Ao3 open doors + kink meme imports
Nov. 2nd, 2021 08:49 pmThe Disney Kink Meme (![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
disney_kink) is being imported to Ao3 via the Open Doors project*. This was actually announced last year over on the kink meme itself*.
To my knowledge, this is the first time a kink meme's been imported to Ao3. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
A while back, the topic of "Hey, what if![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hetalia_kink was imported via open doors?" came up in conversation - I think with kanadka. I had some mixed feelings about the idea of kink meme imports at the time. I still have mixed feelings!
There are some things specific to kink memes that seem to me like they'd be tricky to accommodate.
Prompts - Ao3 does have a prompt meme function. I've used it once or twice, but not extensively. It has some limitations, the most important one in this case being anonymity. There is no way to truly post a prompt as anon, because you can't post prompts without an account. There is a checkbox to have your prompt show as anonymous, but this is not true anonymity. When it comes to archiving prompts, that isn't an issue, but if an imported kink meme is intended to be open for receiving prompts after importing, that could make things tricky. I feel like having true anonymous as a prompt option is really important for a kink meme.
This seems to not be a huge issue with Disney-kink because they don't have enforced anonymity for prompts/fills, so the checkbox for "semi-anonymous prompts" would probably fulfill its needs if it's going to continue to be open for prompts after import. But for a kink meme with mandatory and enforced anonymity, like the Hetalia one, it seems like it would be a sticking point. (Frankly, the idea of a Hetalia kink meme without enforced anon gives me hives.)
Fills - This is less of a structual issue, but. For works posted anonymously, there could be problems with claiming de-anoned works. Like, somebody could de-anon their works, but if the original was posted as anon, there's nothing to prove that the person posting the work on Ao3 (or on a DW archive in my case) is the person who wrote them. There's nothing to prove that any person who says they wrote a fic posted anon on LJ/DW is actually the person who wrote it. Admittedly, it's unlikely that someone would plagiarize in this way, and it's probably a subject that's come up before with other Open Doors projects, but it just feels weird to me.
...Anyway. With regards to the Hetalia kink meme, this isn't something we need to worry about. It's sluggish/inactive here on Dreamwidth, but the account owner is still keeping the lights on (I spoke with them a while back), and I've been renewing its DW subscription to keep it searchable. I think it's unlikely to get imported unless Dreamwidth threatens to go belly-up. I don't see that happening.
As for the Disney kink meme - I'm interested in seeing how this will work out in practice. Like I mentioned before, there haven't been many (any?) other kink meme imports, so I'm really curious to see how they'll integrate the prompt function. ...And who knows, maybe after all the fics are imported to Ao3, I'll find something to read, heh. That's definitely one advantage to importing like this - stuff being filterable/more easily searchable, rather than having to be manually indexed.
If this works out well, it might lead to other kink memes getting imported in the future. That could be interesting.
[EDIT Nov 07]
hetalia_kink has replied in a discussion thread about imports on FFA. They say they have no plans to consider importing unless DW becomes as unstable as LJ. So there's now an official word on that.
disney_kink) is being imported to Ao3 via the Open Doors project*. This was actually announced last year over on the kink meme itself*.To my knowledge, this is the first time a kink meme's been imported to Ao3. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
A while back, the topic of "Hey, what if
hetalia_kink was imported via open doors?" came up in conversation - I think with kanadka. I had some mixed feelings about the idea of kink meme imports at the time. I still have mixed feelings!There are some things specific to kink memes that seem to me like they'd be tricky to accommodate.
Prompts - Ao3 does have a prompt meme function. I've used it once or twice, but not extensively. It has some limitations, the most important one in this case being anonymity. There is no way to truly post a prompt as anon, because you can't post prompts without an account. There is a checkbox to have your prompt show as anonymous, but this is not true anonymity. When it comes to archiving prompts, that isn't an issue, but if an imported kink meme is intended to be open for receiving prompts after importing, that could make things tricky. I feel like having true anonymous as a prompt option is really important for a kink meme.
This seems to not be a huge issue with Disney-kink because they don't have enforced anonymity for prompts/fills, so the checkbox for "semi-anonymous prompts" would probably fulfill its needs if it's going to continue to be open for prompts after import. But for a kink meme with mandatory and enforced anonymity, like the Hetalia one, it seems like it would be a sticking point. (Frankly, the idea of a Hetalia kink meme without enforced anon gives me hives.)
Fills - This is less of a structual issue, but. For works posted anonymously, there could be problems with claiming de-anoned works. Like, somebody could de-anon their works, but if the original was posted as anon, there's nothing to prove that the person posting the work on Ao3 (or on a DW archive in my case) is the person who wrote them. There's nothing to prove that any person who says they wrote a fic posted anon on LJ/DW is actually the person who wrote it. Admittedly, it's unlikely that someone would plagiarize in this way, and it's probably a subject that's come up before with other Open Doors projects, but it just feels weird to me.
...Anyway. With regards to the Hetalia kink meme, this isn't something we need to worry about. It's sluggish/inactive here on Dreamwidth, but the account owner is still keeping the lights on (I spoke with them a while back), and I've been renewing its DW subscription to keep it searchable. I think it's unlikely to get imported unless Dreamwidth threatens to go belly-up. I don't see that happening.
As for the Disney kink meme - I'm interested in seeing how this will work out in practice. Like I mentioned before, there haven't been many (any?) other kink meme imports, so I'm really curious to see how they'll integrate the prompt function. ...And who knows, maybe after all the fics are imported to Ao3, I'll find something to read, heh. That's definitely one advantage to importing like this - stuff being filterable/more easily searchable, rather than having to be manually indexed.
If this works out well, it might lead to other kink memes getting imported in the future. That could be interesting.
[EDIT Nov 07]
hetalia_kink has replied in a discussion thread about imports on FFA. They say they have no plans to consider importing unless DW becomes as unstable as LJ. So there's now an official word on that.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.