ext_55841 ([identity profile] netlagd.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] getithere2011-09-02 06:41 pm

Where to find lost fic - old (and I mean old) Midnight Whisper files

Red/Court let me know if this isn't allowed.

Someone posted looking for more chapters of a fic they had only a couple of chapters for.

Remembering the author used to post to Midnight Whispers, I went back through a few things and recovered the link to all of the old Midnight Whispers files from, well, ages ago.

Midnight Whispers went through a couple of server problems in 2009 or 2008 - I can't really remember. Upshot is they had to rebuild the database.

They had the raw text files and provide a link for authors to recover their files if they wanted to repost them.

Some authors - such as myself - decided that after two times of having to rebuild we weren't going to bother to rebuild our directories. So basically, there's a bunch of stuff from older authors that may or may not be available for someone to find.

The way the file structure works is that there is a separate directory for each author.

In each author's directory the files are numbered sequentially in text files.

However, it looks like this system is/was running on UNIX because you will get a sort order that is "Alphabetical" not "Numeric" like:

2827.txt
2862.txt
288.txt
2943.txt
2984.txt
301.txt
3043.txt
3182.txt
320.txt
3271.txt
342.txt

So if you are willing to do the work, you may find those lost chapters and lost authors.

You can start digging here:

http://midnightwhispers.ca/old/stories/

[identity profile] landlady-4rent.livejournal.com 2011-09-03 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
OMFG! Thank you so much! I've been trying to recover some of my chapters. Yay, now I can finish fics. I didn't have any luck trying before. They now have the names listed. Can't thank you enough. Hugs, Annie

[identity profile] lindsay22la.livejournal.com 2011-09-07 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Just a quick note to say thank you for this. I have already found 2 'lost' fics that I've been searching for forever. You're right... it takes some work, but it's worth it to recover a lost gem or two.

(Putting ice on my 'clicking' finger now)