AOOO, werewolves of fandom!
Dec. 5th, 2009 10:41 pm... okay, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hradzka, I never noticed that until you pointed it out, and now it won't get out of my head. Darn you!
At any rate, I now have an account at An Archive Of Our Own, (also known as AOOO or AO3)and am slowly but surely loading my fic onto it.
But that's a lot of work, so why do it, you may ask?
First, because fandom owns the servers. That means if people send nasty letters to try and get things removed (either for copyright or because they can't tell the difference between fanfic and someone going up to kids in parks and asking if they want candy), we don't have to depend on the goodwill of non-fans. Now, because of my general style and subject choice I probably wouldn't have to worry about the latter scenario, but all fen who write should be at least a little wary of the first, which makes AO3 A Good Idea.
Second, because I believe that all fan authors should have a website or multifandom archive where they place all of their stuff, everything easily findable, preferably something that's not dependent on their staying active in fandom or their fandom staying active. I hate, hate, hate it when I fall in love with a story and want to read more of that author's works (or rec them) and have to chase them over all creation. (Some people have reasons not to want their stuff easily findable, but for most authors it's more a matter of chance and fandom migration patterns.) FF.net has always been the biggie; I don't read fic on the Pit of Voles unless it's been recced to me, but I upload all my fics there because it's large, it's persistent, it's easily findable. Unlike other archives, it's not going to disappear into the wind any time soon. I'll still upload new fics there, because backups are good, but now it's a secondary backup, not the main thing.
Third, AO3 has some cool features. Like being able to add character tags if the character you want isn't a character already. Like having a wide-ranging and flexible tag system where you add the tags you want to your fic, and if there's a tag out there that means the same thing the people behind the scenes will match the two up so that someone who reads your fic, decides they want to read more fics like it, can click the tag and the results for both will come up. And the ability to "orphan" your work if you want to dissociate yourself from a story but don't want to delete it.
hradzka, I never noticed that until you pointed it out, and now it won't get out of my head. Darn you!At any rate, I now have an account at An Archive Of Our Own, (also known as AOOO or AO3)and am slowly but surely loading my fic onto it.
But that's a lot of work, so why do it, you may ask?
First, because fandom owns the servers. That means if people send nasty letters to try and get things removed (either for copyright or because they can't tell the difference between fanfic and someone going up to kids in parks and asking if they want candy), we don't have to depend on the goodwill of non-fans. Now, because of my general style and subject choice I probably wouldn't have to worry about the latter scenario, but all fen who write should be at least a little wary of the first, which makes AO3 A Good Idea.
Second, because I believe that all fan authors should have a website or multifandom archive where they place all of their stuff, everything easily findable, preferably something that's not dependent on their staying active in fandom or their fandom staying active. I hate, hate, hate it when I fall in love with a story and want to read more of that author's works (or rec them) and have to chase them over all creation. (Some people have reasons not to want their stuff easily findable, but for most authors it's more a matter of chance and fandom migration patterns.) FF.net has always been the biggie; I don't read fic on the Pit of Voles unless it's been recced to me, but I upload all my fics there because it's large, it's persistent, it's easily findable. Unlike other archives, it's not going to disappear into the wind any time soon. I'll still upload new fics there, because backups are good, but now it's a secondary backup, not the main thing.
Third, AO3 has some cool features. Like being able to add character tags if the character you want isn't a character already. Like having a wide-ranging and flexible tag system where you add the tags you want to your fic, and if there's a tag out there that means the same thing the people behind the scenes will match the two up so that someone who reads your fic, decides they want to read more fics like it, can click the tag and the results for both will come up. And the ability to "orphan" your work if you want to dissociate yourself from a story but don't want to delete it.
