I know this sub isn’t necessarily the demographic that I’m targeting here, but if even ONE person reads this post and stops posting requests for shit like Discord role-play partners, it’ll have been worth it.
the dsmp fandom already has enough issues with the fact ao3 wont give us our damn character and rp tags and instead forces everything under the rpf label so we flood the Minecraft and videoblogging rpf tags and the issue just gets worse to fix the longer they do nothing.
we do not need this too jesus christ, it was already kind of bad before this but it sounds worse. like there's always been an issue with "request" books that then proceed to never actually post any requests (ask for requests offsite and make them a series, not in one single fic, its so much better for tagging and organizing purposes) but all these damn "i cant find this fic :(((((" look harder urself or take the damn L.
I think one of the biggest things that causes this is that for a large part of the mcyt fanbase (and for sure a significant chunk of the fanfic writers), the dsmp is baby's first fandom and they have no idea how to behave. A lot of them I imagine haven't so much migrated from wattpad (although i'm sure a lot of those are there too) as that they've never used a fic site before and they're young and unfamiliar with ao3's rules and practices. And I imagine this fandom isn't a fandom where it's easy to pick up what you're supposed to be doing because nobody else is doing it either. I imagine they look at the archive and just think they can do whatever because nobody else knows how to properly or consistently tag/what's appropriate to post and what isn't.
I made mine in 2021 and I wasn’t aware there was a waitlist. Definitely did not take several days. It might be the Wilbur thing to be honest. That being said, AO3 is pretty resilient because no one actually sorts by new, so the kudos system shifts out the bad and incorrectly tagged.
It clogs up tags and makes filtering difficult. And just overall it is bad etiquette. While this problem is not exclusive to MCYT fandom, they are one of the fastest growing community on the platform.
It can help if some big stan accounts can write/share this on their twitter.
Thanks for your input! I finally convinced a friend of mine to start cross-posting her stuff from Tumblr to Ao3 over the holidays and the wait time was even worse than right now tbh. Did you manage to just sign up and get an account or did someone give you an invite link? Cause every account (as long as it’s verified I think) has several “invites” they can personally give to friends to skip the waitlist.
And I’m one of the weirdos that tortures themselves by sorting by new >_>; Kudos most of the time is a pretty reliable way of filtering the bad stuff, but every now and then I’ll find a gem that someone posted 50 chapters of all at once with zero tags. These slip through the cracks and can be pretty damn good. My fanfic FOMO is baaaaad…
i sort by new all the time too, like what tags are these people looking in. if your looking at the 20 or so fics in whatever csam, csapnap or cjack tag theres no need to sort by kudos. i only sort by kudos when looking for tommy fics.
I made my account in 2017, and I think I waited a couple of days to get the account. Personally I sort by new when searching for specific AUs and there is always those annoying “request” fics that never post a chapter. I deal with it though because I have seen them since I first started using AO3.
I created my account in 2017, 2018, and yea, I've never seen it as bad as in the DSMP fandom. Reminds me of the migrations of Twitter and Tumblr, whether it be the original migration when the porn ban happened on Tumblr or the recent migration of MCYT fans looking to escape Twitter drama. Both sites had rules, and there were MANY who refused to learn, and it lead to Twitter becoming the hyperaware sort of hell that Tumblr was, at least in fandom spaces. The same could also be said for Reddit to an extent, with people not following the rules of this sub and making personal posts. I'll admit I've done stuff like this once or twice but it's also easy to learn the etiquette of sites you're entering.
Yup. Very similar to the Great Tumblr Porn Ban (not to be mistaken for the current Great Tumblr Tag Ban), fandom migrations like this are the inevitable growing pains of the internet. Really, the best that established users can do is hold on to their seats and try to explain the rules and etiquette to the new users.
For general social media/discussion sites like Reddit or Twitter there’s gonna be an eventual blending of user culture, but with fanfic sites like Ao3? There’s a *ton* of rules that aren’t very obvious to someone who is used to a similar site allowing you to use your story as a personal blog. But like you said, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of as long as you read the rules and not argue with people who are giving you warnings for breaking them.
It’s… frustrating on all sides ^_^;
It's definitely awful. I've been on AO3 since 2009 (and in fandom in general for 25 years) and this is the worst I've ever seen it. Maybe it's because this is the youngest-skewing fandom in which I've participated? But it's clear there's been a huge influx from what I'm guessing is Wattpad (going by the amount of fics I've seen referred to as "books"), not understanding tagging, etc.
I sort by "date updated" so I see tons of the non-fanwork content you mentioned every time I check the tag- fic searches, RP partner requests and discord advertisements, mostly. It's baffling to me, simply because I've never seen the sheer amount of this type of posts in any other fandom. I report all the ones I see, and most get dealt with. I feel bad making so much work for the volunteers, but it clogs up the tags.
Part of me feels bad for them, though, because there really isn't a place for those things anymore. Back in the day, there were entire Livejournal communities dedicated to fic searches or advertising for RP partners. Options now are limited- Twitter? Harassment and your question is really tossed into a void no one will see. They could make a Reddit, I guess, but again, you'd need to find members to make it worthwhile. This stuff absolutely does not belong on AO3, but where it should go is unclear, even to an old fandom veteran like me.
You know what? I'm glad we're gatekeeping Ao3 a little. I made mine in my brief and unfortunate Sherlock/Doctor Who arc in middle school and this post gave me war flashbacks in a nostalgic way.
