Internet archiving is unique in as much as it inherently creates its own set of metadata. When collecting a physical document, it contains a set of information, both physical and contextual that could help, for example dating it. Another aspect is that the collection and dating would happen after the fact and all at once (or, even if in instances, usually not one by one). When it comes to user-created content on the internet, the creation, collection and categorisation can be the same act (which, for simplicity’s sake, we could call posting). For example, the Organization for Transformative Works utilizes these unique affordances to unify its folksonomy while keeping the control over them with each individual creator. This approach is true to the Archive of Our Own and the Open Doors project.

Now, user-created content usually does create some kind of metadata instantaneously and allows some degree of control to stay with these users. (While this does, from an archivist’s point of view, creates some similarities between the Archive and some social media sites, it is important to note, that based on the user agreement and almost everything else, the Archive is not and never will be a social media site.) The important thing for an archivist to remember and this post is partly to remind myself as I read about the philosophy of the Archive in studies and plan to write about it regarding archiving: a site can have explicit and coded into its very structure ideologies for creating and collecting metadata and categorising, users are still also going to use their own ideologies for the same and this is just as true for the Archive as for sites without an explicit goal of archiving transformative works. This is something tag wranglers remember when observing tag usage before making decisions about synning or users remember when trying to guess which Archive Warning applies to their story (my own approach as a user is to use Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings), Open Doors volunteers remember when importing fanworks from collections with their own approach to tagging and that archivists and researchers such as yours truly* have to keep in mind all the time.

(Different g tools also have their own ideology when it comes to internet archiving which is something I will have to review soon. Care to join me for that ride?)

*Szabo Dorottya