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There’s a persistent faction of people who really want to let the world know that AO3 is unsustainable, broken, will probably die any day now. Our code base, our hardware, our finances, our tag wrangling system, our policies, our legal standpoint, our organization… everything. People have been telling us this since before AO3 even existed - that it’s impossible, it won’t work, you can’t do that. The thing you made isn’t perfect, so it’s pointless to try and improve it. You’re going to fail.
And, as someone who has been working within AO3 in various capacities for nine years now, I am fully aware that there are things we could do better. Things we could improve or that might have to change someday in the future. But the solution to that is to keep working, not to give up. I give my time to AO3 because I think it’s worthwhile to keep it running, and to help fix problems from within when I can. Keep making improvements a little (or sometimes a lot) at a time. Understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Prioritize what is most important to deal with, and work down the list. Re-evaluate if the situation changes. Be flexible, but still stick to your principles.
Because you have to ask yourself (and I do, often) what is most likely to kill AO3, and it’s not having bugs in the code or failing to raise as much money one year as we hoped or having a server die on us - it’s not having people willing to do the work of fixing those bugs, or of improving our fundraising methods, or of replacing the hardware if it fails. We run on volunteers, and things that discourage those volunteers - causing them to decide it isn’t worth their time and effort - is what I think would most likely be truly fatal to the organization.
And it’s an inevitable truth that there are people who would rather be negative than positive. Who would look at an achievement like AO3 and say “well it’ll probably fail someday,” rather than saying “maybe I could help.” Helping involves effort, and nay-saying from the sidelines is easy. But there’s also a nasty undercurrent of wanting to discourage other people from giving their time/effort/money to the site - of actively wanting to see it fail.
So let’s play this game and imagine that AO3 falls apart someday. Nothing lasts forever, and whether that day comes in 5 years or 50, it’s possible it could happen. Will it feel better then to say “I was right, they failed”? Or will it feel better to say “This was an enormous undertaking, and many people poured their hearts and souls into it despite overwhelming obstacles, and for 15 years (or 25 years, or 75 years) they succeeded.” Even if the site goes down tomorrow (which it won’t!), we succeeded for 11 years. That’s not a failure in my books. The fact that something dies doesn’t mean it never lived, or that its living was meaningless.
So we can point to our successes, and we can correct misinformation when we see it in the wild if we feel like spending our time on that, but people who are determined to see the site fail will keep existing, and we can’t change their minds. The best revenge is to keep existing, because every day we do that, it means we prove them wrong. It means we fought for one more day of succeeding.
Notes: 1. I don’t speak for the OTW or AO3, and these are purely my own opinions.
2. This applies to many difficult things in life, not just AO3. If I might quote Arthur Hugh Clough for a moment:
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
And, as someone who has been working within AO3 in various capacities for nine years now, I am fully aware that there are things we could do better. Things we could improve or that might have to change someday in the future. But the solution to that is to keep working, not to give up. I give my time to AO3 because I think it’s worthwhile to keep it running, and to help fix problems from within when I can. Keep making improvements a little (or sometimes a lot) at a time. Understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Prioritize what is most important to deal with, and work down the list. Re-evaluate if the situation changes. Be flexible, but still stick to your principles.
Because you have to ask yourself (and I do, often) what is most likely to kill AO3, and it’s not having bugs in the code or failing to raise as much money one year as we hoped or having a server die on us - it’s not having people willing to do the work of fixing those bugs, or of improving our fundraising methods, or of replacing the hardware if it fails. We run on volunteers, and things that discourage those volunteers - causing them to decide it isn’t worth their time and effort - is what I think would most likely be truly fatal to the organization.
And it’s an inevitable truth that there are people who would rather be negative than positive. Who would look at an achievement like AO3 and say “well it’ll probably fail someday,” rather than saying “maybe I could help.” Helping involves effort, and nay-saying from the sidelines is easy. But there’s also a nasty undercurrent of wanting to discourage other people from giving their time/effort/money to the site - of actively wanting to see it fail.
So let’s play this game and imagine that AO3 falls apart someday. Nothing lasts forever, and whether that day comes in 5 years or 50, it’s possible it could happen. Will it feel better then to say “I was right, they failed”? Or will it feel better to say “This was an enormous undertaking, and many people poured their hearts and souls into it despite overwhelming obstacles, and for 15 years (or 25 years, or 75 years) they succeeded.” Even if the site goes down tomorrow (which it won’t!), we succeeded for 11 years. That’s not a failure in my books. The fact that something dies doesn’t mean it never lived, or that its living was meaningless.
So we can point to our successes, and we can correct misinformation when we see it in the wild if we feel like spending our time on that, but people who are determined to see the site fail will keep existing, and we can’t change their minds. The best revenge is to keep existing, because every day we do that, it means we prove them wrong. It means we fought for one more day of succeeding.
Notes: 1. I don’t speak for the OTW or AO3, and these are purely my own opinions.
2. This applies to many difficult things in life, not just AO3. If I might quote Arthur Hugh Clough for a moment:
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.