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

[azurelunatic]

Discovery is the key point for me, and it benefits me both as a reader and as a writer. I have an easier time discovering stories by more than one author in a fandom I like, on a topic I like, when they're organized in an archive. Recs lists serve a similar purpose, but those are always limited by the time of the curators. As a writer, if I put my stuff on a large archive, or a specific archive, I potentially benefit from anyone coming into the archive who might discover my works, vs. searching via recs and search engines for specifically the topic on which I've written.

I'm looking forward to the point when AO3's reader-bookmarking improves to Delicious-level or better usability, and I hope to be able to synchronize my AO3 and Delicious bookmarking, because I depend on these things for the proper functioning of my brain. Also, there are people who look to me for recommendations, and I want that to be as easy for them as possible.

Organization isn't a small thing either; I write so very little fanfic -- maybe 20 pieces over 10 years? -- that someone looking through my journal is going to have a very hard time of it, even when I do tag things.

Gossamer used to rule my life. It was a one-stop shop for my entire addiction. This was pre-LJ, in 1997, 1998, and before I discovered LJ up to 2001. There were other places to go, but my internet time was limited, and I wanted fic *now*, and not to spend too much time hunting it down.

AO3 could probably win back my attention from literotica.com if it created a voluntary tickbox or something apart from the warning categories, a "is this story intended to be smutty?" category, because "has explicit sex" is different than "this is smut, you may wish to read this from your bunk".

[cesy]

For your last point, could that be done with a tag, if enough people used it when writing or bookmarking?

[azurelunatic]

It could!

[dani_the_girl]

Oddly, I find delicious very hard to use - I don't know why. It must be me because I'm the only person I know who does, but it's rather annoying. So AO3 definitely wins there for me because I get less tied up in figuring out how to sort the way I want!

I have also had fun surfing the kink_bingo stuff on AO3, but I do find the categories rather broad.