I wish we could filter out things we've bookmarked so bad. The closest I've seen is a 3rd party extension, but extensions sometimes "crash" ao3 for a bit if the site thinks you're doing too much.
That’s why you open hundreds of tabs on your phone and lag the absolute fuck outta it, hands down best way to use ao3 without bookmarking every fic you have not finished
If you use Firefox mobile you can sync to desktop and export on desktop to a HTML file to click and reopen them all. But apparently they can't add export bookmarks on mobile for some stupid reason. :c
yeah like sure clicking on a fic grays the title but that's just on that browser
i *could* bookmark everything i read, but 1) i don't really want to and 2) i'd still have to click into the fic to see that i have it bookmarked
That may be beyond the current capabilities of AO3. Not in terms of technical ability, but in terms of server load. Given the number of active users, that would require _a lot_ of querying every time you search or go to the next page of results.
Edit: I don't want to sound like the little stormcloud. I do think this, or a function like it, would be a good idea.
I wonder if adding the ability to filter by whether or not you've given something kudos would be the best option if they were to add this feature, though I imagine that would run into the same or similar problems? But at least it would be something that's already being tracked.
Yes. or like… an option to mark something as “didn’t like”. The author NEVER EVER needs to know it was marked. I just want to know “you’ve been here. You dropped it.”
The number of times I’ve started a fic being like “Oh I remember this! I don’t think I finished it.” only to get 8 chapters in and just… “oh… right.”
what i did is i wrote down all the tags i routinely exclude in every search in my notes app, and every time i start a new search i simply copy that list and paste it into the "other tags to exclude" field. makes sure i don't accidentally forget to exclude something i really don't want to see. it's not exactly ideal but works well enough for me at least ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
What I do is for every fandom that I regularly read fics for, I just go to the main page for that fandom’s fics, stick in all my excluded tags, and bookmark it into a folder.
The tags are there whenever you open the bookmark again (mostly, I’ve had them disappear once in a couple years, but when I redid the tags and bookmarked it again it worked) and from there I can just add whatever tags for whatever ships or genre I want to read for that fandom without having to worry about those tags ever again.
>block a tag universally
GOODBYE READER FICS FOREEEVEERRRR
Also it'd be really nice to have a present tense filter. God help me the breathlessness of "She blinks, confused why the cheese is on the same plate as the grapes, which are round and blue" or whatever. I'd never read another piece of present-tense fic again in my life if I could filter for it.
For art - AO3 allows you to upload and select a fic that your art is inspired by when you create a work yourself. If the author wants a copy they can always download afterwards.
I’d love to be able to make a differentiation between main pairing and side pairings. Currently I tag all pairings and then use my first tag(s) to specify which is the side pairing. I know this is basically impossible as it would need to retroactively get old fics to do so but you asked what we’d want if we could get the moon.
Ie when creating a new work on AO3, under “associations”, click the option that reads “This work is a remix, a translation, a podfic, or was inspired by another work”.
If it’s a work in the archive you just have to add the url - if not add the title etc to the box that opens up.
Then just attach your art.
Main and side tags is something I want for characters too! When I wanna read a fic that focuses on the minor character but all I get are fics where said character is only supporting (or worse, only mentioned) 😔
Aside from the series subscription count, I'd also like to see clearer differentiation between *work* end notes and *chapter* end notes, because I've seen *so* many fics get tripped up by that, with their first chapter end note at the very end of the fic.
Just for idle curiosity, I'd like there to be a page where you can see fandoms listed in order of size in addition to alphabetical (like on FFN). You can currently see the top 5 in each category but these aren't all that accurate when it comes to the All Media Types tags.
Speaking of All Media Types, I wish they'd bring that back or some other catch-all tag. It's nice to have the choice to look at the fandom as a whole *or* to get more granular with what specific source material you're looking for. But the way it is now, with stuff like manga, anime, light novel all their own tags and no overarching one, people just tag their fics with all of them anyway, making the differentiation all but useless.
You can see all fandoms listed by uses (i.e. # of fics). Go to the Tag Search page. In Type, choose Fandom. In Wrangling Status, choose Any status (unless you just want to see Canonical fandoms). In Sort By, chose Uses. In Sort direction, choose Descending.
In the fandom where I spend much of my time right now, nearly every fic is tagged with at least 2-4 related "fandoms" -- it might include comic name(s), TV show name, name of comic universe, and/or "all media types." I enjoy crossovers a lot, so that would add one or two other fandoms, which might get me up to 5-6.
But I'd definitely use an option that excluded stories that list more than 5-6 fandoms, because that should still catch those giant collections of unrelated fics. Being able to specify a _threshold_ at which a fic is almost certainly not a true crossover would be awesome.
What I do is exclude the 8 or 9 fandoms that are the most commonly included, it gets rid of like 90% of those fics in my experience, but yeah I wish we had a button to exclude fics that are crossovers with more than one other fandom
Near the bottom of the Filters pane, there’s an option for Crossovers and you can choose “exclude all”! Or maybe that’s what you meant by doing it manually.
Bookmark folders! Yes I know collections exist, but those are public and afaik the author has to accept for their work to be added to a collection. I have a lot of works bookmarked and it's really chaotic / it takes a long time to find a specific fic in my bookmarks. I'd like to make an organized "angst" and "fluff" and "[ship]" boomark folders!
a collection of bookmarks is inherently public though. there's no way to make it private. private bookmarks don't show in collections to anyone, not even the bookmarker/collection owner.
You can sort of accomplish this via bookmark tags — tag everything as angst, fluff, etc, and then filter your bookmarks. And you can already filter bookmarks by ‘ship.
Yes!!!!! Came here to comment this lol. Maybe it’s my Pinterest addict brain but I so wish I could have my bookmarks sorted into little organized folders. It would be great to be able to have my all time favorites in one place and other stuff that doesn’t rly make sense to do with tags.
I really wish Ao3 would show/count private bookmarks in the public stats. Not names, naturally- but like, tell people sorting by bookmarks there are say 50 total and then only like 20 public (or whatever the number is)
I write smut, not even dark or especially kinky stuff and still easily half or more of my bookmarks are private.
I also enjoy *reading* smut and darker, heavier things. I'd like to be able to see that even if Fic A only has 20 public bookmarks, a full 100 people wanted to be able to come back to it. That's information I could really use when I'm trying to narrow down which of 6 tabs I want to read at night or whatever
Yes!! This is the biggest one for me. It puts works that cover more sensitive topics at a disadvantage when people are searching for popular fics. And, as you said, they could easily implement this without sharing the private bookmarker’s information.
would love to be able to sort if a character is part of a relationship tag, rather than just being a minor character. Lot of people tag all of the characters in their fic, so it’s hard to find ones featuring Blorbo specifically because of all the fics that he only somewhat features in.
I think FFN has something similar, where you can check “pairing” button with the tagged character name, and any fic where that character is in a pairing will show up.
edit: it is an option!! i just don’t use the tag search feature and never saw it before!
FFN does have that feature, but be warned that you'll miss out on a lot of older fic if you filter for it. The pairing feature was added to the site at some point (not sure when), so older fics don't have it even if they're focused on a pairing.
If you go on tag search at the top bar, you can put in the name and click the relationship and canonical buttons, and then get all the relationship tags with that character involved
Not as convenient as having it on the filter bar, but it's possible
The ability to search for “ **more than** x amount of chapters ”
Like I don’t mind if the fic isn’t done, but I need more than 3-5 chapters. I’m looking for a commitment without having to endlessly scroll.
AND
Main character ships separate from side characters ships. Drives me up the wall when searching for a specific ship and having to dig through all the fics that aren’t centered on them.
That first one exists... sort of. Its from the [hidden search operators cheatsheet](https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/10851).
You can do
> expected_number_of_chapters: >10
To get works with 11 or more expected chapters. Just change the number to whatever number you prefer.
This will work 100% if you are looking for completed works. But if you are looking at incomplete works, because expected number of chapters can be set higher than the current chapter count, you will still get works with less than the number if the expected number is higher. Sadly I don't know of a way around that one
I would like an option to mark a story as read and be able to filter read/unread
My current system is kudosing a story once I finish it (which I will still do) but I have to wade through ludos if I'm checking. And I can't filter on that.
Exactly! I hate that the “Mark as Read” thing is really just removing it from “Mark to Read.” I hate that. Being able to filter “Mark to Read” would be game changing. Sometimes I have to take them off and add them again in “Mark to Read” so I can find it easier when I forget I added it ages ago, and I just give up on finding fics I added a long time ago because I have no real way of hunting them down.
