marchmetamatterschallenge | One Month Until March Meta Matters Challenge Begins Again!

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One Month Until March Meta Matters Challenge Begins Again!

It's February 1, so that means the kickoff to this year's March Meta Matters Challenge is just 4 weeks away! As usual, the challenge involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation, plus there will be some prompts for creating new meta.

However this year there is a proposed change. As those who have read posts I made here since last year's challenge wrapped, several people have experienced issues with meta works at AO3 being reported as violations of the Terms of Service, and these works have been taken down. These takedowns also count as strikes against the account: three of them and the account gets deleted.

Besides myself, three people have had works removed after being reported within the past year, two of whom also took part in the MMM Challenge. All of these were considered to be "ephemeral" works, and in all three cases reviews were involved.

When I asked for more details about the first challenge to my own reviews, I was told that "We do not consider responses to movies or episode reactions to be non-ephemeral fanworks, regardless of how analytical they are. Changing the format in which you present these works will not change that they are not permitted under the Terms of Service."

This obviously means that the problem is what constitutes a "review" versus a "response". However when a second set of works was reported several months later, I got the following response to my query about that distinction:

"A review such as your work "LEGO Avengers Video Games Review" is considered a live reaction, which makes it ephemeral content. Reactions to video games, movies, or other media consist of a factual summary of the events that transpired and an individual's initial impressions of the source material and its events. These reactions provide little or no analysis or interpretation of the source material, and are therefore not classified as transformative fanworks.

The type of nonfiction allowed on the Archive is both non-ephemeral and fannish in nature. Examples include character interpretations, discussions of fannish tropes, analysis of fandom trends, critiques on fandoms, guides for creating fanworks, and many other things.

To address your question, a review should have substantial analysis, extended interpretation, or extensive commentary to be considered a nonephemeral fanwork."

Note that the first response said that no amount of analysis would make a "response" non-ephemeral but the second one said that "substantial" or "extended" interpretation or commentary would shift it to a "review" status. What constitutes substantial or extended is very likely in the eye of the beholder however, and I, at least, would not want to bet my account on someone's decision on where the line will get drawn.

More significantly to me was that all the examples of "allowed nonfiction" offered were works about fandom and not works about canon. I commented as much when I replied but got no further response as to whether or not that was a critical factor or if a fandom-focused work could be considered ephemeral for some other reason such as brevity.

As a result, I would not advise anyone to post canon-related meta -- especially if it is focused on an episode or could be considered in any way a review -- to AO3. There just seems to be far too much wiggle room in considering something a violation or not, and clearly there are a number of people willing to report nonfiction content regularly given that this has happened to multiple people within the past year.

So what are the options? AO3 was chosen for the MMM Challenge as a secondary site to copy content to because of its non-commercial status and focus on preservation, as well as offering complex search option to find works. However there is another site that fits these criteria, which is SquidgeWorld.

This site runs on AO3's code, allowing for the same searchability and a familiar interface, as well as the ability to have a MMM Collection at the site. As of this month Squidge.org is a 501c3 organization so it can take tax-deductible donations (for those in the U.S.) and (separately) it also offers image and other forms of hosting. The archive also has a long-term preservation plan that will not involve a future sale of the site.

Importantly for this challenge, meta is welcome. Aside from confirming with the site owner that SquidgeWorld accepts meta, I have transferred all the contents of my AO3 account there and have received comments on posts from the owner. I also had an entry chosen for the monthly gift card contest in December. So I feel fairly confident in endorsing it as a site we can use for the Challenge, which includes many kinds of meta.

This does not mean that any challenge participant must use the site. If you would prefer to use AO3, to copy content from Tumblr to Dreamwidth, to ensure content is backed up at the Internet Archive, etc. you can choose whatever second destination you would like. The MMM Challenge is primarily concerned with preserving meta so that it doesn't disappear or get lost with site changes, and secondarily with ensuring meta can be easily found so that people can engage with it. Some sites do better at ensuring these things than others.

Other than adding SquidgeWorld as a recommended destination for copying meta to, our 2023 session should be the same as in previous years. Feel free to ask questions here about the challenge, locations, etc. Otherwise look for our opening post on March 1!

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The inconsistent responses from AO3 are really disappointing. I had been thinking of starting to crosspost some of my pieces about websites like Buzzly, Fanexus, and Waterfall, since I think they're relevant to online fan communities, but now the status of metacommentary on AO3 is looking a lot more precarious... For now I figure I'll just crosspost a couple of the ones I had in mind, instead of the whole list, and if they get reported we can see how it goes.

Anyway -- I find the name "SquidgeWorld" pretty offputting, but I guess I'll have to look into it.

