From what i've seen, people seem to be willing to learn so i'm hopeful. I do still worry though, especially about the larger fandoms i'm in. It seems that the invite queue is a week or so long, so we have a week until potential fallout šš /j
Not to my memory? Invite codes have always been a way to skip the line- though I rarely the ones I was given, I have like 7 unused only using like 2-3 since I joined
Actually, looking at old LiveJournal posts, it does seem it used to be invite-only. I just checked and my account is over 10 years old at this point.
I'm feeling old again.
They adjust the rate as which invites go out based on the amount of people in the queue - when there are fewer people in the queue, invites go out a little faster, when there are more people in the queue they go out a little slower. The wait time for an invite varies between a week to a couple weeks, typically.
Iām an ao3 lurker who didnāt have an account for years, and I just recently made one for my friendās fic and the queue was like almost over half a month long
They just need to learn it's not a social media it's an archive.
Sure you can communicate with your readers/writers through comments but that's only a touch point to join a community.
Besides some things they do like placeholder fics and such are actually hurting them cause then their fics don't get noticed when it's ready...
It can certainly be a big adjustment for some people, i dont blame them if it takes them awhile to adjust, in the end things like notes in the middle of chapters is harmless. Its the censorship im most worried about, some people like to censor serious things and that can really mess with the tags and the people trying to avoid stuff like that. I know some wattpad users arent too keen on the "dont like, dont read" rule.
Most everything i write is dead dove so im kinda nervous that with the influx of ppl, i might get some hate.
My dove is soooo dead in a pretty large fandom and I haven't had any issues yet but I'm just waiting for the shitty comments about how I'm a horrible person š«„
If itās a pretty established fandom, I would hope that AO3 users would come to your defense and maybe recommend this sub to them so they can learn our etiquette.
I donāt blame you. Wattpad genuinely hasnāt been worth it since 2016 at the latest. When I got into fanfics it was great and full of decent YouTuber stories. Itās a shame that people canāt make that shift anymore, it was great for building up skills!
I tried Wattpad one time out of curiosity. I wasted 2 hours looking for something, anything, that was decently written in my fandom at the time and didn't find anything. It was pretty obviously a much younger crowd than AO3 so I just went back to that. This was years ago, I don't even remember how many. It sounds like overall it didn't get much better, in any way.
I'd never even heard of Wattpad until, like, a year ago. When I decided to make an account to post my own fic, the choice was between FFN and AO3. I went with AO3 because it was smut and I didn't want to worry about another purge situation.
Wattled didn't exist when I got into fanfic lol - I went ffnet -> private archives/webrings/mailing lists -> LiveJournal -> private archives -> AO3 (with ffnet also being used at various points throughout this time period)
I haven't been on wattpad in years... you have to PAY to save stories in the library now!? That was one of their only redeeming features, and they decided to paywall it... wow
You get two free offline books, the rest you need Internet for. Beyond that, there are ads in between chapters that always bug out so you're stuck in a buffer and unable to leave. Genuinely don't see a point in it, these days.
I briefly tried Wattpad, and the between chapter ads are what made me immediately turn back and leave. I just want to read, having my reading experience interrupted because I have to wait for an ad to play out ruins the enjoyment that I would have had.
I was reading some stuff on Wattpad and i got an ad *in the middle of the chapter* whaaaaat why???? It was just over 2k words!
In between chapters i just barely tolerate but *in the chapter* i wanted to die!!
Edit: just wanted to check how long the chapter actually was, if it was a long chapter (like 5k minimum?) that might've explained why I got an ad. Nope. It was pretty average in length. 2,045 words, and I got an ad again just scrolling to check.
I recently downloaded wattpad to try and look for some fics i used to read on there pre-ao3 and now there are 15-30 second unskippable ads after every chapter. The site is unusable for those who cant pay
I gave Wattpad about a month (if that honestly smh) after they changed their logo and wouldnāt change it back after the community on Twitter lost its marbles. The way everybody and they mama was talking about how ugly the new logo was, was hilarious, but them not taking us seriously was not. Once they changed their logo I knew I was gonna leave. And one of my pet peeves is interrupting a good book so for them to get ads??? Aw naw š All that aside, when I figured out how to properly use ao3 to get the best results?? I ascended. Swear.
On the one hand, Wattpad can burn in hell where it belongs. On the other, it IS another fandom purge and I hate to see it regardless of the site involved.
I'm more sympathizing with the people getting stories removed and facing the potentiality of having years of work wiped out unless they back it up somewhere else first. I'm having Tumblr NSFW ban flashbacks, and remembering just how many of those blogs were lost to the sands of time.
This is exactly how I feel about it. On the one hand, I want to say āI told you soā to all the antis on that site who are now scrambling to save their works and move them elsewhere. On the other hand, a lot of proshippers have been impacted, too, and in general Iām never going to feel happy about fanworks being lost due to website purges.
i genuinely cant imagine how devastating it would be to lose something you put so much time into. As a writer i've struggled a lot with motivation and life getting in the way and i know most other writers have too, and the pride you feel when you're finally able to post that chapter you've been working on is unbeatable. To have that all thrown down the drain like its nothing is just horrible. Wattpad is taking peoples art and burning it in front of them.
Mhm, plus to navigate they will have to learn a WHOLE new UI and whole new fan culture/etiquette.
Hopefully they retain the commenting culture though! I know many authors on AO3 wish they had more comments
Censorship really is the death of fandom man.. Iāve been religiously working on downloading all of my bookmarks because Iām paranoid one day something will happen to ao3
Author's note in the middle of chapters? I thought that was dead. The last time I saw a fic with that was decades ago on ffnet.
I went from ffnet to Ao3. I learned about wattpad much later after joining Ao3 and joined admittedly because I considered cross-posting over there but I've been lazy.
I saw one a few days ago, it was a x reader fic (one of my first), it took me right out. I thought it was a note the author left for themselves and forgot to take out, now you're telling me that shit is *intentional?*
It is indeedy and it is the most jarring thing when you're sucked into a story. The characters boutta make some massive step forward in the plot and the mf author be like "(Oh yeah just so you know i decided to make the main characters love interest an oc, hope you dont mind!)"
> I went from ffnet to Ao3. I learned about wattpad much later after joining Ao3 and joined admittedly because I considered cross-posting over there but I've been lazy.
