One Month Until March Meta Matters Challenge Begins Again!

[yourlibrarian]

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!

Comments

[osteophage]

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.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

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.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

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.

[goldgust]

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.

[emjen_enla]

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.