What Happened to ASSTR.ORG

[Powerone]

ASSTR.org moved to a new ISP. Was up, then down, then up again, now it has been down for over a week (with no word). that hosted a lot of websites (including my own).

Anyone have any news regarding it?

Powerone

 

[eyefish]

Here is the latest info I've seen on the status of ASSTR ...


quote:
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The firewall's conked out again. Rey & Mike may or may not get it into halfassedly functional mode again, but if they do, it'll no doubt roll over again.

Mike has the replacement firewall(a box *known* by Mike to work nicely with their distro of Linux), and is setting it up, configuring, etc. Then it'll be shipped to the data center and installed. This will take at least a couple of weeks. Meanwhile:

Access to ASSTR will be spotty at best. ASSM likely will remain devoid of stories, since the fw really doesn't like incoming email, even when it is more or less working.

All involved apologize--but also note that all involved are more frustrated and generally po'd about this than anyone else. ASSTR/ASSM *will* be back up and working properly, have no doubts about that. It's just a bad transition period. "This too shall pass."

(I'm posting this 'cos Rey's Usenet laptop is in the shop)

If you really really need something passed to Rey--something that just can't wait--you can email me and I'll pass it on. But if I get 'Rey I need to know when the site'll be back up' I won't bother passing that on. He doesn't know. Mike doesn't know. The answer to that one is ASAP.
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[Powerone]

Thanks for the Info.

Powerone

 

[canesbr]

ASSTR and...

ObamaCare
are now 69ing

 

[lovecraft68]

ObamaCare
are now 69ing

Nah, asstr only has under age gang rape stories and bestiality.

Obamacare is far too disgusting for asstr to want to be associated with it.

 

[daeghran]

Nah, asstr only has under age gang rape stories and bestiality.

Obamacare is far too disgusting for asstr to want to be associated with it.

Where did you get that idea from? Have you actually visited the site?

The best thing about asstr.org is that they have all kinds of stories which is why it's my fave stories site by far.

 

[lovecraft68]

Where did you get that idea from? Have you actually visited the site?

The best thing about asstr.org is that they have all kinds of stories which is why it's my fave stories site by far.

I did visit it awhile back

Found a story where an 11 year old girl was gang raped by several men. Then started searching and found several more just like and one gen where a woman was raped and her attacker had her fucked by his dog.

Classy site over there. Unless they have seriously altered their policies and done a major clean up that site is the biggest cesspool in the erotic stories market.

 

[RichardBacula]

I did visit it awhile back

Found a story where an 11 year old girl was gang raped by several men. Then started searching and found several more just like and one gen where a woman was raped and her attacker had her fucked by his dog.

Classy site over there. Unless they have seriously altered their policies and done a major clean up that site is the biggest cesspool in the erotic stories market.

Yeah. They have some decent stuff in there, but it's hidden in one hell of a lot weird kiddie porn.

 

[desertslave]

It's back as of a few minutes ago.

I have a few author-friends who post there. NONE of them have ever written a gang rape or kiddie porn story. *Some* underage stuff, but mostly realistic, like teenagers doing what teenagers do.

For non-Lit sites I prefer SOL...mostly because it's easier to navigate.

 

[SandraMustard]

Please help an old lady be better informed. I know ASSTR and have browsed there (yuck) but what does SOL stand for?

 

[desertslave]

Please help an old lady be better informed. I know ASSTR and have browsed there (yuck) but what does SOL stand for?

Stories OnLine

 

[SandraMustard]

Thanks Slave. Found it but I almost asked for more help before I tried putting the words together without a space on Google to find the site.

 

[PennLady]

Thanks Slave. Found it but I almost asked for more help before I tried putting the words together without a space on Google to find the site.

Stories Online is a decent site. I post there, although I was iffy at first because they allowed underage, etc. I think they still do but have tightened the rules a little. At least, that's what I've heard, but I don't know if they have specific rules posted. Anyway, there's no public feedback there but the private feedback I've gotten has all been very nice, no trolling like you get here sometimes.

 

[dmonty]

Is ASSTR finally dead? Haven't been able to connect for a week now, no news or updates that I can find

 

[tenyari]

Well that's one heck of a necropost. But relevant so yeah.

I'm also unable to reach it. Been a few days since I looked. I've noticed that author logins went down some time in 2017. I have no idea who's been "paying the bills" since then.

