update

[astolat]

I want to say generally that this project is going to be a marathon, not a sprint -- we want to keep moving forward so enthusiasm doesn't flag, but we also don't want to rush or lock ourselves into an early hasty decision.

What's happening right now:

• We have a layout thanks to _workinprogress! The mods are working on the userinfo and posting policy for this comm, and we have people working on collecting volunteers and suggestions and a general summary from the original giant discussion.
  
  
• General discussion is still continuing on that original thread. Once the summary is posted, I will close down that post (just freezing rather than making all comments vanish -- no worries!) so the continuing discussion can move over to here.
  
  
• I'm putting together a small working group of volunteers with professional experience in the legal/nonprofit/corporate setup world to help figure out the right kind of corporate structure to do this with. (If you have such experience and I haven't emailed you yet, please drop me a line! astolat at livejournal reaches me if you don't want to comment.
  
  
• I'm starting to hit people up to do some research for us on various things like software tools that have been mentioned in the discussion.

As a rule, we'll want discussions here to stay open for a while before any action is taken. Stuff on lj tends to fade from sight pretty quickly, so I would really like to encourage subscribing to email notifications for posts on this group, and thumbtacking any posts dealing with areas you are interested in.

Please do chime in even if you are coming to a discussion late -- ideally we'll make it a habit to recruit someone to collect up a summary after discussion has died down. Also -- please use the subject line in lj comments if you think of it, so that if discussion gets large, it's easy to see the main point of a particular collapsed thread while skimming.

Addressing a few specific concerns:

• On ownership/organization: I'm running with the ball and doing a bunch of stuff unilaterally right now to get this off the ground, but I want to make clear from the start that my goal is to set up an organization to run and own this project that is not under the control of/dependent on any one person, with both a strong decisionmaking process and accountability to the community.
  
  
• On the financial side: Fiscal responsibility is critical. We will not start out with idealistic guarantees that just ask the whatever high atop the thing to smite us. *g* However, we will absolutely be not-for-profit, and will do our level best to make the donation model work. The issue will clearly be the long-term. We will have to do some research and learn as we go both how much money we will need, and how much we can consistently raise under a donation model.
  
  
• On the legal side: we will absolutely be getting professional legal advice right from the start.

Also, we are going to have fun. :)

Comments

Legal structuring issue

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

I know this might seem completely stupid as a suggestion, and I know or at least guess that the most expertise *available* is going to be American, but whereas you have the First Amendment, you guys also have newly restricted speed all the time, what with the sort of war on porn and such, and the way The Paedophile has become the boogeyman these recent years. I was wondering, does it make sense to also, while you're exploring, explore the possibility of setting this up as an entity that is not a US entity? The EU has an equivalent (and imo just as scary) DMCA, but still, there are countries it could be interesting to set it in - more porn friendly countries like Germany or Netherlands - and there's Sweden and its interesting copyright laws, etc etc.

I understand this might make it harder at first, but I think it is very worth exploring. Fandom is international and polyglott, and this could prove a strength in more ways than the cultural way it's been all about the fun for now. Territoriality could play in our favor in a big way.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

Just, again, thank you.

[boji.livejournal.com]

I too want to second the above comment and thank you, for starting the discussion, for being inspired, for leading the way... hell for taking time away from writing to do this!

I've 'push-pinned' the entry on archiving older/lost fic in the other thread and was wondering (from the tone in some of the later comments) if this would still be something this archive would be striving for - long term. I've been reading fic since 96. It's terrible to see fic that was once loved and lauded fall through the cracks.

[chrome-animagus.livejournal.com]

I'd like to volunteer space and bandwidth for the project. I can email with specific information if you like.

A little off topic yet not really....

[fyrnisis.livejournal.com]

Hi... just your friendly lurker here....

I'm just wondering, since as a fandom we generally refer to ourselves as a community, wouldn't it be along the right lines to set ourselves up as what people see as a community along the way? I understand how making an archive as fans for fans is a really awesome idea, but isn't that how fanfiction.net got started? I think a lot of the problems that people have with the site stem from the fact that the communities generally unspoken rules weren't expressed at the beginning of the site. aff.net has also got some problems there. newbees and lurkers, like myself, don't always get all the jargon that author use when summarizing their stories so they just start using what they guestimate equates, and then things go downhill from there.

My point is that since we call ourselves a community, why don't we have the kind of structure most people assume a community has. Like spokespeople, or representatives. Someone who can innitiate newbees and lurkers into the real inner workings of fandom and can stand up and speak as a solid, single voice for the community.

The reason I'm posting this here and not on the FanLib discussion sites is that I don't think it's enough to just make an archive. As politician as it sounds, I think we should look into volunteer/elected representatives for the fandom. Someone who can ask and answer questions for the fandom, like moderators but more involved in the entire community, and in particulat fandom domains. I didn't know anything about FanLib until today because the fic sites I normally stay in haven't had anything on it. If I had been an author instead of reader and if I had received an invitation, stupid me, I probably would have jumped at it for the "cool free stuff".

I know most people don't like the whole idea of being moderated, but maybe it's time we did something along those lines along with the all inclusive archive in order to keep others like FanLib from grabbing up the uninformed.

Just a thought.... sorry I took so much space. I don't normally post so I usually get everything in at once when I do.

[zellieh]

Hi. I'd like to link this to one of the Yahoo ficlists I'm on, to try and get participation from beyond LJ, but some of those people may not have LJ's. Are anonymous comments allowed here, if people want to come and talk about the project?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Hi--speaking of being late...anyway, I'm a retired lawyer. Which means I can't charge you for legal work even if I wanted to, but I'm allowed to donate it.

dshilling@verizon.net