REVISION DATE: May 3, 2008
Q: When did it begin? What's the history of Dark Side of the Net?
A: It began in 1993 as a one way email list named Dark Side of the Net. (More like a newsletter than a mailing list). In the beginning it consisted of a list of newsgroups, mailing lists, FTP sites and gopher sites with dark, occult, pagan and gothic material that I would mail out to people who had asked or subscribed to it. I also posted it to alt.gothic and unfortunately you can still see archived old copies of it on Google Groups. How embarrassing.
As the web grew, I spent more and more of my time adding web pages to the list, which spawned Dark Side of the Web and Arachne's Web, my now-defunct pagan links page. As many people still could not yet get to the web (but could get to the Internet, newsgroups and email) in 1994 and 1995, I kept the two versions of Dark Side of the Net and Web separate. Dark Side of the Web started in 1994, and was originally a very long list on one page, with a gray background. It started getting colored backgrounds, images and split into categories in 1996 as web and browser capabilities grew. I experimented with frames for a while, but hated them and wanted *everyone* to be able to see and enjoy the pages. At that time not everybody could use frames. Dark Side of the Web was renamed to Dark Side of the Net in late 1998, to make a more uniform brand. Darklinks.com was registered in late 1998.
Q: How do you check Dark Side of the Net's links?
I use linklint and Firefox to help me verify links, but there's no substitution for a human set of eyeballs checking out the page to see if it's still cool, updated, relevant, interesting, and goth. I occasionally farm out link checking to various nieces and cousins who love goth stuff and need to make extra pocket money. Dark Side of the Net is powered by Earl Grey tea (in fall and winter) and Ronald's Iced Tea and Snapple (in spring and summer).
Q: Who are you?
Q: What other pages have you built?
A: Over 65 other pages, but most of them I'm not very happy with. My pagan links page, Arachne's Web, was discontinued in Feb. 1999 due to my lack of time to maintain it, and my frustrations over the large number of people stealing my link lists and not crediting me for them or respecting my copyright. For many years I had a popular, though ugly, web page on the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, but removed it in February 2000 due to lack of interest in maintaining it. I run a few livejournals here and there and affiliate blogs, but mainly don't have time for anything else.
Q: Where do you get your links?
A: I get them from time consuming
searches of Google and other search
engines; Yahoo Groups, Myspace profiles, Livejournal postings and
profiles, and from people emailing me. I no longer visit Usenet to find
newsgroups as the noise to content ratio is too high nowadays. I do all my
own research work myself - I do not take more than one link off someone
else's page. For example, if I come to your vampire page and you have 50
links and I go visit one of them and decide to link it cuz it's so nice, I
know it's time to go back to the search engines because there's obviously
some neat vampire sites I'm missing. I do not violate copyrights by
copying people's link collections over - I know how bad I feel when people
do this unethical act to me, and it happens a lot let me tell you!
Q: Where do you find your items for Dark Side of the News? A: Every
morning when I wake up I take about 30 mins to visit a large list of sites
I find news links on. I also check Google News for certain keywords
(including goth) but I've already usually found those articles by hand by
the time I get around to looking at Google News. Occasionally I will use a
news link someone else sends me. This doesn't happen often though, because
the press releases people send me are way too long (and I don't repost
material here, only links) and they rarely have a separate page with the
exact news they are announcing that I can link to. Every news link is
clearly delineated by what site it is from, by the way, so you can decide
if it's worth your time to click to read more.
Q: What is your favorite site? What are your 10 favorite sites?
A: Ack!! It's very difficult to choose, from all the wonderful sites
listed here. But I'd tend to like sites with lots of original content and
not too many huge splashy graphics. I have a Best
Bets page but it isn't often updated due to my laziness.
Q: How do I get my page
listed?
A: See Howto.html for instructions.
Q: Does it cost anything to have my page listed?
