#ao3 discourse

[myfandomrealitea]

"Why can't the freaks on AO3 just go and make a site for all the gross stuff and leave AO3 alone."

Because AO3 is that site. Because AO3 was that site long before you decided AO3 was better than the sites you bullied us off of before, and I can promise you if someone somehow comes up with a fanfic site you like better specifically for the 'gross stuff' you'll try to bully us off that too so you can benefit from it.

AO3's specific core purpose is to preserve fanfiction, yes, but it was also instigated as a host site for the fanfiction that kept getting yeeted off other platforms like Wattpad. Its designed to preserve all fanfiction, not just the fanfiction you, personally, think is 'allowed' to be written.

AO3 is the site for all the gross stuff the freaks make. We've been there just as long as you. We've been funding it just as long as you have. AO3 has specifically said you have a place here. The timeline was literally:

Wattpad/FF.net/LiveJournal purge fanfics > AO3 is born > The people who's fics got purged moved over to AO3 > AO3 gains popularity as the best functioning site > The people who pushed for the fics to be purged off Wattpad move to AO3 > The same people try to push for AO3 to purge fics.

AO3's source coding is open-access. You go make a polished, strict, rigid site where nothing 'icky' is allowed. You go make a site where you can control what is hosted. We already have our space.

[just-antithings]

Good luck! I look forward to seeing yall tear each other apart in the process

[xx-slug-xx]

The day that antis learn that “noncon” is absolutely just slang for “rape/sa in fiction” is the day my joints stop hurting tbh

Key phrase is the “in fiction”. Nobody is out here calling real life sexual abuse “noncon”. The very idea that there are people out there who are is just a made up thing antis made up. The only context we’re I’ve seen sex abuse referred to as “noncon” is on places like TikTok where the mere mention of the word “rape” gets your content taken down. Nobody in their right mind would call it what it’s not, but censorship is a bitch and it prevents us from using the proper terms for a very serious subject. When censorship isn’t an issue though, people call it what it is. Sexual abuse and rape.

Noncon is used specifically for fiction though. It’s slang for sex abuse and rape in fiction. Nobody is trying to make it sound like it’s not exactly that. It’s just another word for it and it’s used explicitly in fictional works because it’s not as serious as if it were to happen to a real person. Real abuse and fiction are not equals in any way, and using the term “noncon” to denote that separation is good actually. Noncon fanfics aren’t real, they should not be treated with the same seriousness as sex abuse.

[unpopularfanopinion]

I got distracted earlier and forgot to include this.

Imagine you have someone who is morally opposed to alcohol and it’s consumption. Okay fine. They don’t have to drink if they don’t want to. Nor do they have to allow people to drink in their home or business establishment. That is a boundary they are allowed to set for themselves. But would it be acceptable or appropriate for them to go into a bar(a business pretty much dedicated to the consumption of alcohol in a safe environment) and start demanding that everyone stop drinking while they are there. Harassing and insulting the workers and patrons all while claiming that they’re doing this because of their morals, and they are just setting personal boundaries and how dare the patron disregard them? Or is this teetotaler just being a massive disrespectful asshole, violating the boundaries and safe space of the bar and its patrons?

The recent discourse is about DNI’s being put into the tags on Ao3. Ao3 a space meant to be a safe space for fandom to post all types of transformative works without fear of judgement. Tags meant to insult and intimidate other users of the site. The people using those tags aren’t setting boundaries or protecting themselves. They’re violating the boundaries and safe space of the other users and the overall intent of Ao3. This is not the same thing as putting a DNI on your own personal tumblr, Twitter, or any other website.

[werewolf-cuddles]

Can we please have one AO3 donation drive where people don't post stupid, idiotic hot takes about how awful it is for a website that doesn't run ads to ask its users to donate so they can pay server costs?

Is that too much to ask?

[brettdoesdiscourse]

God, some of you all are so fucking stupid I'm surprised you can survive your daily lives.

Ao3 is an archive, not a social media. It's not for raising awareness for anything. It's exclusively for fanworks. If you post a non-fanwork, you're breaking TOS regardless of the content of it.