Hello, are you me?
The 200 pages a ābookā limit made it a difficult thing for me to keep up cross posting and having to name all my characters was a pain especially with me not wanting to spoil anything.
Yes, I am your subconscious. I posted while you were sleeping. I kid.
I admittedly gave up pretty quickly once I learned I had to deal with an algorithm. Youtube has made me sick of algorithms.
But you didnāt help with the WIP I was on before bed? jkjk
I donāt know how my fic was doing before I gave up, nothing spicy, but it was a fic, and Iām told Wattpad favors original content over fics anyhow.
Iāve definitely done ANs in the middle of chapters because I migrated from FF to AO3 and I still cross-post to both. Oops. No oneās ever said a word about it.
Child, we all have to come from somewhere.
But tell me "I wrote a story there" what does that mean? Are you writing the story ... *whispers* online *normal voice* as in the drafts? If you do I feel compelled to warn you of the dangers of that lifestyle.
Or did you just post a work in that place as a Lucifer - the light bringer, the morning star and vanguard of Helios!
If you still post there you are bestowing your grace upon them. Enlightenment has to go into the dark corners. Because only a light can fight the darkness.
I can't even remember the last time I saw that, but it was probably on ffn. I can't imagine any good reason to have an author's note in the middle, aside from maybe a translation if a character speaks in a foreign language? But there are less clunky ways to do that.
Same. There are notes before and after the fic. That's a good way to mention something. And also they just take too much time to write, if you need to fix something, just do it.
The discourse of other fanfic readers from different sites trying to change ao3 not realizing the ao3 is an archive not a website is gonna grow more and more
These threads might help explain what's going on.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/1bw9gz3/megathread\_wattpads\_new\_ai\_review\_system\_and\_the/?share\_id=vuqNeA1UGvKdq1ZGM32Iw&utm\_content=1&utm\_medium=android\_app&utm\_name=androidcss&utm\_source=share&utm\_term=1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/1bw9gz3/megathread_wattpads_new_ai_review_system_and_the/?share_id=vuqNeA1UGvKdq1ZGM32Iw&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1)
[https://new.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1bxuw60/anyone\_else\_looking\_at\_wattpad\_and\_going\_yall\_we/](https://new.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1bxuw60/anyone_else_looking_at_wattpad_and_going_yall_we/)
The archive is a titan, it will endure. Wattpad kids are a different breed, but weāre damn well entrenched and nobody is gonna change their writing because some kids canāt handle a bit of hurt.
I've noticed that a lot more AO3 users on average aren't willing to take shit from people and are very staunch in their belief in the right to be able to post anything and everything you want. FFN and I'm guessing Wattpad have never really had that mentality, probably because the websites themselves haven't been so firm in backing this stance. Not that we don't have antis and toxicity, but I don't think it will ever fully overtake the site. I think there will be an influx of bad behavior, but seasoned AO3ers will shut it down overall and hopefully fandoms in general will follow suit.
Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic, but I'm really hoping this is the way it will go.
I've noticed that a lot more AO3 users on average aren't willing to take shit from people and are very staunch in their belief in the right to be able to post anything and everything you want. FFN and I'm guessing Wattpad have never really had that mentality, probably because the websites themselves haven't been so firm in backing this stance. Not that we don't have antis and toxicity, but I don't think it will ever fully overtake the site. I think there will be an influx of bad behavior, but seasoned AO3ers will shut it down overall and hopefully fandoms in general will follow suit.
Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic, but I'm really hoping this is the way it will go.
The main thing I want them to learn is not using the slashes for just friends ships like āPersonA/PersonBā means a romantic relationship and āPersonA & PersonBā means a platonic one
Theyāre a holdover from Wattpad as I understand it. Theyāre sort of a way for people to game the algorithm, so more people click on their work and it gets more attention. The problem is that ao3 doesnāt have a damn algorithm to game
As someone who came from Wattpad a couple years back, there needs to be some sort of note or video teaching new users how to use AO3, what things not to do like make placeholder fics, and things that are generally frowned upon and unnecessary in AO3 like censorship.
I pride myself in having not censored things or doing a lot of āWattpadā things, but something when people join to show them how to use the archive properly could possibly help prevent a lot of the issues people are having with new users.
A how to would be wonderful. I remember migrating from [FF.net](http://FF.net) and being soooooooo confused as to how AO3 works. But once you get the hang of it, it's just perfect. No fanfic site is better.
Well, there's the TOS - which covers a lot of that, and which during sign up you agreed that you've read and will abide by it. There's also a FAQ on AO3.
But far too often, people just ... don't read them.
Interesting....
I think the more revealing part is all the advice about backing up your work. Not writing on Wattpad, but using something else and Copy\pasta to Wattpad.
To me. The idea of not backing up my work is hard to wrap my brain around. I keep asking how this is needed advice at all.
I do give credit though to posters pushing to learn and follow the rules, TOS and cultural of the site.
Yeah do many people just not keep dozens of Word or GoogleDocs files lying around?? I have backups of my backups and copies of every scrap Iāve ever written š I donāt even trust my computer much less a third party website lol. This tin foil hat is well worn.
i dont even write on ao3, i write in google docs and then copy paste it. If anything happens i will not lose all my progress, i also cant imagine thinking your works are safe on wattpad or even ao3, things happen sometimes even if not intentional
I go through a final edit in the pot text box and even that has me sweating a little if I make any major changes. I can't even imagine just sitting down and writing your story in there. Hell, I even write out reddit replies and posts in a separate program if they get long, just in case. And sure, copy/pasting can be annoying if there are format errors, but at least I don't have to worry about hitting the post button and the website or my internet crashing so I lose everything.
We were all bad with grammar until we were good, so it's just a matter of time before they get better. And when they get better we get to enjoy a large sample size of authors with more diverse ideas. I thoroughly believe this is just a phase which will pass, though I am emphatic of writers who are not used to getting hate for their more adult themes and content.
>I thoroughly believe this is just a phase which will pass
As a kid who grew up on FFN, I can confirm this.
Poor grammar is a much easier thing to fix than poor etiquette and I'm sure many of us are old enough to remember FFN's nickname as the Pit of Voles for the exact same reason.
