Archiving

[dani_the_girl]

I remember way back when I was young and green in the ways of web design, I wanted to re-do my website and learn from it at the same time, I started looking at web design blogs and they were all talking about the importance of creating table free designs. I had come in half way through and missed out on the establishing discussion so I was somewhat mystified and I ended up posting to my LJ saying "What is it about table-free design? Why is it good?" People linked me to a couple of posts and I got started from there and was converted pretty quickly.

I feel like I'm in a similar place when I ask the question "What is the point of fanfic archives?" If I've got a DW account with all my fic on it tagged under fic, do I need an AO3 account? What's the motivation behind building AO3. I feel like there are historical reasons for this stuff that I, so far, don't get. Anyone suggest where I can get started finding out? I am asking from a genuine desire to learn - I like the design and I've uploaded a couple of stories, but I'm not sure I have figured out the reasoning behind it yet.

Comments

[rusty_halo]

I just got into Farscape, which was canceled something like five years ago.

It took a while to find a rec list of Farscape fic that was 1) written by a reccer with taste similar to mine and 2) listed a lot of stories 3) that were written well.

Alas, something like 3/4 of the links on this list were broken, and 1) weren't at archive.org, 2) didn't show up in a Google search. They were posted on archives that had closed, journals that had been renamed, forums that had shut down, personal sites that had disappeared. They were effectively gone forever.

So even though I could read the title and summary and the reccer's comments about how AWESOME AND BRILLIANT a story was, I couldn't actually read it. SO FRUSTRATING.

If AO3 had existed then and everyone had been archiving there, the links wouldn't be broken and I'd have been able to read all that awesome fic that I missed because I got to the fandom five years late. For fandoms that are happening now, AO3 means that in five years, newbies actually *will* be able to find all the classic fic their hearts desire.

*loves AO3*

[dani_the_girl]

The rec-cing feature is nice. I just have to figure out a way to find rec-cers who's taste fits mine now :)