#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.

[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!

[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?

[tendersky]

hiii, do you have sources for the whole ao3 situation? where the volunteer didnt actually get kicked out for being pro palestine?

Sure! I'm getting all my information from the "official" sources that everyone is sharing, which is this tumblr post and this Google Doc. (I believe there's a "new year" Dreamwidth post that people also reference but I haven't read it so won't reference it).

First, a direct quote from the Tumblr post: "I left because I was horrified by the org and all of the racism they promised to work on but never ever did." -> didn't get kicked out, suspended, or anything from AO3, the user (Bjorn) voluntarily left the organization.

The rest of the screenshots from the Google doc are from a Slack channel you have to opt into about I/P, which is a place you are most likely to find Zionists.

I'll break down the conversation here.

Here's the first included warning:

I'm writing to you on behalf of Tag Wrangling Chairs due to a few serious issues which have been brought to our attention.  A number of volunteers have approached us, either privately or through VolCom, to convey concerns regarding your behaviour in the #x-politics-society-current-events and #x-politics-israel-palestine-events Slack channels.

Our Code of Conduct,, which you agreed to in our most recent Still Willing to Wrangle, requires that all volunteers maintain a level of civility when interacting with one another.  Specifically, "We never lose sight of everyone's right to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect."

The language and tone that you have been using do not convey compassion or respect toward your fellow volunteers.  For example, you accused a fellow volunteer of defending murder and war crimes, and have referred to another as a "fucking asshole".

We understand that this is an emotionally charged situation, and that with so much death and destruction happening, it is easy to misdirect the anger and helplessness you might feel.  However, to the best of our ability, we need to assume that our fellow volunteers are well-intentioned and speaking in good faith, and not devolve to insults or name-calling.

Please understand that should we receive additional complaints or note that you have continued to violate the Code of Conduct in your treatment of other volunteers, we Chairs may step in and remove you from certain social Slack channels, either temporarily or permanently depending on the number and nature of the complaint(s).  We hope that this will not be necessary.

--> so, they're being warned for not following the Code of Conduct, which includes being civil to other people. Nothing is said about "from the river to the sea". Bjorn brings up "from the river to the sea" unprompted in their response:

Additionally, if me saying "from the river to the sea" is supposedly against the Code of Conduct and grounds for repeatedly removing me from the channel, when other people are allowed to deny genocide and defend war crimes on perceived technicalities with explicit defense from the org, I believe that reflects extremely poorly on the org as a whole. If this sentiment continues to be upheld by supervisors, that is extremely concerning. Especially since I was reported and warned for accusing someone of supporting genocide, but people are allowed to accuse me of the same thing with support from other people in the channel.

It looks like two days passed before staff responded to Bjorn, and we get this quote:

Okay. To be very clear. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and to your beliefs, and we have zero issue with you expressing those opinions and beliefs in conversation so long as you do so while obeying both the letter and the spirit of the Code of Conduct.

Now, to the other side of this.  You have been removed from the room repeatedly within the past 24 hours for Code of Conduct violations as we told you might happen, and I am now going to go ahead and remove you from the room and ask that you do not return for one week while we discuss the room in general with the other chairs.

When we wrote to you two days ago, we specifically chose not to address your Slack status "Palestine will be free" with you even though several volunteers had mentioned to us that this phrase made them uncomfortable.  While the phrase did make some folks uncomfortable, it also wasn't obviously trying to be antagonistic.  We are not responsible for making sure everyone is comfortable all the time. It was an expression of your beliefs, and that wasn't an issue we felt was appropriate for us to address since it wasn't in and of itself a violation of the Code of Conduct.

So: Having your Slack status as "Palestine will be free" is not a violation of the Code of Conduct.

We go on with their response.

What is a violation of the Code of Conduct is that since we notified you that folks were having a hard time with your behaviour in that channel, the behaviour has gotten worse.  You've gotten into arguments repeatedly and called folks names; you've accused folks of defending murder. You've been abrasive and argumentative throughout your exchanges there.

Are you the only person who has done so? Clearly not. And you aren't the only person we've spoken to about this.  If it feels like you're being singled out, I'm very sorry for that, and you are correct that you are not the only one who has caused issues. However. We do not address the behavior of other volunteers with you the same way we do not address your behavior with them.

That said, when we let you know that others were uncomfortable, instead of discussing this with us or asking any questions, you gave us a dismissive "k", and instead began relentlessly posting articles to the room and occasionally leaving long tirades about your disgust for folks who do not agree with your specific point of view.  Within about an hour of our having spoken with you, you changed your status from "Palestine will be free" to "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free".  And this was after we let you know that you were making folks uncomfortable and specifically asked you to be more mindful of your language and not to lose sight of everyone's right to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.

Basically, 'we talked to you about the code of conduct violations, you continued to specifically provoke people with your Slack status, you know how it affects people'.

You have been involved in enough conversations over the last month about that particular phrase that you knew or should have known the impact it would have on other volunteers to see that in your status given its fraught and controversial history. You were also aware of the impact it would have to use it in the room, repeatedly.

We are a volunteer organization and the use of Slack is, at its core, a way for us to be able to communicate with each other more easily to do our work. The social aspects are absolutely a lovely bonus, but they are not the point. If you can not have civil exchanges in those spaces and respect your fellow volunteers enough to stop when they ask you to stop, we expect you to remove yourself from those spaces. Just as we expect of every single other volunteer on our committee.

So: removed from the specific channel for violating the Code of Conduct and deliberately provoking other people.

I also want to address another part of Bjorn's accusation, as seen in their response to staff here:

when other people are allowed to deny genocide and defend war crimes on perceived technicalities with explicit defense from the org

if there was any explicit defense from ao3 about this I would expect to see screenshots, which I don't see

We don't know if other people in the channel also got reprimanded from AO3, because Bjorn doesn't know.

I'd love to see a comprehensive investigation, possibly with undercover volunteers, into Ao3's zionism and racism. Unfortunately, I find this to be shoddy, sensationalist journalism. Something else that puts me off of this statement is that @end-otw-racism refused to promote/work with Bjorn on this because Bjorn refused to redact names from the screenshots in the Slack, opening up volunteers to potentially being doxxed. With the past CSAM attacks happening to AO3 volunteers, I find this extremely off-putting.

[just-antithings]

no official filtering system, you say?

[tarsusingkirk]

AO3/Online Fandom Research Study: Archival Curation Discourse 

Edit 1/2/24: Thank you for all the responses, this survey is now closed!

Hi all! 

As a part of my Master's program (Women’s and Gender Studies/Library and Information Sciences) I am doing a deep dive into fandom as a participatory community and AO3 as a community archive. I seek to better understand how fans/stans contribute to the continued evolution of AO3 as a community archive.  

In other words, yes, my research is about archival curation discourse (aka anti/proship Discourse™ through an archival lens). 

If you are over 18, please complete the attached survey, which is going to ask you about your personal experiences with anti/proship phenomena in fandom, and how they may have affected your participation in fandom spaces. 

There are no anticipated personal benefits or compensation for participating in this study and it is completely voluntary.

Thank you and have a great day! 

Link to survey

[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.