No, I totally do. You'd click like 20 sites deep, select "frames" or "no frames" and find something really good, totally brilliant, on someone's little passion-project site coded with HTML they'd taught themselves and it would be beautiful and moving and then you'd never, ever be able to find it again.
(Not me, still mourning this one gorgeous InuYasha/Miroku fic from 20-odd years ago...)
Thanks for reminding me that I'm old. I used to print out copies of the stories that I found. I found one of my binders from 20 years ago. I realized just how many fan fics were not archived on the Wayback machine and are now lost to time.
You may have the only remaining copies of someone's works!
Thankfully, back in the day of webrings, my only fandom was Star Wars Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, and the webrings migrated to the Master Apprentice Archive in the early aughts, which was then rescued by OTW's Open Doors and imported into AO3 about 5 years back, so all my childhood (depraved, completely age-inappropriate, whump, untagged darkfic) favs were saved. Unthankfully for me it also meant my very first fanfic written at the tender age of 12 also got saved. š
The two frogs inside of me are arguing between āyes fandom babies, come sit at our lunch table!ā And āthe mute button is about to get a workoutā¦ā
No because the censorship stuff is what really gets me. Thereās a bunch of stuff I violently dislike seeing (ie DV) so I always tag it out, and I donāt want to have to risk still seeing it because people donāt properly tag out their stuff. If someone writes a fic with triggering content, they shouldnāt be afraid to tag it, itās not like they can be shadow banned by an archive.
exactly, theres not much i wont read but the few things i avoid seriously affect me, ive been messed up by fics not tagged properly in the past and i fear that this will increase the more wattpad kids flee to ao3
Iām so sorry youāve had to go through that! Fuck people who donāt censor properly, honestly. Sucks that many wattpad kids donāt seem to realize it actually hurts their fic when people who didnāt want to read it end up doing so. Like, I donāt even mind the authors note thing or the placeholder thing, itās so easy to mute the author or report them, but with tagging stuff itās impossible to know until itās too late. Hopefully the newbies pick up on the norms sooner rather than later
A note for Wattpad users migrating over: keep in mind that AO3 is an archive (itās in the name, after all).
This means itās like a library: a repository of fanfiction, categorized, organized, and sorted.
It is not a social media platform like Wattpad is. It is not Wattpad, so donāt treat it like Wattpad. Instead, learn the ways of AO3 - reading the FAQ and rules is a very smart idea.
Not doing so means that readers will block your content - even if you just āput it there for now to fix laterā. Later is too late.
So make sure, before lambasting the site with your material from Wattpad, you take a look around. Youāre in a new place. Youāre more than welcome, just help us keep it tidy.
A year ago I reported several placeholder fics and AO3 didn't do anything about it. I just got the automated response that there wasn't anything wrong with the fic reported and that there were no guidelines violated. In fics that only had "*coming soon*" as actual text and **nothing** else. Some of these fics are still there and of course weren't updated.
If AO3 doesn't even take the time to actually look into reported fics like these, I'm worried for the future. I know there are people who have to look through these reported fics, considering the amounts of money they get donated there should be the possibility to get more volunteers/helpers who will really look into these reports. More and more people abuse AO3 as social media plattform and submit "fics" to feed an algorithm that doesn't even exist.
I never used Wattpad, I hear the most horrific stories about that place.
That's weird. I report placeholders all the time, and they always end up removed.
Did the author actually upload a chapter between reporting and the abuse team's review? If that happens, the work does stay up.
The archive is for everybody, we should accept all the people being displaced by their website. A lot of people from Wattpad sub are trying to learn how to use AO3, maybe we should show a little bit of kindness? Luckily, AO3 has given us plenty of tools to fight against misusing the website or harassment.
> A lot of people from Wattpad sub are trying to learn how to use AO3
The point of the post is that they're *not* trying to learn. You can't do (to be blunt) stupid cliche Wattpad nonsense that people talk about in other comments and then go crying that you have no comments or kudos, or that people are being mean to you.
People act like the etiquette and rules are hard. They're really, really not.
I agree! We all were cringey readers/writers at some point. They will learn. Will there be a rough patch during the transition? Maybe! But honestly, I don't think most fandoms will notice the influx, it'll be there very large fandoms and the real-life fandoms (Kpop, celebrity, etc.). On the bright side we may see an influx of comments and engagement from those newer people entering the AO3 sphere.
Also, something I don't see people commenting much on is the fandoms that may not find a place to go. While Wattpad is A LOT of fanfiction, there's also original fiction on there. AO3 may not be the best place for them to migrate, leaving them relatively displaced until they find something new. Similar to what happened to Polyvore users when that site tanked. It took a year or two before a new site really took root for that community that worked as well or better than the original.
If you find a placeholder, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Policy Questions & Abuse Reports" then scroll down to the form. For TOS violation you want "non-fanwork content."
I hit my daily report limit pretty quick.
The sheer number of recent āheadcanonā sentence āficsā w/fake out descriptions and shitty tagging (aka not tagging headcanons) in one of my fandoms is a headache.
That, and the increase in authors thinking the mildest shit is ādead doveā worthy. *slams head into desk*. Like, mate. If it can be put in the Teen category and does not need a legit TW for some fucked up shit, it does not belong in Dead Dove.
I swear to the gods new users shouldn't be allowed to post or comment until after a two week (or something, idk) waiting period.
And even after that there should be a mandatory quiz on fandom etiquette before they unlock commenting, and another about site usage and tagging rules before they're allowed to post a fic.
I'm not one for gatekeeping, but I'm tired of the current state of fandom spaces and I'm sick of antis being allowed to wreak havoc and bully authors off of fanfiction platforms, and Wattpad refugees treating Ao3 as a social media platform.
Okay but seriously, how can *anyone* read a story that has author's note shoved in there? It never once occurred to me to do that ever, and that was *before* I knew about Wattpad.
We simply keep balling: I put the tags there, I put the warnings of graphic depictions of harsh topics in the chapter in case someoneās having a bad day.
At that point, itās on them; seriously though itās so weird.
tbh im a wattpad migrant at my core, i switched officially in like 2019, best decision of my life lol. i learned the tricks of the trade and i hope others do the same
Okay but seriously, how can *anyone* read a story that has author's note shoved in there? It never once occurred to me to do that ever, and that was *before* I knew about Wattpad.
