SquidgeWorld Archive

If you're archiving a work of some kind, you can now choose Esperanto, Greek, and Norwegian as languages. And if you have other language requests, please let us know.

First the note. While it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, and it really doesn't apply to anyone but the three people that have been banned - IF you get banned, you should not create a new account to circumvent said ban. And if you do, you certainly should not yell at people about being banned and creating a new account.

If you're banned, you're banned.

Second, we have received lots of discussion (most good, some namecalling) because we chose to create both a "Spanish" language as well as a "LatAm Spanish" language option. Because the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative, it looks like we should disable the LatAm Spanish option. If we do, we will automatically reindex all 160 LatAm Spanish language fics under the Spanish umbrella. This post is here to gauge interest in this, and pull the plug on the idea of removing it only if there's a large enough interest. Otherwise, this will occur during the next Sunday maintenance cycle.

Please leave thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

We have quite a bit to cover, so let's get into this.

First off, while we are not associated with The OTW, nor AO3, other than we utilize the same software that AO3 uses, we quite often get questions about "So the AO3 is doing this," or "The OTW has announced that," and are asked what our response is. They are one organization, and we're another. So please bear that in mind when they announce updates and/or changes. They are an organization that literally brings in millions of dollars per year and have the luxury of having hundreds of volunteers, from coders to wranglers to translators. Squidge.org is a tiny organization that manages to scrape by on $2,000 per year. We take in in a year what the OTW takes in in about 3 minutes of their membership drive.

Let that sink in.

Sure, this makes us more nimble. And we listen to you - our users - at a rate much faster than they can. If you ask for a feature, like a new language or a new warning, we can do in hours or days what takes them months or even years. But sometimes there are requests so large that we just can't get to it with our very much more limited staff of amazing volunteers.

Rant over.

The OTW has announced something about "Embargoed Countries" and updated their Terms of Service to indicate that people from embargoed countries will not be able to register for accounts or even interact with the archive. While we don't know the backstory of this, we are a space for fandom. We make no trades or financial impacts in other countries. And after discussing this with a member of the OTW Board, we were told that because we're so small, we don't qualify - whatever that means. So people can continue to register for accounts and use Squidge.org and SquidgeWorld Archive as they see fit - as long as they abide by the rules.

On the topic of Racism - there has been much discussion. We have been weighing out options, and while a warning for racism has been raised as a possibility, there are pros and cons to that. Specifically, not only has racism been an issue for the OTW/AO3, but people have used racism tags and such to attack other people. We're finalizing some discussions, and if you would like, you can weigh in on the Discord channel where we are discussing this. Currently it looks like we're going to be adding in specific freeform tags (i.e. "Additional Tags") that will need to be used.

The same thing goes with the AO3's change from "Underage" to "Underage Sex". There have been quite a bit of discussion in this. Underage flirting? No need to tag. Underage kissing? No need to tag. But underage sexual activity - be it masturbation or multiple partners - this needs to be tagged as such. Again, we may follow AO3's lead on this, but we can discuss further in the Discord chat.

We've had a couple violations of the Terms of Service as of late, specifically around fundraising and such. As specified in the Terms of Service, point 6, you cannot have any fundraising links - like to Ko-Fi or GoFundMe or such in your profiles. The one person that had one was gracious enough to move that link off of SquidgeWorld, and we applaud that. The only exception to this rule, as specified in the Terms of Service is if you write a public domain works or an original story - using "Original Work" as the fandom and that work has no basis in fandom - you can put Ko-Fi, etc. links in the beginning/end notes of your story. If all you write is original work, then you could also put it in your profile. But if you write some original work and some fanfiction, then it can't go in your profile. The reason for this is two-fold. First, if you put fundraising links in a story or in your profile or on a fanfiction work, then that opens you up to being sued by the copyright owner. Squidge.org has been around since 1994 (yes, we're 30 years old this year!) and, especially in the early years of fandom, we have received cease-and-desist letters from everyone from Archive Comics to a healthcare company. Those lawyers don't mess around. And the second issue is, by doing this, it jeopardizes Squidge.org's non-profit status - not to mention a lawsuit like this could end us as an organization. What you can do is put a link in your profile or in your end notes that says something like, "Find out how to support my works by clicking here" and have that link take the user off of Squidge, like to Tumblr or a personal webpage somewhere. Then, on that Tumblr page or personal webpage, link away to Ko-Fi or the like. That's fine. It just can't happen on a Squidge.org property.

