Is there any way to spread this info?Â
THE OTW WAS CREATED BY FANS SO WEâD HAVE AN ARCHIVE THAT WASNâT SUBJECT TO CORPORATE REVIEW.Â
Nonprofit, so that nobody could ever say, âthis isnât making enough money; itâs getting shut down.â (See: Geocities, Quizilla, Figment, G+.) With lawyers involved and a firm awareness of the legalities of fanfic, so nobody would decide âweâve gotten a nasty letter from a megacorporation with lawyers, so weâre hiding because we canât afford to face a lawsuit. (Jedi Hurtaholics, Trevizoâs Millennium site.) With teams, so that an argument between co-mods didnât result in the destruction of a whole archive. (Gryffindor Tower, Detention.)
It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags.Â
(And the other OTW projects, too. Fans manage the entries at Fanlore. Fans run the Open Doors project. Fans publish Transformative Works and Cultures.)
EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE OTW LOVES FANDOM. Wants it to survive. Wants it to be awesome for everyone.
(Knows that it canât be awesome for everyone; some approaches to fandom just clash hard. But they strive to minimize those clashes as much as possible, because they love fandom.)Â
AO3 is not some company that decided, âweâll make a site for fanfic and thenâŠâ I donât know what people are thinking is the reason. Money? Data harvesting? Tax shelter? Amusement and pity?
Nope; AO3 was fans saying, âLivejournal sucks; weâre tired of this fucked-up ârebuild every three yearsâ garbage; WE NEED TO OWN THE DAMN SERVERS.â
Thatâs the âof our ownâ part of the name. OTW isnât a âthemâ running the site âfor us.â Itâs âusâ making places for âusâ to share what we love with others of âus.âÂ