Cipher

Cipher was a multifandom fanfiction archive with an emphasis on Harry Potter. It also had an active forum. On September 2, 2011, it was announced that Cipher would be closing as of October 1st. It went offline circa April 2012.A Google cache exists from March 27, 2012. As of April 28, 2012, the site is no longer accessible.
Cipher archived 1,091 stories by 126 authors and had a total of 30,140 members. The stories were categorized as follows:Cipher Home Page. Archived 27 March 2012 by Google Cache. (Accessed 28 April 2012.)
* Anita Blake [47]
* Comic Books [15]
* Gundam Wing [0]
* Harry Potter [806]
* Heroes [3]
* House [1]
* Inuyasha [3] 
* Lord of the Rings [126] 
* M*A*S*H [6] 
* Miscellaneous [47] 
* Original Fiction [17] 
* Pirates of the Caribbean [12]
* Poetry [19] 
* Smallville [32] 
* Red Reign Challenge [24]
== History ==
The archive was originally founded by Morrighan, who transferred ownership to _Ky_ in October 2007.
In September 2011, it was announced first at the InsaneJournal communityPost by snapesgirl on cipher_wotr at InsaneJournal. Cipher Closing. 02 September 2011. (Accessed 29 April 2012.) and subsequently on Cipher's main page that the archive would be closing. The announcement by _Ky_ stated:
:"Due to decreased usage and real life commitments, I will no longer be maintaining Cipher or paying its hosting fees. I will keep Cipher up until October 1, 2001, when I will begin the process of deactivating the account. Once that is complete, there may not be another chance to retrieve your writing.
:I am sorry for the inconvenience, and I will miss all of you terribly."
== Submission Rules ==
Cipher required that stories be "validated", meaning that they had to be reviewed and approved by the administrators before the could be posted to the archive. The submission rules stated:
:"Cipher was founded upon a desire to house and publish quality fanfiction. Every chapter of every story is viewed by our validation staff before publication. Publication at Cipher is a privilege, a compliment, and never a right."Cipher: Submission Rules and Validation Guideline. Archived 27 March 2012 by Google Cache. (Accessed 28 April 2012.)
Only stories with proper "grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fidelity to canon spellings and capitalization" were accepted. Stories containing netspeak, major formatting errors, or author's notes within the text of the story were rejected. Additionally, stories would not be accepted if they contained certain content, including: snuff, sadomasochism, bloodsports, scatology, water sports, chan, or self-mutilation (i.e. cutting). Stories would also be rejected if they contained major continuity errors, verb or POV shifts, OOC characters, "unexplained and distracting AU aspects," or ""Toxic Mary Sues or Gary Stus."
Only registered members of the site could submit stories, and no more than two works (including individual chapters or round robin contributions) could be submitted for validation at once. All header information was required, including warnings, a rating, the characters featured, and a summary. The submission page noted: "administrators and validation staff reserve the right to add warnings and change ratings at their discretion."
Fanart and award banners could be posted with stories. Up to three images were permitted per chapter, with a maximum size of 300x300 pixels each.
Initially, administrators would work with authors to improves stories that did not quite meet the submission requirements. However, this procedure was amended in October 2006 due to the growing size of the archive and the perception that the service was being abused:
== Content & Features ==
=== Accounts ===
All authors were required to have registered an account before they could submit stories for approval. The account gave them access to a centralized hub from which they could edit their profile, manage their stories, reviews, favorites, and images, and view their statistics. Accounts also ensured that users accepted the site's Terms of Service and were over the age eighteen, as required by the archive for "legal protection."Cipher: Help. Archived 27 March 2012 by Google Cache. (Accessed 28 April 2012.)
Users were also able to indicate on their profile whether they were willing to be a beta reader. This did not oblige them to beta read, but encouraged other users to contact them if they were in search of a beta.
The statistics feature displayed a user's bio and status, the number of other users to have chosen them as a favorite, and the number of reads each of their stories had gotten.
=== Drabbles, Round Robins, and Series ===
Cipher allowed a story to be further categorized as a drabble, a round robin, or part of a series.
All authors could add to a round robin, which usually had specific requirements. One example of a round robin was "Shower Sex in 100," which required an addition to "be exactly 100 words and involve sex in a shower."
A series could designated either a shared universe or common theme, and could contain work by many authors or just a single author. For example, an author with several stories whose plots follow one another could create a series for the works, or a series could be created for stories with a certain trope that allowed any author to add a work to it.
=== Challenges ===
All registered users could issue challenges for other authors to complete, and a story written for a challenge could be submitted directly as a response to it.
Additionally, the archive hosted an official challenge called the Red Reign Challenge, which ran every few months. For each round, the Cipher administrators chose a winning story which was presented with a banner and potentially other awards:
=== Chatrooms ===
In addition to the Cipher forums, there were five chatrooms for different purposes:
* The Muses: "This is a place for the original fiction writers to discuss their work and its progress (or lack thereof.) Everyone is welcome, but that is the purpose of that room."
* General: "Chat on anything and everything, any time of day. Keep in mind, no communication through Cipher should be used to harrass [sic], insult, or otherwise infringe on the Terms of Service. No cybersex is permitted here or in any other chatroom. Keep it in PM or elsewhere. Not here. It's rude to the other members."
* Games: "Cipher's games, which will evolve and expand as Cipher does."
* Admin: "This room is exclusively for admin chat. If you are not an administrator, you do not belong here. You won't see anything if you go; the administrators will gently boot you out."
* Beta: "Sometimes the easiest way to do beta work is in real time. Authors and their betas can come here to discuss the work at hand."Cipher Features. Archived 27 March 2012 by Google Cache. (Accessed 28 April 2012.)
== Cipher Forums ==
== References ==
Category:Multifandom Archives Category:Harry Potter Archives Category:Lord of the Rings Archives
Category:2000sCategory:2010s