[Fandom] Thoughts on AO3

[celestineangel]

So, having an AO3 account now (gotten for the specific purpose of participating in the Aurors Fest that's happening over there), and having put some of my fic there, I have noticed a few things.

1) AO3 is an excellent place to get your fic seen... if it's Inception fic. This could just be a quirk of my particular fic or whatever, but damn, my

Comments

[rickey_a]

yep, I agree with all these observations - AO3 is a really nicely laid out archive and and easy place to find and read fic - but yes, archive, not community. I like and as I streamline things in the future, it's probably a place where I'll keep my fic. I do like the kudos as quick little pieces of candy. It's nice for people just to be able to say - hey read this and liked it w/a button click.

[celestineangel]

Yeah, I plan to add new fic there after adding it here, from now on, but it'll never be the place I go to look for feedback. And the kudos features is, as you said, a pretty cool feature.

[museme87]

I really like AO3 as well. It's incredibly easy to use. I find that you don't get a lot of feedback over there, as you mentioned, but that it's still useful for achieving (hence the name, I guess, lol!). I like a lot of the header options they give you, though I feel like some people don't always do things correctly and you end up with Usagi/Mamoru in the Queer As Folk tag, which is..upsetting, lol.

[celestineangel]

o.o Usagi/Mamoru in Queer as Folk... ooookay. Sounds like that's someone not paying attention to what the hell they're typing. XD It can happen, especially since it pulls up suggestions for you, even in the freeforms tags.

[fiery_flamingo]

Uncanny. I just got my AO3 invite today and here was your post in my flist. Tis fate!

From my observations as just a reader there, I feel like certain fandoms have taken to AO3 more strongly than others. Early adapter fandoms, if you will. Or just younger fandoms. Nu!Trek and Inception seem to have a strong base there, more comments and kudos from readers, while other fandoms like Harry Potter which have been around longer and are more entrenched in LJ and their own various archives seem to use it more strictly for archiving purposes. But my data is spotty and subjective. >.>

Anyway, off to play with AO3's ticky boxes! Wheee~

[celestineangel]

Whooo, congrats! Welcome, I am celestineangel there as well. :D

You have a point. Older fandoms, yeah... look, older fandoms, I love you guys, I do, and I understand the urge to not get into anything new. It's why it took me so long to really pursue an AO3 account in the first place, and almost stopped me from participating in the Aurors Fest because of it. But new things can be good! And LJ... well, if it's not on its last legs, it will be. Stupid DDOS attacks, but what can you do?

... yes, so, those are my feelings. XD

I really, really wish more people would go to DW. :( It's awesome, but people ignore it because of LJ, and that makes me sad.

[kat_nic]

Nothing's really wrong with Livejournal; think of DDOS attacks as a traffic jam. They slow everything down and keep you from getting where you want to go for a while, but it doesn't actually damage the site in any way.

[celestineangel]

The point is that, if the DDOS attacks keep up, people are going to leave simply because LJ has become too unreliable and unstable.

[beanarie]

I've been meaning to post a ramble about AO3 for a while. I started posting there primarily in September and, it is hiiighly preferable to LJ. People feel a lot less pressure clicking the kudos button than they would coming up with a positive comment. Plus comments are like an all you can eat breakfast buffet for my anxiety. I plan to stick with AO3 until I'm acted on by an outside force.

[kat_nic]

I like AO3 for two reasons; they allow rpf, and they let users decide for themselves what kind of content to post and/or read (which never stopped people from posting smut on the Pit, but sometimes the site maintainers actually enforce their TOS. One of my friends got an upload ban for posting a fic with a sex scene, while others have been up for years, so).

I actually get more hits on AO3 than LJ (from checking my stats, my journal gets roughly 1--3 visitors per day), but then most of my fic is for LHM, and it's not exactly a huge fandom with an active fan base anymore, so. I think certain fandoms (including HoV) will probably stick with ffn just because it's easier to stay where you are than move, even though ffn sucks.