#small archives

[dawnfelagund]

I feel like there’s a lot of stuff coming to light lately about ao3’s glacial pace at adopting transparent and actionable antiracist policies (and the fact that a longtime head of the abuse team who helped draft their abuse moderation bylaws was documentably quite racist herself). And on the one had, like what you brought up about it taking a while for the archive to address the AI issue because of organization size and slow ability to pivot, I can see why it took some time to iron out the code etc for the new block mute functions. But on the other hand, I feel like not much else has happened, and more volunteers are coming forward about it having been a kind of catty and clandestinely bullying environment. Since you’ve been active for a long time and run an (albeit much smaller) archive of your own (pun, haha), I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this. And if there’s anything unique or cool in the SWG bylaws or structure to either prevent this sort of 1) buildup of crappy user behavior and 2) insular and punitive moderator culture, or if you’ve dealt with anything similar on the site etc etc. and maybe if you have any advice for folks who want to open their own archive or who just mod a large discord etc etc.

Oh yes, anon, I have tons of thoughts and ideas, and thank you for these wonderful questions! <3

First of all ...

ao3’s glacial pace

I recently wrote about the OTW’s fumbling of the AI issue and compared change on a large organization to port-rounding the Titanic. The AI issue is an apt illustration of that. In the time it took for the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild to 1) decide we needed an AI policy, 2) write said AI policy, 3) open it for public commentary, and 4) research how to block and then implement blocks on AI scrapers to the best of our abilities (since this will never be 100% since not all scrapers follow the rules), the OTW managed to ... assure a distressed membership base that the thing they were worrying about (AI scraping) had been blocked in December. Why did it take a week just to say, “Hey guys, we actually did this months ago”? When we (with far fewer resources!) took the exact same span of time and managed to write a policy, release it, and research and implement AI bot blocks?

Part of it is that, yes, smaller orgs have the ability to be more nimble. On the SWG, there is me at the helm, three active site mods, and two Discord mods who work on policy, involving volunteers (like our inclusivity focus group) as needed. We generally go with a majority rule, and we’re not bogged down by the legal obligations of a nonprofit as far as our governance. But it also reaches a point where the size of an organization is not the only reason why it can actually get things done, and when it takes a week to offer reassurance to your membership that you have in fact done what they want, it really begs the question of whether that organization is able to effectively function at all.

Without commenting on the viability of the specific demands of @end-otw-racism, they are absolutely right that three years is too long to go without action. That's absurd, and it’s hard to see it as anything but thinking that the right words following George Floyd’s murder were all that would be required and hoping that promises of actual action would be forgotten. Actually, I’m more sympathetic to the time to implement new block/mute code than I am to the failure of the Board to take the promised action against racist harassment within the OTW: the coders are purely volunteer, not elected, and the burnout of “techno-volunteers” is a known reality (e.g., De Kosnik 2016) of running fandom sites because it is a hard job, invisible and unappreciated, and it is never done. I know that I have new features and improvements on my to-do list for the SWG for more than a year now because maintaining the current site and fixing it when it breaks takes priority and a lot of my time. So when coders take a while to get something done? Okay, fair. But the Board? Were the ones who promised action that they don’t seem to have actually intended to take. In even the most cumbersome organization, we should be seeing goals set and progress, in however small steps, being made toward those goals. In three years.

if there’s anything unique or cool in the SWG bylaws or structure to either prevent this sort of 1) buildup of crappy user behavior

I think the OTW/AO3 and the SWG begin from completely different philosophical foundations.

I’ve been in Tolkien fanfic fandom since 2004 and founded the SWG in 2005, so at the risk of being all “I was there, Gandalf��� ... I was there when the OTW and AO3 were first being discussed, largely lurking but definitely following the discussions. And I was there for the content purges on LiveJournal and FanFiction.net that precipitated those discussions, and I was a part of fandom when writing adult content--especially LGBTQIA+ adult content--was risky business, both within fandom and “IRL.” From this climate (and the fear it created) came the OTW and AO3: the idea that “we own the servers and run the organization so we can accept everything that is a fanwork on our site,” and fans would no longer need to fear waking up and finding years of their work gone in a single deletion spree motivated by gratifying fans who ascribe to purity culture or advertisers or anyone.