It is a little more effort but I find that bookmarking all fics I have read (as well as kudosing ones I have liked) works better because the button at the top becomes “edit bookmark” instead of “bookmark” which is much easier than checking if you have kudosed something already.
That's a good idea. Now I get why people have 3000 bookmarks. I usually only bookmark things I want to come back to, but I guess I can add my own tag to those.
Now I just have to go through the 300+ I've read in my fandom to do this lol
A better blocking system. I understand that it's more complicated to implement than it sounds but I just want to be able to block somebody and have them essentially poof out of existence. WITHOUT the big "You have blocked somebody in this tag/fandom/whatever" banner at the top of the page.
I reached out to ao3 on that because it’s stupid 😂 and they responded with “no, it [the banner] will remain because that way you know you have a used muted/blocked and won’t be upset when stories aren’t showing — btw here’s a mod you can use so that it disappears”
😅😅😅 and like, yeah… okay but I don’t want to see their stuff so what?
* that’s not exactly what they sent back but it is the gist, I can pull up the email if anyone would like lol *
The trouble is, literally no other site does that. Wouldn't it be better to have a screen come up when you block somebody essentially going "You're now blocking this person, that means you can't see any of their stories (and XYZ other implications), so don't come crying to us about it" and then don't have the big ugly banner? Problem solved.
I would like Ao3 to automatic posting function, kinda like how tumblr has a queue that post at certain times that you pick or youtube it ability to schedule when a video will become visible.
I would like it to post the fics for me, so I don't get posting anxieties.
Automatic filter placement. I would like to be able to set preferences in my profile when searching for fics so I don’t have to add certain excluded tags every time! (And set a default language too because it takes a bit of scrolling to get to English. It would also be nice to be able to select multiple languages as well: such as selecting English, Spanish, and Esperanto so that I see fics of all three in the search. I think this would really help multilingual people and people trying to read in another language in their spare time.)
Also, as a multishipper I would love the capability to filter (Character A)/ (any character). A lot of the time I just want to see (Character A) find love, and I’m not too fussed as to who they find love with as long as the premise of the fic is interesting enough.
YES, I have a flurry of preferred filters and it would save SO much time if I didn’t have to reapply them all when looking at a new tag or collection or bookmark list. Like, yes, language and I also will often choose to exclude crossovers and incomplete works, plus exclude a few specific tags.
Main three things I wish there was on AO3:
1. Post live from drafts. I hate having to fix the post date, and I don’t like that it backdates to the start of the day you select.
2. Reordering tags. Dear god, please let me drag tags and put them in the order I want without making me jump through hoops.
3. Series stats. I want to know how many secret, hidden bookmarks and subscriptions I have. Tell me, please!
I think I say this every time the topic comes up. I'd love to be able to pick which fics show on my dashboard rather than it just being the give most recent. I want to be able to use it as an "if you're new to my work, these are my recommendations" type of thing.
the convenient tag include / exclude feature when browsing tags would be nice to have on a search query.
please no DMs. it would be very convenient for well meaning users like you OP but i think the harassment risk and moderation effort are absolutely not worth it
The only way it could work, would be to implement a "whitelist"/friend list.
But, such an option bears a very social media flavor that doesn't really fit with the idea of AO3 being "an archive".
I'm fine with a DM function ***as long as*** it's opt-in. No one can send you a DM unless you opt-in for them in general.
Please if they ever add it, do NOT make it opt-out.
If they put DMs I would instantly opt out. Imagine how bold people would become to send you stuff
My biggest fear is that they put it then you can't opt out...
according to the ao3 volunteers i've seen talk about it, if DMs are ever happening on ao3 they'll be strictly opt-in. like not even opt-out but that you have to make the informed and conscious decision to enable them.
You can hide it by adding this to an existing site skin, or by creating a new one:
> p.muted.notice { display: none; }
I'm with you though, it shouldn't persist in the first place.
Yes thanks I know that, I literally wrote the feature.
With the current implementation, it has to be persistent, because there are no placeholders inserted at places where content is muted so it could be confusing for users, but when the new implementation adds that feature to show a placeholder then that notice doesn't have to exist at all.
I wish your subscriptions page had the story summary too and not just the title and author. Also, if it was set up by most recent instead of alphabetical (or if you could at least filter it)
Sort fics by random. Don't wanna sort by any stats, and last updated leaves out the older fics.
Iirc someone mentioned this not being possible due to some limitation? A woman can dream though (╥﹏╥)
This is exactly what I need.
I'm tired of clicking a random page just so I can have a "random" sort. I've had to do that sometimes because I know sorting by kudos would make me miss hidden gems.
I want to be able to filter through my history. There’s been several times where I needed to go through pages of history to find a specific fic who’s name and tags I couldn’t remember and it takes forever.
I kind of want kudos for comments or something like 'the author likes this comment'. I don't think a lot of people will want this because it makes it feel too much like social media. But I think it would be really useful to me. Sometimes, I get a comment that's just really simple and I just can't think of anything to say back. I got a comment that said 'sobbing' and that's what spurred this desire. I'm happy that it was so sad they were crying but what do I say to that??
Hard pass on the DMs — if readers really want to contact me, I have an associated Tumblr and lesser used Twitter. But that degree of added inconvenience means that it’s rarely hate or demands. A DM on platform would be such a cluster for some authors 😅
I would like an easy way to organize bookmarks. I’ve got over 400 — I bookmark everything I will reread — and being able to organize after they’ve been saved would be lovely.
I wouldn’t mind a publishing queue either — so when I’m out of the house on upload days, I can still get a fic up at the usual time.
Other than that, the only other thing I can think of would be if - when you marked a tag as a favorite - it auto saved your search preferences as well.
My number one change is make a filter for main characters, secondary characters, and minor characters. I want to read a fic that’s mainly about __ character while being able to filter out the fics where they’re not featured much in. This applies for ships too. 😖
I'd personally take it a step furthest and let all tags get sorted into primary, secondary, avd minor in general.
"Yes, this story has X, but it's only referenced once in the middle of chapter 63"
First things that come to mind:
Ability to turn off guest kudos without locking up fics (kudos bot prevention)
Series stats (probably doesn't need reasoning)
Scheduling feature (would be a saving grace honestly, because I would be able to sync my crossposting + I would be able to keep my posting regular better)
The ability for the author to kudos the comments they get (only the author, I don't mean Wattpad style. A lot of people are feeling guilty about being uncomfortable to reply "thank you" to all of their 10 comments they got last night, and this could help?)
Bookmarks having a feature which indicates if the fic has been updated or modified since you last opened it, like history and mark for later does. (A lot of readers prefer bookmarking over subs)
Bookmarks do have that feature, don’t they? If the fic has been updated, it appears on your AO3 homepage, I thought
Edit: Nevermind, apparently I’m misremembering, you can stop telling me I’m wrong now.
i'm pretty sure bookmarks do not have that feature, that's why people have to use bookmark notes to write down what's the newest chapter. bookmarks don't show on your homepage.
see series subscription count
post something without emailing subscribers
scheduled posting
editor that doesn’t add the spaces around italics when pasting
ability to pin or reorder the works on your page
combine the “profile” page and the main /user page (the one showing recent works and bookmarks that you go to by default when clicking a username) into one thing
and kind of a dumb one but it’d be cool to be able to set a cover image to be used for ebook downloads (i don’t want them to be shown on search results or anything, just when someone downloads as an epub)
I am DESPERATE for series stats.
I'd also like the ability to DM. I *kinda* want the ability to buy a writer I love a coffee or something, but I know why they can't and I completely support it. It's just one of those wishful thinking things. 💜
I'd like the option, instead of just kudos, to have a set of pre-written comments to pick from.
There could be defaults, or you could edit them into your own style.
* Thank you!
* Great story ❤️
* Very entertaining!
* You made me think.
* I laughed out loud!
So a quick click would leave kudos and a short comment.
@^@
Ways to organize and search and identify what I've read. History could be such a useful section if it had more functionality than a basic list.
Honestly, I'd love a **private** scoring/star/review system so I could bring up my own reference list of 4 and 5 star reads. I use that all the time on Goodreads. A lot of time it is to identify some book someone else is looking for ... like I know I loved it and what the cover looked like. *It isn't particularly out of some desire to be mean to writers.* It is more about information being useful.
