[ SECRET POST #6014 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6014 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.
[20 Minutes Until Dawn]























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 44 secrets from Secret Submission Post #860.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/M9XOeKH.png

[(Anonymous)]

I have a very short list of things I will auto-block for. Anti-AO3 is one of them.

[(Anonymous)]

AO3 is shit though

[(Anonymous)]

ok. enjoy wattpad.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sincerely asking, what makes AO3 suck for you? And what other site would you recommend?

FF.net is where I used to go, but most of my fandoms are active on AO3.
Wattpad is cute for the "book covers"/image you can add for your stories and the interactive reader bits. But most of what I've found there is probably akin to things I wrote in middle school or my high school days. It's for the youth really.

And Tumblr is too scattered and messy I am constantly switching between this user and that user and this and that.

Old journals and fandom specific archives aren't active like they were ten, fifteen years ago. So what's the issue with AO3 and what alternative would you suggest? I ask sincerely, I don't think you're trolling.

[(Anonymous)]

The tagging sucks. I find it hard to find fics with all the crossovers dumped into the same category as the non crossover fics, and I still don't know how to search without having to try and remember how their weird search engine works. It seems like you have to know coding to know what to put in the search box to get results, and even then they are not great because of the tagging issues.

And the way its fans can't seem to speak well of it without first taking the time to trash any other fan fiction repository. That is never a good look.

[(Anonymous)]

There is an exclude crossovers option under more options in the sort and filter sidebar.

[(Anonymous)]

AO3 sucks because you can't figure out how to click a button? Because you can't be bothered to read the guide they give if you want to use search operators that can't fit in a nice side bar? That sounds like a YOU problem, not an AO3 problem.

[(Anonymous)]

What do you mean by "anti-AO3 shit"?

I feel like my response is highly dependent on what exactly we mean by "anti-AO3 shit".

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure there are reasonable criticisms to be had of AO3, but the ones I see most are "how dare they refuse to censor ships I think are problematic" and "how dare they require funds to continue operation", which is... not the reasonable criticism you are looking for, friendo!

[(Anonymous)]

+ How dare they not let me monetise what I post on their volunteer-maintained platform.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure there are reasonable criticisms to be had of AO3,

Yes. There are.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Well.... we're waiting....

[(Anonymous)]

Well, basically, there are a bunch of problems with AO3 and OTW that OTW has been chronically unable to address in a timely manner for structural and organizational culture reasons, and I think that's bad.

Some of those are problems with the way that AO3 operates as a fanfic archive. For example, the lack of a system for canonizing freeform tags - that's a huge issue for AO3's usability as an archive, it's been a problem for I don't remember exactly how long but I think at least 5 years, and it's taken forever to address it in a meaningful way (and the problem isn't a lack of resources or manpower, because there's a ton of manpower for tag-wrangling). Other things are more organizational - for instance, there's a chronic deficiency in resources, support and outreach for non-English language volunteers and users. And there's a really troubling lack of safeguards and abuse protections for volunteers, and an absence of things like dispute resolution and conflict management resources, or people to basically serve an HR function, and an internal tendency to treat issues that do arise as fandom power struggles. And that's all really bad for volunteers and ultimately for the site and the organization.

So it's things like that, where there are real problems with the way that OTW operates, and the existing organizational structure has been extraordinarily slow and deficient at addressing them. And then people just circle the wagons, regardless of what criticisms people are actually making, and act like that the only people who criticize AO3/OTW are antis who dislike age gap ships, or whatever.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean I have criticisms of how the site works and how long it takes them to implement things, but it would an incredibly massive stretch to say I hate the site. It's a website, I have no emotions towards it whatsoever other than it being a place I read and post fanfic. I find anyone caring either way to be very odd tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

As a fanfic reader who read fanfic for many years prior to AO3's existence, I have a lot of feelings--mainly respect and immense gratitude--towards AO3, for improving my fanfic reading (and writing) experience exponentially. It would be 'very odd' if I didn't feel gratitude for a site that improved my experience of my favorite pastime as much as AO3 has done.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000 I have a feeling most of the people who say that AO3 sucks have either never been in fandom without it or are antis.

[(Anonymous)]

+2000

A lot of people are just buttmad that AO3 won't censor content that they deem problematic in some way.

[(Anonymous)]

Original anon.

Nowhere did I say the website sucked, because it doesn't, some of it's functions could be a bit better but that's all. But thank you for having the usual knee-jerk reaction you Ao3 stans have when someone offers some of the most luke-warm crit of this website.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of then like other fan fiction websites more. Which is fine. But some of them are militant and/or self-absorbed about it, and insist that AO3 is “objectively” worse than their favorite site because they don’t personally like some of AO3’s aesthetics as much as the others. I remember there was one argument some months ago between someone who insisted FFN was better than AO3, and someone arguing the opposite. Others joined in at some point, so I thought I’d do the same, and respond to one of the FFN fan’s posts that both sites have pros and cons, and nobody is objectively right or wrong here. They said “AO3 isn’t going to fuck you”. It was partly my fault for forgetting to put NAYRT or DA to indicate that I wasn’t the one arguing that AO3 was objectively better than FFN. But considering my response was saying both have good and bad points, that still stands out to me as a nonsensical and stupid thing for them to say. And to add insult to injury, some others responded to that person’s “sick burn” with things like “I loled”. And that was after I clarified that I was a completely different person than the one who has been arguing with them.

[(Anonymous)]

I find extreme haters of this website also very odd if that makes you feel better? Which was my point: anyone getting overly emotional over a fanfic archive, especially if they're going to have angry internet fights for or against it, really need to get off the internet for a bit.

It's just a website, it's not life or death.

[(Anonymous)]

People are happy to criticize AO3, but none of them wants to put in the elbow grease to start up their own fanfiction site.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't want another fanfic site. I think AO3 is good, and I want it to be better.

[(Anonymous)]

DA Yes, and I would not block someone who said that, because that's not an anti-AO3 opinion. There are a lot of things that are not good about AO3 and the part about how they work with volunteers is a big issue right now. But that's a "I love you, do better" response, not an anti response.

[(Anonymous)]

I want there to be another fanfic site so that people can happily monetize their fics on them, while everyone else watches to see how long it takes for someone or the whole site to be sued.

But in all serious, maybe its me being paranoid but I don't like the idea of everything just being on one website. Like, I know that probably sounds bonkers because I actually like AO3 too - but maybe its because I've been online long enough to see sites closed or get hacked & wiped, that at least knowing there's a copy somewhere else than losing everything in one spot.
Also, as an alternatives for people who just hate AO3 with a passion can go elsewhere or whatever. And I think people do want that otherwise they wouldn't be posting fics in random places like Qoutev.