Archive of Our Own (fanfic website) nominated for Hugo Award

[Jintor]

I haven't been keeping up recently but this is pretty cool stuff for reasons beyond just celebrating fanfiction generally. Full list of Hugo nominees this year is here but I'd like to talk about AO3 being nominated in the Best Related Work category:

Best Related Work

Click to shrink...

• Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street Books)
• The Hobbit Duology (documentary in three parts), written and edited by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan (YouTube)
• An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000, by Jo Walton (Tor)
• www.mexicanxinitiative.com: The Mexicanx Initiative Experience at Worldcon 76(Julia Rios, Libia Brenda, Pablo Defendini, John Picacio)
• Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon (Tin House Books)

Click to shrink...

AO3 is one of the world's biggest fanfiction repositories and communities and it's fantastic that recognition of it officially is happening, not only as a place where a lot of young writers begin and grow and thrive but also as a series of systems and architecture that is built specifically to encourage that environment - and crucially it's also generally speaking a largely female-architected and moderated place on the internet in a series of systems that often doesn't feel that way at all.




The related work category is just generally great too with the Lindsay Ellis Hobbit/NZ doco and the MexicanX Initiative also up for the slot.

 

[Aldo]

Nice. A lot of popular literature has its roots in fanfiction, so some sort of official recognition is long overdue

 

[BDS]

AO3 is so much better than fanfiction.net ever was in terms of tagging systems and organization. It's wonderful.

 

[FeliciaFelix]

Wow I remember when it was born out of a hissy fit from fanfiction.net. Have been out of the fanfic game for almost a decade, I had no idea it became a big deal. Congrats!

 

[aidan]

A *lot* of great finalists this year. I'll definitely be rooting for AO3.

 

[Neece]

I never thought about all of the development work that goes into ao3, or that a bulk of it is done by women. Think I'll throw a donation next time they ask for one.

 

[Kalentan]

AO3 is so much better than fanfiction.net ever was in terms of tagging systems and organization. It's wonderful.

Click to shrink...

You know, I've tried to use AO3 in the past but I honestly find it much worse at sorting. Dropped it after a few attempts. I found it was much easier on FF.net to get what I wanted.

 

[Surakian]

You know, I've tried to use AO3 in the past but I honestly find it much worse at sorting. Dropped it after a few attempts. I found it was much easier on FF.net to get what I wanted.

Click to shrink...

It needs work, but I find that the quality of work is much higher than that of FFN, which makes the pain of searching easier than being on FFN.

What specifically about the sorting bothers you?

 

[Fiction]

I adore ao3 and only venture to ff.net out of desperation in the past. Like others have said, ao3 has much better quality and finding what you want is so much easier, especially for popular fandoms. The OTW is also amazing.

 

[Auron Kale]

I adore ao3 and only venture to ff.net out of desperation in the past. Like others have said, ao3 has much better quality and finding what you want is so much easier, especially for popular fandoms. The OTW is also amazing.

Click to shrink...

Same here. I still go to ff.net every so often because a lot of older fics I like are still there but AO3 is just so much better overall.

And I feel guilty for not being able to donate to them as they usually have their donation pledge around times when money's a bit tight. I'll try to donate this year though, since they provide an amazing service.