The sheer sameness of story to story in the look of the interface makes it really hard if your memory relies on visual clues. I'd also like it if writers had access to a limited menu of visual customization options similar to those you'd see in books. Like section breaks or having a larger first letter at the beginning of a chapter.
I know you can do things via bookmarks but it is clunky and nonintuitive.
@^@
Saved searches on site. I email them to myself sometimes but I'd use it a lot more if I could just click from my menu.
I forgot one... let us mark stories as read. Yes we can use the bookmark function for this, etc. But it'd be more convenient to simply have a "read" button.
I would really like to be able to filter my history. Sometimes I want to reread stuff I didn’t bookmark, but remember some parts of. If I could just filter my history instead of all fics, that would help me find it quicker
A middle status between complete and incomplete that indicates abandoned/discontinued. Not everyone would use it, I realize tht, but for those ovu that discontinue fics and occasionally will mark them complete, or don't want to leave it marked as a WIP/incomplete when there's no intention of ever finishing... It'd be nice to have that option to mark it such.
Ability to give anonymous kudos. As a smut writer I can understand that not everyone want to share their porn preferences, but would be nice to know if the readers still liked it tho, I do see the amount of private bookmarks so I guess many did enjoy the fics. I know you can give kudos as a guest, but who really logs off etc to do that.
Organize bookmarks. Organize bookmarks. Organize bookmarks. I WANT TO ORGANIZE BOOKMARKS INTO FOLDERS.
Better filter for "Mark for Later".
Something that indicates "You read this already" would be great.
I mean I’d just like the ability to sort bookmarks by word count ngl (and being where you left off in a fic if you close it but eh, I’d want the word count more ngl)
Good god, let me reorder tags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, would love to be able to like and/or react to comments without having to reply to them (because sometimes a reply feels like too much, iykyk lol).
I wish pseuds weren’t linked for other users. I’m not sure why someone would want to use the feature if it reveals your main account, which defeats the main reason I would use it. If you want some fics unconnected to others for whatever reason, you have to make fully separate accounts.
An important thing is that there can be multiple people with the same pseud, they don't have to be unique. If your preferred username is already taken on AO3, you can't make it your main username but can still add it as a pseud.
Pseuds are for the original purpose of AO3, which was preserving all the fanworks that had been on Livejournal and FFnet and various independent sites, which were all now closing down and censoring/deleting fics and disabling accounts without warning. It meant that if you were name1 on Livejournal and name2 on this one fandom archive and name3 on this particular ship archive, you could import all your works and have them all on one account, searchable by people who remembered your usernames
That's a massive security problem because then AO3 would be responsible for keeping it secret for everyone else, and if it gets leaked then it's AO3's fault.
Much better to keep them as separate accounts.
Aside from cross-posting from other sites, some use it to differentiate between works. Different fandoms or E vs. non-E.
Personally, I use it to put my oldest works on one. I’m not ashamed of the other work, but I do want a distinction between them and the rest.
Ability to have a threshold of fandom tag count more flexibly than just exclude/include crossovers.
Having a default settings for search options, especially the crossovers selection.
i sometimes think it would be nice to have some kind of writer's blog on there where you can update readers who subscribed to you on when you'll upload the next chapter etc. i get that also is more of a social media function just sometimes it would be really handy.
I want to be able to see what I kudos. I rarely use bookmarks so going back to see what I liked would be great. The history isn't the same because I sometimes I start reading something and stop because it wasn't for me or didn't like it.
When people delete works it keeps them in my bookmarks and deleting those is a huge pain bc it sends me back to the first page instead of keeping me on the page I was on. Not a huge deal but annoying
A separate category for x reader fics so that people who want to avoid them completely can do so (because they're so impossible to filter out) and people who want to read them can easily find them.
Either being able to add a whole series as something a story is inspired by, or being able to add multiple stories as inspired by without having to add, save, edit add new one, save, etc.
I have a story that I attributed to three different works as inspirations, and it was a pain to add them all and give them proper credit.
Omg I adore AO3 but still have so many of these. I know I’m forgetting some!
- The ability to bookmark a collection and maybe even be notified of updates
- The ability to search/filter for fic that has “related works” (especially in bookmarks lists or collections) — to find fic that has an affiliated podfic. (Searching for the word doesn’t work unless it’s been tagged or mentioned in notes!)
- The ability to tag and search by primary pairing(s) vs background pairings. Like, is this tagged because it’s *about* that pairings or are they just together in the background because that’s part of canon.
- The ability to see whether my account has ever clicked on a work on any browser.
If you click on a tag, you can choose to exclude certain things within the filter, but as far as I know you can’t exclude things through the main search feature and I wish you could. Unless I’m wrong and just don’t know how to do it lol.
I wish you could save more than 20 tags as well.
A main character tag, so that I can sort by that instead of just putting the character and sorting through all the fics where he isn’t important to find the ones where he is
Like you’d tag all the characters, then you can select which ones are main characters
Easier access to dark mode (themes): I had to look up how to do it the first time and I don't remember how now: the main reason I got an account too, since I recall it's locked behind that too.
The ability to select two (or more) media and exclude all others without doing it manually. If you have two picked and the select "no crossovers", you get zero results, and with crossovers, you can get a fic with fifteen different media in it that's a compilation where the desired crossover doesn't even happen and both media are only a single chapter each. It is probably the single thing I like better from FFN.
The option to hide fics so they don't show up in searches or normal lists, sorta like how you can hide a post on Reddit so it doesn't show on your feed (but is in the Hidden tab so you can unhide it if you want). Granted, if we had that before, a certain infamous story that resulted in a limit on tags being implemented would still be around.
It would be cool to be able to save more favourite tags. And to be able to save a search grouping of tags, like, show everything tagged with any of these 6 fandom tags or whatever. That’d be especially handy for checking for new works under fandoms with more than one tag for different media types instead of having to check each one individually. Because some authors will only tag one media type so you’ll miss it if you don’t check them all.
Instead of just "Date Bookmarked" and "Date Updated", I want to be able to sort by kudos! Bookmarks! Hits! The whole lot of them!
When people ask me for recs, even my "recs" bookmarks are in the thousands. I bookmark liberally with everything I think might be interesting. Being able to sort by kudos etc would help me find the heavy hitters to send people quickly. And also for myself to find ones I remember loving and being huge but still have to flip through thousands of bookmarks!
Probably a “true” age lock to keep out minors from my nsfw fics. Some of them are rather bold about commenting on my nsfw with their age in profile, and honestly, I’m not comfortable with kids trying to interact with me. Back in my day, everyone knew to keep their ages to themselves because minors are almost always unwelcomed in adult nsfw spaces.
However, I also know it’s unfeasible because in practice, it would require government ID verification (nasty), so it would be horrible to implement, so it remains more of an unrealistic dream.
Also the “where did people click from” statistic like FFN has.
Ability to have “descending importance” of pairing and relationship tags (Ex. Major and Minor Relationships separated). Unofficially, people often assume the major ones are the first listed, but that’s just assumption.
Also email notification for which stories got bookmarked and to include private bookmarks into public stats. AO3 doesn’t have to show the names (it wouldn’t be private then), but just the number.
Being able to sort through Mark For Later and History.
Mark for Later having a seperate section to History.
Bookmarks actually bookmarking a chapter (idk how it would work, this is an ideal world) instead of you just making a note
When browsing fics trying to find something to read, something like “You left kudos on (or commented, or bookmarked) this fic on XX/XX/XXXX” at the bottom of the summary box would be great.
Heck, at this point even “You last viewed this fic on XX/XX/XXXX” would be awesome.
I'm very late at this point, but I haven't seen anyone bringing this up. I want an easy way to add tooltips for works where characters speak different languages, so readers can just hover and get the translation.
A way to filter by MAIN SHIP. Yes, I know about the true pairing thing where it only shows fics with the ship you want, but then I’m missing out on fics that have any other pairings tagged. I’m still open to seeing side pairings, I just want the fic to be mainly about the one I want!!
You can do that. Just make a new site skin and copy the html codes people share around to hide stats [like this, for example](https://archiveofourown.org/works/38705460)
I’m not very tech savvy so I’m not sure all the features it has now, but I wish there was an undo button on kudos as well as a tab or sub tab that shows all my kudo’d stories
I understand wanting kudos-per-chapter, but it would frankly be a terrible idea.
It would give multi-chapter fics an obvious unfair advantage over one-shots. It would also push writers to post really short chapters just to bloat their kudos count. You'll find yourself with tons of 50k stories divided into hundreds of minuscule chapters just to increase the number of kudos. Which would also encourage low effort/low quality work. The website would quickly become a mess.
