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The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive Keyword Project

Well, you've been enjoying the fanfic uploaded faithfully to the Archive, week by week, and you've been thinking to yourself, "Gosh, I'd love to give something back to the Archive staff and all those great authors, for all the enjoyment those stories have given me, but...what?" <g> Right? Sure you have!

Well, now is your chance! Aren't we good to you?

As many of you already know, the Archive has been working on a long-term project for a number of years now to produce a dedicated and comprehensive search engine for the website. This will enable readers to hook out the stories they are most interested in by inserting specific keywords into the database. For example, all stories set in season one. Or all stories with Lex as the villain. And so on and much more.

Of course, first, we need a database.

Now that we have a final keyword list, we come to the major part of the work to produce that dbase. And that's where you guys come in, with a bit of luck.

We now need volunteers - as many as we can get - to read over the 2,000+ stories currently held at the Archive and assign keywords to them from the list. We're looking for:

VOLUNTEER READERS

Whether you have time to read and keyword a dozen stories or just one - we'd love to hear from you! Every little bit will help with this one. If you'd like to volunteer, please email the EIC at the eddress below. You'll be sent out the keyword list and assigned stories to work on. It's simple, it's straightforward and you get to read a lot of great stories - what could be easier?

AUTHORS

It will obviously speed up the process considerably if authors were to assign keywords to their own stories - as they generally don't have to spend time reading the story first to figure out which keywords are appropriate. So, any authors who would like to keyword their own stories, please do email too for that keyword list! We'll be delighted to hear from you!

The more volunteers we get, the quicker the raw data can be collected and collated, and the sooner it will be that everyone gets that search engine up and running. So...go to it, FoLCs! We're counting on you!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please put ARCHIVE KEYWORD PROJECT in the header of any email you send me on this one. Thanks!

Think that's it. If I've forgotten something I'm sure you guys will let me know. <g> So...basically...let the fun (and the massive read-a-thon) begin!

LabRat
Editor-in-Chief
The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive
Labrat@blueyonder.co.uk

I'll send you the keywords for my stories Labby

Jose

What an awesome undertaking. I remember the earlier site (somewhere:) where the stories were divided into categories like that. Married /not married. first revelation/ Lex.

This will be great. Is this for fic and nfic alike? I would like to help out if I could, but should probably do my own stories first?

Let me know.
llowe2@triad.rr.com

doublel

Is this keyword list posted somewhere so we know what words will be most effective?

There's a list of instructions for how to keyword the stories that you can get via email from Labby. They've got a little detailed list of things to assign that's pretty easy to follow.

Ciao
Jen

Linda - any help would be most welcome. I'll email you the keyword list. Thanks. This only applies to gfic though as it's an Archive project.

Marilyn:

Jen (Super Volunteer Extraordinaire <g>) - thanks!

LabRat (now definitely running late for her doc appointment, so excuse the brevity )

Labrat,

can you email me the list to, so I can send you the Keywords for my stories...oh, I also volunteer as a reader, and I guess that could be of great help too

Carole

PS: is there a max amount of keywords we can submit for each story?

PPS: when's deadline due?

Carole, there are four fields for keywords, though you don't have to use all four of them. I've done my stories and had a nostalgic blast in the process <g> The hardest part is figuring out how to characterize the more off-beat stories... I'm really looking forward to using this system when it's done

PJ

Thanks, Carole - I'll contact you with the keyword list etc shortly. Having a slight problem with my email at the moment.

There is no deadline. The project is finished when the work is done, basically. Which is why the more volunteers we get, the quicker we'll produce a search engine.


LabRat

Just a small question: Will you have a list of what stories have already been keyworded, or are you assigning the stories so there are no duplicates?

Both, Karen. <G> I have a spreadsheet, even. . A rather snazzy one, if I say so myself. So I have a record of who is working on which story at all times.

And, yes, stories are assigned out, so that duplicates are avoided.

LabRat

Labby, email me the keyword list when your email is working again and I'll handle my stories that are on the archive.

well, that'swhy I was asking about keywords...I'm having a hard time to figure out how to 'classify' my stories...I guess the list will definitely help

Can't wait either to using this new toy...er...interesting device

Thanks to our new crop of volunteers. I've mailed you all with the keyword list.

Anyone else thinking about volunteering feel free to just jump on in there. <g>

LabRat

er...didn't received a thing...

Carole

Sounds like fun! I'll email you soon.

~Amanda

Labby, is it possible to post the keyword list on this thread for those of us who don't have the proper application to be able to open the attachment you sent?

Or is it too long?

That way, as people write new stories they can list the keywords they think apply to their stories right from the beginning.

Tank (who figures his reply email to Labrat was lost in her recent email problems)

Yes, that would be good

I'd prefer not to post the keyword here to be honest, as I really don't want a situation arising where people take the keyword list and decide to help out by assigning stories and sending them in, off their own initiative. Therein lies chaos. <g>

To make this at all logistically possible, I need to have entire control over the keyword list and the assigning of stories.

I've either lost some emails in both directions or my server is being slow to deliver them. (The second is entirely possible the way they've been performing over the last couple of months.) I'm hoping it's the latter because our volunteers have been doing so marvellously and we've been rolling along so well that it would be a shame for server problems to slow us down now. I'm up to date with sending mail out - so if anyone who's expecting to hear from me hasn't within the next 12 hours, please let me know!

I'll send you out another copy, Tank. This time as a text file, which shouldn't give you any access problems. Just to be certain though I'll copy and paste it into the body of the email also.

With regard to new and future stories - there is no problem with these as assigning keywords to Archive submissions has now been incorporated into the GEing process, with each GE providing a keyword list when they return the final copy of a story to me for uploading. It seemed the easiest way to get the data for future stories. So authors don't need to worry about this stage of the process at all.

LabRat

Labby,

If you'll email a copy of the list to me, I'll gladly assign keywords to my own stories. I guess it's only fair since I know them better than anyone else...

This is quite an ambitious project - glad I'm not in charge of it. <G> That said, I'll gladly do my part. Send me the list, and I'll do my own.

Annie

Since the only two stories I have in the archive are very short, I'll give the pleasure of reading them to someone else. With that said I would be glad to help by reading for you. My e-mail is singingduckyqueen@yahoo.com. I can't wait to get started.

~L.L Wanna Be

Thanks for volunteering, guys. I've just got my internet connection back this instant, having lost it from 11am Saturday, and spent the weekend having some very unhelpful conversations with my server. but got a backlog of over 200 messages to get to. So please bear with me and I'll get replies to everyone ASAP!

LabRat

I need a ruling, or a clarification on a keyword and it's application.

For those of you who have read them, the original Futures series featured altLois as a main character, but was never set in the altUniverse (just a few flashbacks discussions in later stories). So, I'm asking if you would then classify those stories with an Alt-Universe keyword for the character even though it's not set in that world? Or not?

I guess what I'm saying is: Tempus Anyone? would be an Alt-Universe keyword, but Meet John Doe wouldn't even though both had Lois and altClark as the leads.

Tank (who has been trying to work through some of his stories through the pain of a severe arthritic flair up of a shoulder, and feels sorry for himself)

It's entirely your choice on this one, Tank. Which keyword would you want a reader searching for stories to use to find and read yours?

If you want a reader whose favouries are alt universes and who is searching for stories in that genre to pick them up in a search, then assign an AU keyword to them.

If you'd rather they were picked up by a searching reader on another criteria/genre instead - that's cool too.

I think you're right in your assessment of the difference between TA and MJD though, if that helps too.


Hope that shoulder eases up soon. No fun.

LabRat