As you point out, the decision to host meta was not primarily based on its risk for takedowns, although when it comes to long-term preservation from either the loss of a large hosting platform (like Geocities) or a smaller single-fandom archive, it is under the same risk as other fanworks. However, one issue of concern was the question of how much its inclusion would impact the archive as a whole. The only thing that we can currently be certain of is that the addition of further text works is unlikely to have as big an impact on the archive as it would if we were prepared to host multimedia works, which is still a part of our future plans. Also, while we will undoubtedly see more meta hosted on the AO3 as a result of this decision, there's no way to know how much more there will be. So it will be interesting to see if a "culture" of comment and discussion develops around meta here the way it has on other sites.
Being able to categorize your work in a way that users can find (or exclude it) from their searches is definitely going to be one component of hosting non-fiction (as well as other media formats) on the AO3. But just as art, podfic and video can currently be found on the AO3, so can meta. The difference, of course, is that the AO3's current infrastructure already supports the direct hosting of meta in text form, so its continuation on the archive has been more a question of policy than ability. This does not mean that there won't be technical issues involved, particularly when it comes to users' desire to filter their search results to find or exclude it.
What we do know however, from current activity on the AO3, is that the uncertain status of meta on the AO3 made it more difficult for the affected committees to proceed with deciding how or if it should be addressed. While the board's decision will please some users and make others unhappy, it will at least provide a path for our various committees to begin dealing with those concerns in a broad, consistent way.
We realize there will likely be frustration in the short term as options that users would like to have may not come into being as quickly as we would all like. But this decision is a first step so that OTW volunteers and staff and users alike can start thinking of workarounds in the short term and solutions in the long term to better satisfy a variety of archive user needs.
Thank you very much for the detailed answer, athough I have a feeling this was directed more at the community at large.
So I'll repeat this: I'm happy the OTW is holding themselves to maximum inclusiveness, but I do think there will be even more drawbacks for the usabilty of the Archive if you allow meta before you solved the media browsing issue. You are already allowing fanworks of different media not hosted on the Archive anyway and implementing the option to categorize and browse by media type should have top priority before you put up the new policies to allow even more. If that is solved first, I'll welcome meta with open arms.
The only thing that we can currently be certain of is that the addition of further text works is unlikely to have as big an impact on the archive as it would if we were prepared to host multimedia works, which is still a part of our future plans.
Do you really think so? I understand that meta doesn't present the technical problems that hosting multimedia does. However, podfic and vids aren't likely to overwhelm fandom categories, because of the time involved in their creation; there will never be as many podfics or vids as there are stories. But I think you're underestimating the degree to which a flood of meta reposted from LJ, DW, and Tumblr is going to affect the experience of people who are here to read fanfic.
I want to echo the voices of other commenters here and say that there needs to be a mandatory way to categorize works, and that the faster that's put into place, the less of a mess there will be in the long run. If people post high volumes of meta for ... weeks? months? ... without being required to tag it in some way that allows readers to filter it out, I think it will become hard to ever fix the problem in a way that makes it possible to browse fanfic and only fanfic easily.
I'm curious as to why you think a flood of meta will be coming in just because it's being officially allowed now. I write a lot of meta, but I doubt I'd post it here, because I like to have it in a place where I can keep an ongoing discussion with everyone.
I can see why some people really want meta, but I'm interested to know why you (and others) feel so strongly that there will be a huge influx of meta that has already posted at other communities.
Personally, because I'm seeing meta appearing in my fandoms on AO3 where no meta used to be, and my experience is that things snowball once they reach an initial critical mass -- if it becomes "a thing people do," especially for people who mainly post to Tumblr where there's not really the same opportunity that there is on LJ/DW to host a discussion in one place, I think we'll see a lot more of it.
I'm hoping not, unless there's a way to cordon it off from fic! But I'm not betting on that.
Ah, I see. The fandoms I follow are relatively small, so I haven't seen any changes since the announcement. There's meta there, but it's stuff that's been there for ages.
To be honest I feel like you about my own meta and discussions and think that there are many people who probably will think like that and leave most of their meta in one place. But I've seen "meta" pieces pop up in one of the bigger fandoms I'm reading in - a fandom that is already hard to search because people are using so many different canonical and higher level meta tags - and it was mostly about defending OTPs and preferences.
As of now nobody can know what will happen - as we do not know what the final definition for allowed meta will be in the end (and I'm sure wherever the line is drawn there will be discontent).
Because meta can be hosted directly here already, I expect it will be posted more than the other media fanworks that can only be linked or embedded like fanart, podfic, vids already. These non-textbased fanworks will be entirely swallowed, I expect.
All of this isn't new. People have asked for the media categories for a long time now (as well as better bwosing functionality and filters).
I do think that with adding another media type, possibly before implementing a way to put fanworks in mandatory categories for easy searching and browsing that will also mean that later down the line when the categories may be implemented, nobody will go back and do a thourough clean up. It makes sense to implement this sooner rather than later or at least start planning on how this will be done, before starting on the meta policy.
Comment on OTW Board Approves Meta Hosting on the AO3
admin-claudia (Guest) Sat 16 Feb 2013 11:07PM UTC
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