March Meta Matters Challenge, Check-in 2

[yourlibrarian]

Hello everyone! It's check-in time to see how we're all getting along with our meta importing.

Comment below with any of the following:

1) How do you motivate yourself when you're facing something daunting or overwhelming?

2) How many works have you identified for future transfers, or have you now moved to AO3?

3) Are you having any problems moving your meta?

Remember, this account accepts anonymous comments, so if you don't have a Dreamwidth account we still want to hear from you and have you take part.

Also, if you've got tips you've developed during this process, do share them with the group! And if you can help someone out with a problem they're having, share a solution.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

2) I've identified one so far!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I got as far as my second post in my account only to realize that it would be a nifty meta post if only I did some rewriting. So I decided to go ahead and do that. It's now been redrafted and while there is still a ton of stuff to explore in it, I don't want to spend the month writing it in full.

Instead I've decided that I will upload it to AO3 today and also post it to my Dreamwidth account, since my account here contains all my work in full and it's just different enough to qualify.

[alexseanchai]

I still haven't found a way to find all the Tumblr posts I added stuff to on reblogging while excluding anything I reblogged without comment.

JetBlackCode's tool to find the stuff where I'm the OP insists on infinite scroll through the stuff I posted more recently in order to get back to where I left off going through my posts. This is annoying.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

2)
I've made my dedicated nonfic pseud and moved two posts! I have received kudoses!

I have also done some soul-searching and peering at the AO3 FAQ and decided that a rec/review of one single fic probably isn't the kind of nonfiction that should be an AO3 work, even though it's long and I originally wrote it as a standalone post. But at least it's in my Dreamwidth meta tag, which is a thing I have since last month. *pats meta tag*

AND I'm wondering about maybe crossposting one or more of the "LiveJournal for Scoobies" tutorials. Idk. Maybe if I have nothing better to do. Thing is they're image-heavy, and I hate embedding images on AO3. They keep breaking. Also, I'm not sure if it's fannish enough, and some of the content might be considered ephemeral, and ugh.

Ooh! And! One of the podcast hosts answered, so I shall go ahead (at some point) with transcribing that interview about Buffy poetry.

3)
So, not having problems with anything I'm currently doing, but also idk how to embed an image on AO3 and have it not randomly disappear and reappear whenever it likes.

Also, I'm sure I'll have a lot of problems as soon as I attempt to transcribe a longer text from audio :D, but that ought to work out somehow, given enough time.

[shadowscast]

I've made a new AO3 pseud dedicated to meta, and uploaded 10 pieces—backdated to whenever I wrote them, from 2002 through 2019!

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast_meta/works

To be honest, that might be about it for me. I've never been a prolific writer of meta, and most of what I found while going back through my journals was too short, insubstantial, too personal, and/or closely tied to a passing conversation to seem worth uploading to AO3.

I did receive a few kudos in the last couple of days on the newly-uploaded pieces, which was pretty exciting!

Here's one tagging issue I struggled with: when a piece was dealing with a non-fandom-specific issue (such as: what makes writing fanfic fun?) but drawing examples from a few specific fandoms, I wasn't sure how to tag the fandom. I ended up tagging them with "No Fandom" in addition to the names of the fandoms from which the examples were drawn. Which seems rather contradictory, but it was the best I could think of.

[wheatear]

2) I've moved five so far! I'm using a pseud for archiving so I can separate it from my fic. I've got a lot more to go but I figure if I post one or two a day, I can get it all done this month.

3) No real problems, had to do a bit of editing and reformatting e.g. for posts with embedded video. The hardest thing is actually the tagging. I don't really know what canonical tags are good to use for meta so I've been looking through the collection to see what everyone else is using.

[nrgburst]

2. I've also made a new pseud so my subscribers know it's meta going up and not fic. So far I've uploaded one a day!

3. A lot of my GIF references were to blogs on tumblr that have now deleted or changed urls. A bit frustrating, especially since inserting an image on AO3 requires it to come from somewhere else on the internet- you can't just upload the image yourself! I tried working around this by uploading a new GIF I made to my DW instead, but AO3 didn't like the html reference because according to the FAQ:
"You can embed images you've hosted on Dreamwidth in your own journal, in other journals, in communities, in comments, and on other Livejournal and Livejournal-based sites like InsaneJournal, but Dreamwidth does not allow images to be embedded on other non LJ-related sites".
Le sigh. So I just combed through tumblr until I found images to fit my meta again.

[leahandillyana]

1) I really don't. Usually I back away unless I absolutely have to do the thing.
2) I transfered everything I deemed worth transferring in December 2018, and all further meta was mirrored on AO3 immediatelly after posting.
3) No, never had.
I was wondering about various meta topics, but everything new I could come up with are either "this has a simple answer that makes the question stupid" or "somebody else wrote about it in a way more verbose than I could". Like...
Q: Why are there so few non-Japanese characters of colour in manga and anime?
A: Japan is the most homogenous large nation in the world, and we are not competent enough to actually discuss Japan-typical racism.
Q: But the Stormtrooper Rebellion!
A: We already wrote about it.
Q: But VLD was recut at a very late stage!
A: We know. There's a whole website dedicated to discussing it.

[eidolonlathi]

1) How do I motivate myself when I’m facing something daunting or overwhelming?: I remind myself that not every piece has to be finished instantly but that it’s okay to need a few days for every piece. And I’m making smaller steps out of the entire transfer process, like this finishing every step feels like a small success already.

2) How many works have I identified for future transfers, or have I now moved to AO3?: I moved one piece to AO3 so far. A second piece is ready to be moved as soon as I have the time. The process of gathering together smaller meta snippets together looks to be complete. Next will be ordering them into fitting themes. And then writing new works based on those themes. Hopefully the material will be enough for 3-4 new pieces!

3) Am I having any problems moving my meta?: So far everything is going well.
For now I avoid the question of finding a new hosting place for the images in my meta by making good use of the fact said meta is all located on tumblr: 1) Open edit mode on tumblr for the meta I’m transferring 2) highlight entire meta while editing mode is on, and then copy it over to AO3’s rich text editor (it's important this and not html is in place when inserting the copied text). Like this the images embed in tumblr will be copied over quickly.
The problem stays that should the tumblr page in question ever vanish, so will the images (but not the text!). But seeing that I still have a small pile of meta to transfer over, I decided to let this be a question that needs solving for another day.

[merryghoul]

I’ve moved over six works to AO3 so far and working on a seventh.