Heh, yes -- my first thought was of the current term "blorbos" which seems like an odd thing to call cherished characters.

Yes, if you haven't had any reports yet then there's no harm in trying out the format, though I think it's important that the essays include a number of references to how fandom uses sites which might qualify it as an "analysis of fandom trends."

A "blorbo" is a character you don't know or care about at all, in my book. What that post introduced is a way to concisely indicate "I do not even know who this; they mean nothing to me." ...Of course that potential was immediately abandoned and people started using it for characters they do know and do care about a lot, which undercuts what was funny about the original post if you ask me. But anyway, yeah, I can see the likeness.

Re: fandom trends, I think the Fanexus one at least should be a safe bet, since Fanexus marketed itself so specifically as a fandom platform. I'm also thinking about writing a new post about AO3, which hopefully should be relevant enough. :b

Oh interesting! Well the origin sure makes more sense.

Sounds like a good plan 🙂

Regarding preservation:

This year I have put more effort into saving URLs through the Wayback Machine and Archive.fo. This means even if a given URL or platform dies, the content can be retrieved from these other sites. So I recommend that if there is something, like meta, that really want to work hard on preserving long-term, then save it to as many archives as possible. Note that some of them are better at different things -- Wayback sucks at saving images except individually but works great for PDFs, while Archive.fo is much better at images but crashes PDFs. And so on.

https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/top-wayback-machine-alternatives/

https://geekflare.com/wayback-machine-alternatives/

Something else that has come up in

fandom_snowflake this year is the importance of fandom-owned-and-operated venues. If AO3 is doing a shit job of maintaining meta, then it would be helpful to create a site for meta. Since meta is critical to the promotion and survival of fandoms, this seems like a vital resource to preserve and promote, thus worthy of its own site.

There used to be places where you could go to find the fanifestos, and I think we've lost that over time. It's a lot harder now when you come into a new fandom to find the character studies, pairing descriptions, and recommendations of key fanworks to get you started. Without the bottom rungs on the ladder, it's a lot harder to get involved. Many of the places that used to provide that are gone now, but there are still bits and pieces floating around, and there are some new archive formats.

Looking at those, it's pretty straightforward to imagine how a meta archive might work. You'd want ways to sort categories of things, like whether the meta is discussing the original canon or the fanon based on it, and find things like character studies or features about major fanwriters to follow. Fanlore is a good example of a wiki that includes some meta and sometimes points to important fanon or fanworks. There's plenty of wiki freeware out there, so that might be a possibility. AO3 seems more like a database structure.

If AO3 is actively hostile, or at least counterproductively wishy-washy, regarding meta then we need to find or build a better home for it. *ponder* Well, we could try to take over A03 with meta-friendly folks, but that's generally not a method I recommend. It's better to build your own thing than try to force other people to do what you want when they want something different.

That's very helpful about what Wayback does well and doesn't.

I think that Fanlore ends up being a good storage spot for things like intros to characters, pairings and fandoms but it's far from comprehensive and is meant more for pointing to things than hosting them. Since some of the original locations are gone, so having those original items archived is valuable, but it doesn't really create a means of having conversations about the topic.

I agree that having a location for meta that is easily searchable would be ideal, because more structural formats like bulletin boards or wikis are likely to be too broad, especially for a multifandom site.

Just like SquidgeWorld, other groups could use AO3's code to create a site exclusively for fandom meta. However I do feel there's a lot of benefit to have them woven together (as they used to be in places like LJ or DW) with creative works since that means you can have a fanwork and its attached commentary, a fandom resource alongside fanworks that use it, or episode reviews along with fanworks they've inspired.

>> That's very helpful about what Wayback does well and doesn't.<<

I'm happy I could help. If folks are serious about saving meta, I suggest experimenting with a variety of archive sites to see which ones do what better, then write up a comparison so users can decide which to pick for a given item.

>> I think that Fanlore ends up being a good storage spot for things like intros to characters, pairings and fandoms but it's far from comprehensive and is meant more for pointing to things than hosting them.<<

That makes sense.

>> Since some of the original locations are gone, so having those original items archived is valuable, but it doesn't really create a means of having conversations about the topic.<<

Well, what about a database and a forum within the same organization? We did that with Torn World, which also had ... LiveJournal, I think it was. For meta, we already have several communities in Dreamwidth.

>> I agree that having a location for meta that is easily searchable would be ideal, because more structural formats like bulletin boards or wikis are likely to be too broad, especially for a multifandom site.<<

They each have their own uses. An advantage of databases is you can stack things any way you want. Frex, the Torn World database had ways to view things in chronological order overall, or follow entries in a specific storyline. You could search by creator, or by character. There were thematic sets too.

