[ SECRET POST #2473 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2473 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 012 secrets from Secret Submission Post #353.
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)]

but it is true. You think 3 years ago people though LJ would be dead? Geocities? myspace?

[reppu]

And yet fanfiction.net is still alive and kickin'...

[(Anonymous)]

(da)
FFnet is and old and well known site between people of many countries, it has a main admin who runs it as he likes and it also gets enough money from ads so as long as people access to the site, it'll live.

AO3... isn't as well know as its users likes to think, it only has an English speaking user base as it's not easy to use for people who doesn't speak English (and let's not talk how hard it's to find something in a specific language that is not English).
It's full of bureaucracy so changes and improvements are slow and the pretense of "listening to everyone" makes that worse; internal conflict can hurt it a lot as there is a board decided by elections and as soon as people lose interest and stop donating for it, it'll die.
It's also worth to remember that without tag wrangling volunteers, it's unnavigable.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not into the ff.net vs. AO3 debate because I like and use both, but I do not understand the issue that people have with the tags. I've never run into this as a problem in any of the fandoms that I read there.

[(Anonymous)]

When there isn't a tag wrangler assigned to a fandom it becomes impossible to navigate (misspelled tags, four different tags [not wrangled] for the same character, etc.). That's all.

[(Anonymous)]

There is language selection on the sidebar.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, and shows ALL THE LANGUAGES IN THE LANGUAGE LIST OF THE SITE. Which also means it doesn't hint AT ALL if there are fic in an specific language in that fandom.

Sure, I can try to see if there are fic in Italian (or some other language), but doing that for all the fandoms I'm in just to discover there isn't anything is annoying.

[reppu]

AO3 is really just one part of OTW. Its life and success depend on volunteers yes, but what's so wrong with a democratically elected board and people who willingly and freely give of their time? I volunteer with them myself, so I have no idea what you mean about changes and improvements being slow. It's volunteer based, so it's done when people have time, you know, outside of their jobs and real life commitments. Would you rather they sell out and have ads everywhere? Quite frankly, I like the idea of it being run by fans. I give back because I want others to enjoy the site as much as I do.

Also, considering that it's growing by leaps and bounds every year, I'm not worried about that aspect either. The idea isn't to be more popular than ff.net; there's no reason the two can't coexist. But I like that when I have a question, someone listens and answers, and if I have a problem with the website, someone's there to test it out. AO3 is, in and of itself, a community. It has issues, just like any site, but it's constantly working toward solving them. Tag wrangling, though it is a tough and often thankless job, allows writers and fandoms to express themselves without running to the support team and constantly asking for new tags.

Not everything is a battle or a competition. Can't we just enjoy both sites and the fanfic/fandoms they host? Isn't that the most important thing?

[(Anonymous)]

The fact it has been in Beta for years?

Let's be honest: having a board and all sounds wonderful but without a clear goal to work in, nothing gets done or if something gets done at all, is at a extremely slow pace not because RL but because there's not agreement or communication between volunteers/committees/etc.

The other issue is that since it depends completely on the interest of volunteers, if someday there aren't enough people willing to do so is... what will happen? In some fandoms it's already obvious there aren't enough wranglers (and I understand why, it really is a thankless job) and the issues that causes.

Also, my experience has been very different. All the times I have had a question or a issue or when there have been a feedback request, I had always got a very nice answer that... doesn't help at all.
And feedback is always answered in such a way that sounds like they already decided everything and all feedback that isn't praise will be ignored... that's one of the reasons I fear the next category change, TBH.

I also disagree with the argument of "writers expressing themselves freely".
Is misspelling a character name really a way to express themselves? Is tagging the same characters by first name, last name, full name and nickname really a good way to express themselves? As I see, it only creates more work for volunteers while making harder to find something if there isn't a volunteer ready to wrangle it.
There's also the issue that when a wrangler isn't in a fandom, they can make a misspelled name the canonical tag. I have seen that happen more that once and while it's easy to send a message so it gets fixed, that also means a tag wrangler can end doing twice the same thing. Because apparently "freedom" is more important that making thing easier for volunteers and readers who want to find something even if there isn't a wrangler always in a fandom.

Freeform tags are great, though.

I agree it isn't a competition and I like and use both for different reasons.
Even so, just like I can see FFnet despairing if there are even legal issues with fanfiction as a whole (it's a business, after all, they won't fight unless they think they'll win), I can't see AO3 existing for many years for all the issues I already mentioned and I can't think of it as the wonderful site many say it is.

[(Anonymous)]

LJ ISN'T dead, tyvm.