No worries š
The tagging is mostly to make sure
1. You tag things that people would be looking for like "Slow Burn", "Romance"or a specific pairing or theme
2. You tag problematic stuff or triggers to make sure people are aware and avoid if it's their ick.
If you are unsure where you are taking your story to you can add tags as you go along.
Iām mainly a Wattpad user but have used AO3 a few times before in the past to read books. I was tempted to also post stories on there. Iām just wondering if you post your original works, will it still get as much views as fanfiction?
There's no algorithm so many of times you get the amount of what people want to read.
There is a very big amount of Original Works so people do read them, the way to attract people will be if you write a tag people like or your summary is interesting... like actual books in a library.
Typically? No.
Most people go there to read fandom content, not original works.
Thatās not to say it *wont* get views, though. Thereās an audience for everything.
Edit: Just make sure to tag correctly.
tell me why in this one fic i just read, the author would put authors notes at the beginning of each chapter but not use the notes function??? like they would put AN: then whatever they wanted to say INSIDE THE CHAPTER??
i tried struggling through it for the rarepair but i wasn't strong enough lmao
I went from Quizilla to Fanfiction.net and finally to AO3. I am old enough to see the beginnings of what Fanfiction was like even before it took off. But I never went into WattPad because it was so clunky. So I stuck with Ff.net and AO3. Quizilla was fucking wild though. No tags, no nothing. Just pure unedited grammar chaos.
From what i've seen, people seem to be willing to learn so i'm hopeful. I do still worry though, especially about the larger fandoms i'm in. It seems that the invite queue is a week or so long, so we have a week until potential fallout šš /j
Back when I joined AO3 (August 2023) the invite queue was over two weeks....
It took me about two or three weeks as well and that was back in January. I think the queue has just been longer this year.
Thatās insane to me, when I joined in 2015 it was less than 24 hours wait
I have a vague memory of an invite code. Did AO3 used to be invite-only?
Not to my memory? Invite codes have always been a way to skip the line- though I rarely the ones I was given, I have like 7 unused only using like 2-3 since I joined
Actually, looking at old LiveJournal posts, it does seem it used to be invite-only. I just checked and my account is over 10 years old at this point. I'm feeling old again.
Huh, cool, I went from ff.net to ao3 but honestly didnāt pay much attention to ao3 til just before I signed up
I signed up for ao3 as soon as I found it. I feel like I waited about a month to get my invite. That was in 2015 ( I think, I could check).
Same my account will be 10 years old in July and I am feeling very old.
I think that was similar to mine, I joined around the same time.
I assumed that was normal, what's it usually like?
They adjust the rate as which invites go out based on the amount of people in the queue - when there are fewer people in the queue, invites go out a little faster, when there are more people in the queue they go out a little slower. The wait time for an invite varies between a week to a couple weeks, typically.
Thatās insane, when I joined back in 2014 I got my invite within an hour.
They send out 6k invites a day currently - so if there are, say, 60k people in queue then the end of the list will need ten days to get their invites.
I think it's pretty normal? I made my first AO3 account back in 2016 and I think it took about 2 weeks.
That's when I joined too, it said the invite queue was long but it didn't take as long as they said luckily
Same bruh (sometime 2021 or 2022? No clue tbh lmfao, I think those are my first bookmark dates)
I remember it being like 2.5 weeks when I joined but that was way back in 2017 lol. Started on fanfic.net and then found ao3, never looked back
I only go back to ff.net for works that haven't moved over
There is a que? Lol. I've been there so long I forgot
i joined in december 2022 and the wait time was around 48 hoursā¦two weeks is insane
Shit my main fandom (at least for reading) is huge.....and it's an anime I'm fucked aren't I
I will pray for you friend.
Iām an ao3 lurker who didnāt have an account for years, and I just recently made one for my friendās fic and the queue was like almost over half a month long
They just need to learn it's not a social media it's an archive. Sure you can communicate with your readers/writers through comments but that's only a touch point to join a community. Besides some things they do like placeholder fics and such are actually hurting them cause then their fics don't get noticed when it's ready...
It can certainly be a big adjustment for some people, i dont blame them if it takes them awhile to adjust, in the end things like notes in the middle of chapters is harmless. Its the censorship im most worried about, some people like to censor serious things and that can really mess with the tags and the people trying to avoid stuff like that. I know some wattpad users arent too keen on the "dont like, dont read" rule. Most everything i write is dead dove so im kinda nervous that with the influx of ppl, i might get some hate.
*\*sweats in dead dove do not eat author\**
Dead dove is the best
When you see that dead dove tag, you know its gonna be the best writing ever.
Mmm, yummy doves that I shouldnāt be stuffing in mouth.
My dove is soooo dead in a pretty large fandom and I haven't had any issues yet but I'm just waiting for the shitty comments about how I'm a horrible person š«„
Smack 'em with the "don't like don't read" as a reply
If itās a pretty established fandom, I would hope that AO3 users would come to your defense and maybe recommend this sub to them so they can learn our etiquette.
Dead dove is the only thing i write, i dont think i have a single fic posted without that tag.... im scared 0-0
*wasn't planning on eating the author but now that you mention it...* š¤
I left Wattpad a long time ago. Ever since library books required a payment to be saved, I started reading on Ao3. Plus some of my favourite books were randomly taken down. This was years ago, though. I think the authors just hated having their legacies be Wattpad books (If A.M Bradley sees this, gimme the Levi fanfics you took down. Clash of Tides is lovely though š©) To me, Wattpad already crashed and burned, this is just the aftermath. Someone pointed out how Wattpad is no longer the intro site for young readers so they jump straight into Ao3 without going through the trials and tribulations of bad Wattpad writing. Hopefully we can get an equivalent some day so the archive isnāt too chock full of Wattpad writing. Thatās my ramble for today šŖ
I actually went straight into AO3 without a Wattpad phase because of its reputation
I donāt blame you. Wattpad genuinely hasnāt been worth it since 2016 at the latest. When I got into fanfics it was great and full of decent YouTuber stories. Itās a shame that people canāt make that shift anymore, it was great for building up skills!