A: Hell no! Do you think all 10,000+ webmasters here paid me? Not
likely! Being linked here is free, and you do not need to link back to get
linked, either. I occasionally let advertisers run ads on the front page,
but they need to be businesses I already link to anyways - you can't buy
your way into getting your link added quickly, just by advertising. I
appreciate my sponsors, by the way - they pay for the contests and
giveaways I run from time to time, and pay for occasional graphic art work
I have done for the site. Darklinks.com no longer sucks up huge amounts of
expensive bandwidth like it used to in the old days when it was more
popular and goth websites were scarce, so paying for bandwidth is no
longer a problem for me.
Q: Why are some of your links so repetitive? (Ie see all the Cask of
Amontillado links on Dark Literature page.
A: I try to link to as many sources of a good item as possible, to make
sure you have many options to get the information you are looking
for. Dark Side of the Net is intended to be an exhaustive, comprehensive
source, or at least as close as I can make it. Redundant links ensure
that you have as many choices as possible. That
way if almost all my links to that story die (as tends to happen frequently
to
pages hosted on Geocities, Tripod and other free sites) you have other ways
to go find the information. Or even if a site is temporarily down that
evening, you can use the other links to get where you need to go. Links die
fast around here, and having links to many sites featuring the same thing,
means when I'm running my link check program, I don't have to stop right
away and go searching to replace that item, I can just remove the dead link.
Also, in the specific example of the literature category, it can be valuable
to look at two or more sources for a book or story, as they can be typed by
different people, contain different errors, or be typed in in different
formats. For example, one site I link to for Dracula, has the entire book
all on one page - a very large download that might suit some people, but be
impossible for others.. therefore the other Dracula pages and sources I link
to, are ones that are split up into different chapters.
Q: How do eBay sellers get their items featured on your new Goth eBay
blog? Do those people pay you to link to their auction? Can you feature my
auction? A: The Goth eBay blog is an affiliate blog, but it's something
I have a lot of fun working on too. I will never be so desperate to make
affiliate money that I link to something I don't personally like. Also,
nobody can ask to be on it or pay to be on it. I don't know any of the
sellers of the items I feature, I'm just finding really cool stuff and
showing it to you because I think you might get a kick out of seeing it.
While it does help the item get visibility, the intention is not to help
the seller sell the item, it's just to show my visitors something really
fun and cool to look at. I would not feature something someone asked me to
link to; otherwise I'd get hundreds of requests a day from goth ebay
sellers. However, I do sometimes feature my own current auctions if I'm
selling something I think may be of interest. I clearly mark that it's my
personal auction, and hopefully people understand that my Ebay money is
used to help pay for Dark Side of the Net's expenses.
Q: Who is Dark Side of the Net designed for? A: It is designed for
the ease and convenience of the browsers, surfers and seekers out there.
I'm sharing cool things that I happened to find. I spent a lot of time
looking around, so why not pass on the interesting things I've found?
The primary reason for Darklinks to exist is not for convenience to
webmasters or businesses (although they may benefit from being linked on
here). Linking a page here is a service I perform voluntarily for people
who are looking for stuff, and the page is built around their viewpoint
(or what I assume their viewpoint to be!)
Q: Why aren't there any emo links on here?
A: I'm an old cranky eldergoth and I'm not entirely sure what emo
is. So I'm gonna just keep doing my goth thing here, and if emo kids find
some benefits in the links, that's all good. People needing emo resources
and links can go look for them elsewhere themselves, I don't have time.
Q: Do I have to give you a reciprocal link back, to get you to link to
me?
A: Absolutely not! You should only link to Dark Side of the Net if you
enjoy it and think your page viewers will benefit from it also. I link to
many web pages that do not link back to me. This is a no strings attached
links list.
Q: Why wasn't my page listed? A: It probably wasn't, in my humble
opinion, very interesting (or I didn't see anything relating to the goth
subculture) on the day I happened to look at your page. This
doesn't mean that your page sucks, or that my page sucks for not listing
you, or that I'm a bitch. It just means your page is not currently getting
linked here. Note that this most often happens to pages that only have a
picture of the person, a broken image or two, and a link or two to
friend's pages.
