miscellanium (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
miscellanium) wrote2023-10-12 11:06 am
miscellanium) wrote2023-10-12 11:06 am
Entry tags:
fansite/webhost musings
slowly getting lawrencedane.com together - i went with liberato.io for my host and it's been a steep learning curve going from neocities' handholding to having to do literally everything from scratch. (i guess i don't have to do it from scratch since it's possible to do a wordpress plug-in thing? but when i tried installing it, it seemed like more trouble than it was worth lol.) but their customer support has been very patient with me which i really appreciate.
i decided on liberato after readingtempural's post about site hosting resources - the post is from about a year ago now but their tos still distinguishes between fictional content and irl harmful content in a way that gives me optimism that they won't suddenly decide to be weird about it, even though there won't be anything on the fansite dealing with (for example) fictional sexual material with underage characters. i did email them before signing up to ask about nazi iconography, since they say no hate symbols are allowed, and they responded promptly to clarify that discussions of/screenshots from media like dane's jericho episode would pose no problems. i do also like that they make it very clear that live-action sexual material is allowed as long as it's consensual, since i'm well aware of how hostile most of the internet has become towards sex workers.
i know neocities can be loosey-goosey with what kind of content they allow to be hosted, for better or worse, but i also know they have no customer support and it was absolutely a given that i would need it.
now that i've started to understand how the directories/subdirectories work in liberato's interface, including linking to images, i think my next step is going to be using a static site generator to help me with the css lol. much easier to tweak a template than code a page from nothing. i don't know if i need to be concerned about disabling hotlinking to images? it's something i thought about since one of my inspirations, the phantom of the paradise fansite the swan archives, has right-click completely disabled so you can't look at the source code for the pages or anything. i'm sure it's a bandwidth-control tactic but possibly also a copyright thing, which may be a factor i need to be thinking about in the long run...? trying to understand how to implement that kind of thing has been pretty confusing to me though, so for now my priority is just to get the site functional and reasonably attractive. then i might go back to customer support and ask them to walk me through implementing that function like i'm a five-year-old.
obviously i need to get the home page sorted, and then i was thinking the next immediate priority page would be a filmography so i can start linking reviews/screencaps through that list in a similar way to how i have the masterpost set up here. i want to figure out batch resizing of images though, especially if i'm going to try hosting them on liberato itself. i was originally going to use squidge, since that's what i did for the jericho post instead of using imgur, but there's been some complications recently that made me uncertain whether they're the best option for me if i'm trying to be consistent with the way i choose hosting services. the interface is also a little clunky for mass uploads - finding the actual image urls wasn't very intuitive, even compared to ye olde photobucket pre-2009. it felt like it'd be faster to upload to liberato and then just have the data right there for me to use so i wouldn't have to dig around to make sure the links were in sequential order or anything like that.
a biography page would be pretty quick to throw together so that's a less of a priority - i was thinking i'd just copy the one he wrote for the original iteration of the website and give a little preface for context. then once the priority pages are more finished-feeling i can start adding the research i've done so far, etc.
i actually haven't looked at very many fan pages for actors/characters, at least not recently! since i want this to feel...not ~professional~ necessarily, lol, but still archive-like in a way, some of the more fun shrine pages i've seen unfortunately do not seem like they'd be ideal models for this particular project. not that it makes them any less awesome! just not a great fit if i'm trying to make a sort of virtual museum. at the same time, i don't want it to feel sterile.... much to think about.
when you visit fansites/fanpages what are the first things you look for, as a fan or just someone who's curious? what kind of organization have you found helpful for navigating the sites/pages?
i decided on liberato after reading
tempural's post about site hosting resources - the post is from about a year ago now but their tos still distinguishes between fictional content and irl harmful content in a way that gives me optimism that they won't suddenly decide to be weird about it, even though there won't be anything on the fansite dealing with (for example) fictional sexual material with underage characters. i did email them before signing up to ask about nazi iconography, since they say no hate symbols are allowed, and they responded promptly to clarify that discussions of/screenshots from media like dane's jericho episode would pose no problems. i do also like that they make it very clear that live-action sexual material is allowed as long as it's consensual, since i'm well aware of how hostile most of the internet has become towards sex workers.i know neocities can be loosey-goosey with what kind of content they allow to be hosted, for better or worse, but i also know they have no customer support and it was absolutely a given that i would need it.
now that i've started to understand how the directories/subdirectories work in liberato's interface, including linking to images, i think my next step is going to be using a static site generator to help me with the css lol. much easier to tweak a template than code a page from nothing. i don't know if i need to be concerned about disabling hotlinking to images? it's something i thought about since one of my inspirations, the phantom of the paradise fansite the swan archives, has right-click completely disabled so you can't look at the source code for the pages or anything. i'm sure it's a bandwidth-control tactic but possibly also a copyright thing, which may be a factor i need to be thinking about in the long run...? trying to understand how to implement that kind of thing has been pretty confusing to me though, so for now my priority is just to get the site functional and reasonably attractive. then i might go back to customer support and ask them to walk me through implementing that function like i'm a five-year-old.
obviously i need to get the home page sorted, and then i was thinking the next immediate priority page would be a filmography so i can start linking reviews/screencaps through that list in a similar way to how i have the masterpost set up here. i want to figure out batch resizing of images though, especially if i'm going to try hosting them on liberato itself. i was originally going to use squidge, since that's what i did for the jericho post instead of using imgur, but there's been some complications recently that made me uncertain whether they're the best option for me if i'm trying to be consistent with the way i choose hosting services. the interface is also a little clunky for mass uploads - finding the actual image urls wasn't very intuitive, even compared to ye olde photobucket pre-2009. it felt like it'd be faster to upload to liberato and then just have the data right there for me to use so i wouldn't have to dig around to make sure the links were in sequential order or anything like that.
a biography page would be pretty quick to throw together so that's a less of a priority - i was thinking i'd just copy the one he wrote for the original iteration of the website and give a little preface for context. then once the priority pages are more finished-feeling i can start adding the research i've done so far, etc.
i actually haven't looked at very many fan pages for actors/characters, at least not recently! since i want this to feel...not ~professional~ necessarily, lol, but still archive-like in a way, some of the more fun shrine pages i've seen unfortunately do not seem like they'd be ideal models for this particular project. not that it makes them any less awesome! just not a great fit if i'm trying to make a sort of virtual museum. at the same time, i don't want it to feel sterile.... much to think about.
when you visit fansites/fanpages what are the first things you look for, as a fan or just someone who's curious? what kind of organization have you found helpful for navigating the sites/pages?