This is mostly about SquidgeWorld Archive, but there are also other things about Image Hosting later on. First thing, this is what’s currently posted as a SquidgeWorld News Item, but posting here so everyone can see it. If you’re seeing this from BSKY, Tumblr, or Mastodon, you might want to click the link and read everything going on. Especially the upcoming embargo on new Image Hosting accounts at the bottom.
Here at SquidgeWorld Archive (SqWA) we do things differently than what you’re used to. For example:
1) We are much smaller than AO3. Please remember this if and when things get busy on the site.
2) SqWA came out of the old Peja’s Wonderful World of Makebelieve – and some of the stories in our archive are up to 30 years old. So we are rich in some older fandoms that aren’t as big today.
3) Quite a lot of the old fandoms, especially those where the user is no longer with us for one reason or another, stories are marked as “Display to registered users only.” This prevents spam comments and the like. If see there are 200 stories in your chosen fandom, but you aren’t logged in and can only see 50 stories? That’s because you’re not logged in. Create an account and log in if you want to read ALL works in the archive.
4) AO3 has dozens of computers in datacenters around the world. They raise millions of dollars to pay for this. SqWA? We’re a single server and separate database server. So no, we’re not going to be as speedy as AO3 – especially with thousands of new users joining at once.
5) We do tag wrangling different. You can read our tag wrangling guidelines here. Especially pay attention to our non-traditional pairings designations! Our relationship tag in the News Posts will give you more details. And actually, going through our admin posts may not be a bad idea for many newbies.
6) You can change the skins to however you’d like. There are may published skins listed in the footer, and you can create your own. Dark mode is my favorite.
7) There are two links under the Contact Us in the footer; one for questions and abuse, and one for technical support and feedback. We’ll respond as soon as we can.
8) We do NOT allow AI generated written content in the archive at all. AI generated content is not welcome, and if found will be removed. We trust you to label your content accurately.
NEW: 9) For performance purposes we have disabled downloads.
NEW: 10) And we just had our first commission spammer. We don’t play here – you leave commissioin spam, your account and comments/works/etc. are GONE. We don’t put up with that shit here. (Our #1 rule is “Don’t Be A Dick”, so I can say shit.)
NEW: 11) Performance is still bad. It will even out, but we do have some growing pains with 12,000+ new users in less than 24 hours.
NEW: 12) Icons DO NOT WORK. This is by design as a security precaution. I will invite everyone to stick to their standard profile picture for the time being until this can be fixed.
NEW: 13) We got like 100 trouble tickets overnight. It’s going to take some time to get through to everyone, especially since not everyone will read these notices.
Now that everyone’s seen that, I need to point out a few things again (as people neglect to read):
- Guest comments are OFF due to commission spammers.
- Performance is bad. We’ve added 18,000 users in the last 26 hours, and expect to add at least another 10,000 over the course of the weekend.
- SquidgeWorld will be down for probably 4 hours during our regular maintenance window, which starts Sunday, November 1st at 7am Pacific. This is to add in some power for the server.
Now a few final words.
- Thank you to everyone who has donated to Squidge since the AO3 downtime started. Well, thank you everyone who has donated. There was a bad link for the donation, but it has been fixed. If you’re curious, you can get information at this link, or simply donate via PayPal by sending a donation to the email address donation@squidge.org
- Speaking of bad links, there may be some links that aren’t working due to whatever reason. We’ll clean these up as they are reported.
- With regards to Image Hosting: If you already have an account, there’s no need to worry. If you do NOT have an account and want one, you must sign up by November 1st, 2026 at 02:00 (during the 10pm to 2am window). We will need to stop creating accounts during this massive upheaval for load balancing. People who have accounts do not need to worry; you can still upload as you wish. But people without accounts will not be able to sign up until things on our network stabilize. Probably December.
- We will be going back to an invitation queue starting on Sunday, November 1st, 2026 after maintenance.
Questions? Let us know.