Or, an astounding number of people forget to include their URL when
mailing me about their page.
Also other things can prevent you from being linked - such as webring
pages that don't tell you how to join the webring; IRC channel pages that
don't tell you which server the channel is on, nightclub pages that don't
tell you what city, state or country the nightclub is in, band pages with
no soundclips, gig lists, biographical information or even a statement
that the page is about a band.
While it would be nice if I could link to every page just because
someone asked me to, the quality of Dark Side of the Net would go down,
and people would have no reason to come here to look for pages I've
recommended to them. Dark Side of the Net is not a clearinghouse of every
person who happens to have a little something dark on their web page. The
links on Dark Side of the Net are sites that I PERSONALLY think are worth
someone taking the time to visit. (Please note that I am in no way
obligated legally or morally to link to your page just because you ask.
Nor are you in any way obligated to come look at and use Dark Side of the
Net, just because it's here!).
Q: You didn't like my page. So what ARE you looking for?
A: Try looking at pages in your category that DID get linked - if you
have an online zine, go look at the zines I did link, to see their quality
and why they got linked.
Q: I mailed you 3 weeks ago (or more) and haven't heard back. What's
up? A: Unfortunately, I get several hundred pieces of email a day to
sort through - and I have a real life, a teenager, family, friends, pets,
and another job outside of Dark Side of the Net that keeps me busy. On top
of that, a large number of people send me their URL more than once (one
overeager guy even sent it eight times in six days! faint!), which doubles
my daily email from 300 to 600 on bad days, and from 100 to 200 on good
days. In a typical evening, I can only go through about 20-40 emails that
require responses. My real life is extremely busy, I'm rarely home, and
there's only so many Geocities sites one can look at in a night without
getting bored or vomiting and wandering off to do something else.
Having your own domain name, btw, is a great way to get my attention
and have me respond to your email a lot faster. These honestly do get
processed a lot faster.
Please resist
the temptation to mail again stating "Here's my URL again because you must
have lost it." Or "I wasn't sure if you got my mail." Basically, if I
DIDN'T get your mail, you would have gotten a bounced mail notice back, so
I obviously did get it. If your page is linked, you will get a reply
stating that your page was linked, but if not, you will never hear
anything. (See below). I do realise this is confusing.
Q: You didn't list my page, but you didn't mail me back to tell me why
not, and that you didn't.
A: Unfortunately, because of immature and abusive (and genuinely
disappointed polite people) email in the past, I no longer send
email stating that your page hasn't been linked. There really is no polite
way to tell someone, "Your page sucks so I didn't link it" or "Your page
bored me" or "Your page has nothing on it!" and even when I tried "Please
mail back when your page is more
fully developed" (which is almost identical wording to what Yahoo uses,
and I should know, they've rejected several of my pages many times!),
people still get mad. Often people submit pages that are completely off
topic and have nothing to do with goth or darkness in any way, and their
owners still get pissed off when I tell them this. I don't have time to
read email from people calling
me a bitch for not linking them, or telling me my page sucks after all (if
it sucks, why did they want to be linked here at all?) nor for getting
into
arguments about why their page wasn't listed or what's missing from it.
Basically, you should be able to tell why, by looking at pages that DO get
listed, and by looking at your page - does it only have a picture of you,
and four or five links to other pages? Does it have broken image icons?
Does it have only one poem? Is it still under construction? Is it not
dark, or on a topic I don't link to? (such as metal music)? Did you try to
get your page linked into a category totally unrelated to the actual content
of your page? Did you try to get your shop page listed under some other
category, other than Shops? Is your magazine a paper magazine, not an online
zine? Is your radio show only heard on the airwaves in your town, and not
available online?
Q: I heard my page was listed, but I can't find it, where is it?
