(no subject)
Why do people think that A03 is a good site? I've honestly tried to do a bit of digging on this one and I honestly have to say that the arguments made aren't good ones and that A03 for all purposes is not a good site. I'll admit here that when I started posting fanfiction it was exclusively to the pit, but I was well aware of other sites and even used them for reading purposes. I've also now cross post stories to other archives. I also have knowledge about web design. So let me repeat the fact A03 is not a good site, despite what people argue. Here are some of the arguments I have come across.
1. A03 is non-profit while the pit is for-profit.
This statement is false. Some people mistakenly think that for-profit means “makes money” while non-profit means “makes no money”. This is not what either means. According to Merriam-Webster, non-profit means “not conducted or maintained for the purpose of making a profit” and for-profit means “established, maintained, or conducted for the purpose of making profit.” Some people here may be thinking, but profit means “to make money”. Again, this is not what the word means. Profit means “money that is made in a business, through investing, etc., after all the costs and expenses are paid: a financial gain.”
One of the reasons people say that the pit is a for-profit site because it happens to have advertizement on its site and said advertizements generate money. A03 on the other hand happens to have no advertizement which is why A03 can claim that it is a non-profit site and the pit can not. The problem with this is a non-profit organization can use advertizement to make money. Actually, non-profits can make money period as they need money to run. The difference is between the two is whether or not money is being made to help run the services provided or if it is actually being used to make profit for someone.
2. A03 is non-commercial while the pit is commercial.
I decided to try and find out what the difference between non-commercial and commercial. Things are a bit more tricky here. I couldn't find the definition of “non-commercial” on Merriam Webster. The word commercial has a wide range of meanings. One of the ways you can argue that the pit is a commercial site is because it does earn money through advertisers. However, you could also argue that A03 is commercial because it makes money by soliciting. This is based around the definition “concerned with earning money”. So what does it mean?
Believe me when I say it was a pain to dig through to find the answer. One answer I kept coming across in fact made it out to be that non-profit was to non-commercial as for profit was to commercial. Others claimed it was possible to have a non-profit that was also a commercial business. I actually got this answer a lot. My question is why list that you are both a non-profit and a non-commercial at the same time if they pretty much mean the same thing? I mean, most sites I go to give this answer.
I came across an article called “What is the Difference Between Commercial Radio and Non-Commercial Radio?” You would think upon reading the title that the difference between the two was that one uses commercial and the other doesn't. Wrong. Says Heather McDonald, “Non-commercial radio, also called non-comm for short, encompasses college radio and community based radio stations, including local NPR affiliates. Though these stations may carry advertising, it is widely spaced, unobtrusive and not the main source of funding.”
I will say here that advertizing is the source of income for the pit. This sounds reasonable, but if this is the case is it really a good thing? On one side you have a site that is getting their revenue by ads that are hopefully non intrusive, and on the other side you have a site that is soliciting donations for a site that holds work that is under legal copyright of someone else. Despite the fact A03 insists that fanfiction falls under fair use there has been no court cases about the matter that includes a particular fandom as a whole. Most sites have sided with caution on this matter.
Not to mention the fact every time I look it up it is truly a difference between profit and non-profit which means if A03 can argue that it is non-commercial that the pit should be able to argue this as well. In some ways I think A03 is using the words non-commercial to mean no commercials, but that isn't what the word actually means as you can have a non-commercial organization use commercials. In reality there is no reason to bring up that an organization is non-commercial and non-profit.
And yet there is the argument that there is such a thing as a commercial non-profit and non-commercial no-profit. For that I've finally found an answer to that question in Henry Hansmann's book. I'm honestly not sure what the book is, but the chapter that I was able to pull up was “The Two Nonprofit Sectors: Fee for Service Versus Donative Organizations”. The title should be self explanatory, but to quote from the article, “the second nonprofit sector will comprise the so-called “commercial” nonprofits (Hansmann, 1980)- that is, nonprofits that receive virtually all of their income from the sale of services rther than from donations and that frequently compete directly with for-profit firms.”
The argument that the pit is also non-commercial still stands as it does not seek fees for it service. Yes... it gets revenue from ads it runs, but it does not collect fees from its users. Perhaps this is what A03 meant when it used the words non-commercial, but couldn't they have simply said that the site was free to use? I personally think the word non-commercial was thrown into the mix to be misleading. On top of this there is another issue, but I'll address that later.