The OTW’s mission, in their own words: “The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms” (emphasis mine). The aim of the OTW (and consequently AO3) is and has always been to archive everything. They are a universal archive on order of Project Gutenberg or Archive.org. The OTW’s FAQ calls AO3 “fandom’s deposit library” (“Is the OTW trying to replace all other archives?”). In other words, the primary purpose is storing as many fanworks as possible, regardless of the content of those fanworks.

Yes, this means the OTW considers AI-generated fanworks as legitimate. Yes, this means that the OTW considers fanworks with blatantly racist (or sexist or homophobic or transphobic or ...) content as legitimate. The parallel I keep drawing is to the ACLU, which prioritizes civil liberties in the same way that the OTW prioritizes fanworks preservation, which leads them to sometimes end up defending reprehensible people and viewpoints (and fanworks). They prioritize a principle above the harm that principle, taken to its logical extreme, could cause to people who are by and large already marginalized in and therefore harmed by society. That is not a critique of either organization, just a statement of fact, and this is where I feel like fans hoping for increased moderation or oversight of fanworks posted on AO3 are banging their heads against the wall. The OTW will never be that place; their very mission and reason for existence forbids it.

The problem is that, for most fans and fandoms, AO3 is their only option as an archive. Which brings me to the SWG ...

The SWG (which opened its archive in 2007, two years before AO3 entered open beta) originated during the same fandom era as AO3. The key difference is that where OTW/AO3 focused on fanworks and the values they embraced around the worth of all fanworks, the SWG focused on people and creating a fandom space that was open, welcoming, and civil. The Tolkien fandom was also a pretty messed-up place at the time. There were dozens of small, Tolkien-specific archives, most of which imposed some sort of content restriction, either in the sense of what they focused on (like the SWG focuses on Silmarillion fanworks) or in excluding certain content, such as adult-rated fanworks or slash. This certainly caused its share of hard feelings but I wouldn’t say was a problem in and of itself: There were so many archives and communities that there was someplace for everyone. The larger issue, from my perspective (as a new Tolkien fan when I started the SWG in 2005) was that bullying and harassment were extremely common in some places; homophobia and misogyny were acceptable under the guise of “canonicity” or “respect for Tolkien”; discussing racism, sexism/misogyny, homophobia, etc. in Tolkien’s works or in the fandom was Just Not Done in many spaces (you’d get pelted with a barrage of Tolkien Couldn’t Have Been Racist/Sexist/Etc. and Here’s Why if you tried); and new fans or fans who didn’t have full access to the texts were looked down upon and mistreated under the pretense of “correcting their canon.” Again, Tolkien fanworks fandom was very large and diverse, so this was certainly not all groups or sites, but it was true of many of the larger ones.

On the SWG, we decided we didn’t want to perpetuate this culture, so we set out to create guidelines (which we call our Site Etiquette) that prioritized civility and inclusivity. Again, we come from the same era of fandom history as the OTW, so we also ended up accepting most fanworks, but where we differ from the OTW and AO3 is that maximizing the fanworks we accept is not our priority. Instead,

Abusive or derogatory behavior will not be tolerated at any time or in any part of the SWG. We do not welcome or allow any content in our group that is designed to be hurtful or insulting.

This has been a part of our Site Etiquette since our archive’s inception, and it has persisted, unchanged, because it easily allows for the exclusion of anything--like the openly racist content identified on AO3 by End OTW Racism--that makes our group a hostile place for our members. We do also put the responsibility on our members to curate their own browsing experience on our archive:

Members are not required to like everyone, but they are required to be civil. If you dislike a fanwork, stop reading it and do not comment. If you dislike another member, do not interact with them.

To that end, we provide a number of warning tags that creators are expected to use (or else label their fanwork “Choose Not to Warn”), which includes a tag for “In-Universe Intolerance.” Unlike AO3, if a fanwork is mislabeled, the mods will work with the creator to assure that it is labeled correctly so that it meets the creator’s needs but also preserves visitors’ rights to curate what they read/view. That doesn’t mean that these systems will be perfectly implemented or will always meet everyone’s needs, but we have found that they generally do, in part because joining the SWG means you are agreeing to participate on an archive where civility and inclusivity are primary values.

Implied in all of the above but important to state, too, is that the SWG is a moderated community and site. We do not review everything posted to our site, but we will respond to “flags” or other reports of fanworks that violate our site guidelines, and on our Discord and other community spaces, we do hold our members to our standards around civility and inclusivity. We do address member behavior (mostly on our Discord) that creates a hostile culture, and we do ban members who demonstrate that they are unwilling to work on culling that behavior from their interactions on our spaces. That is not a preference and it is thankfully rare when we have to do so, but again, it becomes an option when you’re not looking at a person’s participation as the creation of a valuable cultural artifact that you are obligated to preserve but in terms of its impact on others who share those community spaces with them.