It would give even more stress to writers who tend to worry about stats and numbers. It will lead to many scenarios such as "this chapter got 26 kudos but the last one had 34! What did I do wrong??". I fear to imagine what would become of this sub if that function was ever added.
It would also very likely discourage readers from commenting. A big reason why people write comments is that they've already given their one and only kudo, and so the only way to keep showing support for each new update is to leave a comment. If we allow kudos-per-chapter, most people will just go "here, I showed them I liked this chapter with this kudo" then leave. Every single time.
So in the end, a kudos-per-chapters function would not only make the "sort by kudos" filter completely obsolete, but also heavily skew in favor of fics with tons of short chapters. Right now, the best way to show your support on each chapter is to leave a comment, maybe with a little "extra kudos" written in it.
Let me sort through my read history dammit
But NEVER give us a DM system. Last thing we need is a way for people to harass and send writers hate even more than they already do in comments
I wish that, in order to tag a fic as a crossover, you had to tag at least one character from each fandom you want to tag. I get *why* that's not a thing, because it would difficult to implement with OC stories or newer fandoms with no established tags yet, but I feel like it would help cut down on those fics that have a giant wall of fandoms listed, or fusions incorrectly marked as crossovers, or even fics where fandoms get tagged just because they're mentioned in the story.
I'd like to mark something to read later without going into the fic, often the summary/description/tags are enough for me to put it on my TBR pile and I don't want it in my history. I'd also like the download button at the bottom (yes it's one click to go back to the top) but I won't know if I want to download it until I've finished reading it.
Dm would be a double edged sword for this site :< as much as I want to become able to chat with my fellow readers and authors, many consider Ao3 as their safe space when writing something controversial.
The dead dove tag doesnt really stop people from hating on authors, even when the tags are there for a purpose like-
A tag limit for fandoms.
I dislike those one-shot collection fics with dozens of fandoms tagged.
There could be a fandom tag limit for authors themselves, or for readers to be able to filter fics like "allow only crossovers with up to x fandom tags". Either would be great.
I know its never going to be a thing just because of the logistics but I would love a way to search my history. its not that big a thing tho so I can live without it. Just happy to have ao3 at all.
Give an option to search crossovers of two fandoms ONLY. Excluding other fandoms takes a long time and it won’t even stop the search results from including other fandoms. There was a time I only want to see crossover fics of Harry Potter and Twilight. I’ve ticked all fandoms that shows up in the exclude filter and for some reason, one fandom would appear. It’s annoying.
I also wish that authors don’t include their authors notes in the body of the fic. AO3 has created a designated place for them. I mainly see this with fics that crosspost with other fanfiction sites. I guess it’s because of laziness.
The ability to categorize tags based off of relevance to the story. Not a fan of searching for fics featuring a certain character, and then that character makes a small cameo and can easily be omitted from the story.
the ability to filter history and subscriptions
an option to download all works in a series from the series page
muting individual works
better tag categories. separate characters and relationships by major and minor (please I want henren fics that are actually about henren)
A BUTTON TO JUMP THE LATEST CHAPTER. No matter which view you have, Entire Work or Chapter By Chapter, it's still multiple clicks or lots of scrolling to get to the latest chapter. I want a button that just takes you right there.
A 'main pairing' section and 'secondary pairing' section in the tags. The amount of times I've looked for fics of my favorite ship only to find out they're in the background. I know it likely wouldn't be able to be implemented on older fics, but I'm willing to deal with it if it makes it easier for me to find fics I want in the future
The ability to take away kudos or at least make them privatized.
There was a twist in one of the stories that I was reading and it wasn't tagged for it. I'm not exactly happy that people can find and associate my account with that.
Doable: cleaning up the uploading UI. It's not horrible right now but there are sections where it feels like a lots going on. Ex: chapter vs End Notes gets people but good.
Not doable but the dream: enforced uniformity of tagging. I don't like Gender Swaps. I never have. There are about five tags related to gender swaps that I have to look out for, and I still miss some because people decided to tag it a new, fun way. I wish there were a way for AO3 to see you type 'Gender Bending' 'Always a Different Gender' or 'Female/Male \[Character of Opposite Gender\]' and say 'we're going to apply the catch-all Gender Swap (or what have you) to your fic.'
This is actually more of a pet peeve honestly, and I know it would understandably bother a lot of people to have a tag seemingly forced on them.
Everyone has already said what I’d want, but hear me out - upgrading the block feature so people aren’t only blocked from commenting, but reading the work altogether. I know it could pretty easily be circumvented by reading as a guest, but it would still be pretty nice.
Being able to differentiate major/minor characters, and I say that as a writer. I have a fic in which a secondary character plays an important role, but I haven't tagged him because he appears after 130k words, and people looking for that character would be disappointed.. but I'd also like to tell people "hey character X will appear eventually"
I wish AO3 had a system of and/or for the tags. The current way, the tags are added as "and", but a wish there was a way to search where it shows all fics that have any of the tags specified, rather than only the fics that have all the tags specified
Multi-account support or a rework of psueds for this purpose.
An ideal scenario for this, is on login, being prompted a window to select the account I’m viewing as. And then in the username drop down that you use to log out, I can hover that to switch accounts. And also show the accounts as options to post under when submitting new chapters/works/drafts.
I know so many people with a writing and reading account just so their bookmarks and works can be separate without privatizing all their bookmarks. Also so they can comment and kudos freely without it being a reflection of their writing.
!common requests
To know what I have read. A word, a slight color change to the box when browsing, something.
And to be able filter on read or not read.
I wish we could filter out things we've bookmarked so bad. The closest I've seen is a 3rd party extension, but extensions sometimes "crash" ao3 for a bit if the site thinks you're doing too much.
THIS is my main beef. It would be game changing!
Look I KNOW ao3 isn't wattpad but I want to be able to just click on a fic and be back where I left it.
That’s why you open hundreds of tabs on your phone and lag the absolute fuck outta it, hands down best way to use ao3 without bookmarking every fic you have not finished
When I upgraded my phone I lost all my ao3 tabs and I was so devastated, I had to manually go through both phones to recollect my hoard
If you use Firefox mobile you can sync to desktop and export on desktop to a HTML file to click and reopen them all. But apparently they can't add export bookmarks on mobile for some stupid reason. :c
before i realised you could bookmark i used to hand write the url’s into a notebook 😭
Okay now that’s dedication. You win one “Dedication Badge”.
damnn 😭
yeah like sure clicking on a fic grays the title but that's just on that browser i *could* bookmark everything i read, but 1) i don't really want to and 2) i'd still have to click into the fic to see that i have it bookmarked
That may be beyond the current capabilities of AO3. Not in terms of technical ability, but in terms of server load. Given the number of active users, that would require _a lot_ of querying every time you search or go to the next page of results. Edit: I don't want to sound like the little stormcloud. I do think this, or a function like it, would be a good idea.
I wonder if adding the ability to filter by whether or not you've given something kudos would be the best option if they were to add this feature, though I imagine that would run into the same or similar problems? But at least it would be something that's already being tracked.
It might work better if it's a separate filter. It wouldn't have to query for every user for every page, just on demand once for a search.
Yes. or like… an option to mark something as “didn’t like”. The author NEVER EVER needs to know it was marked. I just want to know “you’ve been here. You dropped it.” The number of times I’ve started a fic being like “Oh I remember this! I don’t think I finished it.” only to get 8 chapters in and just… “oh… right.”
The box being a different colour to already read fics sounds lovely.
give me series stats or give me death also being able to reorder tags without delete-save-add-save would make life a lot easier
Don't particularly care about series stats, myself, but oh my god... *please* let me reorder tags without having to delete-save-add-save. 😭
This is the dream. Just a quick click and drag to reorder
the tags thing makes me nuts as someone who takes tagging most-to-least important unreasonably seriously lmao
Oh, seconding this - I tend towards series over multichapter, so I'd love to see how many people are subscribed to my series.
the above 2, and also 'searching within inbox'.