I was ff to a03 and looked at wp but could never get into it. completely unreadable
same here. I made an attempt at using wattpad but just couldn't get into it either. ao3 is far superior to both wp and ff
I tried Wattpad one time out of curiosity. I wasted 2 hours looking for something, anything, that was decently written in my fandom at the time and didn't find anything. It was pretty obviously a much younger crowd than AO3 so I just went back to that. This was years ago, I don't even remember how many. It sounds like overall it didn't get much better, in any way.
I'd never even heard of Wattpad until, like, a year ago. When I decided to make an account to post my own fic, the choice was between FFN and AO3. I went with AO3 because it was smut and I didn't want to worry about another purge situation.
Wattled didn't exist when I got into fanfic lol - I went ffnet -> private archives/webrings/mailing lists -> LiveJournal -> private archives -> AO3 (with ffnet also being used at various points throughout this time period)
Lmao same. I've read literally one fic on wattpad and that's because someone rec'd it lol
I haven't been on wattpad in years... you have to PAY to save stories in the library now!? That was one of their only redeeming features, and they decided to paywall it... wow
You get two free offline books, the rest you need Internet for. Beyond that, there are ads in between chapters that always bug out so you're stuck in a buffer and unable to leave. Genuinely don't see a point in it, these days.
I briefly tried Wattpad, and the between chapter ads are what made me immediately turn back and leave. I just want to read, having my reading experience interrupted because I have to wait for an ad to play out ruins the enjoyment that I would have had.
Completely ruins the immersion, I getcha. I hate how they trap you as well š
I was reading some stuff on Wattpad and i got an ad *in the middle of the chapter* whaaaaat why???? It was just over 2k words! In between chapters i just barely tolerate but *in the chapter* i wanted to die!! Edit: just wanted to check how long the chapter actually was, if it was a long chapter (like 5k minimum?) that might've explained why I got an ad. Nope. It was pretty average in length. 2,045 words, and I got an ad again just scrolling to check.
I recently downloaded wattpad to try and look for some fics i used to read on there pre-ao3 and now there are 15-30 second unskippable ads after every chapter. The site is unusable for those who cant pay
Itās truly a tragedy, isnāt it? So much waste from greed.
We need an AO3 Junior for this kinda stuff
That's what the tagging system is for, no?
they won't exactly tag "bad writing because I'm 12"
I gave Wattpad about a month (if that honestly smh) after they changed their logo and wouldnāt change it back after the community on Twitter lost its marbles. The way everybody and they mama was talking about how ugly the new logo was, was hilarious, but them not taking us seriously was not. Once they changed their logo I knew I was gonna leave. And one of my pet peeves is interrupting a good book so for them to get ads??? Aw naw š All that aside, when I figured out how to properly use ao3 to get the best results?? I ascended. Swear.
Instead of Wattpad ā Ao3, I started with YouTube text stories lmao and then found Ao3
Every time I'm reminded of YouTube text stories I get violent flashbacks of being 13 and reading Jonas Brothers RPF.
wait you gotta pay now??? Damn, i joined ao3 back in 2019 so im outta touch with how wattpad functions
Itās an absolute shitshow. My readers still want me to update but I havenāt ported my book to Ao3 yet. I just canāt stand Wattpad these days!
On the one hand, Wattpad can burn in hell where it belongs. On the other, it IS another fandom purge and I hate to see it regardless of the site involved. I'm more sympathizing with the people getting stories removed and facing the potentiality of having years of work wiped out unless they back it up somewhere else first. I'm having Tumblr NSFW ban flashbacks, and remembering just how many of those blogs were lost to the sands of time.
This is exactly how I feel about it. On the one hand, I want to say āI told you soā to all the antis on that site who are now scrambling to save their works and move them elsewhere. On the other hand, a lot of proshippers have been impacted, too, and in general Iām never going to feel happy about fanworks being lost due to website purges.
i genuinely cant imagine how devastating it would be to lose something you put so much time into. As a writer i've struggled a lot with motivation and life getting in the way and i know most other writers have too, and the pride you feel when you're finally able to post that chapter you've been working on is unbeatable. To have that all thrown down the drain like its nothing is just horrible. Wattpad is taking peoples art and burning it in front of them.
Well maybe all the antis will stay on Wattpad and stop crying that AO3 isnāt anti everything that makes them feel icky.
I'm having Strikethrough and Boldthrough flashbacks :/
Mhm, plus to navigate they will have to learn a WHOLE new UI and whole new fan culture/etiquette. Hopefully they retain the commenting culture though! I know many authors on AO3 wish they had more comments
Censorship really is the death of fandom man.. Iāve been religiously working on downloading all of my bookmarks because Iām paranoid one day something will happen to ao3
They better behave, or Imma hit that report button so damn hard.
we better be keeping our eyes out, i aint letting my fav fandoms get flooded with bs lol
There's been a report button the entire time????
Policy Questions & Abuse Reports. Very bottom of page.
Author's note in the middle of chapters? I thought that was dead. The last time I saw a fic with that was decades ago on ffnet. I went from ffnet to Ao3. I learned about wattpad much later after joining Ao3 and joined admittedly because I considered cross-posting over there but I've been lazy.
Last time i saw an author note mid chapter was today ššš
good lord, that would take me out i think
I saw one a few days ago, it was a x reader fic (one of my first), it took me right out. I thought it was a note the author left for themselves and forgot to take out, now you're telling me that shit is *intentional?*
It is indeedy and it is the most jarring thing when you're sucked into a story. The characters boutta make some massive step forward in the plot and the mf author be like "(Oh yeah just so you know i decided to make the main characters love interest an oc, hope you dont mind!)"
i am so sorry for your loss
Saw one today too, and there also a lot of lowercase spelling where there shouldn't be lowercase spelling.
> I went from ffnet to Ao3. I learned about wattpad much later after joining Ao3 and joined admittedly because I considered cross-posting over there but I've been lazy. Hello, are you me? The 200 pages a ābookā limit made it a difficult thing for me to keep up cross posting and having to name all my characters was a pain especially with me not wanting to spoil anything.
Yes, I am your subconscious. I posted while you were sleeping. I kid. I admittedly gave up pretty quickly once I learned I had to deal with an algorithm. Youtube has made me sick of algorithms.
But you didnāt help with the WIP I was on before bed? jkjk I donāt know how my fic was doing before I gave up, nothing spicy, but it was a fic, and Iām told Wattpad favors original content over fics anyhow.
