Whatever happened to FanfiX?

For years, FanfiX.com was the fanfic archive for Star Wars fandom. The archive started in the late 90’s and was officially dubbed FanfiX.com with the domain purchase in 1997. And then, in 2003, it vanished, and people have been intermittently asking about it ever since. Wombat, one of the site archivists, gives her account.

While FanfiX could never completely archive all Star Wars fic online, particularly after the fandom explosion with TPM in 1999 and the growing popularity of self-upload archives like FanFiction.net during that same period, the loss was a striking blow to the SW fanfic community. Yes, you can still access it via the WayBack Machine, but the possibility was there for a central touchstone for the SW fanfic community.

Are all-encompassing archives like FanFiX or The Gossamer Project practical anymore? Are they even possible? Do we need them? Sometimes I wonder…