Frequently Asked Questions - Archive of Our Own

The Archive Of Our Own is in beta as of October 2008. For information about archive policies, please see the archive Terms of Service and FAQ.

Our first goal is to create a new, free, open-source software package to allow fans to host their own robust, full-featured archives, which can support even an archive containing hundreds of thousands of stories and which has the social networking features to enable fans to connect to one another through their work.

Our second goal is to use this software to provide a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanfic and other transformative fanworks, where these can be sheltered by the advocacy of the OTW and take advantage of the OTW's work in articulating the case for the legality and social value of these works. Unlike other archives, the Archive of Our Own isn't run by individuals whose interest in fandom may wax and wane, but by a nonprofit organization run by an elected rotating board of committed fans. We hope that this will lead to more permanence and stability than some other archives or services.

No one, including the OTW as an organization, makes money from the archive or its content; in fact, the opposite is true because the OTW pays to host the archive. Advertising is not shown. Instead, we hold public radio-style pledge drives to ask for support from our users. No donation will ever be required to use the archive or any of its tools.

Building the kind of archive the OTW envisions is not a simple process. We're not just setting up an archive using existing software, but building new open-source archive software designed around fans' needs, that can be easily maintained and easily reused, and that can handle potentially millions of stories from hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users.

This work is being done by a group of volunteers, including a group of trainees learning how to write and maintain code, to help build the fannish community of coders. This is a group of people who can help to maintain the archive software in future. In other words, we're not just building the Archive, we're building the builders.

We have also taken the time to develop comprehensive and fan-friendly policies with as much input from fans as possible; you can see our resulting Terms of Service on the Archive of Our Own.

This is taking a little while to do, but we absolutely believe it's worth the time. You can follow the progress of the Archive's development in our newsletters and our blog. To get involved, contact the Volunteers committee.

No. In fact, we hope that other fans will use our archive software, which will be open-source and free to use and modify, to build their own archives.

In the Archive of Our Own, we hope to create a multi-fandom archive with great features and fan-friendly policies, which is customizable and scalable, and will last for a very long time. We'd like to be fandom's deposit library, a place where people can back up existing work or projects and have stable links, not the only place where anyone ever posts their work. It's not either/or; it's more/more!

The Archive of Our Own entered open beta in November 2009. To create an account, you need an invitation. We're using the invitation code system so that the Archive can grow in a controlled manner. We need to add new users gradually so that our account numbers don't grow beyond what our hardware, bandwidth, help and support can cope with. This helps us ensure that everyone using the Archive gets the best possible experience. Once you receive an invitation email, click the link provided in the email to go to the account creation page. If you've been provided with an invitation link by another user, clicking this link should take you to the right place.

We're posting regular Archive updates on the OTW blog, answering frequently asked questions and keeping users informed about how the Archive is progressing. The blog is mirrored on Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Insanejournal, and YahooGroups, and posts are linked on Twitter.

We are now also posting on the Archive itself and a link to the most recent post will appear in 'Updates' on the Archive front page.

Contact Open Doors for access to the archive importer. Please let us know from the outset if you have special needs — for example, if you'd like us to take over maintenance of the old domain, or if your archive contains multimedia content.