I have to agree with rachel_martin64: the sense of reader entitlement expressed here is staggering.
I'm a historian myself, but I don't feel that the rules of good conduct in archives apply here. In an RL archive, someone has donated a set of sources with the understanding that they'll be preserved there in perpetuity. The Internet is not a public archive, and you aren't implicitly signing an agreement to make something available forever, when you post a story.
The story belongs to the writer. Granted, once it's posted readers can download copies for their own use. If you are really concerned about stories disappearing from the Net, that's what you should do: download a copy. But the author has the right to delete it at any time. It is hers, not yours.
You cannot know or judge why someone might decide to remove her story. To be honest, I get the sense that you don't know (perhaps have never personally experienced?) how many people have RLs that could be seriously damaged if they were exposed as slash fanfic writers. It doesn't have to be your hypothetical example of a public school teacher who was on the verge of being exposed. Although in fact I have known of an author who pulled her stories for exactly that reason. People can and have lost jobs when they were outed as slash writers, lost custody of their children, and other, lesser but still undesirable consequences.
Who are you to know or judge for them, what is an acceptable risk, so that you can continue to read their stories any time you please? Just save the story on your hard drive, for heaven's sake, if you're that worried.
The story belongs to the writer. No one else. She doesn't owe you a thing.
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Date: 2006-10-28 02:48 am (UTC)I'm a historian myself, but I don't feel that the rules of good conduct in archives apply here. In an RL archive, someone has donated a set of sources with the understanding that they'll be preserved there in perpetuity. The Internet is not a public archive, and you aren't implicitly signing an agreement to make something available forever, when you post a story.
The story belongs to the writer. Granted, once it's posted readers can download copies for their own use. If you are really concerned about stories disappearing from the Net, that's what you should do: download a copy. But the author has the right to delete it at any time. It is hers, not yours.
You cannot know or judge why someone might decide to remove her story. To be honest, I get the sense that you don't know (perhaps have never personally experienced?) how many people have RLs that could be seriously damaged if they were exposed as slash fanfic writers. It doesn't have to be your hypothetical example of a public school teacher who was on the verge of being exposed. Although in fact I have known of an author who pulled her stories for exactly that reason. People can and have lost jobs when they were outed as slash writers, lost custody of their children, and other, lesser but still undesirable consequences.
Who are you to know or judge for them, what is an acceptable risk, so that you can continue to read their stories any time you please? Just save the story on your hard drive, for heaven's sake, if you're that worried.
The story belongs to the writer. No one else. She doesn't owe you a thing.