The aim of this project is to resurrect some of the X-Files Fan Fiction from the Wayback Machine without compromising the privacy of authors who may no longer want their fics archived under their original names where they can be found by anyone. 

Where I know an author doesn’t want their original name used, or where  they appear to have used an uncommon real name, I’ll allocate a pseudonym to prevent their names being associated with their “youthful indiscretions”.   This can be an established pen name that they’ve provided before, or I may ‘fudge’ names by making slight changes to the spelling of a name or using/removing initials to make a name more common.   This is in no way an attempt to remove the rights or take credit from the original author, but to protect their right to privacy while keeping their masterpieces out where they can be enjoyed.  Whilst these stories are generally available via the Wayback Machine Internet Archive, and many are on Gossamer, they’re not searchable there, and can’t be linked to at Gossamer. without compromising Gossamer’s efforts to maintain author privacy.  

To protect authors’ details on multi-author archives, I’m excluding all  linked .txt files from search engine indexing so that the author’s original details can remain there. I don’t like doing this because it means the text in these files can’t be searched, but I don’t want to be fudging original author names on files themselves without the OK of the author. I’m interested in general thoughts on this and may change this policy if my arm is twisted.

Any author or site resurrected here is one we love, and we think they deserve to be exhumed and returned to life a’la Mulder after the time and effort that was put into creating them.

Where possible I try to retain as much as we can of the original pages and layouts, especially where entire sites or parts of sites are recreated, as I want them to be close to the author’s original creations as is practicable.   This means a lot of old .txt files, and some ancient HTML.  Depending on time and the popularity of a site, code may be updated for better display on mobile devices. Images are often missing and, again, where time allows, I’ll recreate them (usually without knowing what the originals looked like).  If anyone has access to the originals, please send them my way, I’d love to keep them if possible. 

Also, in the interest of a more pleasurable browsing experience, I may remove or dull down some elements to avoid contributing to seizures and eye strain.  Sites that were designed for low res can look frightening when displayed on a mobile phone screen.  I try to balance keeping a site true to the original and having it be usable, and it’s often a compromise.

I’ll always remove any personal information from a site, restricting the resurrection to the fan works only.  I’ll also remove non-working elements such as web rings, counters, guestbooks and  pages of links which can no longer be accessed. Embedded .wav files will be automatically removed because I never could stand those.  You can bookmark the original site on the wayback machine if you want everyone around you to know that you’ve landed on a particular page when you’re supposed to be at work ;).

It’s important to recognize that the majority of these works are being resurrected without the permission of the original authors.  Despite a low success rate, an attempt is always made to contact the owners/authors of the original sites (but not the author of each story within archives where multiple authors are featured). With contact emails often being from the last millennium, emails usually remain unanswered. I’ve managed to super-sleuth a couple of authors, but that’s rare.  If you’re an author featured here and have stumbled across your work, please appreciate that it’s here because it’s still bringing happiness to old and new generations of fans.  If for some reason you want something allocated a different pen name or removed, please contact me.

I’ve had the immense pleasure of being able to get in touch with some of the authors featured here, and all those I have been able to get in touch with have given their blessing. With some of these there is an understanding that a pseuodonym will be used and personal information removed. Please don’t link to these pages using the original name the author used as this will publicly re-associate them with their work.  Consider using a “nofollow” link if you can.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact  [email protected].