I typically use DA and occasionally MediaMiner.org and AnimeXX.de to host my fanart, but DA, while it has many strengths, is godawful annoying in many respects. I do like the idea of being able to favorite/collect fanart and comment on it. I can't stand their categories, because there's no consistency among categories as to what art goes in what categories, and so much of the same stuff is spread out. Rules about where fanart should go (and even what kinds can be uploaded) are hard to understand and rarely enforced, it seems.
I personally do a lot of digital art, taking a base and modifying it heavily in Photoshop to make something new and fannish (think kisesae dolls, Flash doll builders, etc). I'd like to know what kind of restrictions would be in place for that kind of art, since DA is a site that's very inconsistent about it. If the original creator says it's okay to post and share works created from the builder as long as there's credit, is that okay? What about if you take a creation and modify it in Photoshop or another program? That's the kind of thing I'd like to know about if we had this kind of feature on AO3.
DREAMS What about an importer tool? Facebook, Flickr, etc. have these kind of things that can embed into your photo programs so that you can upload with one or two clicks, adding all the metadata from within that tool. That way people don't necessarily have to visit the site to add something (although it would obviously be an option). I use iPhoto on the Mac, and finding the art I have organized in it can be time consuming. But if there were an importer tool, I could be using it from within iPhoto and just click an "AO3" button to upload that selected art (possibly with the existing metadata from the photo pre-loaded into the fields for AO3, where applicable) to my account right away.
I imagine this is a much bigger project than just supporting art itself, but if it got even a little consideration, that'd be awesome.
Re importer tool: There was this post linked on metafandom lately, where someone suggested a bunch of geeky features. One of it was a public API (programming interface) for the archive, which would enable everyone to program importer tools/plugins for their favourite applications/programmes. So the actual plugin programming needn't be done by A03 programmers, and the possiblibities what can be done with an API are huge.
Ah, I saw that post! Yes, an API would make the creation of an importer (along with all sorts of other neat AO3 goodies, I hope) a lot easier, but I do hope that I'm not the only one that wants it specifically for easy uploading of fanart (though I'm sure it could have other uses).
Comment on Calling fanartists! Tell us about your ideal archive!
Azurite (Guest) Tue 06 Apr 2010 11:29PM UTC
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krityan Tue 06 Apr 2010 11:33PM UTC
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Rebecca Wed 07 Apr 2010 07:45AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 07 Apr 2010 07:46AM UTC
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Elizabeth Perry (watersword) Wed 07 Apr 2010 11:27AM UTC
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Azurite Fri 09 Apr 2010 12:41AM UTC
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