Sentinel Angst, a The Sentinel fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

• A bit of background explanation
• What this means for creators who had works on Sentinel Angst
• And what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The Sentinel Angst Yahoo Group was a Gen-only writers group active from 1999-2019. In order to preserve this piece of fandom history, we are importing the stories written for the group to AO3.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Lady Shelley, Lyn Townsend, and Annie Booker to import Sentinel Angst into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own.

We will begin importing works from Sentinel Angst to the AO3 after October. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Sentinel Angst?

Because posters in Sentinel Angst were led to expect privacy, individual works will only be imported upon receiving the explicit consent of their respective creators. The moderators have actively sought to contact all creators to gather permission to post. Works for which we do not have explicit consent to import will not be saved to the Sentinel Angst collection on AO3.

For works we do have permission to archive, we will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work unless we were asked for the work to be orphaned or anonymized.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose.

Please contact Open Doors with your Sentinel Angst pseud(s) and email address(es) if we haven’t managed to get in touch with you but:

• You’d like us to import your works and you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
• You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
• You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
• You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3.
• You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
• You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Sentinel Angst account, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with the Sentinel Angst mods to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

• importing your works to the AO3
• adding your works to the new collection Sentinel Angst

If you still have questions…

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Sentinel Angst on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We’re excited to be able to help preserve Sentinel Angst!

– The Open Doors team and the Sentinel Angst mods

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on 20 August. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.