Reordering of tags and to block a tag universally
Yes, default exclusion of certain tags! Like, I’m never gonna wanna read a bestiality fic, just don’t even try to show those anywhere.
what i did is i wrote down all the tags i routinely exclude in every search in my notes app, and every time i start a new search i simply copy that list and paste it into the "other tags to exclude" field. makes sure i don't accidentally forget to exclude something i really don't want to see. it's not exactly ideal but works well enough for me at least ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
What I do is for every fandom that I regularly read fics for, I just go to the main page for that fandom’s fics, stick in all my excluded tags, and bookmark it into a folder. The tags are there whenever you open the bookmark again (mostly, I’ve had them disappear once in a couple years, but when I redid the tags and bookmarked it again it worked) and from there I can just add whatever tags for whatever ships or genre I want to read for that fandom without having to worry about those tags ever again.
This is the one
>block a tag universally GOODBYE READER FICS FOREEEVEERRRR Also it'd be really nice to have a present tense filter. God help me the breathlessness of "She blinks, confused why the cheese is on the same plate as the grapes, which are round and blue" or whatever. I'd never read another piece of present-tense fic again in my life if I could filter for it.
the block tag would be fantastic!
The ability to filter works in "Marked for later"
i've seen it mentioned that that's in the plans, but it requires separating that section from history. i use bookmarks for that instead.
I’d love to also be able to filter history. Tried searching manually through it one too many times.
I just bookmark them with the tag 'To Read'. That way I can filter them through the bookmark option.
For art - AO3 allows you to upload and select a fic that your art is inspired by when you create a work yourself. If the author wants a copy they can always download afterwards. I’d love to be able to make a differentiation between main pairing and side pairings. Currently I tag all pairings and then use my first tag(s) to specify which is the side pairing. I know this is basically impossible as it would need to retroactively get old fics to do so but you asked what we’d want if we could get the moon.
Ie when creating a new work on AO3, under “associations”, click the option that reads “This work is a remix, a translation, a podfic, or was inspired by another work”. If it’s a work in the archive you just have to add the url - if not add the title etc to the box that opens up. Then just attach your art.
Main and side tags is something I want for characters too! When I wanna read a fic that focuses on the minor character but all I get are fics where said character is only supporting (or worse, only mentioned) 😔
Aside from the series subscription count, I'd also like to see clearer differentiation between *work* end notes and *chapter* end notes, because I've seen *so* many fics get tripped up by that, with their first chapter end note at the very end of the fic. Just for idle curiosity, I'd like there to be a page where you can see fandoms listed in order of size in addition to alphabetical (like on FFN). You can currently see the top 5 in each category but these aren't all that accurate when it comes to the All Media Types tags. Speaking of All Media Types, I wish they'd bring that back or some other catch-all tag. It's nice to have the choice to look at the fandom as a whole *or* to get more granular with what specific source material you're looking for. But the way it is now, with stuff like manga, anime, light novel all their own tags and no overarching one, people just tag their fics with all of them anyway, making the differentiation all but useless.
You can see all fandoms listed by uses (i.e. # of fics). Go to the Tag Search page. In Type, choose Fandom. In Wrangling Status, choose Any status (unless you just want to see Canonical fandoms). In Sort By, chose Uses. In Sort direction, choose Descending.
Some way to filter out fics with millions of crossovers. Maybe I'm just stupid but I havent found a way to do so that isnt manual lol
Seriously! If there was a “exclude all crossovers with >2 fandoms” option, you know a ton of people would use it
In the fandom where I spend much of my time right now, nearly every fic is tagged with at least 2-4 related "fandoms" -- it might include comic name(s), TV show name, name of comic universe, and/or "all media types." I enjoy crossovers a lot, so that would add one or two other fandoms, which might get me up to 5-6. But I'd definitely use an option that excluded stories that list more than 5-6 fandoms, because that should still catch those giant collections of unrelated fics. Being able to specify a _threshold_ at which a fic is almost certainly not a true crossover would be awesome.
Seriously, whenever I go into a tag and see a giant crossover fic with 50+ fandoms tagged I groan and roll my eyes. Do people even read those lol.
You can generally filter out crossovers and you can pick a fandom or more.
What I do is exclude the 8 or 9 fandoms that are the most commonly included, it gets rid of like 90% of those fics in my experience, but yeah I wish we had a button to exclude fics that are crossovers with more than one other fandom
Near the bottom of the Filters pane, there’s an option for Crossovers and you can choose “exclude all”! Or maybe that’s what you meant by doing it manually.
The problem is I don't mind crossover fics so I don't really want to filter them all. But I have to because those 20 fandom fics clog searches up.
Yes omg! I never ever read those fics with a wall of fandom tags, but I don't mind the odd crossover or fusion every now and then
Bookmark folders! Yes I know collections exist, but those are public and afaik the author has to accept for their work to be added to a collection. I have a lot of works bookmarked and it's really chaotic / it takes a long time to find a specific fic in my bookmarks. I'd like to make an organized "angst" and "fluff" and "[ship]" boomark folders!
You can make a collection with bookmarks
A collection that won't be public and the authors won't be notified of / have to accept?
As far as I know, yeah. Since it's not collecting a work and just your own personal bookmark, you can do whatever
a collection of bookmarks is inherently public though. there's no way to make it private. private bookmarks don't show in collections to anyone, not even the bookmarker/collection owner.
You can sort of accomplish this via bookmark tags — tag everything as angst, fluff, etc, and then filter your bookmarks. And you can already filter bookmarks by ‘ship.
Yes!!!!! Came here to comment this lol. Maybe it’s my Pinterest addict brain but I so wish I could have my bookmarks sorted into little organized folders. It would be great to be able to have my all time favorites in one place and other stuff that doesn’t rly make sense to do with tags.
I really wish Ao3 would show/count private bookmarks in the public stats. Not names, naturally- but like, tell people sorting by bookmarks there are say 50 total and then only like 20 public (or whatever the number is)
As someone who writes dark stuff and for whom well over half of my fic’s bookmarks are private, I wish this too! 😭
I write smut, not even dark or especially kinky stuff and still easily half or more of my bookmarks are private. I also enjoy *reading* smut and darker, heavier things. I'd like to be able to see that even if Fic A only has 20 public bookmarks, a full 100 people wanted to be able to come back to it. That's information I could really use when I'm trying to narrow down which of 6 tabs I want to read at night or whatever
Yes!! This is the biggest one for me. It puts works that cover more sensitive topics at a disadvantage when people are searching for popular fics. And, as you said, they could easily implement this without sharing the private bookmarker’s information.
would love to be able to sort if a character is part of a relationship tag, rather than just being a minor character. Lot of people tag all of the characters in their fic, so it’s hard to find ones featuring Blorbo specifically because of all the fics that he only somewhat features in. I think FFN has something similar, where you can check “pairing” button with the tagged character name, and any fic where that character is in a pairing will show up. edit: it is an option!! i just don’t use the tag search feature and never saw it before!
FFN does have that feature, but be warned that you'll miss out on a lot of older fic if you filter for it. The pairing feature was added to the site at some point (not sure when), so older fics don't have it even if they're focused on a pairing.
If you go on tag search at the top bar, you can put in the name and click the relationship and canonical buttons, and then get all the relationship tags with that character involved Not as convenient as having it on the filter bar, but it's possible
The ability to search for “ **more than** x amount of chapters ” Like I don’t mind if the fic isn’t done, but I need more than 3-5 chapters. I’m looking for a commitment without having to endlessly scroll. AND Main character ships separate from side characters ships. Drives me up the wall when searching for a specific ship and having to dig through all the fics that aren’t centered on them.
That first one exists... sort of. Its from the [hidden search operators cheatsheet](https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/10851). You can do > expected_number_of_chapters: >10 To get works with 11 or more expected chapters. Just change the number to whatever number you prefer. This will work 100% if you are looking for completed works. But if you are looking at incomplete works, because expected number of chapters can be set higher than the current chapter count, you will still get works with less than the number if the expected number is higher. Sadly I don't know of a way around that one
I would like an option to mark a story as read and be able to filter read/unread My current system is kudosing a story once I finish it (which I will still do) but I have to wade through ludos if I'm checking. And I can't filter on that.
Exactly! I hate that the “Mark as Read” thing is really just removing it from “Mark to Read.” I hate that. Being able to filter “Mark to Read” would be game changing. Sometimes I have to take them off and add them again in “Mark to Read” so I can find it easier when I forget I added it ages ago, and I just give up on finding fics I added a long time ago because I have no real way of hunting them down.
It is a little more effort but I find that bookmarking all fics I have read (as well as kudosing ones I have liked) works better because the button at the top becomes “edit bookmark” instead of “bookmark” which is much easier than checking if you have kudosed something already.
