The 9 Forum, a message board for fans of the film “9”, is importing its fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who have work on The 9 Forum
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
The close-knit microfandom for “9” began creating and compiling fanworks a few months before the film’s release in September 2009. There is now over a decade of fanfiction and fanart posted to The 9 Forum as a result of our passion for this fandom. We wanted to take steps to preserve these fanworks now, anticipating that the message board software will not last forever.
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 Patchlamb, with the agreement of forum moderator Anna Desu, to import The 9 Forum’s fanworks into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive’s fanworks in their entirety, all fanfiction and fanart currently in The 9 Forum will be hosted on the OTW’s servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from The 9 Forum to the AO3 after December.
What does this mean for creators who have work on The 9 Forum?
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.
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. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.
Please contact Open Doors with your The 9 Forum pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You’d like us to import your works, but 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 The 9 Forum 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 9 Forum mod 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 The 9 Forum
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 The 9 Forum 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 The 9 Forum!
– The Open Doors team and Patchlamb