Fanfiction has never had a federated home: should we just potentially take over SquidgeWorld Archive (or fork the code)? - Lemmy.World

I (and a lot of other people, I’d guess) read and write fanfiction. But as far as I know, there’s never really been a federated fanfic platform, nothing that plugs into the fediverse the way Mastodon does for microblogging or PeerTube/Loops does for video. ___ Then I stumbled upon SquidgeWorld Archive [https://squidgeworld.org/] (SQWA), an AO3 alternative that actually runs on the same codebase as AO3 otwarchive [https://github.com/otwcode/otwarchive]. It’s got way fewer users than AO3, which honestly gives it a cozier, more small-town vibe. The devs/maintainers behind it, squidge.org [https://squidge.org/], even run both Mastodon and Bluesky accounts. The catch: people have posted that fics pulling thousands of views on AO3 get little to none on SQWA. Makes sense, it’s just a much smaller pond. ___ So, two half-formed ideas that I wanted to possibly toss out: Suggestion #1: “colonize” SQWA. What if fediverse-native fanfic folks just started actually posting there? Cross-link your fediverse socials, bring your existing following over, treat it like planting a flag. It already exists, the maintainers are clearly fediverse-friendly, it just needs bodies. ___ Suggestion #2: fork it (and ao3) and actually federate it. AO3’s otwarchive code is open source, which is exactly what SQWA is running on. What if someone forked it and built out real federation, ActivityPub support, the whole deal, instead of just being a second standalone AO3 clone? That feels like the “real” long-term fix, but it’s a genuine software undertaking, not a weekend project. ___ I’d love to take a crack at #2 myself but I don’t have the time or the technical bandwidth for something that size right now, so I’m just putting it out there in case it resonates with anyone here. Curious what this community thinks: is #1 realistic, or does fanfiction just need a ground-up federated archive to actually work? ___ Edit: Sorry for any mistakes, I’m currently at work ___ Edit Edit:*** There are also these Ao3 mirror sites and alternatives: Mirror sites: https://archiveofourown.gay/ [https://archiveofourown.gay/] https://archive.transformativeworks.org/ [https://archive.transformativeworks.org/] https://insecure.archiveofourown.org/ [https://insecure.archiveofourown.org/] Redirects: https://archiveofourown.com/ [https://archiveofourown.com/] https://archiveofourown.net/ [https://archiveofourown.net/] https://archiveofourown.site/ [https://archiveofourown.site/] https://ao3.gay/ [https://ao3.gay/] https://ao3.org/ [https://ao3.org/] Other Alternatives: https://sunset.femslash.club/ [https://sunset.femslash.club/] https://www.cfaarchive.org/ [https://www.cfaarchive.org/] https://www.adastrafanfic.com/ [https://www.adastrafanfic.com/] .

(lemmy.world)

In this community, about potentially either "colonizing", or forking Squidgeworld Archive (alternative to the fanfiction site ao3).

Home | SquidgeWorld Archive

SquidgeWorld Archive, a project of Squidge.org based on open-source code from the OTW

(squidgeworld.org)

Apparently, ao3 has recently shut-down for 2-4 weeks:

Massive Fanfic Site Archive of Our Own Says It’s Going Down for 'Up to 4 Weeks'

Oh my god?

404 Media (www.404media.co)

AO3 Is Down for TWO TO FOUR WEEKS! AHHHHHH!

It's a fandom emergency, Archive of Our Own, also known as AO3, is down and will remain down for two to four weeks. What will fandom do?

Nerdist (nerdist.com)

My question is: Should we consider potentially making a Fediverse alternative to Ao3 / SqWA?

If you head over to the Squidgeworld Archive website, it states that over 2,300+ ao3 users have already migrated over to SqWA from ao3.

(Now it's over 12,000+ in the last 20 hours ALONE.)

Just imagine how many people could potentially be brought into the Fediverse, if there were a working federated alternative version of ao3 / SqWA.

Or if Fediverse users, instead of creating an alternative, instead commited to "colonising" SqWA, instead.