3. A03 doesn't use advertizement but the pit does.
It is honestly a good thing if a site is able to run on donations and donations alone. However... one of the reasons A03 is able to run on donations and donations alone is because the site is far smaller then the pit is. It's not a site anyone can sign up for, but instead a site that you have to get an invite too. That is actually one of the downsides, but it is also the reason why A03 is able to run without running commercials. The site admins pretty much control the max amount of people that the site will ever have posting content, which in turn controls the bandwidth taking up the site for fics posted. This is why the site has been in a perpetual Beta stage.
The plan apparently is to move out of Beta and move to allowing anyone to join. This means a major influx to the site and the costs for running the site will go up. Which is honestly one of the reasons the site hasn't moved out of the Beta stage... the site admins do know that allowing everybody to join will mean an increase in costs. Donations eventually will not be able to cover all of the costs and the site will have to turn to advertizement to help run the site. Truth of the matter is A03 is where the pit was when it first came into being and the pit honestly doesn't have to deal with some of the issues it now has to deal with.
4. A03 looks better.
From the view point of a web designer it does not. The layout has a ton of “don'ts” that web designers are told to avoid. The pit, while being of an old school style compared to other sites honestly doesn't have a bad design for a writing site. It does in fact serve the many purposes that it is meant to be used for, not to mention the fact it isn't an eyesore. (No... advertizement doesn't count, nor does having an out of date browser that messes up how a site looks.) A03 on the other hand not only needs work, but it does things that are cringe worthy.
5. A03 is easier to navigate.
Not really. I just did a quick search of the tags for Ginny Weasley and found 553 tags to choose from. There is no ranking system for the tags by how many uses and there is no sorting by the actual name. Some of the tags shouldn't have even been added, like the one that reads “and Harry and Ginny and Molly and Kinglsey's kids and all the Potters and Weasleys!” This is what happens when you let the users make the tags instead of the site admins.
6. The quality of work is better on A03.
No one has been able to prove this. A lot of what I find really isn't good writing. I think some people have allowed their egos to get to them. By this I mean they believe that because they are of an exclusive community... because that is what it is, their work and those around them must be better. There is though no criteria beyond getting an invite to get a membership on this site. The other option here is that people see no negative comments and assume it might be better.
In other cases we have writers who really don't know what good writing actually is. You know... like the Twilight fans who think good writing is what entertains you. Which, considering the fact that 17.25% of the work is explicit material at this point, you can imagine where some of the enjoyment comes from as there is a ban on explicit material that isn't always enforced. I don't think every person who says the works are better are in this group. Some honestly have just had better luck.
7. A03 doesn't censor like the pit does.
Censorship is telling you that certain things may never be published anywhere. What the pit does is tell you it simply can't be published on that site. I know people don't like certain rules that the pit posts, but the site also has been around longer then A03 and has had to deal with more legal issues that A03. A03 also has what I would call a nice legal team that is fighting for legislation that would be positive for the fanfiction community. The staff really isn't anonymous either, where as the only one known for sure at the pit is the original creator.
On top of this some of the things A03 proposes are a bit iffy. I just looked at their current news letter and there is a person who “argued that the law [involving Digital Millennium Copyright Act take-down notices] should be read to punish rightsholders who issue takedown notices without first considering whether a particular use constitutes fair use.” I honestly understand where they are coming from, as I have come across one person online who argued that there was no such thing as fair use when it came to using his art work.
However... having such legislation means that the rightsholders may become leery about actually pushing for their rights when their works aren't used in fairuse. This may not bother companies like Nintendo, which did in fact issue a DMC notice when it came to the Black and White games, but it will be negative for the small time rightsholders when it comes to defending their rights. In the same regard though the people who are using items in fair use don't want to pay court fees just to prove they aren't in the wrong.
I say what is needed isn't more legislation that punishes either party, but a better system. Perhaps a site can file for recognition of being in fair use. Each site that files for fair use would not be able to have any DMC notices filed against them for simply using the material, it would have to be for using to much and the copyright holder would have to put forth the case. I'm not sure if this is a simple matter or not. Actually, none of it is.
…
I'm going to finish this to say that a lot of people seem to leave the pit every time there is a purge. The majority of these people are rule breakers. If they break the rules on one site then they are going to break the rules on another site as well. Some of the same rules apply... you can't post RTB (reading the books) that contain copyrighted material on A03. Some of the rules on A03 may also need to change as the site grows.
I'm also going to say that if you are really fed up with the pit, there are other better options out there for your fanfic needs.