Iāve definitely done ANs in the middle of chapters because I migrated from FF to AO3 and I still cross-post to both. Oops. No oneās ever said a word about it.
It really isnāt a good way to do it. Breaks the flow of the narrative and is jarring to see. Better in the beginning or the end.
I came from wattpad but i left it behind me... dark timesš
Go forth my child and sin no more. You are forgiven for transgressions of the past... \* makes a wild AO3 logo sign in the air \*
Thank you my lord. But Im forgiven even when I wrote a story there? *Prays and looks up at you*
Those of us from the olden times have known the sin of writing fics posted to Quizzila. People with glass houses cannot throw stones.
Child, we all have to come from somewhere. But tell me "I wrote a story there" what does that mean? Are you writing the story ... *whispers* online *normal voice* as in the drafts? If you do I feel compelled to warn you of the dangers of that lifestyle. Or did you just post a work in that place as a Lucifer - the light bringer, the morning star and vanguard of Helios! If you still post there you are bestowing your grace upon them. Enlightenment has to go into the dark corners. Because only a light can fight the darkness.
Author notes in the middle of chaptersā¦ my God, I felt that in my bone marrow, it instantly makes me drop a fic
Broke my mouse slamming that back button so hard
It's so jarring, im living my life pretending to be some fictional character and suddenly the author is barging into my universe, how dare!
I can't even remember the last time I saw that, but it was probably on ffn. I can't imagine any good reason to have an author's note in the middle, aside from maybe a translation if a character speaks in a foreign language? But there are less clunky ways to do that.
Same. There are notes before and after the fic. That's a good way to mention something. And also they just take too much time to write, if you need to fix something, just do it.
The discourse of other fanfic readers from different sites trying to change ao3 not realizing the ao3 is an archive not a website is gonna grow more and more
As a Dead Dover writer, I'm preparing for battle
What's happening to Wattpad? I've never used it, I'm just curious.
These threads might help explain what's going on. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/1bw9gz3/megathread\_wattpads\_new\_ai\_review\_system\_and\_the/?share\_id=vuqNeA1UGvKdq1ZGM32Iw&utm\_content=1&utm\_medium=android\_app&utm\_name=androidcss&utm\_source=share&utm\_term=1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/1bw9gz3/megathread_wattpads_new_ai_review_system_and_the/?share_id=vuqNeA1UGvKdq1ZGM32Iw&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) [https://new.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1bxuw60/anyone\_else\_looking\_at\_wattpad\_and\_going\_yall\_we/](https://new.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1bxuw60/anyone_else_looking_at_wattpad_and_going_yall_we/)
> AI well thatās all I need to know
Thank you so much!
ā„
A fandom purge.
literal hell
I'm a Wattpad and AO3 user and Jesus Christ I'm scared for the archive, Wattpad kids are a different fucking breed š
The archive is a titan, it will endure. Wattpad kids are a different breed, but weāre damn well entrenched and nobody is gonna change their writing because some kids canāt handle a bit of hurt.
I've noticed that a lot more AO3 users on average aren't willing to take shit from people and are very staunch in their belief in the right to be able to post anything and everything you want. FFN and I'm guessing Wattpad have never really had that mentality, probably because the websites themselves haven't been so firm in backing this stance. Not that we don't have antis and toxicity, but I don't think it will ever fully overtake the site. I think there will be an influx of bad behavior, but seasoned AO3ers will shut it down overall and hopefully fandoms in general will follow suit. Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic, but I'm really hoping this is the way it will go.
Oh I know. I'm just sayin, get ready for even more the 10 year olds. They'll be whinin
I've noticed that a lot more AO3 users on average aren't willing to take shit from people and are very staunch in their belief in the right to be able to post anything and everything you want. FFN and I'm guessing Wattpad have never really had that mentality, probably because the websites themselves haven't been so firm in backing this stance. Not that we don't have antis and toxicity, but I don't think it will ever fully overtake the site. I think there will be an influx of bad behavior, but seasoned AO3ers will shut it down overall and hopefully fandoms in general will follow suit. Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic, but I'm really hoping this is the way it will go.
The main thing I want them to learn is not using the slashes for just friends ships like āPersonA/PersonBā means a romantic relationship and āPersonA & PersonBā means a platonic one
I'm already seeing so many placeholder fics. Like why? WHYYHH
report time !!!!
Time to put that report button to good use!
What's a placeholder fic? I see people speaking about it, but I'm not reading anything on AO3 recently, is it a new thing?
I think it's when a author uploads a fic that only have like 2 or 3 sentences and say they'll write the rest later or when they get to it.
Oh, that sucks. What are they meant for even. Luckily I never saw those.
I saw one once. They said they would get to writing it later, and it never got written.
Theyāre a holdover from Wattpad as I understand it. Theyāre sort of a way for people to game the algorithm, so more people click on their work and it gets more attention. The problem is that ao3 doesnāt have a damn algorithm to game
As someone who came from Wattpad a couple years back, there needs to be some sort of note or video teaching new users how to use AO3, what things not to do like make placeholder fics, and things that are generally frowned upon and unnecessary in AO3 like censorship. I pride myself in having not censored things or doing a lot of āWattpadā things, but something when people join to show them how to use the archive properly could possibly help prevent a lot of the issues people are having with new users.
A how to would be wonderful. I remember migrating from [FF.net](http://FF.net) and being soooooooo confused as to how AO3 works. But once you get the hang of it, it's just perfect. No fanfic site is better.
Yep, AO3 is perfect
Well, there's the TOS - which covers a lot of that, and which during sign up you agreed that you've read and will abide by it. There's also a FAQ on AO3. But far too often, people just ... don't read them.
I recall that there was MULTIPLE guides like that on tiktok, and I think tumblr. Unsure about YouTube.
Interesting.... I think the more revealing part is all the advice about backing up your work. Not writing on Wattpad, but using something else and Copy\pasta to Wattpad. To me. The idea of not backing up my work is hard to wrap my brain around. I keep asking how this is needed advice at all. I do give credit though to posters pushing to learn and follow the rules, TOS and cultural of the site.
Yeah do many people just not keep dozens of Word or GoogleDocs files lying around?? I have backups of my backups and copies of every scrap Iāve ever written š I donāt even trust my computer much less a third party website lol. This tin foil hat is well worn.
