Sentinel fans remember with nostalgia how Blair moved in with Jim. We have good news for those who know and love 852 Prospect, the Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive; it’s moving in with the Archive of Our Own!
In this post:
- a bit of background explanation
- what this means for authors who have work on 852 Prospect
- and what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
The first iteration of the Automated Archive software was written by astolat for 852 Prospect back in 1997, but for some years that software has been growing increasingly creaky, and now requires all updates to be done by hand. As a result, alice ttlg, 852 Prospect’s archivist, has been looking for a sustainable new home for the archive. That new home will be as an Integrated Collection in the AO3.
In its new home, 852 Prospect will be a separate, searchable collection with its own identity. We’re currently exploring the possibility of doing a complete archive transfer, in which we could preserve old rec links by creating redirects at the original site. The archive will move in early June.
What does this mean for authors who have work on 852 Prospect?
If you have work on 852 Prospect, and you still have access to the email account associated with those stories, then when the import happens, you’ll receive an email letting you know you can come and claim your works. If you already have an account on the Archive of Our Own under that address, you’ll receive an e-mail letting you know that those stories have been added to your account.
If you don’t have an account on the Archive of Our Own, you will be invited to create one, and will be able to claim your imported works and associate them with that account.
All imported works are set, by default, to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 3 months, all unclaimed imported works will be open to all visitors, just like 852 Prospect currently is.
If you no longer have access to the email account associated with those stories, contact the Open Doors committee and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the stories elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s grand; if not, don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.)
If you have a story on 852 Prospect which you’ve already imported to the AO3, once the 852 Prospect import happens there will be two copies of the same story on the archive. This situation is temporary! Down the line, we’re planning to implement a way of merging two copies of the same work, so that you can keep your comments and kudos on the version you’ve already uploaded, *and* the redirect from the old archive address will still work. (Alternatively, we can change the redirect to point toward the copy you have already imported to AO3. Just claim the new copy of the work, and contact Open Doors with your AO3 account name(s), Prospect 852 account name(s), and links to the works that you want the redirect to point to.
Once the stories from 852 Prospect are on the AO3, you can then edit, delete, etc, the same way you would with any work you posted on the AO3. Or, if you don’t want the works to be part of 852 Prospect in its new home, you can choose to delete the imported works or to orphan the imported works. (Orphaning leaves the works on the Archive, but removes them from the control of any user account. You can choose whether to remove the name they were associated with on the old archive, or leave it displaying as a pseud.)
If you would like to prevent any works associated with a particular e-mail address from ever being imported into the Archive, please submit that e-mail address (and any info that can be used to verify your identity) to Open Doors.
If you still have questions…
If you have further questions, try the Open Doors FAQ; if the FAQ doesn’t offer the answers you need, you can contact the Open Doors committee or leave a comment on this post and we’ll respond as soon as we can.
We’re also planning to hold two public chats on Campfire (the online chat platform the OTW uses): Sunday, May 19, at 18:00 UTC, and Thursday, May 24, at 01:00 UTC (click the links to see when the chats are held in your timezone). You can access OTW’s public chatroom using this link.
Anyone who has questions about the process is welcome to join the Open Doors team at those chats, and we’ll do our best to answer you.
Many of us in the OTW are longtime TS fans who really care about having these stories preserved for new generations. We’re delighted to welcome 852 Prospect aboard the AO3!
— The Open Doors team