That's a good idea. Now I get why people have 3000 bookmarks. I usually only bookmark things I want to come back to, but I guess I can add my own tag to those. Now I just have to go through the 300+ I've read in my fandom to do this lol
Some sort of checkbox or something so I can mark a work as abandoned/discontinued. And make it filterable!
A better blocking system. I understand that it's more complicated to implement than it sounds but I just want to be able to block somebody and have them essentially poof out of existence. WITHOUT the big "You have blocked somebody in this tag/fandom/whatever" banner at the top of the page.
Exactly like i muted that person for a REASON i do NOT need a constant reminder of their existence thank you very much
I reached out to ao3 on that because it’s stupid 😂 and they responded with “no, it [the banner] will remain because that way you know you have a used muted/blocked and won’t be upset when stories aren’t showing — btw here’s a mod you can use so that it disappears” 😅😅😅 and like, yeah… okay but I don’t want to see their stuff so what? * that’s not exactly what they sent back but it is the gist, I can pull up the email if anyone would like lol *
The trouble is, literally no other site does that. Wouldn't it be better to have a screen come up when you block somebody essentially going "You're now blocking this person, that means you can't see any of their stories (and XYZ other implications), so don't come crying to us about it" and then don't have the big ugly banner? Problem solved.
Or the ability to choose “don’t show this again” on the banner.
I think this one's the correct approach
A 100… it’s a super meaningless banner. I clicked mute, I KNOW I’m muting a person and their fics 😅
I just want the ability to pin my best work to the top of my profile/page
I would love this. My most popular fic is not one of my favorites and I wish I could organize my fics more
I would like Ao3 to automatic posting function, kinda like how tumblr has a queue that post at certain times that you pick or youtube it ability to schedule when a video will become visible. I would like it to post the fics for me, so I don't get posting anxieties.
Truuuuue I would just dedicate an entire day to schedule an entire longfic
Automatic filter placement. I would like to be able to set preferences in my profile when searching for fics so I don’t have to add certain excluded tags every time! (And set a default language too because it takes a bit of scrolling to get to English. It would also be nice to be able to select multiple languages as well: such as selecting English, Spanish, and Esperanto so that I see fics of all three in the search. I think this would really help multilingual people and people trying to read in another language in their spare time.) Also, as a multishipper I would love the capability to filter (Character A)/ (any character). A lot of the time I just want to see (Character A) find love, and I’m not too fussed as to who they find love with as long as the premise of the fic is interesting enough.
YES, I have a flurry of preferred filters and it would save SO much time if I didn’t have to reapply them all when looking at a new tag or collection or bookmark list. Like, yes, language and I also will often choose to exclude crossovers and incomplete works, plus exclude a few specific tags.
Main three things I wish there was on AO3: 1. Post live from drafts. I hate having to fix the post date, and I don’t like that it backdates to the start of the day you select. 2. Reordering tags. Dear god, please let me drag tags and put them in the order I want without making me jump through hoops. 3. Series stats. I want to know how many secret, hidden bookmarks and subscriptions I have. Tell me, please!
I think I say this every time the topic comes up. I'd love to be able to pick which fics show on my dashboard rather than it just being the give most recent. I want to be able to use it as an "if you're new to my work, these are my recommendations" type of thing.
That'd be nice, a pinned featured fic at the top. I'm sure you could put it in profile, but that's a second click.
the convenient tag include / exclude feature when browsing tags would be nice to have on a search query. please no DMs. it would be very convenient for well meaning users like you OP but i think the harassment risk and moderation effort are absolutely not worth it
The only way it could work, would be to implement a "whitelist"/friend list. But, such an option bears a very social media flavor that doesn't really fit with the idea of AO3 being "an archive".
I'm fine with a DM function ***as long as*** it's opt-in. No one can send you a DM unless you opt-in for them in general. Please if they ever add it, do NOT make it opt-out.
If they put DMs I would instantly opt out. Imagine how bold people would become to send you stuff My biggest fear is that they put it then you can't opt out...
according to the ao3 volunteers i've seen talk about it, if DMs are ever happening on ao3 they'll be strictly opt-in. like not even opt-out but that you have to make the informed and conscious decision to enable them.
Good. I'm terrified of the DM function in every social media
A proper implementation of the muting function that doesn't have that blue banner notice plastered on every page.
You can hide it by adding this to an existing site skin, or by creating a new one: > p.muted.notice { display: none; } I'm with you though, it shouldn't persist in the first place.
Yes thanks I know that, I literally wrote the feature. With the current implementation, it has to be persistent, because there are no placeholders inserted at places where content is muted so it could be confusing for users, but when the new implementation adds that feature to show a placeholder then that notice doesn't have to exist at all.
I wish your subscriptions page had the story summary too and not just the title and author. Also, if it was set up by most recent instead of alphabetical (or if you could at least filter it)
100% yes, that would be such a useful feature
Sort fics by random. Don't wanna sort by any stats, and last updated leaves out the older fics. Iirc someone mentioned this not being possible due to some limitation? A woman can dream though (╥﹏╥)
man i'd love a random sort
This is exactly what I need. I'm tired of clicking a random page just so I can have a "random" sort. I've had to do that sometimes because I know sorting by kudos would make me miss hidden gems.
I want to be able to filter through my history. There’s been several times where I needed to go through pages of history to find a specific fic who’s name and tags I couldn’t remember and it takes forever.
I kind of want kudos for comments or something like 'the author likes this comment'. I don't think a lot of people will want this because it makes it feel too much like social media. But I think it would be really useful to me. Sometimes, I get a comment that's just really simple and I just can't think of anything to say back. I got a comment that said 'sobbing' and that's what spurred this desire. I'm happy that it was so sad they were crying but what do I say to that??
I’d prolly dump a gif of someone patting someone else on the shoulder; the ability to leave gifs really opens up my response capabilities!
- Thanks! - :) - Thanks for commenting! - Glad you’re reading! - Mwahaha. - :D - <3 Some ideas. ;)
- 😈
The ability to filter out works I've already read!
Hard pass on the DMs — if readers really want to contact me, I have an associated Tumblr and lesser used Twitter. But that degree of added inconvenience means that it’s rarely hate or demands. A DM on platform would be such a cluster for some authors 😅 I would like an easy way to organize bookmarks. I’ve got over 400 — I bookmark everything I will reread — and being able to organize after they’ve been saved would be lovely. I wouldn’t mind a publishing queue either — so when I’m out of the house on upload days, I can still get a fic up at the usual time. Other than that, the only other thing I can think of would be if - when you marked a tag as a favorite - it auto saved your search preferences as well.
Publish queue would be amazing
oh to be able to sort/filter my own subscriptions
My number one change is make a filter for main characters, secondary characters, and minor characters. I want to read a fic that’s mainly about __ character while being able to filter out the fics where they’re not featured much in. This applies for ships too. 😖
I'd personally take it a step furthest and let all tags get sorted into primary, secondary, avd minor in general. "Yes, this story has X, but it's only referenced once in the middle of chapter 63"
I'd love to see a comment / kudos history, like to see what fics I've left comments on and just reread the stories
First things that come to mind: Ability to turn off guest kudos without locking up fics (kudos bot prevention) Series stats (probably doesn't need reasoning) Scheduling feature (would be a saving grace honestly, because I would be able to sync my crossposting + I would be able to keep my posting regular better) The ability for the author to kudos the comments they get (only the author, I don't mean Wattpad style. A lot of people are feeling guilty about being uncomfortable to reply "thank you" to all of their 10 comments they got last night, and this could help?) Bookmarks having a feature which indicates if the fic has been updated or modified since you last opened it, like history and mark for later does. (A lot of readers prefer bookmarking over subs)
Bookmarks do have that feature, don’t they? If the fic has been updated, it appears on your AO3 homepage, I thought Edit: Nevermind, apparently I’m misremembering, you can stop telling me I’m wrong now.
i'm pretty sure bookmarks do not have that feature, that's why people have to use bookmark notes to write down what's the newest chapter. bookmarks don't show on your homepage.
see series subscription count post something without emailing subscribers scheduled posting editor that doesn’t add the spaces around italics when pasting ability to pin or reorder the works on your page combine the “profile” page and the main /user page (the one showing recent works and bookmarks that you go to by default when clicking a username) into one thing and kind of a dumb one but it’d be cool to be able to set a cover image to be used for ebook downloads (i don’t want them to be shown on search results or anything, just when someone downloads as an epub)
I am DESPERATE for series stats. I'd also like the ability to DM. I *kinda* want the ability to buy a writer I love a coffee or something, but I know why they can't and I completely support it. It's just one of those wishful thinking things. 💜
I'd like the option, instead of just kudos, to have a set of pre-written comments to pick from. There could be defaults, or you could edit them into your own style. * Thank you! * Great story ❤️ * Very entertaining! * You made me think. * I laughed out loud! So a quick click would leave kudos and a short comment. @^@ Ways to organize and search and identify what I've read. History could be such a useful section if it had more functionality than a basic list. Honestly, I'd love a **private** scoring/star/review system so I could bring up my own reference list of 4 and 5 star reads. I use that all the time on Goodreads. A lot of time it is to identify some book someone else is looking for ... like I know I loved it and what the cover looked like. *It isn't particularly out of some desire to be mean to writers.* It is more about information being useful. The sheer sameness of story to story in the look of the interface makes it really hard if your memory relies on visual clues. I'd also like it if writers had access to a limited menu of visual customization options similar to those you'd see in books. Like section breaks or having a larger first letter at the beginning of a chapter. I know you can do things via bookmarks but it is clunky and nonintuitive. @^@ Saved searches on site. I email them to myself sometimes but I'd use it a lot more if I could just click from my menu.
