ysabetwordsmith | March Meta Matters

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 may have been some changes from previous years. See my entries from 2023, 2024, and 2025. Here are my How To list and my Meta list from 2024.

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.

Some canon-specific or author-specific websites have a section especially for meta about their fandom(s) to help new fans learn the canon(s), explore fandom in general, 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. Here on Dreamwidth, check out

shipmanifestos. Another great type of meta is reviews; see communities such as

books and

book_love for those. If you know of more 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.

An increasing issue of archiving is the decline of archival websites. Ghost barely works anymore. The Archive.fo cluster is iffy at best, and when one of its sites glitches, you can't even use your old links anymore. That was the site that used to have the best ability to archive almost anything, except PDF files. Wayback, formerly the most reliable, and the only one I found that would safe PDFs, has become increasingly slow and prone to outages. It never saved quite as wide a range as Archive.fo but now saves a lot less. It's maddening. Because every page that can't be archived is work that will be wasted when linkrot eventually kills the original.

On the bright side, Dreamwidth remains a great place to crosspost your content from other platforms as a form of archiving by duplication. This is increasingly a good idea at a time when many platforms are collapsing due to misbehavior, locking everything to members only, or disappearing altogether.

goals_on_dw has a post for Full Content on Dreamwidth if this is your approach to sharing and archiving your work.

Me and My Meta

Read my introductory comment under the 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.

Some of my new meta from 2025:
* My Fandom How To Posts
* How to Choose a Starting Point for Your Story
* Superpowers And The Kitchen Sink
* Snowflake Challenge 8: Primer

For

snowflake_challenge 2023
* Nimona -- "Canon" from 2024, "Canon" and "Primer" from

snowflake_challenge 2025, spliced together on

marchmetamatterschallenge. [3/1/26]

* Continue working to promote this challenge so more people will take part in it and/or find new meta to enjoy. [3/1/26]
-- Promoted the challenge on

newcomers.
-- Promoted the challenge on

goals_on_dw.
-- Promoted the challenge on

datahoarders.

*

Other Meta Communities

Dreamwidth offers a variety of communities dedicated to meta. I have listed these for Follow Friday 3/7/25: Meta. 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.

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. Archive.fo and Ghost Archive barely work anymore. Paywall Reader disappeared completely. (All of them have frequent service delays or outages.) 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.

Top 7 Wayback Machine Alternatives in 2026

Top 10 Wayback Machine Alternatives in 2026

11 Best Wayback Machine Alternatives To Try In 2026!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cornerofmadness

I was thinking of doing some for this this year but time remains a thing. We'll see.

ysabetwordsmith

You could always set a small goal, like archiving three pieces of your work. Some is better than none. Or even just boost the signal, or list a few of your favorite meta pieces.

I will certainly try something once I can find time to shoehorn something in

The Wordsmith's Forge

The Writing & Other Projects of Elizabeth Barrette

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