Oh, awesome question! I just want to warn you that I am about to go into OMG EXCITE tl;dr mode because honestly I get super excited about these things! But also, different warning: I am not actually a member of the Open Doors team, I'm just speaking as someone who's worked in the OTW a substantial amount and loves Open Doors a lot — if you want more/better information, you can also definitely contact the Open Doors folks themselves!
But anyway, to try and answer your question—
At-risk, in the sense of what Open Doors is aiming to preserve, can mean anything from "help, I got TOSsed!" to "I can't afford this anymore" to "I just don't have the energy for this any longer." So in the sense that FA says they can no longer afford their servers, they definitely fall under the Open Doors aegis and could have gone there for assistance.
Possibly the most important thing to keep in mind about Open Doors in a case like FA's is that projects don't have to go static once they go through Open Doors — collections, projects, and communities can stay live and active afterwards, OD is just there to help them make the transition and negotiate whatever compromises are necessary. Yuletide is an at-risk archive, and they're moving over and plan to keep on being active, for example. There are also a number of viable archives that intend to move to AO3 with assistance from Open Doors, for a variety of reasons.
The major thing that's not yet ready for Open Doors is the importer, which would let us import entire archives — and that is actually being tested right now! We've already taken in some smaller archives, but as soon as the importer is ready — and the Yuletide archive is the test case for it — Open Doors will be ready for something of FA's scope. Until the importer — and, for some projects, the multimedia support — is ready, Open Doors hosts projects separately from the archive in Special Collections, or simply holds on to the files offline until they can be put up and integrated.
So in a case like FA's, this is how I imagined the scenario (assuming the importer is ready and reiterating that I'm not part of the team and don't know exactly how it could have been handled): FA's existing files are in danger due to lack of funds, and they want to keep being an active community and keep functioning in much the same way they do now (moderated submissions, separate sections for different kinds of stories, etc.). Under Open Doors, the AO3 could take in their old/existing stuff as, for example, a moderated collection, with the various subsections as subcollections. FA users could then continue using the collection much like they once used the FA archive, and the FA staff could moderate the collection much as they currently do their own site. (Just as a fun note, collections do get some control over the way their pages look, so an archive like FA could even set up their collection to resemble home sweet home =D)
I'm not saying it's a perfect solution that would instantly meet all of FA's needs — there would, of course, be changes and compromises, and there are plenty of reasons a fannish project might hesitate over Open Doors. For example, there are the FA forums, for which some kind of solution would need to be worked out. And I mean, it could also just be very important to FA to maintain its own, independent space, set up exactly the way they want it, and that's just fine. I just wanted to point out, in my post, that this was an option.
The Open Doors project of the Organization for Transformative Works is dedicated to preserving fanworks for the future.
Once the Archive of Our Own is up and running, we will be happy to help maintainers of typical fanfic archives preserve or back up their collections by transferring the contents of their archive into the Archive of Our Own. We plan to collect these stories under the name of the archive from which they came, as well as to set up automatic redirecting from the original URLs if desired and whenever possible. Other fannish projects that cannot be integrated into the Archive may also be preserved as special collections, resources permitting. Both kinds of projects will be featured on the Open Doors page.
So! Open Doors. I think they are pretty neat! I don't know FA's exact needs and wishes, and maybe after consideration FA might have rejected the OD option anyway, but it's one more option.
no subject
But anyway, to try and answer your question—
At-risk, in the sense of what Open Doors is aiming to preserve, can mean anything from "help, I got TOSsed!" to "I can't afford this anymore" to "I just don't have the energy for this any longer." So in the sense that FA says they can no longer afford their servers, they definitely fall under the Open Doors aegis and could have gone there for assistance.
Possibly the most important thing to keep in mind about Open Doors in a case like FA's is that projects don't have to go static once they go through Open Doors — collections, projects, and communities can stay live and active afterwards, OD is just there to help them make the transition and negotiate whatever compromises are necessary. Yuletide is an at-risk archive, and they're moving over and plan to keep on being active, for example. There are also a number of viable archives that intend to move to AO3 with assistance from Open Doors, for a variety of reasons.
The major thing that's not yet ready for Open Doors is the importer, which would let us import entire archives — and that is actually being tested right now! We've already taken in some smaller archives, but as soon as the importer is ready — and the Yuletide archive is the test case for it — Open Doors will be ready for something of FA's scope. Until the importer — and, for some projects, the multimedia support — is ready, Open Doors hosts projects separately from the archive in Special Collections, or simply holds on to the files offline until they can be put up and integrated.
So in a case like FA's, this is how I imagined the scenario (assuming the importer is ready and reiterating that I'm not part of the team and don't know exactly how it could have been handled): FA's existing files are in danger due to lack of funds, and they want to keep being an active community and keep functioning in much the same way they do now (moderated submissions, separate sections for different kinds of stories, etc.). Under Open Doors, the AO3 could take in their old/existing stuff as, for example, a moderated collection, with the various subsections as subcollections. FA users could then continue using the collection much like they once used the FA archive, and the FA staff could moderate the collection much as they currently do their own site. (Just as a fun note, collections do get some control over the way their pages look, so an archive like FA could even set up their collection to resemble home sweet home =D)
I'm not saying it's a perfect solution that would instantly meet all of FA's needs — there would, of course, be changes and compromises, and there are plenty of reasons a fannish project might hesitate over Open Doors. For example, there are the FA forums, for which some kind of solution would need to be worked out. And I mean, it could also just be very important to FA to maintain its own, independent space, set up exactly the way they want it, and that's just fine. I just wanted to point out, in my post, that this was an option.
Just for a little bit more information on Open Doors, their TOS is over here, under D, and a quick relevant blurb:
So! Open Doors. I think they are pretty neat! I don't know FA's exact needs and wishes, and maybe after consideration FA might have rejected the OD option anyway, but it's one more option.
I hope that helped answer your question?