Lorem Ipsum

A couple years ago, I created a site that was meant to be a clearinghouse for information about the annual Year's Best fantasy and science fiction anthologies. The idea was that editors of magazines and one-shot anthologies could go to that site to see what Year's Bests were being published in a given year, who the editors were, what the deadlines were, and how to submit published stories to them.

Unfortunately, I was never any good at keeping it up-to-date. I would usually neglect to update it until late in a given year, when half of the YBs were already closed. I would promise myself that I would get on it early the next year, and then I would fail to do so.

So when the domain names for the site came up for renewal yesterday, I decided that it was no longer worth pretending that some day I was going to do a good job with it. So I let the domain names lapse.

If someone else would like to take over the project, I'd be happy to hand you what I've got (and you're welcome to use the domain names I used)—but you might be better off starting from scratch, 'cause my database and display pages were never very good.

Ideally, I think such a system would have a way for YB editors and publishers to sign in as themselves and edit their own data, so they could keep it up to date. (Alternatively, there could be a wiki where anyone could update info—though it would presumably have few users, so someone would probably have to take a moderator role to avoid vandalism and spam and other misuse.)

Each YB series could have an info page: series title; editor; publisher; what volume they're currently reading for; where and when to send submissions. Plus “purchase” and “TOC” links for past volumes.

Something like that, anyway. I do think it would be a valuable resource; I just have to reluctantly admit that I'm not the right person to run/maintain it.