I've decided to have an opinion.

[icarus]

I've been noticing more and more people deleting their Skyehawke accounts.

I missed the main flurry, and can't decide if I should feel relieved or left out. But I've finally decided to at least have an opinion.

My goal is to make my fics as available as possible. I didn't stop using ff.net when they removed NC-17 stories. Granted, I didn't like it. I think their enforcement is arbitrary and poorly researched (okay, not researched at all). But my relationship with an archive has never been personal or political.

An archive either meets my needs or it doesn't. My needs in HP are very simple: does it reach readers?

I liked Skyehawke because it was all-inclusive, the only archive where all of my stories could be stored in one place. Now that's no longer the case. Certainly Skinny Dipping has to come down, though Primer to the Dark Arts made it in under the line.

Since it's no longer all-inclusive, it's just like the others: RS.org accepts only NC-17 fics and no chan; FA accepts only G through R-rated fics; ff.net has their no NC-17 policy, etc. Since the hit-counts and the reviews have always been low, it won't be first on the list. And my list is loooooooong. In Harry Potter alone I have stories in roughly 20 different archives. In Stargate I'm archived in only 6 or 7 places, but hey, I'm working on it.

I thought about deleting my account. Could I change the Skyehawke policies, or would that be a punitive action that only serves to cut off readers? Well, that depended on Skyehawke's reasons.

So I asked Tien at Skyehawke. Her reasons were legal fears.

Do I think that's an over-reaction? Yes. But it's her ass, so... *shrugs*

Do I think I can change "fear of litigation" through social pressure? No. No way. Fear of litigation is one of those visceral "fear of death" and "fear of the IRS" types of reactions. Maybe we could pressure a clearer statement of the rules as fluffyllama outlined, but probably we'd just end up with a tighter straitjacket. Deleting my account is only worth it to me if I could get my old all-inclusive archive back.

The Icarus stories stay.

Of course this is all moot since I haven't written an HP story in months, but hey! I get to have an opinion, which I've decided is the real purpose of all wanks.

*Icarus rests this case. Or something.*

Comments

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

What about Ink Stained Fingers? I believe they still allow chan. It doesn't really matter to me where I go, I rarely read chan unless the story comes highly recommended.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're up there on my looooooooong list. I get a lot of referrals from their site, so I'm definitely continuing to update there.

Hmm. It occurs to me that I owe them the rest of Beg Me For It, don't I?

Whoops. Eh-heh.

There's a teeny, tiny problem with posting everywhere, which is that you tend to sort of, kind of, er, forget to post a chapter or two every now and then. *coughs*

Icarus

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

Just out of morbid curiosity, have you written any more to "Reunion"? I love that story.

Oh...erm..actually on topic...I hate how all these archives are preventing you from posting NC-17 stuff. FA just sent back a chapter to one of mine saying that it was NC-17, when I swear it's just R. I understand why they did it, but nonetheless, it's incredibly annoying. (I don't have a skyhawke account, but if I did, I'd probably keep it, because even if I couldn't post NC-17 stuff, I only have two...well...now three NC-17 stories, so it wouldn't bother me too much) :-)

Sorry they're being arses though.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can't believe it, two requests for more Reunion in one day. The next chapter's there, nagging away at me, but it's not quite ready for prime time. I've always said that Reunion is one of those lazy, update as the mood strikes kind of stories. But I'm really good about finishing WiPs. There's only one I'm not going to finish, and that's A Deserving Man (written for my dad, and he lost interest, *shrugs*).

FA's R-rating is pretty liberal. What you have to avoid is actual description of body parts and specific sexual acts. So long as you stay in the characters' minds you'll be all right. But yeah, it's frustrating that I can't post everything everywhere.

Just to be clear, Skyehawke still allows NC-17. It's just the adult/minor sex that they're cracking down on.

Icarus

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

Still sucks...especially for all the Snarry fans or etc. (Especially since you converted me to Ron/Snape with that one um...what's it called? Two Men on Top? I really liked that...*glares at skyhawke for them not letting you post it there*)

Everyone's going legal crazy, huh?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Everyone's going legal crazy, huh?

