I have updated the script that we run the archive on. It went cleanly and without a hitch (if you ran into problems today, you were probably doing something while I was uploading). We have a new bit - you can now also note the pairing of your fic when uploading (or editing). Hope you like the updated script.

Also, I don't want to hear any bitching about how I haven't made a brown skin yet. I'm a very busy lass, I have dozens of sites to run and real work to do over this weekend. The site works and I'll sort out the skin when I have time.

Right, this is getting difficult, so I’m going to set out some guidelines for how to get issues on the archive resolved. It’s worth saying that trying more than once usually solves the problem, but there are exceptions, so if you do have issues, please do the following:

• Email Me (if the subject line is not automatic, please use The Lost Cave Archive as your subject line.


• Tell me the name you use on the archive - signing an email “Lizzie” when on here you are “Elizabeth_1987” does not help me.


• Tell me what you were trying to do (eg: change your fic from The Lost Boys Category to a sub-category, changing the summary, etc).


• Tell me what you were hoping to achieve after the change (eg: I was moving my story “A Moonlight Tale” from The Lost Boys category to the Original Character category).


• Tell me what the problem is exactly. Saying “it won’t work” helps no-one. Tell me what error you were given (eg: “You have missed out the following fields”, etc) - copy and paste it.


• Tell me the name of your fic in full.


• Tell me if there are missing chapters - while you are familiar with your stories, I have only probably ever read them just once, and it was probably when I validated them, so quite a long time ago.


• If you do not call your chapters “Chapter 1”, “Chapter 2”, etc, tell me the name of the chapters and what order they should be in.


• As a side note, my name is Sarah, it would be nice if you greeted me in your email.

Thanks,

Sarah

Hey,

I'm looking to do a complete overhaul of the archive very soon, this will mean basically taking it to pieces and putting it back together again. However, we have hundreds of stories in the archive, and I cannot take care of all of them. Could you please comment to show that you will be willing to check all of your stories once the overhaul is finished.

What I intend to do is re-organise the categories, the original four will remain, but there will be sub-categories to them for characters. Generally, this will not really impact your way of life until...

When I do this, I am going to set all characters to be "sitewide". At the moment, the characters are put into the database multiple times, one for each category. When I was on eFiction 1, this made sense, but as the script has updated, it's become a real burden to me.

If this doesn't mean a great deal to you, I'll explain further. If you select David in "The Lost Boys" category as your character, you're not actually selecting the word "David" but an ID number, let's say 5, for example, and so when I change the characters to sitewide, there's a chance the ID number will change, perhaps on input, 5 will relate to Marko instead. Or maybe David was ID 5 in "The Lost Boys" category, but 7 in "The Lost Cave" category. You see it all gets confusing.

There's a faint hope that this will all turn out perfectly, but let's face it, this archive has kicked my ass repeatedly in the past.

Please comment. I get absolutely no input from the people who use this site - face facts, you use this site a lot more than I do, so please, if you want your fics to be clear, then comment and say you will check your fics after the overhaul.

Regards,

Sarah

Please DO NOT upload your story multiple times. If you are a first-time writer, your story has to be validated by an admin. Do not upload it more than once while waiting, it only causes myself and Carla excess work trying to work out what the difference is, if any, and which one to keep and which one to delete. Be patient - and if you make an error, wait for the story to go live on the site, then edit it.

Thank you.

I have found (by playing with the functions of the updated script) the series function. If you go to your user account you can create a series, add your stories to it and set out which order they should display in.

Very helpful. I suggest that if you have a series you use this function. It's brilliant.

The layout is still not brilliant, but hey!

Hey all, I have just updated to eFiction v2, which means the old skins no longer fit. I have removed all of the old skins for the time being, and theoretically you should default to a new eFiction skin. I shall shortly upload a new skin.

But for now, could you please not play with your settings, upload new fics, or do anything other than briefly look at this note then go back to the other parts of the site until further notice.

Hope you like the new site when it's up and running, I'll let you know when you can play and post again.

As you can tell, I have updated the site. Is anything broken, or is anything confusing because I seem to be overrun with questions that I'm sure are covered in the help page. Any form of answer (such as "Yes, Sarah, everything is confusing" or "No, Sarah, everything is fine") would be helpful.