The only acceptable way to "speak up" about something on ao3 is by adding it to the author's note on a legit fanfic. I've never seen any legitimate fic being taken down for simply mentioning something like this in the author's note.

Judging by the fact OP unironically uses the phrase "pornsick" and bitches about people donating to ao3, I'm going to assume it's a problem they created in their own head.

And I sincerely hope, since OP has an issue with companies needing to make money to stay in operation, that they never use any companies. There's always an atrocity occurring somewhere in the world and there's always companies that need to make money to stay in business (yes even during genocides.)

OP better not be at any coffeeshop, any restaurant, they better not be buying any non-necessities, they better not be buying any treats or luxuries.

[cowboylikeyouu]

i made a pretty angry post about people not commenting on fanfics (and it wasn’t even about my own lmao i‘m perfectly satisfied with the amount of comments i get) and some people get too offended by it:

the same person told me to "not say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say" btw !!!

i could’ve been nicer in that post yes and i might take it down, but i was civil & polite in the comments so why can’t u?

[roadhogsbigbelly]

i think "a03 is an important site for a lot of queer creatives and it not existing would fuck over alot of people" and "a03 as a website should probably put more of an effort into not hosting racist or pedophilic content" are both ideas that can coexist at the same time

[wander-wren]

every once in a while i like to poke my head into "anti [x]" tags just to see what the other side thinks. recently i was looking through "anti ao3" and found a really funny post claiming that ao3 is not anticapitalist, but actually the Definition Of Capitalism, bc it relies on volunteer labor while supposedly having the money to pay a staff.

oh, honey.

but i am not going to make unsubstantiated claims on the internet, no, and this gives me an excuse to look at ao3's whole budget myself, which i've been meaning to do for a while. these numbers are taken from the 2022 budget post and budget spreadsheet.

ao3's total income for 2022, from the two donation drives, regular donations, donation matching programs, interest, and royalties was $1,012,543.42. less than $300 of that was from interest and royalties, so it's almost all donations. and that's a lot, right? surely an organization making a million dollars a year can afford to pay some staff, right?

well, let's look at expenses. first of all, they lose almost $37,000 to transaction fees right away. ao3 and fanlore (~$341k and ~$18k, respectively) take up the biggest chunks of the budget by far. that money pays for, to quote the 2022 budget post, "server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses."

in some years, otw also pays external contractors to perform audits for security issues, and for more servers to handle the growing userbase. servers are expensive as hell, guys. in 2022, new server costs alone were $203k.

each of their other programs only cost around $3,000 or less, and otw paid around $78k for fundraising and development. wait, how do you lose so much money on your fundraising?? from the 2022 budget post: "Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors."

then the otw paid an additional $74k in administration expenses, which covers "hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools."

in case you weren't following all of that math, the total expenses for 2022 come out to $518,978.48. woah! that's a lot! but it's still only a little over half of their net revenue. weird. i wonder what they do with that extra $494k?

well, $400k of it goes to the reserves, which i'll get to in a second. the last $93k, near as i can tell, gets rolled over to the next year. i'll admit this part i'm a little unsure about, as it's not clear on the spreadsheet, but that's the only thing that makes sense.

the reserves, though are clear. the most recent post i could find on the otw site about it were in the board meeting minutes from april 2, 2022: "We’re holding about $1million in operating cash that is about twice the amount of our annual operating costs. There is another $1million in reserves due to highly successful fundraisers in the past. The current plan for the reserves is to hold the money for paid staff in the future. It’s been talked about before in the past and we’re still working out the details, but it’s a rather expensive undertaking that will result in large annual expenses in addition to the initial cost of implementation."

woah....they're PLANNING to have paid staff eventually! wild!

so let's assume, for easy numbers, that the otw currently has $1.5 million in reserves. before we even get to how to use that money, let's look at the issues with implementing paid staff:

deciding which positions are going to be paid, because it can't be all of them

deciding how much to pay them, bc minimum wage sure as hell isn't enough, and cost of living is different everywhere, and volunteers come from all over the world

hiring staff and implementing new systems/tools to handle things like payroll and accounting

making sure you continue to earn enough money both to pay all of the staff and have some in reserves for emergencies or leaner donation drives

probably even more stuff than that! i don't run a nonprofit, that's just what i can think of off the top of my head.