2) insular and punitive moderator culture

I honestly don’t see this as able to become an issue on a small site the way it appears to have become on the OTW.

By that, I don’t mean that small sites are incapable of having leadership who are cliquish, punitive, abusive, unresponsive, or any of the other charges levied against members of the OTW Board and leadership. However, the impact on a smaller site is much different than on a larger site: It’s easier for members to walk away.

There were definitely dysfunctional sites and groups in the Tolkien fanworks fandom’s history. What tended to happen is ... they didn’t last long. People went elsewhere with their stories and participation (because there were other places to go), the site’s reputation began to precede it so that people avoided it, and eventually it was just the rarefied few who had made it a miserable place to begin with making misery among themselves, which is really an ideal situation, when you really think about it. (In less extreme examples, my fandom history research using data from the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey has shown that users of small Tolkien archives tended to select where they posted on the basis of how the archive’s culture aligned with their own values.)

AO3, on the other hand, has developed a near-gravitational force in the fanworks world. Almost everyone uses it because we’ve reached a point where there are no other options for many fans. If you are in one of the few fandoms (like Tolkien) that still has independent archives, you can go there. If you can meet the content guidelines of FanFiction.net or Wattpad, those become options. But for many, AO3 is it. I guarantee there are many people right now, looking on at what is happening on the OTW with dismay, interested in at least crossposting elsewhere, but who have no place to go.

No one needs the SWG in the way that that need AO3; it is an “only option” for no one. Therefore, my comods and I, by necessity, have to create a site and community that people want to be a part of, and part of that (for us) is through our leadership: hearing and responding to our members’ needs, inviting member input wherever possible in our decision-making process, and being transparent in our decisions.

And again, so much of this comes back to our intentional work to create a community culture of civility and inclusivity and the fact that people who join us generally value those things as well. The SWG is a community archive, not a universal archive (to borrow De Kosnik’s terminology); it derives from our community values, collectively agreed upon, not the prioritization of massing as much relevant content onto our servers as possible in the interest of preservation and legitimization. (I have had, several times, conversations with people that led with, “I need you to consider if the values of this group are a good fit for you,” which is not a conversation that could happen on AO3, with its different goals.) Because we all agree on these central values when beginning our work, all of us--members and moderators alike--can generally work together to achieve our goals. That doesn’t mean that we always agree! The recent discussion of our AI policy is an example of discussions that got pretty intense at times. But I saved each of the three drafts of the policy as it evolved via the Wayback Machine, and those red comments at the top? Were by and large based on member contributions during the two-week discussion period. They, not the mods, were the reason the document ended up as complete and good as it was. But again, this can be done on a group that has, at most, several dozen active, participating members at one time. It is not possible on a site the size of AO3.

And again, if I disappointed the expectations of the SWG members? I know they would go elsewhere, and that is a pretty strong motivator to keeping them at the forefront of every decision I make.

if you have any advice for folks who want to open their own archive or who just mod a large discord etc etc.

I do! I wrote about the tech side of starting an archive here. Unfortunately, it’s pretty bleak right now, but I have hope that that could change. My exhortation to those dissatisfied with what’s going on with the OTW right now is to consider supporting small fandom sites and web development projects in any way you can, whether that’s donating money, providing tech skills or otherwise volunteering, or just making sure that you signal-boost and promote these projects when you can. (Seriously, when I see people link to a fanwork on the SWG instead of AO3, I want to send them a Valentine.) I am now less than three weeks from summer break and plan to spend that summer break trying to make the tech options less bleak. Watch this space.

As far as the non-tech side, I’d suggest first of all deciding who you want to be. What are your values? As I’ve said at several points in this (very long) post, the SWG values civility and inclusivity. We look at everything through that lens. That doesn’t mean that moderation decisions are made easy, but they are certainly made easier and more consistent/fair.

Once you know your values, be clear in what you expect from members/participants and hold them to it. Writing conduct guidelines is hard and is usually an ongoing process, but it is time well spent and, if done  conscientiously, makes running a site or community much easier. It can be easy to be overwhelmed by a sense of urgency (“we needed to build this yesterday!!”) but spending a bit of time on this step will save you time and headache later.

