An Archive Of One's Own

[astolat]

**NEW ETA**: we're going to take a stab at putting this together. For more information and discussion, please join and/or watch fanarchive.

ETA: If you are coming to the conversation late, xenacryst has helpfully collected up a bunch of links to a subset of noteworthy discussion threads, over here!

First, why fanfic is not illegal and why YOU should stop

Comments

[almostnever]

You've put a lot of great ideas together here. anatsuno linked me to this post since we were just discussing what our dream fandom site would be like. Here's what I was telling her:

My vision for a fandom website is a fic-art-vid archive, where you could lock down posts to "only site members can see this" - "only people I put in my contacts group can see this" - "anyone can see this it's totally public". (I think making a level of locking that lets only site members see the post would help encourage people to write and share work that they might otherwise lock down to friends only or leave in the drawer. A lot of people would like to share their work with fellow fans but not with the whole wide world.)

The navigation would sort fic-art-vids into categories. All posts allow comments from a form at the bottom, comments can be either visible, or privately emailed to the author. Each post could also have a "Thanks!" button at the end, so that people shy about giving specific feedback could still say thank you very simply by hitting the button. Authors could choose whether to allow comments or the thanks button or both (some people might not want the thanks button, preferring to solicit feedback comments rather than the button's thank you).

The archive would have a recs bookmarking system built congruently to it, and the archive would track how many recs each story got, so when drilling down through categories to find things, you could filter results in each category by "most recs", by "most thanks", by "most hits", etc. Also "random" and "by author" as well as tags.

I think about this all the time-- I find your "piles of content" comment very apropos, I'm concerned that we're ripe for exploitation. When I posted about FanLib I brought up the fear that if someone manages to pull off commercializing fan fiction, the copyright holders may follow suit and try to bring us in to their own for-profit boards and websites-- and send C&Ds to all the non-sanctioned, non-profit sites. Maybe that's pessimistic, but I can't help worrying.

f-locking

[astolat]

Yes, I think locking is a very good option to allow (and also google-blocking) on an individual user basis, so the archive lets different people manage their own comfort level.

The problem with adding vids (other than vids as links -- which I think would be brilliant) -- is the massive bandwidth cost, and the bigger questions of legality.

Re: f-locking

[almostnever]

I was thinking vids wouldn't be hosted on this hypothetical dream site, but embedded in posts (like here on LJ) from wherever they're hosted. Or linked, yes.

I'd love to be involved in making something like this real, though I also fret a bit that there would be a lot of herding-cats obstacles as well as the significant technical and design challenges.

Re: f-locking

[redina]

Yes, I think locking is a very good option to allow

Y'know what the kicker is... other than a sitewide search, you've just mostly reiterated LiveJournal. {g} I consider LJ a 'necessary evil' in all it's f-locked, cliqued, and PITA navigation. {chuckle}

Archives are popping up faster than weeds, but folk still run to their journals first and *maybe* consider posting outside LiveJournal. While I think your ideas are good (I was around when FF.net started, as a Trek/ASC archivist), look around us. How many of the writers you're acquainted with primarily just post on LiveJournal versus posting [in addition] to a non-journal? From my own personal experience, I'd say 80-90% of the SPN writers I see only post to LiveJournal. There's a phrase about leading a horse to water (heck, you could've built an irrigation and filtration system) but you can't force it to drink... or something like that. {g}

Dina

Re: f-locking

[trascendenza]

In my mind, this doesn't sound like reiterating LiveJournal. I'm one of the folks who almost never posts outside of LiveJournal anymore but could definitely go for something like this--it's combining all the best features of archiving and LJ at once. It wouldn't just be the search feature that would make things more user-friendly; it would be the tiers of organization that would appeal to me. As a panfandom reader using LiveJournal is just a pain in my ass, but I do it because there isn't really another option.

More than that, if there was an option for site-wide tag searches, that would integrate a lot of the best features of del.icio.us. I'm having a hard time seeing any downsides to it other than the 'getting off the ground' phase where people ask themselves 'Ugh, do I really want to go back and re-post all my fanfiction here?' Because that would the major hump to get over, I think, in regards to converting some folks to this new system. Or maybe I should say to converting me. *g*

Re: f-locking

[franzeska]

Totally agreed. I only post to lj now, but I used to post to archives, and I would again if the archive were good.

Re: f-locking

[trascendenza]

Exactly. The only reason that I began posting solely to LJ was because I'd already had a personal LJ for a few years so I knew my way around here--but I did try out a few archives once I got more into fandom. But it just wasn't worth it, in the end--with all the different fandoms I write, I'd have to keep at least ten different accounts at ten different websites to even remotely keep up. What a fucking headache! But there if there were one place I could go that was well organized and easy to use (in other words, the anti-ff.net *g*)? That'd be all kinds of squee.

[sarken]

Each post could also have a "Thanks!" button at the end, so that people shy about giving specific feedback could still say thank you very simply by hitting the button.

That is the most amazing idea in the world.

[icepixie]

Seconded.

[angiepen]

Thirded. Heck, as a writer I wouldn't mind two buttons -- one thumbs-up and one thumbs-down, with a set-up so that although the button-based votes are "anonymous" from the POV of the story's (picture's, vid's) creator, you have to be logged into the site to use it and each account is only allowed to vote once per item. That'd keep anonymous jerks from mashing the thumbs-down a hundred times just to be assholes, or the creator's friends from mashing the thumbs-up a hundred times to make the piece look great. But if a bunch of people honestly don't care for a story of mine, I'd like to know that.

Angie

[almostnever]

:-) I've seen the "Thanks" button idea put in action on some Sims forums, so that people can thank mod- and skin-makers. It seems to work really nicely for those communities.

[trascendenza]

Fifthed!

I was just thinking about this concept the other day--I thought about making on post on my LJ with a poll that anyone could check, something like "I read and enjoyed something on your journal" as a way for lurkers to say thanks without having to leave a comment. So I think there's definitely been a need for this kind of feature for a lot of people and extras like this alone would probably help generate interest in posting work at this archive.

[faith_girl222]

i also really like this because sometimes i don't have time to leave a real comment, or i don't know what to say, or there isn't really anything to say but "thank you, i liked this".