[ SECRET POST #6020 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6020 ⌋

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


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07. [SPOILERS for Good Omens season 2]




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08. [WARNING for discussion of sexual misconduct allegations]




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09. [WARNING for discussion of sexual assault]

































Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 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

[(Anonymous)]

Well again - what else should they have done as a protest that would be different?

Like, this is something that's entirely online, by definition. That's very different from most traditional protests. It seems to me like if your goal is to get people to think about problems with racism at AO3, then this protest is a reasonable way to get them to do that. IDK.

[(Anonymous)]

Again, it depends on what they're trying to achieve. If they just want attention, carry on. But just because it's online doesn't mean they should do whatever you want in spaces where people are just trying to enjoy themselves. It's the equivalent of standing up in every restaurant screaming about the inhumane treatment of cows because you believe the owner purchases their meat from a shady processing plant. Okay, I guess you've possibly made your point, but you're disrupting everyone's night and haven't really accomplished anything by doing so.

Being online doesn't limit their avenues of protest. They can bring up these concerns on other fandom message boards (or even the AO3 subreddit, official or not), or start their own blog speaking of the injustices that concern them. Or start their own fanfic site that's held to a better standard of preventing racism. They can bash AO3 all day long if they wish there! I'm aware that saying "they can always leave" will be taken in a racist way, but it's not meant that way, and it's always an option.

Now, it's entirely possible they have tried all of these routes and more first and it's been fruitless, so maybe this is their last resort. Reading the rest of the thread, however, I suspect that isn't the case.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

So all the alternatives boil down to "they just need to make their online protest less noticable to the people they want to reach"? Changing titles is a perfectly reasonable action when the issue is that many AO3 readers/writers may not be aware AO3 made a promise years ago that it hadn't (until after the campaign) made any updates about. There wasn't a critical mass of users asking for accountability, before this campaign, so changing fic titles - which will make some people go "men, skip" and some people "wait wtf is this" and look it up is actually useful.

It's the equivalent of blocking the highway during rush hour to bring attention to irl racism. It's disrupting people's fun in a relatively harmless way (in the online version, in a completely harmless way) to raise awareness that there's a problem.

Unlike going somewhere else, off AO3, to talk about problems with AO3, which would be a lot less useful in comparison. The difference between protesting in the town square and protesting quietly in your house.

[(Anonymous)]

Changing titles is a perfectly reasonable action when the issue is that many AO3 readers/writers may not be aware AO3 made a promise years ago that it hadn't (until after the campaign) made any updates about.

Please, do tell me how changing the names on old fics no-one is going to see unless they're actively searching for them or a frequent visitor to the author's profile is "raising awareness".

[(Anonymous)]

Do you actually write fics on ao3? Do you get daily kudos emails? Old fics that are at the top of various tags/categories can get more traffic than new fics in small fandoms. They’re also the fics ppl bookmark & come back to. Not that old fics were the only ones with changed titles, but every action has value. (The mere fact OP made this secret means they were stumbling on fics with changed titles often enough to notice)