Jan 1, 2009

Goodbye, Journalspace

Just over a year ago, I began a second blog at a site called JournalSpace. The reason was because a girl at my work blogged there, and was part of John Birmingham's online "Cheeseburger Gothic" community. It was essentially a mirror site for me, as I mostly reposted articles from this, my first and truly beloved blog site.

Joining gave me the chance to be a part of JB's excellent little circle of like-minded individuals - there were great discussions and comment threads, and JB often posted fascinating stories about the publishing world and life as a writer. There was the odd flamer and nutcase follower, but for the most part, it was everything that's good about the internet (porn aside, obviously).

But last week, the system crashed, and after sending their drives to a recovery service, it appears something irreversible's happened, and there's no data left. At all. Everything's gone.

Journalspace is no more.

It hasn't been a major hassle for me, as Blogger is my first home. However, many people lost dozens of great articles, posts and comments. Worse than that, they lost the community that had been established, and are now scrambling to piece that back together. For writers like John Birmingham, whose online presence has become a big part of his professional life, it's a double blow.

Having said that, I've spent the past hour or so tracking down some of the J-Space "refugees" - as most have gone and started up Blogger or Wordpress blogs in the wake of J-Space's fiery implosion. John himself has established a dedicated Cheeseburger Gothic site. I have no doubt the community will reassert itself, even though it will probably never be exactly the same.

If anyone reading this is an ex-Journalspacer - welcome! I hope you check back in often, and let me know where your new online home is, so I can come and visit. I'll bring a welcome basket, I promise.

It's also made me think a lot more about backing up some of my better posts from this site - please let me know if you know how best to do that!

17 comments:

  1. Hey Natalie

    I lost some good stuff. Feels like I lost a part of me actually. Happy new year anyway.

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  2. Hey NatB

    I've set up at
    http://bigbadal.wordpress.com/

    And I have today revived my Blogger account and set it up.

    I've got a list of those I've managed to find.

    I suspect that we will sort ourselves out and find a new home.

    All the best for 2009.

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  3. I feel so lost without journalspace! Thank you for finding me and making me--and all of us, actually--feel so welcome here!! -Jenny :D

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  4. Wait--I can't seem to figure out how to add you as a follower to my list...hmmm...I'll figure it out....

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  5. Ahhh there ya are.

    I was at JS under various guises for about 5 years in total so it's all I know in the blogging world. Lots of friends vanished with it, me thinks.

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  6. A lot of good stuff is gone forever now. I do hope that if they don't get the person responsible they tell us who sabotaged the place. Happy New Year GC.

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  7. If you're lucky you may find some old stuff captured at,..

    http://www.archive.org/index.php

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  8. Well, c'est la vie. Guess we'll all get by OK-heck, I can remember days when we wrote letters(!) to each other. A lot slower way to communicate than this is!

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  9. Backing up was pretty easy. It became more or less mandatory for me to maintain a LiveJournal presence since so much Aussie sf is there. So I just copied across.

    And of course, since my major purpose in doing this is the Official Record for the kids, I've been backing up onto a Yeah Write archive every few months anyhow.

    Copy and paste, comrade. They are Your Friends.

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  10. Twas a shame so many people lost some good stuff.

    I'm still here at http://www.albionloveden.blogspot.com/

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  11. Hey Nat, used to lurk your JS journal, now I guess I'll have to switch to this one ;)
    All the best for 09! Still spewing I won't be in Brisbane till May this year, ergo, I miss Felafel.
    I'm at wordpress too for now, http://drej08.wordpress.com/
    Cheers
    Marc (ex-drejcommand at JS)

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  12. Hey gang!

    Thanks all for finding me, making your presence known, and offering backing-up tips! Much appreciated.

    And just a note Drej - our last two Felafel shows are May 1 & 2 - when do you hit town?

    Cheers all, Nat.

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  14. Hey Hey GC,
    Good to see you survived largely unscathed.
    I lost my drivels but thats insignificant compared to the loss of NatV's work & the MiniBurger comments threads.
    Going to take a while but I'm sure most of us will hook in.

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