purge of 2002? of 2012? what ARE those?
Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten.Â
They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it.Â
The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.
Itâs what led to the creation of alternate hosting sites for smutty ficâŚAdultFanfiction was the one I went toâŚbut thousands of fics would never be recovered.Â
Shit like the Great Purges and the Strikethrough of Livejournal eventually led to fans banding together to create A03, which I would have absolutely KILLED for when I was 15.
Back up ao3 was created by fans?
ItâsâŚright on the main page.Â
I love this because I will bet you that persefv has read that bit we are all so inundated with hyperbole and advertising that says that the consumer is somehow in charge of whatever product they are shilling that we all just assumed this was another sales tactic.
But weâre not even⌠selling anythingâŚÂ *quiet sobs*
No ads. No subscriptions. No data selling.
We are the definition of âwhat it says on the tin.â
Is there any way to spread this info?Â
THE OTW WAS CREATED BY FANS SO WEâD HAVE AN ARCHIVE THAT WASNâT SUBJECT TO CORPORATE REVIEW.Â
Nonprofit, so that nobody could ever say, âthis isnât making enough money; itâs getting shut down.â (See: Geocities, Quizilla, Figment, G+.) With lawyers involved and a firm awareness of the legalities of fanfic, so nobody would decide âweâve gotten a nasty letter from a megacorporation with lawyers, so weâre hiding because we canât afford to face a lawsuit. (Jedi Hurtaholics, Trevizoâs Millennium site.) With teams, so that an argument between co-mods didnât result in the destruction of a whole archive. (Gryffindor Tower, Detention.)
AO3 IS OUR SITE.
It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags.Â
(And the other OTW projects, too. Fans manage the entries at Fanlore. Fans run the Open Doors project. Fans publish Transformative Works and Cultures.)
EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE OTW LOVES FANDOM. Wants it to survive. Wants it to be awesome for everyone.
(Knows that it canât be awesome for everyone; some approaches to fandom just clash hard. But they strive to minimize those clashes as much as possible, because they love fandom.)Â
AO3 is not some company that decided, âweâll make a site for fanfic and thenâŚâ I donât know what people are thinking is the reason. Money? Data harvesting? Tax shelter? Amusement and pity?
Nope; AO3 was fans saying, âLivejournal sucks; weâre tired of this fucked-up ârebuild every three yearsâ garbage; WE NEED TO OWN THE DAMN SERVERS.â
Thatâs the âof our ownâ part of the name. OTW isnât a âthemâ running the site âfor us.â Itâs âusâ making places for âusâ to share what we love with others of âus.âÂ


