Next: Moderation is not a dirty word. We, as Fandom, have gotten so used to these large, sprawling spaces like AO3 and Tumblr that are essentially unmoderated that we’ve forgotten that there was a time in the not-so-distant past where moderation was the norm. Again, that is not a panacea--there were plenty of awful “moderated” communities--but if you moderate with your community values and expectations in mind, you begin to build the culture you want to see.

Probably the biggest piece of advice I have is to think hard on the question: Do you really want to do this? Running a website or even a large community is a commitment. I do not have biological children, but I have pets and I have been a foster parent, and do you know what is the closest to a parenting commitment that I have? The SWG.

It is a lot of work, the work is often hard, it is usually thankless or invisible, and the buck stops with you. There is no higher-up to pass a responsibility off to. I have lost many evenings and days off to issues that arose out of nowhere with the site and that it was my responsibility to fix. Not gonna lie, that can be a bummer, and it’s worth asking if you’re up for it. A lot of small Tolkien archives died because of a combination of AO3, the ending of Yahoo! Groups, and plain loss of interest in those in charge of running them. This has contributed to the situation we are now in, where AO3 is the only option for many people, who are now not sure that they want all of their eggs in that basket, and yet here we are. Just like it’s 2008 again, and we’re wringing our hands over the lack of viable choices.

So just like taking on any large commitment, make sure you have what supports you need in place (who can help you? who would you rely on as a comod or coadmin? what are your limitations and how can you account for those in your plans?), do your due diligence to set your values and expectations, and then ... you do it.

Remember, it can be done. Many, many fans have done it before, and we can do it again.

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

how to build compelling characters

[randalltier]

You can choose only ONE no in-between answers. Be brave and bold and decisive and elaborate in the tags if you wish

[ao3-crack]

(x)

[the-kingofdoritos]

i love being in active fandoms because i keep seeing soooo many theories and being like "Oooo yesss, i love that idea! It would work perfectly and make so much sense!" and then seeing a totally different theory that contradicts the first one also also being like "Fuck yessss! Great theory! Gotta love this theory!"

[vacueye]

looking through old tf2 stuff again + felt like reuploading some of my favorite (mostly spy) art throughout the years

[frownyalfred]

this makes me! so happy! fanfic isn’t something embarrassing! it’s this awesome world of new endings, AUs, character dives, “what ifs?” and even more!

[micycle-bycicle]

siri play me and michael by mgmt

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Seeing Protector of the Small fanart reminded me of something I wanted to say.

One of the things I love about the series is that Kel’s life gets better over the course of it. Oh, the enemies she’s facing get tougher - in the first book of the quartet she’s an 11-year-old fighting bullies at school, by the fourth one she’s an adult fighting in a war - but the number of people she’s got on her side and at her back expands immensely.

In the first book, she’s virtually on her own at the start and she has almost no control over her fate - whether she will be able to pursue her dream of being a knight depends solely on the arbitrary judgement of a raging sexist. By the second one, she still has enemies, but also a sizeable group of friends, and is a mentor to younger students. By the third, she has some of the most powerful people in the kingdom on her side, and is virtually never without either emotional support or people willing to go to bat for her. In the fourth, she has dozens of people – including the aforementioned raging sexist, who has some of the best character development in any Tamora Pierce novel – supporting her when she does something that is technically illegal.

She’s never more alone or less in control of her fate than the moment, as an eleven-year-old girl, when she says (paraphrased): “If I want to be a knight in order to help people, then I’m going to help people now even though it will probably ruin my chances of ever becoming a knight; because otherwise what was the point?” And the fact that she sticks to her principles doggedly and refuses to turn aside from anyone who needs help is why she has so much support by the end. With a lot of that support coming from people whom she helped and supported because they needed it, people whom the rest of society ignored and discarded and regarded as useless, and who turned out to be tough and talented and invaluble friends. It’s not an authorial gift, it’s the cumulative effect of the mountains of hard work she’s put in over the previous books, usually with no expectation of any return.

[bogushead]

get yourself a fog monster for a boyfriend

[0inkcat0]

"Oh, Archivist. What have you done now?"

[euniysu]

ETA: Preorders were added bc a lot of people wanted them! They are only added for the most requested. Thank you!

Hi everyone! My fanfic enamel pins are on sale! I'm not remaking these, so please tell your friends or grab one now!