People say the Internet last forever, but it actually doesn't. That's a lot of old stories just gone now. Hopefully the good ones were reposted here and elsewhere over the years.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Stories Online is a decent site. I post there, although I was iffy at first because they allowed underage, etc. I think they still do but have tightened the rules a little. At least, that's what I've heard, but I don't know if they have specific rules posted. Anyway, there's no public feedback there but the private feedback I've gotten has all been very nice, no trolling like you get here sometimes.

Stories Online goes down to age fourteen now; they used to allow lower than that. Okay, so Nabakov wouldn't be allowed there. Or Philip Roth either. They have a couple of rules, like no fan fiction or mention of any real person is allowed. Public comments are allowed if you check the box for it when submitting.

ASSTR.org had one story going down to age six. I know, I'm bad, I read a little of it. The writing quality was abysmal. Just curious, even if I wanted to post something on there, I couldn't figure out the submission instructions.

 

[tenyari]

Stories Online goes down to age fourteen now;

ASSTR.org had one story going down to age six.

I thought it was 16 on SOL but yeah... 14. I believe this is due to something about Canadian law. I'm not a fan of it being below 18, even though I have one high school story 'out there' (which I guess just lost it's main location online now that ASSTRis dead, not that I've had access to my ASSTR page for the last 5 years anyway).

ASSTR was part of Usenet, which had no rules. The Internet was supposed to be an anarchist's utopia with no rules and no commercial content. Then reality arrived.


SOL's forums are a but more of a mess too. They don't have a filter-out for the politics stuff (no politics forum), so the author forum gets a lot of "just an honest question, not political at all... but WTF with those people I disagree with who believe stupid stuff that since I am right, isn't actually about politics?" posts...

 

[RejectReality]

They have a couple of rules, like no fan fiction or mention of any real person is allowed.

Uhm... there's a fan fiction tag and a fan fiction genre, so I don't know where you're getting that information. Also never heard of anything with respect to not being able to mention real people. The age restriction is the only content rule I'm aware of — aside from purely political/religious screeds with no literary value being prohibited, and a general prohibition against posting things that aren't stories to the story file.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Uhm... there's a fan fiction tag and a fan fiction genre, so I don't know where you're getting that information. Also never heard of anything with respect to not being able to mention real people. The age restriction is the only content rule I'm aware of — aside from purely political/religious screeds with no literary value being prohibited, and a general prohibition against posting things that aren't stories to the story file.

You're right, I'll take your word on it. I'm a little distracted by issues more important than whatever rules these various sites make up.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I thought it was 16 on SOL but yeah... 14. I believe this is due to something about Canadian law. I'm not a fan of it being below 18, even though I have one high school story 'out there' (which I guess just lost it's main location online now that ASSTRis dead, not that I've had access to my ASSTR page for the last 5 years anyway).

ASSTR was part of Usenet, which had no rules. The Internet was supposed to be an anarchist's utopia with no rules and no commercial content. Then reality arrived.


SOL's forums are a but more of a mess too. They don't have a filter-out for the politics stuff (no politics forum), so the author forum gets a lot of "just an honest question, not political at all... but WTF with those people I disagree with who believe stupid stuff that since I am right, isn't actually about politics?" posts...

I've gone down to high school level if the story justifies it. We all know that Dolores was twelve when Lolita starts, and I think Alexander Portnoy was thirteen at the beginning. Book publishing, I get it, it's different. I think Grove Press first published Lolita because they were the only ones who would handle it at the time.

So you did understand the ASSTR.org submission process? Probably that's more than I want to deal with right now; just curious. SOL's forums: another thing I rarely deal with.

Anarchists always imagine a utopia or else they wouldn't be anarchists.

 

[tenyari]

So you did understand the ASSTR.org submission process? Probably that's more than I want to deal with right now; just curious. SOL's forums: another thing I rarely deal with.

ASSTR was originally just a web-clone of Usenet's alt.sex.stories. Any post to alt.sex.stories automatically ended up on ASSTR if it had story tags and whatever headers where needed to declare your post a story and not your random opinions about the topics of the day.

In other words, no approval process.

Once ASSTR was in full swing, you could get an author account by filling in a form and clicking submit. The system gave you the ability to make your own little website (mine was ~tenyari or something...), and you got FTP access to post directly into both that and the FTP archive.
- Again, no humans at the gate making sure you kept it clean.

