injokes I don't get

[ratcreature]

So what is the "Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives)" tag on the AO3 supposed to indicate?

Obviously it doesn't have the normal meaning like that label had on lists, since the stories are already posted on a fanfic archive, and they don't seem to have anything obvious in common wrt content when I look at the works. I wondered whether it was maybe a kind of "don't podfic" label because of the archive tapes in canon, but I saw at least one podfic with the tag, so that's not it.

I'm also wondering whether to participate in the Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019, which includes The Magnus Archives. It allows fanart, and the requirements look fairly low-key and manageable, and I never seem to produce even sketches anymore without outside pressure, so that might be fun.

Comments

[james]

Recently there has been trouble with a Russian archivist taking hundreds of stories from AO3 and re-archiving them on their own site, which also featured ads and the like, for which the Russian archivist was getting profit. People naturally objected to this, and there was very little they could do about getting their stories taken down (I gather it was possible, but difficult? And no guarantee of success?) One of the things suggested to make it easier to get things taken down is to explicitly state you don't given permission for your story to be re-archived on another site simply because it's on AO3.

That might be what those authors are doing.

[harpers_child]

My first thought was this too. I've heard of a couple sites pulling stories off the Ao3 without author permission. (Or maybe it's the same site but several permutations.)

[ratcreature]

Other comments indicate a more fandom specific meaning of not wanting creator-fan interaction.