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GUYS. DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN WRITE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE FICS ON AO3

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➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy. 

➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.

➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.

➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.

➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.

➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'

➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.

➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.

➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.

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New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom

(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)

A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.

The Problem

Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.

One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.

With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.

Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System

So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.

How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:

Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.

You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.

This massively decreases the findability of a story.

Tagging with the New System

The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."

While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.

For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)

With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.

And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.

What To Do??

The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.

Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.

Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.

Epilogue

Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.

When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.

I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.

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Hi, I'm anon asking about series and co-authors. Thank you so much for your response and the effort you put into it! The answer is logical TBH, I hoped it wasn't the case but I might have to do a collection instead of a series so the other author doesn't have a series that's not theirs in their tab. Really appreciate the help 👍

Hello again!

I'm glad I understood your question and answered it properly! I love to do this kind of things so I tend to get a bit overboard. And while the answer might be logical, it's also not mentioned plainly so it's easy to miss it.

As for your works and co-authors, if they don't want the series to be displayed on their dashboard, then yes, the best solution after that would be a collection.

However, remember that collections are not sorted the same way as series, nor can you move from one work to the other in one click. So if you want your works in a specific order or to be browsable easily, I would suggest you number them in the title (so the readers can sort by title), list and link the right order in one of the profile boxes from your "Collection Settings" and/or put html in the notes of your works to create a similar interface as what those in series have.

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Hi! If one AO3 user creates a series with all fics by them alone, besides a couple which have a co-author, would the series then appear in the 'series' tab on the co-author's profile, even if it wasn't created by them? Hope this made sense 😩

Hi! I went a bit ham with this one, so you have the answer at the end if you don't want to read my explanation/logic.

What I understand is:

Writer A made a series. One time, they did a collaboration with Writer B. Thus, Writer A added Writer B as a co-creator for that work. This work is then added in Writer A's series.

If people go on Writer B's dashboard and decide to check out their series, will Writer A's series appear in there?

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Fun (no) fact is, the FAQ doesn't list this information, which is a bit annoying, I concede. So I read a bit and the answer ended up being kind of hidden, but logical.

The first part is in "Who shows up as a creator of a series?". In there it is written that "Series co-creators are also inherited from the works added to the series.". This means that (taking in our scenario) Writer A's series will have both them and Writer B as creators because of that one work.

It is confirmed in "How do I add or remove series co-creators/co-authors?" where it is written that "Series co-creators are automatically inherited from any works included in the series. If you add a work with two or more co-creators to a series, the series will also list the co-creators of that work, even if the series also includes works by a single creator.", which fits our scenario nicely.

This means that because Writer A added Writer B to the work and then added the work to the series, they will all be connected. If Writer B is listed as an author for the series, then logically the series will display on Writer B's dashboard.

This already answers the question, but it is somewhat confirmed in a second part with "How do I remove myself as a creator of a series?".

This question is partially answered by:

"To remove yourself as a co-creator using the Edit Series page:

Go to your dashboard by selecting the greeting "Hi, [username]!" and choosing "My Dashboard" from the menu, or by selecting your profile image.

Select "Series" from the menu found at the side of the page or at the top on a mobile device.

Select the "Edit" button underneath the series you'd like to remove yourself as co-creator from."

This explanation means that in order for Writer B to remove themself as co-author of a series, they have to go on their dashboard, and check their series tab. And we already know that Writer B being named co-author of a work and added to Writer A's series made them co-author of the series.

-

So, in all logic, if Writer A wrote something, put Writer B as a co-creator and integrated this work in their series, then Writer A's series will display on Writer B's dashboard.

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I had a question about filtering my bookmarks! Is it possible to filter for only my private bookmarks? Thank you in advance!

Hi,

I took a look and I don't think that's possible? It's also not listed in the FAQ.

A suggestion would be to add a specific tag within your bookmark when you make them private so you can filter it later on. Note that when a bookmark is private, the author cannot see any information you add to it, so feel free to tag as you wish.

Another suggestion, if you have another pseudo, is to separate your bookmarks by putting the public ones on your main pseudo and the private ones on the other.

Tags would be better, I think, since the sorting and filtering system for the bookmark is thought with the tags in mind and like that you don't need another pseudo on the side.

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I wish each individual chapter of a fic on AO3 had the date when it was posted, rather than just when the fic was first posted and when the last update was.  

That way you can see at a glance how often a WIP is updated, whether it’s fairly regularly or with huge long gaps between chapters; or if the first 20 chapters were posted in quick succession but the most recent couple were posted at long intervals, indicating that the writer is losing interest and may not finish, etc.  

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Uh hi! I had a question about putting works in an Anonymous Collection. The people who own the collection can't do anything to the fic correct? Like edit or orphan it?

I don't think they can but I've heard people talking about how they had their screwed with because of collections and wanted to make sure.

Hi!