So with meta, someone might want to search character manifestos, ship manifestos, etc. Or they might want to look at different types of entry within one fandom. With multifandom meta, we need that ability to change the dimension of a search. Something else to track would be layers of meta. If fans write directly about canon, that's one layer. But then if they start collating information across meta -- Which series have more femslash, which run to acefic? -- based on meta entries rather than canon or fanfic, that's another layer. And if academics get involved, it's another yet again, so we might want to consider whether we want to include or exclude that particular layer. Some people like academia because they feel it makes fandom get taken more seriously as cultural constructs; others dislike it because they find it intrusive or laughably wrong.

>>Just like SquidgeWorld, other groups could use AO3's code to create a site exclusively for fandom meta. <<

That's not a bad idea if it's customizable.

>>However I do feel there's a lot of benefit to have them woven together (as they used to be in places like LJ or DW) with creative works since that means you can have a fanwork and its attached commentary, a fandom resource alongside fanworks that use it, or episode reviews along with fanworks they've inspired.<<

People are talking about more ways to connect sites. If that works out, great. If not, there are always excerpts and links. I do like the idea of being able to connect things easily as you described. We wouldn't need to host everything, but it'd be nice to have the meta-relevant material available in the same place as the meta. A challenge with that would be getting permission to reprint things, because a lot of folks have gotten very touchy about that after some violations of author rights.

Someone elsenet gave a very cogent explanation for why younger people want to police others, which I suspect is a major contributing factor: That is their only option on the types of platform they choose to inhabit. When a platform has little or nothing in the way of privacy and moderation tools, then users cannot control the content they are served. The only way to stop horrifying stuff from splattering their screen -- whatever it is they don't want to see -- is to prevent other people from putting it on the site. So they try to convince the platform owners to ban whole categories of content, and they attack people for sharing content they despise. Because no better option is available to them there.

"Choose another platform with better tools" is only helpful if there is a close equivalent with higher standards. When LiveJournal misbehaved, there were several alternatives including Dreamwidth where folks could do pretty much the same things. But with Twitter, there is no close analog.

Then when people who have learned these habits on boundary-hostile platforms come into other platforms, they bring those bad habits with them. They may not understand that the new platform HAS other options for them to use, let alone how to use those tools to manage their content stream and avoid things they dislike.

These are problems, because attack culture not only upsets people, it also undermines the safety we came to fandom for, and it discourages people from sharing content. So we need to work on these.

Actionable points from this observation:

1) Provide information about privacy and moderation tools on robust platforms like Dreamwidth. Point out that these tools are more effective than trying to convince the whole of online humanity to quit doing certain things. In the case where an individual's bothersome behavior is caused by ignorance, information can often solve it.

2) When we see people behaving in ways that are problematic, discourage it and recommend alternatives. Humans tend to be contextual creatures and can often, though not always, be convinced to adapt to a local group's customs. A helpful approach is, "Here we don't Y, we X." Like, "On Dreamwidth we don't tell other people what to post, we use the moderation tools (link to instructions) to block out content we don't want to see."

3) When we build new platforms, make sure to include robust privacy and moderation tools. Say we're making a meta warehouse. At minimum it needs a "Safe Search" button like browsers often have. Preferably it needs something like AO3's filter tools to block out unwanted content based on tags/warnings. This will be easy to implement if we use AO3's database type code; I am uncertain whether wiki type code can do similar stunts.

4) Once we have built such a platform, its user introduction, tool tutorial pages, FAQ list, etc. need to include explanations about how to use the site responsibly and respect other users with their different tastes. This way people will know how to manage their own use without bothering others -- and if they persist in harassment, they can be suspended or banned.

5) A platform also needs protection from malicious editing. Some wikis have a huge problem with this. The AO3 format is highly resistant to bottom-up tampering but more vulnerable to top-down tampering (e.g. banning people for posting meta, with ambiguous parameters). We need to make sure that what we create is difficult to destroy, since meta includes many things that upset people, just because it goes into all the different interpretations, headcanons, tropes, etc. that people often disagree about.

There's certainly a valid point there, but not all people do it so I think it has a lot to do with an entitlement mindset -- the idea that everything everywhere must be designed for you in mind.

Your point #4 seems to me something particularly needed, as a sort of pre-quiz before using the site. For-profit sites aren't going to do it because they want to make starting a new account as frictionless as possible, to encourage people to create the account and start engaging. But if the purpose is to both inform new users of site features and expected behavior, and the outcome to create fewer clashes between older and newer users, it could be well worth it.

You're right about how meta can be considered particularly upsetting, because even if fiction expresses the same views it's not as direct. By contrast, most meta is a specific, personal point of view on something. And even when it's a more general piece, say, presenting evidence of current trends, people might want to shoot the messenger.