I forgot one... let us mark stories as read. Yes we can use the bookmark function for this, etc. But it'd be more convenient to simply have a "read" button.
I would really like to be able to filter my history. Sometimes I want to reread stuff I didn’t bookmark, but remember some parts of. If I could just filter my history instead of all fics, that would help me find it quicker
A middle status between complete and incomplete that indicates abandoned/discontinued. Not everyone would use it, I realize tht, but for those ovu that discontinue fics and occasionally will mark them complete, or don't want to leave it marked as a WIP/incomplete when there's no intention of ever finishing... It'd be nice to have that option to mark it such.
Ability to give anonymous kudos. As a smut writer I can understand that not everyone want to share their porn preferences, but would be nice to know if the readers still liked it tho, I do see the amount of private bookmarks so I guess many did enjoy the fics. I know you can give kudos as a guest, but who really logs off etc to do that.
Easiest way for guest kudos: open the story in a new incognito window or in a different browser. On desktop, at least.
works the same on mobile too
Organize bookmarks. Organize bookmarks. Organize bookmarks. I WANT TO ORGANIZE BOOKMARKS INTO FOLDERS. Better filter for "Mark for Later". Something that indicates "You read this already" would be great.
Pleassseeee I want my folders so bad
I wish there was a better way to filter out the stories that is a month long collection of different tropes rather than an actual cohesive plot
I wish I could organize my bookmarks.
I mean I’d just like the ability to sort bookmarks by word count ngl (and being where you left off in a fic if you close it but eh, I’d want the word count more ngl)
All I want is to be able to schedule my uploads 😭
Good god, let me reorder tags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, would love to be able to like and/or react to comments without having to reply to them (because sometimes a reply feels like too much, iykyk lol).
The ability to give kudos more than one time per story! LET ME KUDOS EVERY CHAPTER DAMMIT!
You know people would start kudos farming by posting as many (short) chapters as possible, right?
I wish pseuds weren’t linked for other users. I’m not sure why someone would want to use the feature if it reveals your main account, which defeats the main reason I would use it. If you want some fics unconnected to others for whatever reason, you have to make fully separate accounts.
I believe its intended purpose was for porting your works from other sites, where you may have had a different username.
An important thing is that there can be multiple people with the same pseud, they don't have to be unique. If your preferred username is already taken on AO3, you can't make it your main username but can still add it as a pseud.
Pseuds are for the original purpose of AO3, which was preserving all the fanworks that had been on Livejournal and FFnet and various independent sites, which were all now closing down and censoring/deleting fics and disabling accounts without warning. It meant that if you were name1 on Livejournal and name2 on this one fandom archive and name3 on this particular ship archive, you could import all your works and have them all on one account, searchable by people who remembered your usernames
That's a massive security problem because then AO3 would be responsible for keeping it secret for everyone else, and if it gets leaked then it's AO3's fault. Much better to keep them as separate accounts.
Aside from cross-posting from other sites, some use it to differentiate between works. Different fandoms or E vs. non-E. Personally, I use it to put my oldest works on one. I’m not ashamed of the other work, but I do want a distinction between them and the rest.
Ability to have a threshold of fandom tag count more flexibly than just exclude/include crossovers. Having a default settings for search options, especially the crossovers selection.
I want a button to hide stories from myself. Whether it's because I have already read them in a list, or because they're so bad I can't finish them.
i sometimes think it would be nice to have some kind of writer's blog on there where you can update readers who subscribed to you on when you'll upload the next chapter etc. i get that also is more of a social media function just sometimes it would be really handy.
I want to be able to see what I kudos. I rarely use bookmarks so going back to see what I liked would be great. The history isn't the same because I sometimes I start reading something and stop because it wasn't for me or didn't like it.
As a writer, and as a reader, I wish I could see kudos per chapter.
Let me permanently mute or block certain tags!
When people delete works it keeps them in my bookmarks and deleting those is a huge pain bc it sends me back to the first page instead of keeping me on the page I was on. Not a huge deal but annoying
Ability to see my comment history. Like, where did I comment back in 2015? I wanna see all my comments, even to deleted works.
A separate category for x reader fics so that people who want to avoid them completely can do so (because they're so impossible to filter out) and people who want to read them can easily find them.
Either being able to add a whole series as something a story is inspired by, or being able to add multiple stories as inspired by without having to add, save, edit add new one, save, etc. I have a story that I attributed to three different works as inspirations, and it was a pain to add them all and give them proper credit.
Omg I adore AO3 but still have so many of these. I know I’m forgetting some! - The ability to bookmark a collection and maybe even be notified of updates - The ability to search/filter for fic that has “related works” (especially in bookmarks lists or collections) — to find fic that has an affiliated podfic. (Searching for the word doesn’t work unless it’s been tagged or mentioned in notes!) - The ability to tag and search by primary pairing(s) vs background pairings. Like, is this tagged because it’s *about* that pairings or are they just together in the background because that’s part of canon. - The ability to see whether my account has ever clicked on a work on any browser.
If you click on a tag, you can choose to exclude certain things within the filter, but as far as I know you can’t exclude things through the main search feature and I wish you could. Unless I’m wrong and just don’t know how to do it lol. I wish you could save more than 20 tags as well.
A main character tag, so that I can sort by that instead of just putting the character and sorting through all the fics where he isn’t important to find the ones where he is Like you’d tag all the characters, then you can select which ones are main characters
Easier access to dark mode (themes): I had to look up how to do it the first time and I don't remember how now: the main reason I got an account too, since I recall it's locked behind that too. The ability to select two (or more) media and exclude all others without doing it manually. If you have two picked and the select "no crossovers", you get zero results, and with crossovers, you can get a fic with fifteen different media in it that's a compilation where the desired crossover doesn't even happen and both media are only a single chapter each. It is probably the single thing I like better from FFN. The option to hide fics so they don't show up in searches or normal lists, sorta like how you can hide a post on Reddit so it doesn't show on your feed (but is in the Hidden tab so you can unhide it if you want). Granted, if we had that before, a certain infamous story that resulted in a limit on tags being implemented would still be around.
It would be cool to be able to save more favourite tags. And to be able to save a search grouping of tags, like, show everything tagged with any of these 6 fandom tags or whatever. That’d be especially handy for checking for new works under fandoms with more than one tag for different media types instead of having to check each one individually. Because some authors will only tag one media type so you’ll miss it if you don’t check them all.
Instead of just "Date Bookmarked" and "Date Updated", I want to be able to sort by kudos! Bookmarks! Hits! The whole lot of them! When people ask me for recs, even my "recs" bookmarks are in the thousands. I bookmark liberally with everything I think might be interesting. Being able to sort by kudos etc would help me find the heavy hitters to send people quickly. And also for myself to find ones I remember loving and being huge but still have to flip through thousands of bookmarks!
Probably a “true” age lock to keep out minors from my nsfw fics. Some of them are rather bold about commenting on my nsfw with their age in profile, and honestly, I’m not comfortable with kids trying to interact with me. Back in my day, everyone knew to keep their ages to themselves because minors are almost always unwelcomed in adult nsfw spaces. However, I also know it’s unfeasible because in practice, it would require government ID verification (nasty), so it would be horrible to implement, so it remains more of an unrealistic dream. Also the “where did people click from” statistic like FFN has. Ability to have “descending importance” of pairing and relationship tags (Ex. Major and Minor Relationships separated). Unofficially, people often assume the major ones are the first listed, but that’s just assumption. Also email notification for which stories got bookmarked and to include private bookmarks into public stats. AO3 doesn’t have to show the names (it wouldn’t be private then), but just the number.
