dramione | Looking for mods of DMHG Fic Exchange

Hi!

I'm looking for the original moderators of the DMHG Fic Exchange. I've been looking at their journals, and a lot of them seem to be deleted or inactive.

I want to talk with them about the possibility of making the DMHG Fic Exchange a rescued archive over at AO3, through the Open Doors project.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts?tag=18&language_id=en&commit=Go

It's my understanding that the community was not intended to go inactive/closed/shutdown, but to remain as an open archive for readers to continue to peruse for years to come. However, it did require moderator approval to be added as a new member, but it seems like it's been years since new members were added.

"1. Are you closed?

No, we are not closed. dmhgficexchange will remain an active community. We will continue to maintain the archive of gifts as well as community memberships. The only activity we have retired from is the big one: hosting Draco/Hermione gift exchanges. We feel confident you will not lack for such fests given the options currently available."

https://dmhgficexchange.livejournal.com/429214.html?view=comments#comments

https://dmhgficexchange.livejournal.com/430209.html?view=comments#comments

https://dmhgficexchange.dreamwidth.org/390183.html#comments

Has anyone heard from them/have contact with them?

edit - March 15, 2023

I'm currently contacting Dreamwidth, and asking to be made a community administrator of dmhgficexchange (https://dmhgficexchange.dreamwidth.org) so that access to the fanfic can be preserved.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Heyyyyyyyyy, hi there! Long time no see and all that.

As far as I know, all the original moderators have left fandom. However, there is a collection set up for exchange works already. It was up to the authors if they wanted to add their works. https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DMHG_FIC_EXCHANGE

Oooh, good to have that as a reference link!

I also think they've all left, too. I actually went and made a LJ account, and left a comment on as many of their LJ accounts as I could find.

I'm hoping to get a response from someone from the original moderation team! Maybe!

I actually also dropped an email to some of the H&V people about AO3's Open Doors. I still can't believe H&V is gone...

So many people have left that I still remember very fondly. :\ And yes, H&V too. That archive loss was a painful one.

Geewhiz is the owner of the exchange collection on AO3 and I know she stopped being involved in fandom years ago. Maybe if you get in touch with her somehow, the collection could be transferred and a "add your old stuff!" notice from a new owner would be viable. (I think all of mine from that exchange are there, but I was an early-adopter for AO3. XD )

Honest to god, the whole reason I ran that Otter and Ferret exchange was to get dramione authors onto AO3, for backup purposes. That was literally the only reason. I saw this ship I loved, and how most people were either on FF.net (which had all of these censorship problems) or these very small mod-team sites, and I thought - most of this is probably going to go offline at some point due to a technology collapse.

I feel very grateful that some of the authors who did O&F also ended up archiving more of their stuff on AO3. It's not as much as I would have liked to see saved, but thank goodness some of it survives.

A lot of it has survived in datadumps in various places, which I have mixed feelings about. I have no problem with personal collections, but free-for-all is not quite right to me, especially if there is a live version of a fic still available on a public archive like AO3. I will acknowledge that those sorts of dumps have rescued quite a few fics, including a couple of mine that were 'lost' when H&V went down.

On the other hand, some people think they're 'saving' fics by uploading them to AO3 without the authors' permissions and THAT is a naughty thing. And don't get me started on the ones who post fics to wattpad because "I wanted it here". (I have filed several DMCA takedowns.)

I do hope to hear from someone! The goal with any AO3 Open Doors action would be to exactly what the Dreamwidth version (https://dmhgficexchange.dreamwidth.org) of the community was intended to be - a simple backup.

"This community exists as a mirror of the dmhgficexchange community on LiveJournal in the event that site is not accessible. Please note that all links currently lead to locations on LiveJournal and not the related content on this mirror (for example, master lists). For questions, comments, or concerns, please email us at dmhgficexchange@gmail.com."

I actually emailed the dmhgficexchange@gmail.com address, it would be wonderful to hear back. On the rare occasions I go to LJ, I feel like I can actually hear the servers creaking. Also, LJ's fondness for deleting 'inactive' accounts - a practice that started years after the fic exchange closed, means that I think LJ's quite unstable as an archive these days. :(

I still have my account and login from time to time just to keep it 'active', but yeah. It's not safe as an archive. I wouldn't trust ff.net either (not that I ever did.) and we both saw CG and H&V go down. I often say I'm a shill for AO3, because I really agree with and believe in what they're doing.

It would be great if those old fics can be saved to the collection. Hope one of the mods get back to you!

ETA: I just saw this in a news post - https://archiveofourown.org/comments/612309727 - imported works do not merge with current works, so any works currently posted to the collection could potentially get doubled.

Edited 2023-02-06 02:47 (UTC)

"ETA: I just saw this in a news post - https://archiveofourown.org/comments/612309727 - imported works do not merge with current works, so any works currently posted to the collection could potentially get doubled."

Sadness! :(

Ah well, I guess it's a tradeoff that would still be worth it. There's currently 37 works in the AO3 collection at https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DMHG_FIC_EXCHANGE, versus the 1,518 Journal Entries in https://dmhgficexchange.dreamwidth.org/. So, conservatively, probably over 1,000 stories? Duplicates of 37 stories, to archive 1,000+, seems like a worthy trade-off.

Side note, apparently there's a very active Dramione reddit? 18,000+ members....!?!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dramione/

Good luck, I hope someone replies! Everyone I know from those days is inactive but I still reread old fics and would love to see more rescued.

I'm contacting Dreamwidth as well, to ask about taking over the community as a new administrator. I'm hoping that something can be saved!

Looking for mods of DMHG Fic Exchange

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