To Our Friends On LJ

Don’t panic! Livejournal isn’t in any imminent danger, despite today’s news (many of us here at OTW are archivists, and we know how long it takes for sites, even unattended ones, to degrade.) We’ll all still be here tomorrow!

That being said, we do want to remind LJ-based fandom that:

* You can create a User: page for yourself on Fanlore. (All those “If LJ goes away” posts on LJ are kind of useless if LJ actually goes away!) You can put all your pseuds, journals, websites, and other contact info on your User: page, and the wiki is searchable and obviously updatable, so folks will always know where to find you. (See examples here, and there’s an easy “create account” link in the left side toolbar of every page.) (Please note that the User: page is different from a regular wiki page. You control the content of your User: page: it’s more like a LJ profile page, whereas regular wiki pages about individual fans are collaborative and editable; generally, others will make and edit these pages.)

* You can also document fannish information and resources on Fanlore. LJ hosts a number of irreplaceable fandom overviews, rec lists, newbie guides and the like, so take a minute to add some information to your fandoms’ main pages, pairing pages, etc. Document fannish lists, communities, fanon, writers, artists, vidders, stories, kerfuffles, debates, and other fanworks. It’s really easy. (Ask me how!)

* The Archive of Our Own has been steadily giving out beta accounts a few at a time; help us out, whether by giving us useful feedback on the workings of the beta-archive (there’s a handy feedback form) or by volunteering to work at with us in some other way, and we will totally put you at the head of the line (er, as long as you’re up for the creakiness of beta. Hey, we’re working on it!) If not, we hope to be offering more general invites soon, after the next few rounds of code revisions. (We’re at 953 on the public; 1012 is in the can; more coming soon!)

Remember, too, that if your fic is archived on LJ, and all the fancy backups alarm you, you can just go to your stories on LJ and save them as HTML pages on your hard drive — then, in the worst case, even if LJ vanishes in the meantime, you’ll be able to just copy and paste those files into the archive software once you do have an account.

Announcement, Archive of Our Own, Fanlore
  1. datenshi commented: I would especially encourage any members of anime/manga, games, and other Asian fandoms to jump in over at Fanlore -- we're woefully underrepresented at the moment.
    • fcoppa commented: YES! Fanlore really does need more representation here; if there's anything we can do to help spread the word in Asian fandoms, please let us know.
      • datenshi commented: I don't really know myself, honestly :( It's very disheartening to see the general lack of participation from our end, but I can also say I don't think I've seen a lot of advertising or calls for assistance in the animanga comms I frequent on LJ, either. Now that OTW's various projects are really getting on their feet, I think myself and the other Asian media fans around here are going to have to try and get the word out more.
        • fcoppa commented: Hey, we could use all the help we can get; I'd love to work with you if you have an idea of communities we should target and invite. We haven't done that much outreach yet; it's part of the plan for 2009! (We've really more been trying to get up and running so we have something to invite people TO.)
          • datenshi commented: As far as getting the word out to the maximum possible number of people, the place to start first would probably be the big comms for the various Shounen Jump series. Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note make up a huge chunk of animanga fandom on LJ all by their lonesome; D.Gray-man and One Piece also have a sizable and active presence... in terms of general Asian media, another great place to hit would be the various communities for the Final Fantasy games, especially FFVII. There's a lot of overlap between video game fans, animanga fans, and also fans of Asian music and so forth (the latter I can't claim to have much expertise about though). I'm sure outreach efforts are way off in the future at this point, but I suppose I'll also list some good general-interest comms where we might find participants, if only to remind myself I need to go plug Fanlore on them later: http://chuunin.livejournal.com/ Chuunin is the main Naruto discussion community on LJ with about 5k members. I'm technically a maintainer there (though inactive) and I have another friend on the maintainer team who's a Fanlore contributor and OTW supporter. http://death-eyes.livejournal.com/ and http://death-note.livejournal.com/ are the biggest Death Note hubs. http://all-for-bleach.livejournal.com/ and http://soul-society.livejournal.com/ are very active Bleach comms (the latter would probably need discussing with the mods before making any ad-type posts). http://dgrayman.livejournal.com/ and http://dgray-man.livejournal.com/ are the main hubs for D.Gray-man, the former being more active these days. http://one-piece.livejournal.com/ is the main hub for One Piece. For Final Fantasy, people are kind of scattered all over the place, but http://community.livejournal.com/_final_fantasy_/ and http://ff7.livejournal.com/ are fairly sizable comms. Newsletter comms aren't really a big deal for most anime/manga fandoms the way they are in some Western media fandoms, but a decent list of some active ones can be seen in the profile of Bleach News: http://community.livejournal.com/bleach_news/profile Anyway, now I'm off to think about how to drag more of my friends over to Fanlore :)
          • lian commented: Personally, I suppose many people haven't gotten out and promoted the hell out of Fanlore because it's in beta and still rough around the edges, so probably hesitating until things have become more definite? But it warms the cockles of my hearts to see more Animanga fans contributing already (tho' I'm a more of J-gamer myself.)
          • datenshi commented: It might just be the section of fandom I'm in (D.Gray-man/Naruto/J-gaming people make up most of my flist), but I don't know, I just haven't really heard people talking much about OTW or its projects at all. I've definitely never seen Fanlore's name so much as mentioned in my circles, and the few times I've blogged about OTW don't seem to have met with much notice. I'm not sure what it will take to get people's attention, but. Hopefully better advertising will at least advise people that OTW/etc *exist*.
          • lian commented: Yes, limited visibility is a problem. Which is why it's all the more awesome and important that you're here to help :D!
  2. fcoppa commented: FWIW, I'm the head of communications and the chair of Open Doors (which will launch more fully in 2009 to back up archives and help people get AOOO accounts across fandom) and god knows I'd love to have you volunteer for either committee. *waggles fingers seductively*
    • datenshi commented: Er... do you mean me? 8D; If it was me you were talking about, that would definitely be an interesting opportunity! I'm actually supposed to be involved with the Translation committee already, but I'm not really sure what happened with that... I suspect I might have been the only person volunteering services for Japanese :/ Anyway, I will definitely look into those :)