okay, okay, okay. for the sake of argument, let's assume there is a best-case scenario where the otw starts paying some staff tomorrow. how much should they be paid? i'm picking $15 an hour, since that's what we fought for the minimum wage to be. by now, it should be closer to $20 or $25, but i'm trying to give "ao3 is capitalism" the fairest shot it can get here, okay?

ideally, if someone is being paid to help run ao3, they shouldn't need a second job. every job should pay enough to live off of. and running a nonprofit is hard work that leads to a lot of burnout--two board members JUST resigned before their terms were up. what i'm saying is, i'm going to assume a paid otw staff is getting paid for 40 hours of work a week, minimum. that's $31,200.

at $400,000 per year, the otw can afford to pay 12 people. that's WITHOUT taking into account the new systems, tools, software, etc they would have to pay for, any kind of fees, etc, etc.

oh, and btw, if you're an american you're still making barely enough to survive in most places, AND you don't have universal healthcare, vision, or dental. want otw to give people insurance, too? the number of people they can pay goes down.

it's. not. possible.

a million dollars is a lot of money on the face of it, but once you realize how MUCH goes into running something like the otw, it goes away fast.

just for reference, wikipedia also has donation drives every year. wikipedia, as of 2021, has $86.8 million in cash reserves and $137.4 million in investments. sure, wikipedia and ao3 are very different entities, but that disparity is massive. and i should note that if you give $10 to wikipedia they don't give you voting rights, i'm just saying.

by the way, you may have noticed that i didn't mention legal costs at all here. isn't one of otw's big Things about how they do legal advocacy?

yes, it is. they have a whole page about that work. and i can't for the life of me find a source on otw's website (and i'm running out of time to write this post, i'll look harder later), but i am 90% sure i learned before that most, if not all, of otw's legal work/advice/etc is done pro bono. i've also seen an anti-ao3 person claim their legal budget is only $5k or so, but they didn't have a source. but keep in mind that if they don't have a legal budget, all the numbers above stay the same, and if they do, there is even less money available for paid staff.

you can criticize ao3 and the otw all you want! there are many valid reasons to criticize them, and i do not think they're perfect either. but if you're going to do so, you should at least make sure you can back up your claims, bc otherwise you just look silly.

[fandomeldersintheirthirties]

"I still post my fics on ao3 but I don't support their policy and you're a bad person if you donate to them"

SHUT UP!

SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

OFF TO WATTPAD YOU GO! I DON'T CARE!

[darcycrow]

did ao3 forbid to put any free fun tags or is it bc i uploaded from my phone 🤨🤨🤨🤨

[just-antithings]

no official filtering system, you say?

[faranae]

Rant incoming (OTW/AO3 funding)

Pardon the ramble, this has been going on for months (years technically) but I saw a post again today shared by someone moderately influential and it's a "straw that broke the camel's back" thing. I'll probably pop it later.

It hurts to see how vitriolic folks can be when it comes to the OTW's (Organization for Transformative Works) fundraising. The OTW is more than just a "fanfiction host". The work they do and have done, not just with AO3 but also their other projects and occasional legal advocacy, is important to some people.

Is the OTW perfect? No. Are they struggling for funds? Also no. But these "righteous" PSAs implying the OTW is super wealthy and donations are just throwing money into a fire are misleading at best and positively reek of semi-malicious intent at worst.

So why would anyone rage so hard and write PSAs over which harmless causes other people spend their disposable income in support of?

[tinfoil hat below the cut]

Could it be partly caused by the small (but vocal) fandom-adjacent cliques that astroturf to sabotage the OTW's public image at every opportunity because they're Big Mad that AO3 fights to preserve content they don't like?

Do you really believe that if they win re: the big-nope taboos they'll abandon efforts to sour the other topics they hate? For example, LGBTQ+ content (emphasis on the T, gotta protect them kids /s) has been targeted by these same groups--over literal decades of fandom history--as have works and content created by and for victims of various abuses.

