FAQ: When Will We Find Out about Uploading for Yuletide 2009?

[elynross]

And the answer is...not quite yet. There's still a bit of testing and migrating of tags and other information that has to happen before the AO3 is ready for us

Comments

[entropy_house]

I'm kinda hesitant about this for reasons of exposure. On LJ I feel reasonably invisible, but I have seen names harvested from large fan archives and put up in a place I am REALLY not comfortable with as it exists to publicize & make fanficcers more easily identified. For this reason I had decided not to join AO3.

I would not have signed up for Yuletide if I'd known I was going to be required to post to AO3. It's just too... large and public. I'm timid. I do not have have the nerve to fight copyright battles.

Is there any way I can write my story & have it posted with a sort of... anonymous name without giving OT3 any information that could lead to me being outed?

not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[kindkit]

It was announced before the signup period began that posting would be on AO3 this year. The information is also in the Yuletide FAQs.

You say your concern about AO3 is that it's large and public--I don't quite see the difference between that and the Yuletide archive, which is also large and public. You don't have to use your real name when signing up at AO3, so I don't see how it could lead to you being outed. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding what your concern is.

I don't have an answer to your question about posting under a different pseudonym, although it seems to me that it might create problems for the Yuletide mods for keeping track of who has posted their assignment and who's defaulted. But one thing that I know you *can* do is post your story and then take your name off of it. The AO3 calls it "orphaning" and it's very easy to do and is all explained on the archive.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[entropy_house]

When I read the announcement I mistakenly thought what was meant by 'archive of our own' was that the Yuletide archive was being redone. And since it's fandoms so tiny they barely exist it didn't seem like a target.

I'm basically paranoid because in RL the sort of thing that people always say 'oh don't worry about that it never happens' always happens to me. I don't like being paranoid, but I like even less the disasters that happen to me when I'm not.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[doro_chan]

I know of at least one Yuletide fandom where the author asked fans not to write fanfic. She didn't outright forbid it, AFAIK, but she discourages it. There's a Robin Hobb fandom on the current list of requested fandoms as well.

"Small" generally doesn't matter when an author or person is angry either, in my experience.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[elynross]

This is true -- the only official challenge we've ever had was for a fandom that had never made it further than the nomination stage (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain series).

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[entropy_house]

I just assume the small fandom canons are less likely to care- if they're small, they're usually not profitable.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[doro_chan]

It's not about profit. At all. Creators sometimes simply oppose others using their intellectual property in any way.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[entropy_house]

*nods* Of course. If I was interested in a fandom whose creator requested no fanfic, I wouldn't have written any- at least not for anyone else to see. The creator of my favorite fandom (who had actually encouraged fanfic) died, and the rights were sold to someone who can't make up their minds whether fanfic means more people who might buy whatever they do & should be encouraged, or means that potential investors will be frightened off & should be ordered to desist.

Re: not a mod, nor affiliated with OTW or AO3

[rosathome]

Small fandom =/= not-profitable original source. I don't know if Friends is still a Yuletide fandom, but it definitely was last year. It's small, because people don't write for it much, but it would be hard to argue that the source is obscure or unprofitable.

[few]

The only information you need to provide AO3 for an account is an email address and username. In this case, your invitation will automatically go to the email address you used to sign up for Yuletide, but 1) whether the email address associated with your account ever displays to anyone is up to you (there's a preference setting for it), and 2) if you'd prefer to be double-careful, you can always go in and change the address to a google or yahoo one you never use anywhere else, if you'd like

[elynross]

As kindkit explains, there was an announcement that posting would be through AO3 prior to signup. It's a simple matter of this move, or no Yuletide at all.

However, you will be able to "orphan" stories on the archive, and you will have control of what pseud you use.

[entropy_house]

I didn't know what was mean by the phrasing of the announcement- I thought it meant just a new archive for YT, by the time I realized what it meant, I kept trying to convince myself I was ok with it, but I'm having a paranoid day, today. I'm sorry to be a nuisance.

If I can post under a new pseud, that would be fine- I didn't know if I could do that, because it's not what I signed up as on YT.

[elynross]

As I understand it, your core account will be created using the pseud you signed up with/are in the archive with, but you'll be able to create multiple pseuds for posting, and I think change your base name.

What we do when we check for uploads is see who doesn't have a full-length story, and who hasn't written one. I'm not entirely sure how that will work this year, but I think we'd be able to figure it out -- and I honestly don't want people made uncomfortable by this move if there's a way to avoid it, like this.

More specifics about how things will work are probably better directed to the AO3 support team, as they will be handling all of the technical end&details of archiving from this point on, although the Challenge itself will still be run by astolat and myself.

[entropy_house]

I'm not signed up with AO3, so I'm wondering, if AO3 lets me sign up with something entirely different could I email one of the YT mods so they could connect my AO3 name with my YT signup? I hate to ask you guys to do individual nit-picky stuff since you're swamped, but I *think* that would be the least complicated way of easing my paranoia.

[impactbomb]

You'll be able to do that on your own once you get an AO3 account? You have a base name, and then you can make multiple pseudonyms to post your work under if you don't want it associated with that particular name, and that's all user-controlled - you can do it easily from your own personal account options.

So if you want to make your Yuletide name just a pseudonym, then you can do that without too much trouble, and only you and the people who know that you're using that name will associate your Yuletide fics with whatever other names you choose to go by on AO3 or anywhere else online. What fics you write under that pseudonym are only associated with that pseudonym on the front end of the user experience at AO3, which means nobody but the owner of a pseudonym will even know it's supposed to be a pseudonym in the first place, as the search engines will treat it as an individual writer-entity-thingywhatsit unto itself. So it won't be associated with you if you don't want it to be.

(nb: not a Yuletide mod, ao3 wrangler)

[few]

What fics you write under that pseudonym are only associated with that pseudonym on the front end of the user experience at AO3

Er...no.

If you have an account under account_name and you create a pseud called Pseud, works you post as Pseud will appear under Pseud (account_name) to distinguish you from other people who use Pseud as a pseudonym.