Fandom Snowflake: Day 2

[lost_spook]

Day 2: In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

1. I haven't really explored it properly yet, but

Comments

[swordznsorcery]

FF.net is rubbish, but I'm so used to it. I just checked, and apparently I've been a member there since November 2000, so clearly there is no hope for me. I just can't get into AO3. I find it really hard to use, and I hate the layout. FF.net is stupid, but it's friendly stupid. Also apparently I have 69 stories archived there, so I'm childishly amused now.

It used to be really good, honest. Back in about 2001. And you can get around the eating the scene break thing easily enough. And it's stopped eating special characters and italics now (I think). I last uploaded something about three years ago, and it was still doing weird things with centered text, but it's ff.net. The world would stop turning if it worked.

Editing's no problem by the way, but it does involve repeating the hilarious uploading process. Online editing works too, but... probably best avoided. Bit unpredictable. :)

[lost_spook]

Well, you see, I started with Teaspoon, and it works quite similarly to AO3, so I find that so much more intuitive than ff.net - now I have AO3, I'm never, ever going back to ff.net! I can understand of course, that people who are used to ff.net think the opposite (but then again, AO3 isn't basically that different to posting on LJ or Dreamwidth, so I find it hard to see as complicated - it fits easily into the few websites I'm really familiar with, like Teaspoon and LJ, whereas ff.net is a whole other ball game). Also, as I said, I love that I can write for an obscure character/pairing/fandom, post it, then go: hmm, has anyone else written... and just click on the tag itself and up comes everything - if there is anything, and you can browse about the archive like that. I wish they hadn't had to trim back the sidebar filters to only the top ten, though, because that was wonderful for finding things in bigger fandoms. So, yes, it works for me. Each to their own, though!

(Oh, and you can adjust the layout on AO3 if you don't like

[swordznsorcery]

I'm not a member of AO3, so I can't alter stuff. No matter though, as I really don't use it very often. I must admit that I don't read a lot of fanfic these days. Partly due to time, and partly due to my inevitable reaction of "Bloody hell, internet, are you interested in anything other than sex?!"

I know, I'm a Victorian. :)

[lost_spook]

The internet is also interested in cats. :-)

[swordznsorcery]

Good point!

[lolmac]

I still post in both venues because ff.net has way more reader traffic than Ao3. Ao3 is better for writers; ff.net is better for getting read.

I did notice that ff.net has made it even harder to edit now, as part of their effort to make themselves violently incompatible with Ao3. Not only have they blocked the import functions, they've made the already user-hostile interface even more of a mess, if you're trying to maintain copy there. Argh. But, more readers there, even now. For now.

ETA: ff.net also provides a lot more traffic details. Sigh. All ego-boo for me, I guess.

[lost_spook]

It's always horses for courses with everything, isn't it? I get along quite happily without ff.net now I have AO3, and I love the tags in lots of different ways, so that suits me. But it's perfectly understandable that for other people it's difficult, or that they like using both. Why not?

But for me, I'm definitely more than a bit in love with AO3, which I never thought I would be when I first became aware of it. :-)

[lolmac]

I should have added: I utterly adore and worship Ao3! The interface is a dream. (I still find Teaspoon awkward, but I've only posted there a couple of times.) I now regard Ao3 as the archive where I keep all the definitive versions of anything, and to which I link when I need links.

I'm really happy that the traffic there has increased! Not to mention the shout-outs from the pro field, especially Lev Grossman. If Ao3 were to utterly eclipse ff.net and cause it to fade away, I would not weep. If ff.net were to actually wake up and realise it needs to frigging clean up its act or be eclipsed, I would cheer. Competition can be a truly fine thing.

But considering that ff.net hasn't even bothered to update its "forbidden authors" list (I actually emailed them after GabaldonGate, with no results), I'm not holding my breath.

[lost_spook]

:-D

It hit one million fics last week, so it's definitely growing! It can still be a bit buggy at the moment, though, so probably it's as well for ff.net to hang on for a while longer.