[/tinfoil]

I do not personally support the aforementioned big-nope taboos, but censorship in fandom is a slippery slope that we have fallen down before and I do not want to see that happen again.

I'm NOT saying everyone complaining about the OTW/AO3 fundraising is campaigning for or agrees with the TERFs/bigots et al who seed this shit into our communities, far from it. I am saying it is painfully obvious when a post is blindly parroting their rhetoric (which has often been carefully trimmed and presented in a way that appeals to them).

Next time you see a post hating on something (anything, really) out of nowhere, take a second to think about where they are getting their info, and whether or not that source is credible. For fuck's sake, I've even seen fake screenshots of the OTW's website tweaked just enough to "prove" their points. It's childish.

"But they have a couple million in net assets! They're not allowed to have savings!! They're a nonprofit!!!"

No, no, no. Perfect example of the "parroting" I mentioned earlier. Net assets are not cash. That is the value of everything in and owned by the OTW combined minus their debts/liabilities, not how much they have in the bank.

The OTW is pretty transparent about how much it brings in and where the money goes; They have to do this by law to maintain their nonprofit status. Hell, they'll even toss you the numbers if that's your schtick.

Again, not perfect, but nowhere near as greed-riddled as has been implied by so many posts on my dash over the past couple months. I think I'm more just upset at seeing people I know and respect falling for it hook line and sinker. It makes me angry to think about the people I love being manipulated by folks who seem to be allies, but who are simply waiting for permission to destroy us next.

/endrant

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

People are allowed to make art you don’t like. People are allowed to make art you find disgusting, deplorable, and morally bankrupt. You don’t have to engage with that art, but you also don’t get to tell them not to make that art because it makes you personally uncomfortable. And you certainly don’t get to label people subhuman and deserving of violence for making art you don’t like. That’s it. End of story.

[unpopularfanopinion]

The thing that bothers me about the whole argument of "I'm just setting a boundary!" In regards to things like DNIs, especially on sites like ao3, is that that's not what a boundary is.

A boundary is about how YOU will act. Aka "I'm not comfortable discussing this, so if you continue to talk to me about it, I will have to walk away from the conversation."

A demand involves telling others how THEY need to behave. Aka "You're not allowed to talk about that"

Boundaries =/= Demands. You cannot control another person, you can only control what you will tolerate and how you will react.

Pretty much. It's a complete misapplication and bastardization of the concept around boundaries.

Like boundaries are something you set for your one on one(occasionally group) interactions. Like you said, not wanting to discuss certain topics. Telling your boss not to call/contact you when you're off duty. Telling your mother not to comment on your appearance.

They're not something you get to apply to the public at large like saying you don't ever want to see any long haired freaky people walking in front of your house. (Uhm if you have a public sidewalk, anyone can walk there) That's just not something anyone has the right to do.

[werewolf-cuddles]

People need to stop viewing "Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" as the author not caring about potentially triggering people, and start viewing it instead as one big blanket archive warning. It essentially means that any of the main archive warnings could apply to this story, but the author isn't directly tagging which ones.

Think of it like this. Imagine, if you will, an author writes a story about a group of friends in high school. It starts off as a relatively happy slice of life story, with hints of a darker story lurking beneath the surface, until finally, the big twist occurs; one of the main characters dies. Perhaps they're murdered, maybe they commit suicide, but either way, it's a shocking moment.

If the author tags this fic with the "Major Character Death" archive warning, then this would spoil the twist in advance. The author wants this moment to be shocking, and if people see that archive warning, then potential readers will already know that one of the main characters is going to die, and that would lessen the impact of the twist, even if they don't know which character it applies to.

And so, "Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", naturally being more vague, helps to preserve the surprise of that major character death, while at the same time, notifying potential readers that the story will contain content that would normally require an archive warning.

"Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is a "Read At Your Own Risk" label, essentially, and that's perfectly fine. If you see this particular warning, then you should understand that the content of this story could potentially trigger you. Whether or not you want to take that risk is entirely on you.

Note: "Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is a completely different label to "No Archive Warnings Apply". Please stop confusing them.