Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Two weeks ago, we installed a major and necessary software update to the SWG archive. Unfortunately (and to make a long story short) changes in the directory structure between the two software versions of the software meant that we had to set up redirects in order to make existing links work and keep URLs short, tidy, and in the format we have used since reopening the site in March 2021.

This proved to be a much trickier task than we anticipated. Today, Russandol and I put some fixes in place that we hope will fix 95% of the issues.

• There should be no redirection errors, and you should not appear logged out when accessing older links.
• Older links should work.
• Links should like they always did: silmarillionwritersguild.org/something without a whole bunch of extra junk in the URL.

The only exception to this is links from between September 19 and October 2 that contain /silmarillionwritersguild/web as part of the URL. These links will not work. Take out the /silmarillionwritersguild/web bit and they'll work fine.

Please report anything on the site that isn't working for you and any redirection errors you receive. Send us an ask or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org to report problems. There are a couple of known lingering issues to do with theming and notifications; all known site issues can be found here.

We are excited to announce the final fanwork types are now available on our archive: video and multimedia!

If you'd like to add a video or multimedia fanwork, you can find these options under your My Account menu. If you need help adding them, see our video FAQ and multimedia FAQ.

What Exactly Is a Multimedia Fanwork?

Multimedia fanworks provide the means to combine two or more of the other fanwork types into a single fanwork, presented on a single page.

Did you do a ton of research for a story, and you'd like to present your link collection alongside the fic? Maybe there's an illustration of the story too? Do you have a video that goes with a meta piece, or a podcast discussing a work of art? (Or the playlist you listened to while making the art?) Or you are participating in a big bang and would like to post the artwork and novella together?

Multimedia fanworks allow you to archive fanworks that don't fit tidily into our existing fanwork types: artwork, audio, link collection, playlist, video, and writing. You can combine as many fanwork types together in whatever order you choose. The multimedia FAQ includes more information about the various ways this fanwork type can be used to present hard-to-archive fanworks on our site.

Banner image by mohamed hassan form PxHere.

We are in the process of opening a new section of our site for members who post Silmarillion fanworks with us. In this new section, active creators will be able to archive their non-Silmarillion Tolkien fanworks. You can learn more about this new section of the site here.

But our new section of the site needs a name! We have received a number of suggestions over the past week and voting is now open to choose what the new name will be.

Voting is only open to members who are registered on the SWG site so that we can make sure that we receive only one vote per person. If you're not a member but want to vote, you're welcome to register!

Voting will close on when the clock strikes midnight, UTC, at the end of Wednesday, July 20, so make sure you vote before then! We will announce the new section's name on July 21.

Recently, our webhost made some upgrades behind the scenes. Unfortunately, these upgrades have created some issues with our software, eFiction, and several errors have been reported that we are in varying stages of working on. We are aware of (and working on) the following errors:

• Some site functions (including replies to comments) return a "Not Acceptable!" error. We are waiting on our webhost to whitelist our domain so that this error is hopefully fixed. (This should be fixed. PLEASE let a mod know if you see this error.) ETA: Psych! It's back. It's like a horror movie killer: It won't stay dead. I've put in another support request with some language this time about this error not being something I'm willing to tolerate having to address every few weeks/months forevermore. We'll see what they do. ETA2: My support request/mild threat seems to have gotten the response I wanted, and the error is done again ... for now? Please report it if it comes back!
• Comment and other email notifications are not being sent. The contact forms to PM authors, therefore, do not work either. Please note that this includes password resets, which are sent via email. Contact a mod if you need your password reset. We are investigating this issue. This issue should be fixed. Please reach out if you know that you are not receiving notifications that should have been sent.
• The site sometimes posts duplicates of stories, comments, replies, and chapters. I believe this might be due to a slow response from the site and people clicking multiple times because they think the first didn't register. Please click only once; it will go through, I promise. I do know that the struck-out issue was happening, but duplicates post sometimes for reasons that aren't anyone's fault. If you need something deleted, feel free to reach out, and I will handle it for you.
• Special characters were not displaying correctly. We managed a partial fix; currently, special characters do not display correctly if the story was added in HTML (versus rich-text/TinyMCE) mode. Switching TinyMCE on (under Account -> Preferences) and ticking the box under the story field to use the TinyMCE editor, then posting/reposting the story will fix this problem. If you need help from a mod fixing your stories, please let me know.

We rely on our members to report errors. We cannot fix what we do not know is wrong. If you are having a problem with the site, it is most likely the site, not you and not your system. Please report problems by reaching out to us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We're also reachable over all of our social media, but email gets the fastest and most reliable response. Thank you to those of you who have reported problems so far.

We are aware of the problems above, but if you run into one that is preventing you from using the site as intended, please reach out. We will do our best to find a solution or a workaround from our end.

The larger takeaway from this, though, is that we need to move away from eFiction faster than our plan to do so next summer. We have been working on a test site with new software for some time now, and Dawn and Russandol will be intensifying their work on this in the weeks to come with the hope of transitioning the archive away from eFiction as soon as possible. We thank you all for your patience and regret the inconveniences caused by the latest upgrade.