Why I support the OTW. And how.

[darkemeralds]

Why I Contribute Cashy Money to the OTW, by DarkEmeralds

An Archive of Our Own, pure and simple.

The AO3 is what I've been waiting for my entire fannish life: a place where fans can post and store their fanworks, without fear of strikethroughs, account terminations, cease-and-desists, or closure based on content*. A multi-fandom treasure-trove of written works, the AO3 might soon be a place for vids, too!

I want the AO3 to grow and endure, so I give them money. Not a lot, but after supporting a big national charity for years through my employer's giving campaign, last year I took a few minutes and arranged to send that same regular, small amount to the OTW instead.

It was easy! It was painless! And every payday I get an email from my credit union saying that a latte-factor's worth of money has gone to an organization that supports, understands and loves something that makes my life a more joyful and creative place.

I've never been happier with a money contribution, never more certain that what I'm supporting with my scarce dollars is genuinely worth my support.

For me it's all about the Archive, but the OTW is active on several important fannish fronts, notably legal advocacy of fanworks, and scholarly work in the area of fanworks and fandom. Besides, they are just plain cool people, responsive to their members, excited and open about what they do.

I hope that fandom people who can spare a few bucks will consider giving them to the OTW. It will make you smile.

*Their terms of service are here. The key bit, for me, is this: "Unless it violates some other policy, we will not remove Content for offensiveness, no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that content to be."

Comments

[legionseagle]

I think it was this exchange, not quite a year ago, which made me really massively pro AO3. The calm acceptance that "if Gor fandom wanted to use the archive, they could" is so grown-up, and so sensible about what free speech actually means.

[darkemeralds]

That is good. And I like the AO3's explicit efforts to remain outside of individual fandom skirmishes.

Mostly, though, I just love that they exist and that they have done so much with open source coding to make an elegant, functional, flexible tool for fanwriters and readers.

[tehomet]

That reminds me, my membership has just run out.

I do like OTW and what they stand for. Voltaire would be proud of their open-mindedness and the open-source coding is beautiful.

While I love the internet, I've been in fandom long enough to see archives and personal websites disappear when servers go down, as with Geocities not long ago, or, much worse, when a fan passes away. I have been lucky enough to preserve a few sites myself, but there should be a central fannish archive and I'm so glad that AO3 seems to be on the cutting edge in this regard, as with Minotaur's site just recently, and the Smallville archive, currently. That aspect of their work appeals to the completist in me. :D Now that there is a central archive, it seems to me that many writers are backing up their work there, which means less data loss in times to come.

The only thing I don't like about the OTW is that they don't (yet) offer a journalling service. Fortunately, there's DW!

[darkemeralds]

I imagine that eventually the AO3 will over those kinds of services--assuming it survives. Some melding with DW, maybe with Jinjurly's podfic archive. The possibilities are immense.

I'm still very puzzled by Fanlore--probably because I'm not involved in fandom in any meaningful social way outside of reading and writing fanfic online--and I can't even begin to grasp some of what goes into the scholarly journal, but I do love the Archive, for all the reasons you say.