types of companies doing some kind of "16 year retrospective of Aphelion" (It's this month right?)

If you nail that kind of thing once it hangs around for a long time. Yes there are some real marketing challenges to solve, but 'just sayin', it's an idea.

That wouldn't be easy to sell to a print publisher -- at all. They make more money by stringing the readership along with a series. Trilogies at a minimum, and up from there, the more the merrier. Not nice to the authors' intent, sometimes. C. J. Cherryh's Chanur series is kind of a mess because the publisher made her break up the main story into four books. The first one stands alone (as does the fifth), but 2, 3, and 4 do not. It's so bad that anyone finding the third volume without reading the first two is gonna be totally lost and wondering what kind of insanity they've just encountered. I feel sorry as hell for anyone who bought the first two or three and then had to wait for the third or fourth to come out. They had to have been pissed.

This, again, is the beauty of e-books. Folks who enjoy mammoth projects (e.g., you) are going to wriggle with joy, and if you give them a little free sample -- a teaser --
and they like it, they might not mind paying $15 or more for the thing.

Then again, anyone who finds this site can ingest everything on it for free . . .

Flash Index II is up to date and ready for you to grab, Tao.

TaoPhoenix wrote:

Wormtongue wrote:Hokay, folks

2007 - 2010 poetry documented and sent to Tao for upload.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks.

I see it. I've been a little distracted again but we'll get there. Hehe I got stuck a couple times reading Mark's poetry! : ) My high end trick DOES take a little bit of concentration to do it right so I need to get a grip.

Meanwhile did anyone figure out if web copies of Dan's Editorials exist? Rather than re-invent round things that make boxy chucks of steel travel well on roads, one good question is better. I think the same question applies to Seanan McGuire's essays. Someone yell at me if they know of any other important latter-day single-author features. (Not a "feature" but significant other single-author stuff counts - I could only think of Robin Lipinski and Mark Edgemon's forum poetry.)

I didn't want to ask for a spreadsheet but I don't have drive read access yet so I can't tell what the links are.

By "read access", do you mean access via FTP? After more than 7 years as Short Story Editor, I'm still using Dan's userid and password...