The second type of violation we've seen lately is partly spam, and partly fundraising violations in that people have spammed multiple works in the Archive with a generic comment about, "I read your work, and I'm a commission artist. I would love to illustrate this work for you." Offering to illustrate the work for someone is fine. But doing it as a way to commission yourself is not. Sure, you can say, "I would love to illustrate your work" is fine. But doing it with the intention of getting a commission out of it is not. And randomly spamming multiple users with the same generic comment multiple times per day is right out. It's like the proverbial door-to-door salesperson that interrupts your dinner and sticks their foot in your door so you can't close it. It's not welcomed here. Yes, there's a fine line - make sure you stay on people's good side.

Please feel free to comment on what issues you're having, and discussion points you might have about these, either here in the comments, or again, join us on the Discord channel and bring your constructive thoughts.

When posting a new work, you'll notice three new options in the Categories section. Besides the usual "F/F", "F/M", "M/M", and others, you'll now find "NB/F", "NB/M", and "NB/NB". The "NB" stands for Non-Binary. Now you have the ability to mark Non-Binary relationships when creating your works. This is live as of now, so if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask or log a ticket with us.

So things have been really churning lately with the Archive, and in addition to all the new users, we have a ton of new stories as well as fandom, character, relationship, and freeform tags. Our Tag Wrangling crew is working on all the new tags, so if your favorite fandom, etc. tag isn't wrangled yet, please give us some time. Additionally, if you would like to volunteer to be a Tag Wrangler, please let us know because we'd be happy to have you.

There are a few slight updates to the Archive that you might notice:

• Warnings: In addition to the regular Archive Warnings, you will now see warnings for Incest and/or Incestuous Relationship(s) and Suicide / Suicidal Ideations that are available and can be used immediately. Additionally, the Archive Help for Warnings webpage has been updated to include information about this. And while the former is pretty cut-and-dry, the latter, Suicide, is a little more nuanced. We've added information about that nuance in the help file which you can find by adding or editing one of your works and clicking on the blue circled question mark next to "Warnings." Alternatively, you can just click here without being on the Add/Edit screen. Please note that old works are not necessarily updated with these new tags and may not ever be. But these tags can and should be used going forward.
• Languages: As requested, three new languages have been added to the Archive; Chinese (Traditional), Spanish (LatAm), and Russian.

Questions? Ask them! Or if you want to chat with us, you can always drop into the Squidge.org SquidgeWorld Tagging Chat and ask them there.

First of all, welcome to everyone who has joined us in the last week or so! There was a large influx of a couple thousand new users, and they're bringing their works with them. WELCOME! If you're new, or if you just need a refresher on some things, this is the right place.

How are we different than AO3? Here's how:

• Squidge.org is an older organization. As a matter of fact, September 2024 is our thirtieth year! But like the OTW, who runs AO3, we are also a US 501c3 Non-Profit that relies on your donations. We also offer Image Hosting, Website Hosting, and Mailing List Hosting, all for free and without advertising.
• While AO3 is never down (on a routine basis, at least), SquidgeWorld goes down on a regular basis: Every Sunday morning at 0700 Pacific time (click here to convert to your local time).
• Our tagging system is different than AO3's. Besides romantic (/) and friendship (&) type relationships, we also have QPR - Queer Platonic Relationships as well as Adversarial Relationships (think Daffy Duck vs Elmer Fudd).
• We prefer brackets, e.g. "[" and "]" when needed instead of parentheses. So if you have to create a single-named character like "Mary Anne" from Gilligan's Island, you would create it as "Mary Anne [Gilligan's Island]".
• For mentioned characters, or for pre, background, one-sided, former, or implied relationships, those tags should go in the Characters tags (for mentioned) or Relationship tags (for pre, background, one-sided, former, and implied). It makes for a better reading experience tagging this way. For instance, if you go into a story that's tagged as "Steve Rogers/James 'Bucky' Barnes" and you thought they were the focus of the fic, but in reality it's secondary to "Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov", having the "background" helps you before you even open the fic. That fic should truly be tagged "Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov" and "background Steve Rogers/James 'Bucky' Barnes".
• There are other tagging differences that you can read here. But don't worry if you don't get it 100% correct; we're here to help and can correct any mistakes. And if you're interested in helping out and becoming a tag wrangler, let us know!
• Above all else, ask questions if you have them! There's a link at the bottom of the page as well. Several people joined up, but fudged their email addresses and never got their welcome email. For instance, we had two people registered to "gmaul.com" and one "gmai.co" - so those people never got their accounts. We try and fix them when we see them, but sometimes it's just not clear exactly what's wrong with the email address so we have to wait until we're contacted.

Thanks for joining us!

We're seeking opinions on two very different items, and would love it if people would take the following survey to get us information about moving forward. First off, in conjunction with what is being used at the Comic Fanfiction Authors Archive, a relationship type of "vs" was created. This is exactly how it sounds - for antagonistic type relationships. So "Bugs Bunny vs Elmer Fudd" or "Batman vs. The Joker". It's kind of the exact opposite of an "&" friend-type or "/" romantic-type relationship. If this is something that we would like here, please take the survey and let me know. And you can leave us a comment here, too, with what relationships you'd like to see first.

Second, as discussed with some others, at the end of our "Summer of Ships Fundraiser" we would like to entertain running a "Fandom Trumps Hate"-type fundraiser hosted here on SquidgeWorld. This would be to raise funds for people in crisis, like the wars impacting the lives of Ukrainians and Palestinians, to people affected by natural disaster, like World Central Kitchen cooking meals or Mercy Corps who help people rebuild their lives after disasters. We're even asking what charities you'd like to support, should we do this.

Click here to take the quickie 3 question poll. NOTE: Because the previous iteration of the poll allowed duplicates, we've added an option that makes you input your email address or sign in with Google/Apple so that the poll can only be done once per person.

Thank you for being part of the community!

Originally posted here on the Squidge.org Blog.

Our Summer of Ships fundraiser is up and running, and a huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far!

As mentioned in the original post, we will be offering gifts for those who give at certain levels.  Here are the final details:

• Everyone who gives will get a copy of our Summer of Ships image
• Anyone who donates US $10 can get a physical Summer of Ships sticker
• Anyone who donates US $50 can get a Summer of Ships mug
• Anyone who donates US $100 can get their choice of a Summer of Ships water bottle or tee shirt

Everyone who donates will get an email after our Summer of Ships celebration asking what they would like to receive.

Questions:

Are physical gifts available only in the United States?
Answer: We will do everything in our power to make global gifts available, as long as it's economically feasible.  Stickers would not be an issue, but mugs, water bottles, and tee shirts might be depending on where they're being shipped to.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

If I donate, do I have to accept the gift?
Answer: No you do not.  When we contact you, you can indicate if you want to forego gifts or not.

Are the gift levels cumulative, meaning if I give US $100 do I get the sticker, mug, and shirt/water bottle?
Due to physical costs, the levels aren't cumulative.  You would have to give US $160 to get all three gifts.

What does the Summer of Ships image look like?
The image is currently being finalized, so we will share it when we can.

I have other questions not answered here. How do I ask them?
You can send us a message by clicking here.