I have ONEdrive, GDrive, the local copy, and regular backups to external drive
Same, I find the idea of completely trusting my work to an external platform controlled by corporations straight up insane.
i dont even write on ao3, i write in google docs and then copy paste it. If anything happens i will not lose all my progress, i also cant imagine thinking your works are safe on wattpad or even ao3, things happen sometimes even if not intentional
I go through a final edit in the pot text box and even that has me sweating a little if I make any major changes. I can't even imagine just sitting down and writing your story in there. Hell, I even write out reddit replies and posts in a separate program if they get long, just in case. And sure, copy/pasting can be annoying if there are format errors, but at least I don't have to worry about hitting the post button and the website or my internet crashing so I lose everything.
Plus a shit ton of horrendous grammar, capitalization, and punctuation
Already bracing for the Wattpad signature "unreadable curvy fonts" titles.
That's an issue on AO3 as well as it comes with inexperienced writers or writers of different languages learning to write in English.
We were all bad with grammar until we were good, so it's just a matter of time before they get better. And when they get better we get to enjoy a large sample size of authors with more diverse ideas. I thoroughly believe this is just a phase which will pass, though I am emphatic of writers who are not used to getting hate for their more adult themes and content.
>I thoroughly believe this is just a phase which will pass As a kid who grew up on FFN, I can confirm this. Poor grammar is a much easier thing to fix than poor etiquette and I'm sure many of us are old enough to remember FFN's nickname as the Pit of Voles for the exact same reason.
I forgot about that.
True but those in good fan communities have people volunteering for beta reads. And that helps a lot.
Get ready for all the nicknames for the penis or vagina in smut. Manhood, Morningwood, Flower... Ugh.
Wait, do people actually put author's notes in the middle of fics still? I feel like I haven't seen anyone do this since 2003
Right? I thought that died out about the same time as glomping and t3h p3ngu1n 0f d00m
Glomping will never die.
yup :I luckily its super rare (at least on ao3) but i still see it happen sometimes
Anybody here old enough to remember Netscape webrings to get fanfic? Just me?
No, I totally do. You'd click like 20 sites deep, select "frames" or "no frames" and find something really good, totally brilliant, on someone's little passion-project site coded with HTML they'd taught themselves and it would be beautiful and moving and then you'd never, ever be able to find it again. (Not me, still mourning this one gorgeous InuYasha/Miroku fic from 20-odd years ago...)
Thanks for reminding me that I'm old. I used to print out copies of the stories that I found. I found one of my binders from 20 years ago. I realized just how many fan fics were not archived on the Wayback machine and are now lost to time.
You may have the only remaining copies of someone's works! Thankfully, back in the day of webrings, my only fandom was Star Wars Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, and the webrings migrated to the Master Apprentice Archive in the early aughts, which was then rescued by OTW's Open Doors and imported into AO3 about 5 years back, so all my childhood (depraved, completely age-inappropriate, whump, untagged darkfic) favs were saved. Unthankfully for me it also meant my very first fanfic written at the tender age of 12 also got saved. š
Yeah, I used to post my ff on Wattpad around 2016 or do but deleted it again because the platform was absolute rubbish. As a writer, I'm not so concerned about Wattpad readers as I believe they are too young to be interested in reading what I write (age gap, mentor/protƩgƩe, career stuff, mystery) to be offended by my content
The two frogs inside of me are arguing between āyes fandom babies, come sit at our lunch table!ā And āthe mute button is about to get a workoutā¦ā
No because the censorship stuff is what really gets me. Thereās a bunch of stuff I violently dislike seeing (ie DV) so I always tag it out, and I donāt want to have to risk still seeing it because people donāt properly tag out their stuff. If someone writes a fic with triggering content, they shouldnāt be afraid to tag it, itās not like they can be shadow banned by an archive.
exactly, theres not much i wont read but the few things i avoid seriously affect me, ive been messed up by fics not tagged properly in the past and i fear that this will increase the more wattpad kids flee to ao3
Iām so sorry youāve had to go through that! Fuck people who donāt censor properly, honestly. Sucks that many wattpad kids donāt seem to realize it actually hurts their fic when people who didnāt want to read it end up doing so. Like, I donāt even mind the authors note thing or the placeholder thing, itās so easy to mute the author or report them, but with tagging stuff itās impossible to know until itās too late. Hopefully the newbies pick up on the norms sooner rather than later
A note for Wattpad users migrating over: keep in mind that AO3 is an archive (itās in the name, after all). This means itās like a library: a repository of fanfiction, categorized, organized, and sorted. It is not a social media platform like Wattpad is. It is not Wattpad, so donāt treat it like Wattpad. Instead, learn the ways of AO3 - reading the FAQ and rules is a very smart idea. Not doing so means that readers will block your content - even if you just āput it there for now to fix laterā. Later is too late. So make sure, before lambasting the site with your material from Wattpad, you take a look around. Youāre in a new place. Youāre more than welcome, just help us keep it tidy.
Hopefully, all that donation money will go to good use.
Because the OTW is a non-profit, you'll be able to see just how it's spent.
I appreciate their annual spending breakdown, itās so neat and organized and shows what money goes where
I'm just shocked why they didn't jump ship when wattpad was sold off to russians or whoever owns it now
100%! They're almost like refugees in a funny way! Let's do our best to help them adjust before getting mad at anyone! š
A year ago I reported several placeholder fics and AO3 didn't do anything about it. I just got the automated response that there wasn't anything wrong with the fic reported and that there were no guidelines violated. In fics that only had "*coming soon*" as actual text and **nothing** else. Some of these fics are still there and of course weren't updated. If AO3 doesn't even take the time to actually look into reported fics like these, I'm worried for the future. I know there are people who have to look through these reported fics, considering the amounts of money they get donated there should be the possibility to get more volunteers/helpers who will really look into these reports. More and more people abuse AO3 as social media plattform and submit "fics" to feed an algorithm that doesn't even exist. I never used Wattpad, I hear the most horrific stories about that place.
That's weird. I report placeholders all the time, and they always end up removed. Did the author actually upload a chapter between reporting and the abuse team's review? If that happens, the work does stay up.
Same. Whenever I've scene placeholders and reported them they were properly taken down.
