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

[cschick.livejournal.com]

A blog/journal is your soapbox, while an archive is a library.

That doesn't mean that your fiction shouldn't be posted to both. But it stands differently in the two places. In your journal, your fiction stands surrounded by other types of writing you have done, while on an archive, it stands surrounded by other pieces of fiction by other authors.

The additional advantage, or disadvantage, to a general archive (verus a personal site) is the strength of outside support to keep work available. Whether you consider that an advantage or disadvantage is based on how you regard your fiction, and what you view your "responsibility" (I don't like that word, but can't currently think of a better one) to fandom and the future of that fandom.

I started out in the 1990s in fandom. There were fandoms that embraced (public/centralized) archiving, and fandoms that shunned archiving. Now, in 2010, a good majority of the fiction that was written in the fandoms that embraced public archiving is still available, and the majority of the fiction that was written in fandoms that shunned public archiving is completely gone. The reality of that situation really hit me hard recently--in the mid to late 1990s, I was heavily involved in two fandoms, one that shunned public/centralized archiving (as well as usage of public forums like usenet) and one that did not. When I want to go back and reread fiction written in the fandom that embraced archiving, it's there. When my personal gift of the full series on dvd got me all fannish about the other fandom . . . it really hit me that the fandom/fan fiction as it existed was 99% gone. I was looking for post-episodes for an episode which was one of the biggest fic "inspirers" back when I was involved, and I found four stories on the whole web. Holy heck, there were more than four stories posted to various mailing lists in the three hours after that episode originally aired!

But the mailing lists were explicitly not archived, the authors who wanted to archive were strongly encouraged to only do personal sites of their own fiction. And it's all gone now--probably thousands of pieces of fan fiction. Centralized archives/archives with support other than an individual author can provide a continuity, a way to keep a fandom alive and available even if there's only a few people interested in it at any particular time. But you need to decide whether you want yourself and your fiction involved in that continuity.

[amalthia]

I lost the entire Pretender section of the Angst Archive because the authors didn't want me to host their fics on the site so I linked to their stories. I normally save everything that goes up on the Angst Archive but for some reason these 6 stories weren't. So when I switched the archive over to efiction I went looking for the stories and poof they were gone. Right now at the Angst Archive I think I have about 20 stories I can't find anywhere else online...

I'm also a big fan of archives because I just recently watched Due South and there were archives of fan fiction to explore when the bug hit me. :)

[dani_the_girl]

Wow! It's hard to imagine a fandom being so ephemeral now - I guess I think of LJ/DW as having some of the qualities of an archive when it comes to preserving fic, it's just not as easy to find again!

[franzeska]

I actually find things even more ephemeral with blogs. A lot of people will change their name or lock down their entire blog because of RL drama, and poof goes the fic!