I haven't any meta to post but it's good to know the state of fandom and AO3. I will look into squidgeworld - it's good if not all our eggs are in the AO3 basket.

Agreed, although ironically its preservation plan involves AO3 so the baskets may yet be together in the future. However that's better than no plan at all which is the case for many a site, and most other sites can only rely on the Internet Archive which is an absolute ocean of baskets in one place. Options are always limited it seems.

However having separate sites means they may develop differently, and meta may be just one branch of that, which is good in its own way.

>>There's certainly a valid point there, but not all people do it so I think it has a lot to do with an entitlement mindset -- the idea that everything everywhere must be designed for you in mind.<<

I agree that the modern sense of entitlement is part of the problem.

I think another part is when you raise people with little or no boundaries, then you get people who see nothing wrong with violating other people's boundaries, because they can't actually see those boundaries. The younger folks have grown up in a post-privacy surveillance world, and it shows. So now that's everyone's problem.

>>Your point #4 seems to me something particularly needed, as a sort of pre-quiz before using the site. For-profit sites aren't going to do it because they want to make starting a new account as frictionless as possible, to encourage people to create the account and start engaging. But if the purpose is to both inform new users of site features and expected behavior, and the outcome to create fewer clashes between older and newer users, it could be well worth it.<<

I'm not a fan of forcing people to do things, but there's something to be said for earning perks. So I would layer it:

* Anyone can look at the content on the site and link to it. That's mostly what meta is for. They will have tools to find what they want and avoid what they dislike. You shouldn't need to make an account or do anything else just to look at things.

* If you want to do things on the site, that's different. So people should read the forum parameters before they participate in the forums by making comments or posts. And if they don't stick to the parameters, they don't get to keep using the forums.

* If you want to add things to the site, whether that's people uploading their own meta or uploading submissions from outside, that requires more familiarity with the parameters for site content itself. There's value both in having dedicated staff to read submissions and upload the good stuff, or go out looking for good meta to add, and for having volunteers ad their own meta.

* If you want to edit or delete things that are already on the site, that's a higher level yet again, and probably best kept to a handful of experienced staff. Though there's something to be said for letting people keep the ability to edit or delete their own content but not other people's content.

The ability to do things on a site should grow with the user, as they establish that they know what they're doing and can be relied on not to trash the place. And conversely, the site should not ask for things from users until it has established that it is in fact of use to them and reasonably reliable. Build the pyramid.

>>You're right about how meta can be considered particularly upsetting, because even if fiction expresses the same views it's not as direct. By contrast, most meta is a specific, personal point of view on something. And even when it's a more general piece, say, presenting evidence of current trends, people might want to shoot the messenger.<<

It depends on the type of meta, but yes, a lot of meta is a personal perspective. The less-personal examples include introduction to canons or descriptions of tropes. Once you get into reviews, character studies that explore fanon, or pairing manifestos, that's a lot more interpretive, thus personal, and thus controversial. I think the meta warehouse should have a range of many types so folks can make, find, and share whatever they need.

Okay, so I just went through my AO3, downloaded the metas I'd previously posted for this fest and then deleted them. I'd worried my stuff broke the ephemeral rule back when I originally posted it because I don't write much formal meta (I just start writing and sometimes I end up with something other people might be interested in when I finish) so if people who do write formal meta are breaking the rules then I definitely am. Maybe I should have done something else but I'm finally a 100+ fic fanwriter like I was so envious of as a teenager and I don't want my account to be deleted. I'll look into SquidgeWorld because I'm nosy and curious about small social media platforms, but idk if I'll be participating this year as a result.

Aw, I'm sorry to hear that 😞 I can totally understand being proactive to protect the account, and you may be right that sooner or later something might get reported. Although from the poll I ran last year it seems the numbers of MMM participants who did get reported were few compared to the people adding meta overall, it's also possible the Challenge hasn't been going on long enough for a large number to emerge.

I'm also sorry to hear it because I found it much easier transferring my content to SquidgeWorld while it was still up at AO3. Given how alike the sites are, I found it easier to copy and paste things from one form to the other than I would have starting from scratch. Additionally, as SW is a far smaller site, many of the tags do not exist there yet, so it was good to have the AO3 ones to fill in the blanks.

(I should mention that SW has been very responsive about the tagging. Within a day or two, tags I introduced had been canonized, which is super fast compared to AO3 where some tags are no longer being canonized at all for technical reasons. And since I often re-used tags or had more than one meta for a fandom, it was very handy to be able to just autocomplete those fields).

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One Month Until March Meta Matters Challenge Begins Again!

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