There are MANY designs (including a fluff one I just recently added so there's no pics of it) and sticker versions too :) I also have mystery packs if you can't decide!

Any shares is greatly appreciated!

> Go to store!!!

[cowboy-by-proxy]

Hmmm what a pretty definitely normal lighter 

[dawnfelagund]

Signal-boosting my own post.

If you're not sure what's going on regarding the OTW/AO3, Denise (the founder of Dreamwidth) has an important post here and this account is documenting the many new developments coming out of the several issues that have been raised lately with the OTW.

I am not commenting on any of the above. It's just a good damn idea to crosspost your work. Seriously, I know I'm a broken record sometimes with the advocacy for small archives but that is because, when a small archive fails, it is sad; if AO3 fails? It's a disaster. And we've been courting it for a long, long time with the increasing consolidation of everything onto AO3 to the neglect and abandonment of the once ample (at least in Tolkien fandom) alternatives.

In recent weeks, we have had several people begin to crosspost work from AO3 to the SWG. They are very welcome, and we are thrilled to have them. If you are a Silmarillion creator, we'd love to have you too. (Note too that we accept all Tolkien-based fanworks, with a few limited exceptions, once you've posted five Silmworks or 10,000 words with us.) Do not hesitate to send me an ask or email me or reach out in any way with questions or if you need assistance.

The SWG Hosts Tolkien Fanworks

Fandom creators may be looking for alternative and additional archives, in light of the multiple critiques currently being made of the OTW and AO3.

This is not intended as commentary on the many issues raised about the OTW and AO3 in recent weeks, although an unofficial position of our organization (as a small archive) has always been that it is ideal to archive your fanworks across multiple sites, and multiple options for archiving should exist. Rather, this post will provide information about who we are and the fanworks we accept so that Tolkien fanworks creators can decide if our archive is a viable option for them.

What is the SWG?

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild was founded in 2005 by @dawnfelagund, and our archive opened in 2007. Our mission is to provide an online archive and community for anyone interested in The Silmarillion that values civility and openness in discussing and making fanworks about Tolkien's legendarium. You can read the SWG's complete mission here.

We currently archive just over 5,000 fanworks by 414 creators. In addition, we offer monthly creative challenges, publish a weekly newsletter that features research by our members, maintain a reference library and beta-reader directory, compile a listing of Tolkien fandom events, and host events such as live readings, fanfiction book clubs, and collaborative creative sessions on our Discord.

What fanworks does the SWG accept?

The SWG is an archive for Silmarillion-based fanworks. We try to define the term "Silmarillion-based" as broadly and inclusively as possible so that we can welcome as many fanworks on our site as possible while maintaining our purpose as a Silmarillion group. Significant use of a source, character or character group, location, or time period featured in The Silmarillion, as long as it is not also covered in detail in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, qualifies a work for our site. Our detailed FAQ on how we define "Silmworks" can be found here.

We accept crossover, alternate universe (AU), and multi-age fanworks, as long as a significant component meets the "Silm fanwork" definition above.

Non-Silmarillion Tolkien Fanworks. We recently added a section to our site called Beyond the Silmarillion, which accepts all fanworks based on Tolkien's writings or Tolkien-based adaptations (films, shows, games, etc.) SWG members become eligible to post in this section once they have archived five fanworks or 10,000 words with us, whichever comes first.

Types of Fanwork We Archive. The SWG currently accepts the following types of fanwork: writing (fiction, nonfiction, plays/screenplays, and poetry), artwork, audio, video, link collections, playlists, series, and multimedia fanworks that include two or more of the formats above. If you need to archive a fanwork that doesn't match any of the above, the site moderators will help you archive your work with us, if it's possible to do so. With the exception of video, we host all fanworks on our server. (Videos must be posted to a video hosting site.)

Ratings and Adult Content. We accept all ratings of fanwork. The only adult-rated fanworks we cannot accept are images or videos that include "graphic depictions of sexual activity, sexualized nudity, and any representation of an underage character in a sexual situation" because these fanworks violate the Terms of Service of our webhost.

AI-Generated Fanworks. We do not accept fanworks entirely or partially produced through prompting an AI generator. Our AI policy can be found here.

What are the conduct expectations for SWG members?