It's the laws in Australia that have people worried. But Two Men On Top technically has Snape mention Ron is 19 (in some versions, not sure about Skyehawke) so it should be okay. Most people who've "aged up" their characters for the sake of the law seem to have made a safe decision.

Icarus

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

Still...it seems a bit ridiculous to worry about "child pornography" when considering FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. I mean, my god! It's not like these characters are REAL and we're writing about them doing the nasty with their teachers. They're fiction! As in not real! (Now, if someone is talking about RPS, then of course, those people are real, so there is some legality problems there, but if you're writing about "Percy Weasley", not "Chris Rankin", then there is no problem because Percy Weasley does not exist!) It just drives me nuts, all this legal crap. *sighs* I know why they do it, but it's annoying to me that they even have to.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

That's where I found your Beg Me For It first. It was only later when I found lj that I found the rest of the story.

[snitchnip-chill.livejournal.com]

I deleted my account at Skyehawke because I do write chan sometimes and I just can't handle posting different things all over the place. I'm scatterbrained enough as it is. :)

I'd prefer one place (and LJ) for all my fic hosting needs, and if I had the skills to make my own website I don't think I'd post to an archive. I can see your point though, it's not going to get read if it's not out there.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I get really scrambled about what's posted where. Sometimes I post one story in a new archive and then can't find the archive again. I still haven't updated most of the archives with the latter parts of Beg Me For It. So the only place that has everything is my website. But it's a huge bother to update everywhere.

I treat archives as markets: when I worked in advertising (we designed the Got Milk? campaign) we would post the ads in the New York, Tampa, D.C., Chicago, Detroit, Dallas/Ft. Worth, L.A., St. Louis, Seattle, and San Francisco markets. That covered the main population centers. Depending on the target market, the ads would be placed during different shows, or different media/locations.

The idea with archives is the same: you want good coverage, and you want good depth into your target market. FF.net gets the young "mall" crowd. Fiction Alley gets the mainstream Harry Potter readers. Ink-Stained Fingers gets the heavy-duty slashers. RS.org gets the porn crowd (of course), slash and het (though mostly slash). Individual character archives reach the fanatics for that character. ;)

Posting to LJ and/or Yahoo groups is a little like putting it in a newspaper: you get a day's worth of exposure, maybe a little more. A private website will really only draw people who are fans of your writing, after you've established a readership.

Skyehawke used to get the writers/readers/rec'ers, the fandom elite, though that may change if this chan move destroys its popularity.

Icarus

[electricandroid.livejournal.com]

Hey sweetie - v. busy but saner next week - to tell you that there probably will be a new all-inclusive archive sometime soon - it is in the pipeline (me standing on the very fringes of the pipeline looking in)

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

Do you happen to remember Jimmy Fallon's "I have an opinion!" schtick from the 2000 election? (now that's what I call a kerfuffle).

I tend to think Skyehawke hurt more than the other archives because it felt most personal to a lot of people- most like *ours*. That would be one reason. The other reason is the way they wrote and defended the rules. All that crap about literary merit and who's qualified to assess it. I don't think anyone objects to protecting themselves against litigation, as unlikely as it seems to me (litigation).

But "Skinny Dipping"?? That's such a sweet story!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, I haven't asked about Skinny Dipping (I did ask about Primer to the Dark Arts and it was okay).

Skinny Dipping, however, was turned down for the Restricted Section. They wanted it, they thought it didn't violate the spirit of the rules since it wasn't really an abusive adult with a minor (Percy is so very young and immature and the relationship between them is equal). But they said if they made an exception to their chan policy for that story, they'd have a big mess on their hands.

Which is exactly the mess Skyehawke is in, come to think of it. I feel that the trouble's mostly because they wanted to make a system that was flexible, but wound up with one that seemed arbitrary.

Sometimes you're better off with hard and fast rules.

Icarus

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. But this could turn out to be one of the places where the Skyehawke rule is for the best, since it's *not* hard and fast.