ysabetwordsmith | March Meta Matters (Reply)

The March Meta Matters challenge is now active over on

marchmetamatterschallenge. See the first check-in post here for introductions. Read the FAQ list, as there have been some changes from previous years.

This challenge involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation. The fest recommends SquidgeWorld. There will be some prompts for creating new meta. Participants can post their goals for saving old meta and/or creating new meta. You can also collect, recommend, and save meta created by other people if it's not something you make yourself or yours is already up to date and saved.

Note that AO3 is sadly erratic when it comes to meta, parts of the rules are unclear in ways that cause problems, and the result is pretty hostile. :( Multiple people have posted meta there only to have it taken down -- and that can get your account suspended. So fewer people are choosing to post or crosspost their meta to AO3, and looking for other places to post or copy it. However, there is still a community for March Meta Matters on AO3 for those who wish to risk posting meta there.

Some canon-specific websites have a section especially for meta about their fandom to help new fans learn the canon and to inspire fanworks. In particular, it used to be common for people to make fanifestos about a canon, its ships, major fanworks, etc. as guides to newcomers in hopes of growing the fandom; reviving this custom would be very helpful. If you know of such resources, March is a good time to post about them so more folks can find them and make sure that meta is backed up.

Me and My Meta

Read my introductory comment under first check-in post on

marchmetamatterschallenge.

My credentials as a meta creator and archivist:
I have a degree in Rhetoric with a Women's Studies minor. I have read entire libraries and written multiple books. I am a wordsmith by innate talent, vocation, and profession. I am a writer, editor, reviewer, reader, and fan. I am a hobby-scientist studying pretty much everything.

My most popular meta series include:
* "Hurt/Comfort as a Genre," "Hurt/Comfort Plot Structure," "Hurt/Comfort and Literary Merit"
* Nonsexual Intimacies (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
* Skills Heroes Need tag
* Skin Hunger (Part 1)

Some favorite individual posts include:
* Add to Canon (or, How Tony Stark Became a Blacksmith)
* A Brief Guide to The Avengers on Dreamwidth
* Love Is For Children landing page on Dreamwidth
* Cut to the Core on LiveJournal
* Easterns as a Genre on Dreamwidth
* Future of Fandom on Dreamwidth
* How to Make Fandom More Inclusive on Dreamwidth
* How to Make Your Home Town More Like Bluehill on Dreamwidth
* Identity Literature on LiveJournal
* Improving Communities on Dreamwidth
* Improving Community in Fandom on Dreamwidth
* Motherlode as a Genre on Dreamwidth
* Musicals in Fanfic and Canon on LiveJournal
* Quiet Rooms on Dreamwidth
* Spectrum of Consent on Dreamwidth
* Twitter Exodus and Twitter Exodus Continuing

Original series for which I've posted lots of meta:
* A Conflagration of Dragons
* Daughters of the Apocalypse
* Polychrome Heroics set in Terramagne

Shared worlds for which I've posted lots of meta:
* The Blueshift Troupers
* Schrodinger's Heroes
* Torn World (sadly its website is no longer open to the public)
* The Ursulan Cycle (genderbent King Arthur)
* See also "Build with the Mind" and its notes on worldbuilding (instructions, links, storyworld physical notes, storyworld population)

Relevant tags and memories:
* A Little Slice of Terramagne on Dreamwidth (98 entries)
* A Little Slice of Terramagne on LiveJournal
* Meta tag on Dreamwidth (76 entries)
* Meta tag on LiveJournal
* Review tag on Dreamwidth (598 entries)
* Review tag on LiveJournal

Goals

As part of this challenge, I hope to write some new meta about Wednesday (The Addams Family). I have notes for meta about the show as a whole, Wednesday, and Thing.

While reading the

marchmetamatterschallenge I also thought of some other things to do. I realized that, while I excel at writing meta, I suck at tagging it as such. So I'm trying to fix that too.

I am also working to promote this challenge so more people will take part in it and/or find new meta to enjoy.

Done!

* Posted my introduction on

marchmetamatterschallenge.

* Posted about March Meta Matters on my blog.

* Scanned my memorable How To entries on Dreamwidth, adding Meta tags where relevant.

* Scanned my memorable How To entries on LiveJournal, adding Meta tags where relevant.

* Promoted March Meta Matters about bingo meta on

allbingo.

* Promoted March Meta Matters about fictional bird meta on

birdfeeding.

* Promoted March Meta Matters about crowdfunding meta on

crowdfunding.

* Promoted March Meta Matters about fandom venues on

twitter_refugees.

* I posted about the recent series Wednesday. All links have been archived with the Wayback Machine and/or Archive.fo.

- Overview
- Interesting Aspects
- Episodes
- Promising Crossovers
- Relevant Dreamwidth Communities
- Memorable Fanworks
- Wednesday Prompts

* I made a list of Meta communities for

followfriday.

* I made a list of prompts for the April Gothic Bingo Fest that I'll be hosting in

marchmetamatterschallenge and

meta_warehouse,

shes_awesome and

hooked_on_heroines,

fem_thoughts,

notfic,

shipmanifestos, and

girlgay.

Other Meta Communities

Dreamwidth offers a variety of communities dedicated to meta. I have listed some of these below. In addition to dedicated communities, a number of other panfandom or canon-specific communities include meta among the types of content they welcome. Check your favorite fandoms and communities for additional places to find or share meta. You may wish to save your favorite posts from those too.

fem_thoughts - Fem Thoughts: Meta about Women and/or Femslash

meta_manifesto - This is a community for the Meta Manifesto writing fest!

meta_warehouse - Panfandom meta posts.

month_of_meta - The Meta Month of May.

motherofinvention - Born from necessity. A community for Red vs Blue, including discussion, fanworks, and meta.

notfic - Multifandom essays and meta.

podficmeta - Let's talk about how podfic is done.

shipmanifestos - A collection of ship manifestos.

starwars_meta - Star Wars Meta.

tf_meta - Meta Discussion for Transformers.

Archive Websites

Various sites let you save a page for future reference. The most famous of these is The Wayback Machine, which I use the most; it's good for PDFs but not so good for pictures unless you save those individually. I also use Archive.fo -- it does a better job of saving pictures, but doesn't safe PDFs well. These are places where you can save meta, your own or someone else's, so it will stay visible even if its current host closes or becomes unusable. I recommend that you try different archives to see what they do well, so you can decide which to use and what to save where.

10 Best Wayback Machine Alternatives in 2023 - Geekflare

15 Best Wayback Machine Alternatives 2023

Best Internet Archive Alternatives From Around The Web

Top 9 Wayback Machine Alternative Sites (Web Archive Sites)

Are you participating in March Meta Matters? Comment with a link to your meta!

EDIT 4/2/23 -- I succeeded in saving some of my older meta on archive sites. I completed two of the three new-meta projects I had in mind for Wednesday (see above for links to those). I did not complete the third one about Thing, mostly because the other two got way bigger than I expected. However, I'm still working on notes for Thing and I plan to post that material after I complete it.