Announcement: 852 prospect is under new management
As some of you may remember from last year, the 852 Prospect archivist was looking for someone else to manage 852 and came to an agreement with Archive of Our Own (aka AO3)to do the job. AO3 is a massive, multi-fandom archive which can be found here
( Read more... )
As to whether requiring a membership is elitist, I'm not sure how to answer. I know they give the memberships out freely--you don't have to pay dues, etc. It sounds as if, because they are in their baby stage, that they don't want to tip over the servers, so they control how many people they add. I think it's probably more important at times like these when a whole new slew of fans discover the site that it doesn't crash for everyone. I do know that last year they added more servers and temporarily turned off some features that were slowing things down in order to accommodate their readership.
Dreamwidth does the same thing--in fact, I feel it was more restrictive because only a member could give you an invite and each member was only given one or two at a time. Now, it's pretty easy to get a DW invite, but I think you still need one. I also think, although it's before my time, that LJ was the same, starting out. Yahoo groups, which pre-date all of this have always been the same--you need to apply to join them and you must get approval from a moderator or you can't see any content.
Almost all of the fic at AO3--masses of it--are still freely available without having to become a member. Thousands and thousands of stories are there for you to read in hundreds of fandoms. The only ones not available are the ones that the authors themselves restrict, which I think most people agree is within their rights to control. And this temporary restriction, which was at the request of the original archivist to give the authors a chance to control their fic because of the situational change.
Yada yada, I guess I've jawed long enough. I hope you don't let the membership issue get in the way of your enjoyment. Again, thank you for your comments--all of them, because I'm sure you are not the only person to feel the way you do. It's a great discussion subject.
Cheers!
Reply
I do of course agree absolutely that authors have the right to do as they wish with their stories. It is nice to see so many TS authors taking it in their stride and being willing to share their work.
I don't wish to come across as some kind of "moaning Minnie" so I do appreciate you taking the time to respond.
I will make sure that my misgivings do not get in the way of my enjoyment as I would not want to miss out on being able to read the wonderful stories both old and new, and will use the link you kindly provided to register my interest.
Thank you again for all you do.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment