Open Doors would like to update Sentinel fandom on the continued delay in importing 852 Prospect to the Archive of Our Own. We've unfortunately had a bit of a coding setback on the 852 Prospect import, and it looks like an import isn't likely until 2013.

We apologize for this continued pushback of the import, as when we first announced the project we expected that 852 Prospect was going to be finding a new home soon. But due to continued work on the AO3 as well as further import testing, we've realized that there is still going to be a substantial delay in this happening.

We do want to assure fans that this continues to be a central project for us and we will be making every effort to get the import completed as soon as we can. We, too, are disappointed that it will not be possible this year. If you have questions about the import, please contact the Open Doors committee.

Dear Sentinel fandom!

We're writing to let you know that the import of 852 Prospect into the Archive of Our Own (which we announced in May) has been postponed until sometime in August. Our apologies for the delay!

The import has been rescheduled because of recent performance issues on the Archive (which our coders are hard at work fixing). We're now waiting until the next code deploy before we import 852 Prospect, but Open Doors is still working to make sure it happens.

Thank you everyone for your patience, and if anyone has further questions, please don't hesitate to contact Open Doors.

Sentinel fans remember with nostalgia how Blair moved in with Jim. We have good news for those who know and love 852 Prospect, the Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive; it's moving in with the Archive of Our Own!

In this post:

• a bit of background explanation
• what this means for authors who have work on 852 Prospect
• and what to do if you still have questions

Background explanation

The first iteration of the Automated Archive software was written by astolat for 852 Prospect back in 1997, but for some years that software has been growing increasingly creaky, and now requires all updates to be done by hand. As a result, alice ttlg, 852 Prospect's archivist, has been looking for a sustainable new home for the archive. That new home will be as an Integrated Collection in the AO3.

In its new home, 852 Prospect will be a separate, searchable collection with its own identity. We're currently exploring the possibility of doing a complete archive transfer, in which we could preserve old rec links by creating redirects at the original site. The archive will move in early June.

What does this mean for authors who have work on 852 Prospect?

If you have work on 852 Prospect, and you still have access to the email account associated with those stories, then when the import happens, you'll receive an email letting you know you can come and claim your works. If you already have an account on the Archive of Our Own under that address, you'll receive an e-mail letting you know that those stories have been added to your account.

If you don’t have an account on the Archive of Our Own, you will be invited to create one, and will be able to claim your imported works and associate them with that account.

All imported works are set, by default, to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 3 months, all unclaimed imported works will be open to all visitors, just like 852 Prospect currently is.

If you no longer have access to the email account associated with those stories, contact the Open Doors committee and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the stories elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's grand; if not, don't worry, we'll figure something out.)

If you have a story on 852 Prospect which you've already imported to the AO3, once the 852 Prospect import happens there will be two copies of the same story on the archive. This situation is temporary! Down the line, we’re planning to implement a way of merging two copies of the same work, so that you can keep your comments and kudos on the version you've already uploaded, *and* the redirect from the old archive address will still work. (Alternatively, we can change the redirect to point toward the copy you have already imported to AO3. Just claim the new copy of the work, and contact Open Doors with your AO3 account name(s), Prospect 852 account name(s), and links to the works that you want the redirect to point to.

Once the stories from 852 Prospect are on the AO3, you can then edit, delete, etc, the same way you would with any work you posted on the AO3. Or, if you don't want the works to be part of 852 Prospect in its new home, you can choose to delete the imported works or to orphan the imported works. (Orphaning leaves the works on the Archive, but removes them from the control of any user account. You can choose whether to remove the name they were associated with on the old archive, or leave it displaying as a pseud.)

If you would like to prevent any works associated with a particular e-mail address from ever being imported into the Archive, please submit that e-mail address (and any info that can be used to verify your identity) to Open Doors.

If you still have questions...

If you have further questions, try the Open Doors FAQ; if the FAQ doesn't offer the answers you need, you can contact the Open Doors committee or leave a comment on this post and we'll respond as soon as we can.

We're also planning to hold two public chats on Campfire (the online chat platform the OTW uses): Sunday, May 19, at 18:00 UTC, and Thursday, May 24, at 01:00 UTC (click the links to see when the chats are held in your timezone). You can access OTW's public chatroom using this link.

Anyone who has questions about the process is welcome to join the Open Doors team at those chats, and we'll do our best to answer you.

Many of us in the OTW are longtime TS fans who really care about having these stories preserved for new generations. We're delighted to welcome 852 Prospect aboard the AO3!

-- The Open Doors team

The OTW is delighted to welcome the SSA – the Smallville Slash Archive – to its new home within the Archive of Our Own. The Archivists of the SSA (most recently Danceswithgary) have worked hard in conjunction with ADT and Open Doors to make the SSA the first test case for our new mass importer – and the choice is both a symbolic and a practical one.

It’s symbolic because the SSA is a venerable old archive, a relic of an earlier moment in fannish time. The SSA was founded ten years ago, four days after the pilot episode of Smallville aired. Originally founded by Livia Penn and Calista Rose, for most of its life the SSA was hosted by Minotaur, a fan beloved in many fandoms and communities.

When Minotaur died unexpectedly in 2009, a coalition of fans (including Tallihensia and Elke Tanzer — thanks y’all!) worked with his family to ensure that the SSA archivists retained limited access to the site's account on the server where the archive was hosted, but this didn't include the ability to fix broken database code or updating the site.

The limits to the access and the broken code, in addition to the questionable life expectancy of the hosting, meant the archive's survival was uncertain.They approached us shortly thereafter, and have been waiting patiently for us to build the functionality required to save this archive of more than 4700 stories. And that’s why this archive is a practical first test case for our mass importer — the import will preserve the stories if the archive should go offline, and will also give authors direct access to their stories while keeping them within the context of the SSA.

The SSA’s new home is here in the Smallville Slash Archive Collection on the AO3. Our coders have been able to set up a redirect from the original domain to the new urls, to help preserve the validity of old links, rec lists, bookmarks, etc. The redirect will only work from http://smallville.slashdom.net/ urls; sadly slashdom.com is no longer available for us to set redirects. Because the redirects will be set up to go to the version of the work imported with the SSA, if you have a duplicate on the Archive with with comments / kudos you want to keep, we suggest you keep both versions for now (if you delete the one imported with the SSA, then the redirect will break). Down the line, we’re planning to implement a way of merging two copies of the same work so you can deal with these!

The SSA Collection will be kept open for a while after import in order to allow authors who have existing versions of the imported works on the Archive to add their preferred version to the Collection. The imported stories will be set as visible to Archive users only by default; after you claim them, you can use the ‘edit works’ function to set them all to public at once (if you wish). For more information about what happens with imported works, check out Open Doors Questions and Answers. Please note: If you choose to orphan your works, you will want to check them over first and edit out any remaining identifying data.

If you have questions for the SSA mods (or you’d like to give them a bit of love for their hard work keeping the SSA alive) then you’ll find more information at the mod posts: SSA Migration to AO3 - Q&A (Livejournal) and SSA Migration to AO3 - Q&A (Dreamwidth).

We’re thrilled to be able to begin fulfilling one of our longstanding missions, preserving and protecting fanworks which are otherwise at risk of disappearance from the internet. It’s a privilege to begin with an archive which represents such a large contribution to fandom.

Mirrored from an original post on the Archive of Our Own.