A: I apologize that after all these years I still do not have a
search engine!
Pages go first to the
darkweb.html
page under the New section, then after a week or two they move to the
appropriate category. If your page is hard to categorize, or covers more
than one topic (Such as gothic/vampires or occult and dark art) it ends up
on the Miscellaneous page. Also, sometimes when
I move links off the New page to their new home, I don't always upload the
updates, so it doesn't show up for a day or two.
Q: My page used to be listed, but doesn't show up anymore. What
happened?
A: Probably your server was down and sending weird messages when I was
trying to check it, or your server has been down for more than a week, or
you moved your page and forgot to tell me. (Or you did mail me and I
haven't worked my way up to that email yet!) Or, I may have gotten email
from readers that I've miscategorized your link (like when I was putting
Portuguese pages under Spanish in the Pages in Other
Languages page, OOPS!) and your link was moved. Or, when I went back
to check
links, I saw your page and its quality had fallen (broken images, lack of
content, etc) and it was removed. If you think this is the case, add some
updated, quality stuff to your page and try again!
Q: How often do you check links? What does "updated" mean on the bottom
of your pages? A: As often as possible - made easier now that I broke
down and started using linklint, an automated link checking perl script.
Updated doesn't mean I just simply added a link to the page, it means that
I've checked every single link on that page on the date shown for the last
update, and usually run around finding some new links to add to it as well.
Of course, an hour after I check links, invariably somebody's page will go
down or move, so the link lists are never fully accurate, sigh. If you're
finding a lot of dead links on my pages, you can usually tell by looking at
the updated date, and if it's more than 1 month since my last update,
that's why.
Q: Can I use your logo to link to your page?
A:
Sure! Please remember to take it and store it on your own server (instead
of linking directly to my file on my serve). And
thanks for the link!
Q: How many of your links can I take?
A: Well before you start taking links left and right, remember that my
pages are copyrighted (see below) and that I have worked for many
countless thousands
of hours in the last 15 years to find them, sort them, and keep them
updated. If you are doing a large link list, you really should be doing
your own research, visiting Google on your own, reading
news and newsletters, and finding pages that you like very much. Since
Dark Side of
the Net already exists, you don't need to take page after page of my links
for your own page - people will probably appreciate your link choices more
if you take five or ten good ones, and explain why they are good sites and
why someone would want to go to them.
Taking more than five or ten links in a category is kind of
pushing it - and remember to strip out any of my comments I've made in
parentheses after the link, and use your own wording to describe the title
of the link or what you will find there.
Q: Can you copyright a links list?
A: You bet your black lace covered, gothic buns you can! It's known as
a compilation copyright, and it works to protect people like me who have
spent hundreds of hours sorting, choosing, selecting, arranging and
maintaining link lists. (It's also used by magazine editors). For more
information on link and compilation copyrights, see this page and
the bottom of this
page.
Without this
kind of protection, people like me would have no motivation or interest in
maintaining sorted, selective link lists, if someone could just take your
list, strip your name out of it and represent your hundreds of hours of
work (or in my case, 15 years of my spare time) as their own
work. Unfortunately
a lot of lazy people who get caught stealing my links, like to claim that
you can't copyright a link list. They're wrong, and any attorney would
tell them so. It's a good idea to not get in the habit of taking ANYTHING
off anybody else's web page to use on yours, without permission - that
includes graphic, text, site design, and links.
Q: Why don't you have _______ listed?
A: Either I don't personally consider the subject dark, or I have been
unable to find webpages on the topic. For example, in a two month period,
probably fifteen people or more emailed me wanting me to add "Johnny the
Homicidal Maniac" to the Dark Comics page -
but none of them sent me a URL! Finally some kind soul found one and sent
it in.
Q: Can you tell me where any pages about _____ are ?
A: If I knew where any pages about _____ were, I would have linked them
already.
--Carrie
This page Copyright © 2008 Carrie Carolin