the passing down of fandom history

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I've got a tiktok account where I post videos about how to use AO3. It helps people who are new to the site learn how to navigate and search/filter etc. and I also get to teach people who've been around for a while some new tricks they might not otherwise know. 

Yesterday, I someone asked about the Citrus Scale, so I posted about that. Which lead to posting about the FFN purges of 2002 and 2012. Which led to posting a brief and incomplete timeline of fandom purges. 

And somewhere in there, someone left a comment that said, "Wow. I hope AO3 never purges adult content."

And that's when I realized that so many people who are either new to fandom or new to AO3 have no idea how it came to exist or why it is the way it is. 

So I guess I'll add that to my list of things to make videos about? 

Brainstorm time: what do you wish your fellow fans knew about? What are cool tags or tropes or traditions or history that you think would be interesting to share? 

Comments

[elf]

(Here from something linked on Tumblr)

I've taken to jumping in on the Tumblr threads where people talk about fandom purges and AO3, either as "I hope AO3 doesn't go on a purging spree" or "ugh AO3... we just need to keep the pressure up and eventually they'll throw out all the Bad Fic." I do a quick note of why AO3 was made, and insist that, no, AO3 is never going to remove the "adult content" or the "problematic" content, or whatever this week's Most Evil Fic Trope is.

(And throw in a reminder that the one thing really really forbidden at AO3 is commercial advertising; do NOT put any mention of patreon or ko-fi at AO3.) (...There are people who hate this enough that they've switched to "my fic will be continued as a Google Doc with updates posted at Twitter.")

I've had fun pointing out that, if AO3 ever doesn't make its donation goals - for several years running, so there's no more cushion and they can't afford to keep going as they are - what'll happen is that everything will slow down horribly. The fics will all be there, and they'll be filtered through a single server powered by a hamster wheel and searches will take 30 seconds and fics will load at 1997 dialup speeds, but the content is not going anywhere.

(This was apparently very reassuring to some people, who were worried that increased pressure would make AO3 change its standards. I have no way to go into the history of, "here's a strikethrough link; here's fanlib info; this kind of yelling about content is literally why the archive was made.")

I'd like fans to be aware that there's a difference between "a platform made for fandom" and "a platform where fans are welcome as long as they don't get in anyone else's way." Dreamwidth is a for-profit venture - but it's built by fans with fandom needs in mind. Twitter isn't, and when fandom bothers politics, it's not politics that's going to get shoved to the side.

While I'd love people to understand "the basics of copyright law," that's a LOT. So maybe I'd prefer they learned "Intellectual Property (IP) law includes copyright, trademark, and patents, and how they work is complicated AF, and career lawyers don't agree on everything." Followed by, "DO NOT declare that your fandom hobby is illegal! Ever! I promise it's not that simple!"