Slash archives? (It's not for me... this time...)

[gement]

One of my iSchool compatriots is curious about the proportion of fanfiction, particularly slash, that disappears from the world unnoticed and unmourned. She's looking for more info on people or groups who are making attempts to archive slash, what form that takes, and how long those archives last. Any long-term archive links for us?

I'm now curious as to whether the more successful archives are fandom-specific or omnivorous collectors. Also, what are the permissions issues? I mean, none of this can be "claimed" in court, but what are the social ethics of collecting - would it be permissible to grab the contents of another archive without the permission of the individual authors?

(For the two people reading my journal who are unaware of slash, it's fan stories about established fictional characters from TV or books, usually sexually explicit, usually homosexual. I figured you'd rather hear it here than google it and scald your eyes.)

Comments

[marginalia.livejournal.com]

aiiieee! social ethics in fandom are -fascinating-. i could babble for days on that. it would NOT be okay to grab the contents of another archive, for sure.

fandom, in my experience, generally operates fandom-specific or even pairing-specific archives. some lj communities serve as archives, and of course there are author-specific archives as well. and what's long term? like, ucsl began in '98, but it includes het too. and a lot of things moved around, from newsgroups to lists to lj, so timelines can be tricky to track. i'd run through fanthropology & metafandom; at the very least they should have some good link soup for starters.

lalala :)