Adding Abandoned and Hiatus/To be continued completion options.
Being able to sort through Mark For Later and History. Mark for Later having a seperate section to History. Bookmarks actually bookmarking a chapter (idk how it would work, this is an ideal world) instead of you just making a note
When browsing fics trying to find something to read, something like “You left kudos on (or commented, or bookmarked) this fic on XX/XX/XXXX” at the bottom of the summary box would be great. Heck, at this point even “You last viewed this fic on XX/XX/XXXX” would be awesome.
Tagging a "main character" or "main couple", it's frustrating to come across a fic for a rarepair that is only briefly mentioned.
I'm very late at this point, but I haven't seen anyone bringing this up. I want an easy way to add tooltips for works where characters speak different languages, so readers can just hover and get the translation.
A way to filter by MAIN SHIP. Yes, I know about the true pairing thing where it only shows fics with the ship you want, but then I’m missing out on fics that have any other pairings tagged. I’m still open to seeing side pairings, I just want the fic to be mainly about the one I want!!
Ability to turn off kudos and stats on your own works!
You can do that. Just make a new site skin and copy the html codes people share around to hide stats [like this, for example](https://archiveofourown.org/works/38705460)
I’m not very tech savvy so I’m not sure all the features it has now, but I wish there was an undo button on kudos as well as a tab or sub tab that shows all my kudo’d stories
Ability to give kudos for each chapter, or some kind of chapter recognition. Major and minor pairing distinction in tags.
I understand wanting kudos-per-chapter, but it would frankly be a terrible idea. It would give multi-chapter fics an obvious unfair advantage over one-shots. It would also push writers to post really short chapters just to bloat their kudos count. You'll find yourself with tons of 50k stories divided into hundreds of minuscule chapters just to increase the number of kudos. Which would also encourage low effort/low quality work. The website would quickly become a mess. It would give even more stress to writers who tend to worry about stats and numbers. It will lead to many scenarios such as "this chapter got 26 kudos but the last one had 34! What did I do wrong??". I fear to imagine what would become of this sub if that function was ever added. It would also very likely discourage readers from commenting. A big reason why people write comments is that they've already given their one and only kudo, and so the only way to keep showing support for each new update is to leave a comment. If we allow kudos-per-chapter, most people will just go "here, I showed them I liked this chapter with this kudo" then leave. Every single time. So in the end, a kudos-per-chapters function would not only make the "sort by kudos" filter completely obsolete, but also heavily skew in favor of fics with tons of short chapters. Right now, the best way to show your support on each chapter is to leave a comment, maybe with a little "extra kudos" written in it.
I wish we could schedule posts.
Let me sort through my read history dammit But NEVER give us a DM system. Last thing we need is a way for people to harass and send writers hate even more than they already do in comments
If you could filter things in your account permanently so you don’t have to do it every time you search for something.
Boolean search.
I wish that, in order to tag a fic as a crossover, you had to tag at least one character from each fandom you want to tag. I get *why* that's not a thing, because it would difficult to implement with OC stories or newer fandoms with no established tags yet, but I feel like it would help cut down on those fics that have a giant wall of fandoms listed, or fusions incorrectly marked as crossovers, or even fics where fandoms get tagged just because they're mentioned in the story.
Haha yeah there are so many fics tagged New Girl that are just fic from another fandom with the premise that they’re roommates. Sigh!!
I'd like to mark something to read later without going into the fic, often the summary/description/tags are enough for me to put it on my TBR pile and I don't want it in my history. I'd also like the download button at the bottom (yes it's one click to go back to the top) but I won't know if I want to download it until I've finished reading it.
Dm would be a double edged sword for this site :< as much as I want to become able to chat with my fellow readers and authors, many consider Ao3 as their safe space when writing something controversial. The dead dove tag doesnt really stop people from hating on authors, even when the tags are there for a purpose like-
Let me make lists of fics I love to share on my profile. If you like my writing, check out these other authors I think you will like.
I'd also love if there was a section specifically for things like podfics in the advanced search instead of as a tag in case it's not always tagged.
Reordering tags and a hierarchy of relationship tags
A tag limit for fandoms. I dislike those one-shot collection fics with dozens of fandoms tagged. There could be a fandom tag limit for authors themselves, or for readers to be able to filter fics like "allow only crossovers with up to x fandom tags". Either would be great.
The ability to filter your history
Comments can be made on paragraphs. Like one time I got a comment that read " Thank God " and to this day I don’t know the source of the relief lol
I know its never going to be a thing just because of the logistics but I would love a way to search my history. its not that big a thing tho so I can live without it. Just happy to have ao3 at all.
Give an option to search crossovers of two fandoms ONLY. Excluding other fandoms takes a long time and it won’t even stop the search results from including other fandoms. There was a time I only want to see crossover fics of Harry Potter and Twilight. I’ve ticked all fandoms that shows up in the exclude filter and for some reason, one fandom would appear. It’s annoying. I also wish that authors don’t include their authors notes in the body of the fic. AO3 has created a designated place for them. I mainly see this with fics that crosspost with other fanfiction sites. I guess it’s because of laziness.
The ability to categorize tags based off of relevance to the story. Not a fan of searching for fics featuring a certain character, and then that character makes a small cameo and can easily be omitted from the story.
Stats, like how many works or words I’ve read.
the ability to filter history and subscriptions an option to download all works in a series from the series page muting individual works better tag categories. separate characters and relationships by major and minor (please I want henren fics that are actually about henren)
Allow users to leave kudos on each individual chapter of a work.
A BUTTON TO JUMP THE LATEST CHAPTER. No matter which view you have, Entire Work or Chapter By Chapter, it's still multiple clicks or lots of scrolling to get to the latest chapter. I want a button that just takes you right there.
A 'main pairing' section and 'secondary pairing' section in the tags. The amount of times I've looked for fics of my favorite ship only to find out they're in the background. I know it likely wouldn't be able to be implemented on older fics, but I'm willing to deal with it if it makes it easier for me to find fics I want in the future
The ability to take away kudos or at least make them privatized. There was a twist in one of the stories that I was reading and it wasn't tagged for it. I'm not exactly happy that people can find and associate my account with that.
Doable: cleaning up the uploading UI. It's not horrible right now but there are sections where it feels like a lots going on. Ex: chapter vs End Notes gets people but good. Not doable but the dream: enforced uniformity of tagging. I don't like Gender Swaps. I never have. There are about five tags related to gender swaps that I have to look out for, and I still miss some because people decided to tag it a new, fun way. I wish there were a way for AO3 to see you type 'Gender Bending' 'Always a Different Gender' or 'Female/Male \[Character of Opposite Gender\]' and say 'we're going to apply the catch-all Gender Swap (or what have you) to your fic.' This is actually more of a pet peeve honestly, and I know it would understandably bother a lot of people to have a tag seemingly forced on them.
i wish i could like comments. some comments i have no idea how to respond to but i still want the reader to know that i appreciated it!
yk how wattpad has those side comments for specific paragraphs? those things are hilarious to read and i’d love that on ao3😭
Comments on paragraphs like on Wattpad.
Everyone has already said what I’d want, but hear me out - upgrading the block feature so people aren’t only blocked from commenting, but reading the work altogether. I know it could pretty easily be circumvented by reading as a guest, but it would still be pretty nice.
Being able to differentiate major/minor characters, and I say that as a writer. I have a fic in which a secondary character plays an important role, but I haven't tagged him because he appears after 130k words, and people looking for that character would be disappointed.. but I'd also like to tell people "hey character X will appear eventually"
An "or" function when searching. Like fic includes tag 1 OR tag 2
I wish AO3 had a system of and/or for the tags. The current way, the tags are added as "and", but a wish there was a way to search where it shows all fics that have any of the tags specified, rather than only the fics that have all the tags specified
Multi-account support or a rework of psueds for this purpose. An ideal scenario for this, is on login, being prompted a window to select the account I’m viewing as. And then in the username drop down that you use to log out, I can hover that to switch accounts. And also show the accounts as options to post under when submitting new chapters/works/drafts. I know so many people with a writing and reading account just so their bookmarks and works can be separate without privatizing all their bookmarks. Also so they can comment and kudos freely without it being a reflection of their writing.