March Meta Matters Challenge

As another March has passed, marchmetamatterschallenge is closed.

While the challenge itself runs during the month of March, backing up works to AO3 can continue throughout the year, either when you have time or as you write new works. Hopefully this community has provided encouragement and incentive during this month that will keep everyone thinking about duplicating their meta elsewhere, both older meta and new content you write. ( Read more... )

For those here at Dreamwidth, there has been a growing effort at the start of 2022 to get more communities active. There are both meta challenges and meta communities here that you can take part in. (Note to any community owners/mods: The MMM account is open to affiliates!) If you are already part of one, rec it below!

Thank you to everyone for taking part and following along this month. If you'd like, let others know in comments what your meta plans are for the coming months.

It's a new month and the MMM Challenge is closed.

What happens now? While this community was here to offer encouragement and help with your goals, there's no reason not to continue transferring meta over throughout the year when you have time. One thing to know is that the Meta Matters Challenge Collection on AO3 can be added to throughout the year if you wish. And the Challenge will be back next year!

Whether one has transferred many, all one's works, or just a few, any additional works copied over during the challenge are works which are less likely to be lost in future moves or site collapses. This account accepts anonymous comments, so if you don't have a Dreamwidth account we'd still like to count you among our participants. Let us know what goals you met or what you still plan to do.

Also, a suggestion for the year to come:

I'd like to encourage everyone who has read some interesting meta, either this past month or in the months to come, to rec it. A lot of rec posts that circulate end up being fic only. But wherever you rec works, whether it's in your account, at a recs community, or on AO3 (bookmarks function as rec lists, just ticky the Rec box), let people know.

Making people more aware that meta is being written and can be found at AO3 will likely lead to more of that there and everywhere :) Plus, I've already read meta from fellow participants that is well worth checking out!

Thank you to everyone for taking part and following along this month!

As we're about to kick off our challenge, here are a few reminders:

Please look over the FAQ as there are some important bits for everyone to follow, namely:

* Remember to tag all your posts with the "Meta" and "Nonfiction" tags in the "Additional Tags" section of the AO3 posting form.

* Remember to add your meta to the March Meta Matters Challenge community on AO3.

There have been items added to the FAQ as questions have come in, and it will continue to be updated throughout the challenge to help out participants.

Some people have already begun importing their meta to AO3 and adding it to our collection there, which has been great to see! Whenever you wish to begin is fine -- more meta added is more meta saved :)

See you at our official start on Sunday, March 1!

As sites hosting art, text, music, and more continue to either close up shop or change their Terms of Service, there have been various efforts to save content on what is often very short notice. It would be even better if fans gave our works this attention before a crisis hits.

While creators have often used multiple sites to host their works, one type of work has generally been left out of fans' efforts at archiving and preserving fanworks -- meta. In many cases, meta posts have not been copied anywhere else other than the location where they were first posted, leaving them particularly vulnerable to loss.

So what if we can make a small dent in getting it saved? The March Meta Matters Challenge is focused on not just new meta, but making sure older meta gets a chance to be read and remain a part of fandom history. While new meta is also encouraged, the priority for Meta Matters is to make sure meta doesn't vanish with sites or personal accounts when those get closed or moved.

That's also why the challenge will be using the SquidgeWorld Archive as a destination site. For people who want to find meta, the site is designed for searchability (unlike, say, most social media sites) as it uses the same site code as Archive of Our Own but has a much more inclusive policy when it comes to meta. You can also add content to AO3 itself, but given past experiences by other participants, some of that content may be at risk. (See our FAQ for more info).

This will be a month-long event and will function as follows: ( Read more... )