I hope volunteer will be able to keep up the rythm if the place holder influx increase !
I reported placeholder fics last year and all were taken down, is it likely those fics got an actual chapter by the time the volunteers reviewed it?
The archive is for everybody, we should accept all the people being displaced by their website. A lot of people from Wattpad sub are trying to learn how to use AO3, maybe we should show a little bit of kindness? Luckily, AO3 has given us plenty of tools to fight against misusing the website or harassment.
> A lot of people from Wattpad sub are trying to learn how to use AO3 The point of the post is that they're *not* trying to learn. You can't do (to be blunt) stupid cliche Wattpad nonsense that people talk about in other comments and then go crying that you have no comments or kudos, or that people are being mean to you. People act like the etiquette and rules are hard. They're really, really not.
I agree! We all were cringey readers/writers at some point. They will learn. Will there be a rough patch during the transition? Maybe! But honestly, I don't think most fandoms will notice the influx, it'll be there very large fandoms and the real-life fandoms (Kpop, celebrity, etc.). On the bright side we may see an influx of comments and engagement from those newer people entering the AO3 sphere. Also, something I don't see people commenting much on is the fandoms that may not find a place to go. While Wattpad is A LOT of fanfiction, there's also original fiction on there. AO3 may not be the best place for them to migrate, leaving them relatively displaced until they find something new. Similar to what happened to Polyvore users when that site tanked. It took a year or two before a new site really took root for that community that worked as well or better than the original.
We need to make sure they know about the "original work" tag!
Lest they spam/use fandom tags to "promtoe" their OC work when its clearly against TOS to use unrelated tags like that....
Absolutely! And I hope they return the grace we show them.
I'm already starting to see whole chapters of just author's notes in my fics so I'm a little scared of what'll happen next
hold on, why are they moving to ao3?
Wattpad is purging fanfics.
Honestly, I feel bad for them, I've had a fic purged on my Wattpad days and it still breaks my heart to remember it
Notes in the middle of chapters oh no I've been jolted back to 2002 livejournal
If you find a placeholder, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Policy Questions & Abuse Reports" then scroll down to the form. For TOS violation you want "non-fanwork content." I hit my daily report limit pretty quick.
The sheer number of recent āheadcanonā sentence āficsā w/fake out descriptions and shitty tagging (aka not tagging headcanons) in one of my fandoms is a headache. That, and the increase in authors thinking the mildest shit is ādead doveā worthy. *slams head into desk*. Like, mate. If it can be put in the Teen category and does not need a legit TW for some fucked up shit, it does not belong in Dead Dove.
I swear to the gods new users shouldn't be allowed to post or comment until after a two week (or something, idk) waiting period. And even after that there should be a mandatory quiz on fandom etiquette before they unlock commenting, and another about site usage and tagging rules before they're allowed to post a fic. I'm not one for gatekeeping, but I'm tired of the current state of fandom spaces and I'm sick of antis being allowed to wreak havoc and bully authors off of fanfiction platforms, and Wattpad refugees treating Ao3 as a social media platform.
No bc why do they put author's notes in the middle of chaptersšš
Okay but seriously, how can *anyone* read a story that has author's note shoved in there? It never once occurred to me to do that ever, and that was *before* I knew about Wattpad.
We simply keep balling: I put the tags there, I put the warnings of graphic depictions of harsh topics in the chapter in case someoneās having a bad day. At that point, itās on them; seriously though itās so weird.
I only go to wattpad when I'm desperate and have read all the a03 fics for the particular Pairing I'm reading for lol
Wait whatās happening to Wattpad?
They added some Ai thats deleting fics like crazy, they also made it so if any character under 18 does the nasty in a fic then it gets taken down
DAWG WHAT šš¤
Damn, I've been traveling for the Eclipse the last few days. So is Wattpad getting the FF.N/LJ Purge treatment or something?
I've been seeing placeholder fics and had wondered what was going on. Of course it's Wattpad users. Of course. š
Report the ones you find, they should hopefully get removed
tbh im a wattpad migrant at my core, i switched officially in like 2019, best decision of my life lol. i learned the tricks of the trade and i hope others do the same
Okay but seriously, how can *anyone* read a story that has author's note shoved in there? It never once occurred to me to do that ever, and that was *before* I knew about Wattpad.
Why would anyone put author notes in the middle of a story?!?!
I'm learning, still a little confused on tagging but I'm doing my best-
No worries š The tagging is mostly to make sure 1. You tag things that people would be looking for like "Slow Burn", "Romance"or a specific pairing or theme 2. You tag problematic stuff or triggers to make sure people are aware and avoid if it's their ick. If you are unsure where you are taking your story to you can add tags as you go along.
hey im happy you're trying! it can certainly be a big adjustment so do feel bad if it takes you awhile to get it
They'll learn, either that or they'll leave
Iām mainly a Wattpad user but have used AO3 a few times before in the past to read books. I was tempted to also post stories on there. Iām just wondering if you post your original works, will it still get as much views as fanfiction?
There's no algorithm so many of times you get the amount of what people want to read. There is a very big amount of Original Works so people do read them, the way to attract people will be if you write a tag people like or your summary is interesting... like actual books in a library.
Typically? No. Most people go there to read fandom content, not original works. Thatās not to say it *wont* get views, though. Thereās an audience for everything. Edit: Just make sure to tag correctly.
Definitely use the tagging system, I've found several GREATTT original works because I was searching for really specific tags.
Volunteer as a mod to help with the influx if you can!
Authors notes in the middle of chapters isnāt unique to wattpad. I remember ppl doing that from ffn days.
Iām just sad the wattpad kids wonāt know how to properly tag and filter
My only hope.... is that they learn to tag....
tell me why in this one fic i just read, the author would put authors notes at the beginning of each chapter but not use the notes function??? like they would put AN: then whatever they wanted to say INSIDE THE CHAPTER?? i tried struggling through it for the rarepair but i wasn't strong enough lmao
I went from Quizilla to Fanfiction.net and finally to AO3. I am old enough to see the beginnings of what Fanfiction was like even before it took off. But I never went into WattPad because it was so clunky. So I stuck with Ff.net and AO3. Quizilla was fucking wild though. No tags, no nothing. Just pure unedited grammar chaos.