Thus, it was a perfect place for all the worst things to get posted. Right alongside some of the best because back in the day, it was the only shop in town. Tagging your stories right was basically the honor system. Since stuff was searched out by tags people tended to follow it decently - but if somebody throws in a combo of tags you like alongside some real 'sicko' tags... not really any good way to filter that out because that was "Web 0.5" - pre web days. I first stumbled onto alt.sex.stories.d in the late 1980s. The ".d" was for discussions. A friend was showing me "the Internet" and told me "avoid all the stuff under 'alt', that stuff is weird, and many admins block it all from being distributed." (even anarchy had gatekeepers in the form of local ISP sys-admins) At the time I listened, but I did see that one sitting there.

I lost my password almost a decade ago. Somewhere around 2017 or so, I cared to get it back, but when I did, I discovered the ASSTR website's login system was no longer working. I have no idea if the FTP system was still on, as I haven't had an FTP client on my machine in years and only as I'm typing this realized I could have just tried with a Terminal on my old Mac... Oops...

My motivation to get the account back just wasn't there enough to really make a serious effort. After all, ASSTR really did have some serious freaks on it.


On the SOL forums:

They were actually pretty good until about a month ago. Maybe it goes in waves, I don't know. Right now there's a few people who keep sneaking in political topics by talking about things that have nothing to do with writing, and seem tailor made to "bait" me into making a snarky reply... I suspect that the posts from them that seem innocent to me, are just the same thing only baiting the other side of things...

A month ago, all the discussion was directly tied to writing and things relevant to the site itself.

There's a reason I only started posting on these forums recently, even though my account dates to 2002... One is that I'm getting back into writing, but then my posting frequency went up with the other places I was splitting my time between got too political.

It makes me very glad this forum has the politics forum - I can just ignore that forum, and it's topics are not in my face as I read this one. I know full well we all have different politics - but it's nice to have SOMEWHERE we don't have to be arguing about it. Every place online that has a 'no politics' rule, just ends up having 'stealth politics' with people making sneaky posts to bait each other. Here, because it's allowed but placed in a side forum, the temptation to baith each other is lesser. Sure it still happens, I've done it myself. But it's not dominating everything.

Moderation by distraction.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It makes me very glad this forum has the politics forum - I can just ignore that forum, and it's topics are not in my face as I read this one. I know full well we all have different politics - but it's nice to have SOMEWHERE we don't have to be arguing about it. Every place online that has a 'no politics' rule, just ends up having 'stealth politics' with people making sneaky posts to bait each other. Here, because it's allowed but placed in a side forum, the temptation to baith each other is lesser. Sure it still happens, I've done it myself. But it's not dominating everything.

Yes, the AH is a decent place, a good bunch of people mostly (a few twats, but they've been on Ignore for a couple of years at least), and on the whole it's civilised discussion (with an occasional excitement).

What amazes me is the IQ drop when otherwise intelligent people go over to the Politics forum - that's the bit I don't understand at all. But then, American politics, looking in from the outside, is a bit... strange.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

What amazes me is the IQ drop when otherwise intelligent people go over to the Politics forum - that's the bit I don't understand at all. But then, American politics, looking in from the outside, is a bit... strange.

I was telling someone today that if I was going to draw a map of the Lit forums, everything outside of AH, Editors’ Forum, and Story Feedback would be labeled “There Be Dragons” — people are either too angry, too horny, or inexplicably, both simultaneously.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I was telling someone today that if I was going to draw a map of the Lit forums, everything outside of AH, Editors’ Forum, and Story Feedback would be labeled “There Be Dragons” — people are either too angry, too horny, or inexplicably, both simultaneously.

BDSM Cafe is mostly pretty friendly, give or take occasional pouring of cold water on dudes who feel compelled to hit on anything female. (Paradox of tolerance: if you're always nice, people will exploit that.) And some personality clashes but probably less so than AH.

There are a few topics that will stir up a hornet's nest but for the most part I find it slightly mellower than AH.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I was telling someone today that if I was going to draw a map of the Lit forums, everything outside of AH, Editors’ Forum, and Story Feedback would be labeled “There Be Dragons” — people are either too angry, too horny, or inexplicably, both simultaneously.

Anything can happen on various forums or other online venues - like comments sections. For one thing, not everybody in the world is mentally stable, and watch out if they have an Internet connection. I recently got into trouble on an email list about transit topics if you can believe that. The topic is a subset of the environmental/green movement, and suddenly this relatively new person jumped on me because I wasn't sufficiently "woke" enough for their tastes. The name was a bit ambiguous but I'm assuming it was a woman based on some things she said. (Would a man call me "adorable but scary?") It's a bit daunting to deal, even briefly, with someone who appears to be hard-core irrational because they are playing by an entirely different set of rules or non-rules.