An Anonymous Collection is the same as any other collections, the big difference being that your pseudos do not appear to anyone but yourself, the owner and moderators of the collection and AO3's admins.

But even then, your work is yours and yours only (provided you're the only author of the work) and thus only you can edit it and orphan it. If you don't want it to be part of a collection anymore, you can also chose to remove it.

The issues with works in collections is that some Collection Owners decided to set them as "Unrevealed" which means that the works in it were only visible to the authors, the owner and moderators of the collection and AO3's admins. Thus, people couldn't access fics they had in their bookmarks, and the authors weren't even aware of the change.

It was happening back in 2021 and, maybe in order to answer to this, I checked the settings and it turns out that now your work can't be automatically added to a collection and even if your emails are turned off for Collection Notifications, you will still receive one if your username or work has been hidden.

You can read a bit more about it here.

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I desperately wish people would start actually reading the AO3's TOS before confidently making 'user guides' to the AO3 that are just blatantly, flatly wrong.

Yes the AO3 has banned content. They do not allow anything that's illegal under US law - though US law, importantly, does not ban fictional depictions of things - and they do not allow any commercial content. That includes your ko-fi link, or mentions that you do fic commissions. If you do post fic commissions to AO3 and want to mention the commissioner, the fic is a 'request' from the commissioner. This protects the AO3 and you from copyright law.

No the AO3 is not 'a creative fanfiction archive'. It is a fandom archive. Your meta, insights, and theories are absolutely welcome and encouraged there. AO3 also encourages you to post other types of fanworks, like fan videos, podfics, and art, but unfortunately isn't able to natively host those like it does text, so fic has kind of become what it's known for. That absolutely does not mean that other types of fanwork aren't allowed, or are discouraged by the site culture! Anybody who tells you otherwise is just plain wrong!

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Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">

nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">

yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

[ao3-helper]

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">

nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">

yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

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AO3 Planned Downtime

The Archive of Our Own will be down for about 10 hours of maintenance between 07:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC (check what time that is for you). This downtime will allow our AD&T and Systems teams to prepare our search database for a software update.

Date: 07:00 UTC, June 29, 2024

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I don't know who needs to hear this

But if you go into the comments section on AO3

And type

Then replace image url (keep the " marks) with the url of a picture

You can leave fan art in the comments of a fic

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why does ao3 has hit counts?

i feel like it's a little irrelevant metric to keep track of for an archive and on top of that i see sadly a lot of readers taking it too seriously and not reading fics with too many hits but not proportionally high kudos count.

i know there skins exist that hide it and personally i don't have issues with them, it's just sad to see something so small weaponized by readers and use it as indication of fics quality.

I wasn't around in fandom during AO3's inception, but according to the news post when hit counters were released, it was by popular suggestion at the time. I'm old enough to remember a time when people thought hit counts were a cool thing to track. Maybe that was it? 🤷‍♀️

At least, that might be why it's displayed to users. Site administrators have other reasons for tracking web traffic, but I do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins*.

Readers are people and people need to find some way to sort through information. Is hits the best way to find a fic you'll love? No. But then, neither are kudos and lots of people sort by those too. They tend to do that more when they're new to a fandom and new to AO3, though rather than as a standard method of searching.

No matter which stat a reader decides to organize their search by, it won't actually contribute to their enjoyment of the work. It's the story that determines that. Finding a story that you're actually going to like means reading tags and summaries instead of numbers. Give them enough time, and they'll figure that out.

[ao3-helper]

➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy. 

➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.

➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.

➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.

➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.

➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.

➡️ ‘Creator chose not to warn’ is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. ‘May contain peanuts!’

➡️ Writers are allowed to use ‘Creator chose not to warn’ for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.

➡️ ‘Creator chose not to warn’ is not the same thing as ‘no archive warnings apply’.

➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you’re reading that upsets you.

➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.

[ao3-helper]

Been hearing this is a problem again. Don't be a dick in bookmarks, folks. And yes while I made this image, I'm giving free reign. Take it. Spread it far and wide. Because I'm hearing that some readers don't know that their bookmarks are visible.

[ao3-helper]

Hi,

In case you haven't heard, there is another multi-fandom archive going around.

SquidgeWorld Archive

It uses the same system as AO3 (since it is open source), so you wont have much problem using it. But while most of the instructions work the same between SWA and AO3 on a functionality level, they do have different takes you should check before making an account there and use it like AO3.

I mention it because:

1) it is always great to have several archives of the same work, especially since it just needs one problem with the server/server providers for everything to be lost (and that goes for your personal works on your personal devices by the way. have at least three copies on different devices)

2) (my favourite) they do not allow AI works

3) they have a special system to deal with Queer Platonic Relationships

4) since it's the same system, most things I explain here on AO3 is also how it works on SWA

This archive is still small and with few people on here so if you solely read you won't find as much as AO3, but if you're a writer, you can cross-post your work on both archives to make it grow and offer options to others.