Simply put, the SWG "is a positive-focused, open-minded space." We require civility in all interactions conducted on our archive and affiliated social sites. The SWG is a moderated site and community, so we do hold our members to our expectations. You can read our complete Site Etiquette and Terms of Service here.

How is the SWG governed?

The SWG was founded and is currently run by Dawn Felagund, assisted by a team of moderators. Active moderators are Russandol, Grundy, Lyra, Saelind, and Janeways; they make the ultimate decisions concerning the archive. Other volunteers aid other tasks needed to run the site and community and may contribute to decision-making as well.

The SWG is not a democracy in that we do not hold formal elections and there are certain aspects of our mission that we are unwilling to change, even under majority preference. However, we consider member feedback as part of our decision-making process whenever possible—especially with regard to decisions on controversial or impactful issues—and some of the policies and features we've implemented over the years have come about by member request.

Members who need assistance, have a concern, or wish to make a suggestion can contact the moderators directly or use the #town-hall channel in the SWG's Discord.

We aim (and are generally able) to reply to all communications from members within twenty-four hours.

Because we are a small organization with relatively few decision makers, we can generally implement change relatively quickly. Our recent AI policy offers a good example of how governance in our group works. The issue of AI-generated fanworks was raised in a discussion among the site and Discord moderators on May 5. In this discussion, the moderators shared information and came to a consensus on how they wanted AI-generated fanworks handled on the SWG. Dawn drafted an AI policy, which was put before the other moderators for feedback on May 9. By May 13, the site admins had researched and implemented a block on AI scraper bots using all known strategies. Also on May 13, the AI policy was opened for public comment through May 26, during which time members and other interested parties shared suggestions via email with the moderators and in discussion in the #town-hall channel on Discord. During this time, the draft policy was revised twice using those suggestions. On May 28, the finalized policy was announced on the SWG's site and social networks, and relevant documents on the site were updated to reflect and link to the new policy.

How does the SWG handle racism and other attacks on groups that have been historically marginalized in fandom and beyond?

As stated in our Site Etiquette, as an organization, we recognize that fandom and the Tolkien fandom specifically has historically been and continues to be hostile to and dismissive of fans from marginalized groups, including fans who are Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC); women; LGBTQIA+; and fans with disabilities. We believe strongly that, as a fandom organization that has benefited from the status quo, we must also be part of the solution to ensure that these inequities do not persist.

Specific solutions we have implemented on our group include:

Our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service strictly forbids "[a]ttacks on other members based on personal characteristics (such as race, color, religion, ethnicity, nationality, age, sexuality, gender identity or expression, disability, or medical condition)" and states that "[a]busive or derogatory behavior will not be tolerated at any time or in any part of the SWG. We do not welcome or allow any content in our group that is designed to be hurtful or insulting." While we generally observe a three-strike policy for rule violations, "[i]f moderators feel that someone is acting deliberately to harm SWG and/or its members … we reserve the right to suspend that person's account without prior warning." Our hope with this policy is to allow members who mess up the opportunity to improve while also having the ability to remove bad actors immediately.

We currently require fanworks on our site to be correctly labeled with warnings, including fanworks that include "in-universe intolerance," such as racism, homophobia, and misogyny. Creators have the option of labeling a fanwork as "Choose Not to Warn" if they do not want to label their fanwork. Our ratings and warnings policy is here.

We maintain an inclusivity focus group that we consult on policies and issues related to inclusivity or that may have a disproportionate impact on some groups of fans. Any SWG member who is part of a group historically marginalized in fandom is welcome to join this focus group and participate when and how they feel comfortable. Any member can request the input of the inclusivity focus group on a moderator decision.

If I want to archive my work with you, what is the best way to do this?

First, review the Site Etiquette and Terms of Service, and if you believe our group is a good fit for you and your work, register for an SWG account.

A moderator will approve your account before you can begin posting or commenting on the site. We aim to approve new accounts within twenty-four hours of registration; typically, it takes much less time than that to be approved.

Once you are approved, you can begin posting your fanworks! We do ask that new members who are archiving many older works with us to backdate these fanworks and exclude them from the Most Recent list to allow creators posting new work to have that spotlight.

Questions on how to use the site, SWG policies, or how best to archive past works with us are welcome via the site's contact form, by emailing the moderators at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org, or reaching out to the mods via any of the SWG's social media.

[annamationsart]

bit chilly innit (surely it will be warm inside this door!)

[arium-db]

Agnes Montague my beloved, you own me heart and soul 😔🙏🕯️