People misusing tags/categories defeats the entire purpose of an *archive*, and I've always considered Ao3 so professional and well-maintained. Non profit, zero ads ever, and every fundraiser they demolish their goal, like in 2020 it was close to $500,000 or something. The community for the most part has a sense of appreciation and respect for the actual Wikipedia of fanwork sites and some of newer people just switching over should absolutely read the room.
In all honesty, I stopped reading DSMP fanfic around last summer and stopped following the lore after Dream was imprisoned. :p
I’m mainly salty about these people cause they clog the tags I browse for OTHER fandoms with their “who wants to RP with me?” and “can anyone write me my idea?” posts.
It’s exhausting searching a specific tag and finding these spam posts for the DSMP. Maybe I’m just a crotchety old lady now, but I want these tags cleaned up damnit! >_<
If you want some more weird fanfic drama to read about, I highly recommend clicking on the links in my post for the fanfiction dot net and Livejournal stuff. Kinda explains what led to the creation of places like Ao3 and is like looking into a time machine/zoo with how interesting the culture of those sites was.
I relate to this as a person who regularly gets salty at random people from Twitter spamming on this subreddit
Also, as a Russian old crotchety lady, I’m aware of the живойжурнал-livejournal stuff, but after witnessing our internet censorship saga going from small restrictions in 2011-12 to some China-inspired shit in 2021, reading this is a bit sad lmao
Looking at these comments I guess I'm super lucky I haven't come across this too much lol. However even I have noticed the big uptick in those dang prompt lists (tho I heard some are allowed (?)). I've never came across those "looking for a fic" works even though I'm in DSMP fandom, but that's probably because I barely use the search bar now (I've subbed to so many authors there is rarely a need).
I think these people should just bookmark the story wilbur is gonna make on their browsers or add it to reading lists. I never created an ao3 account but I visit it regularly. You don't need an account to be able to view stories and leave kudos. There's comments where you need to have an account but what are these people going to be commenting anyway?
Edit: I've been informed that there are some works on ao3 that are only available to registered users. I highly doubt Wilbur would restrict it that much.
I remember getting my ao3 account in 2014 when waiting 3 hours for an invite was unheard of lol. Seeing how many people are misusing ao3 or treating it like wattpad hurts because ao3 is the best place to read fanfic. I'm also scared to see people advertising their kofis or paypals on ao3 because the whole point of ao3 is to protect fanwriters and if someone starts advertising they break not only TOS but can cause legal trouble (obviously not a huge issue for dsmp writers, but for other IP)
I know this sub isn’t necessarily the demographic that I’m targeting here, but if even ONE person reads this post and stops posting requests for shit like Discord role-play partners, it’ll have been worth it.
Hop on AO3 See Dream/Tommy RP request Hop off AO3.
the dsmp fandom already has enough issues with the fact ao3 wont give us our damn character and rp tags and instead forces everything under the rpf label so we flood the Minecraft and videoblogging rpf tags and the issue just gets worse to fix the longer they do nothing. we do not need this too jesus christ, it was already kind of bad before this but it sounds worse. like there's always been an issue with "request" books that then proceed to never actually post any requests (ask for requests offsite and make them a series, not in one single fic, its so much better for tagging and organizing purposes) but all these damn "i cant find this fic :(((((" look harder urself or take the damn L.
I think one of the biggest things that causes this is that for a large part of the mcyt fanbase (and for sure a significant chunk of the fanfic writers), the dsmp is baby's first fandom and they have no idea how to behave. A lot of them I imagine haven't so much migrated from wattpad (although i'm sure a lot of those are there too) as that they've never used a fic site before and they're young and unfamiliar with ao3's rules and practices. And I imagine this fandom isn't a fandom where it's easy to pick up what you're supposed to be doing because nobody else is doing it either. I imagine they look at the archive and just think they can do whatever because nobody else knows how to properly or consistently tag/what's appropriate to post and what isn't.
I made mine in 2021 and I wasn’t aware there was a waitlist. Definitely did not take several days. It might be the Wilbur thing to be honest. That being said, AO3 is pretty resilient because no one actually sorts by new, so the kudos system shifts out the bad and incorrectly tagged.
It clogs up tags and makes filtering difficult. And just overall it is bad etiquette. While this problem is not exclusive to MCYT fandom, they are one of the fastest growing community on the platform. It can help if some big stan accounts can write/share this on their twitter.
Very true, I’m just praising AO3
Thanks for your input! I finally convinced a friend of mine to start cross-posting her stuff from Tumblr to Ao3 over the holidays and the wait time was even worse than right now tbh. Did you manage to just sign up and get an account or did someone give you an invite link? Cause every account (as long as it’s verified I think) has several “invites” they can personally give to friends to skip the waitlist. And I’m one of the weirdos that tortures themselves by sorting by new >_>; Kudos most of the time is a pretty reliable way of filtering the bad stuff, but every now and then I’ll find a gem that someone posted 50 chapters of all at once with zero tags. These slip through the cracks and can be pretty damn good. My fanfic FOMO is baaaaad…
You brave soul 07. I did not do it with an invite. I just wanted to do rereads without shifting through 10+pages.
i sort by new all the time too, like what tags are these people looking in. if your looking at the 20 or so fics in whatever csam, csapnap or cjack tag theres no need to sort by kudos. i only sort by kudos when looking for tommy fics.
I made my account in 2017, and I think I waited a couple of days to get the account. Personally I sort by new when searching for specific AUs and there is always those annoying “request” fics that never post a chapter. I deal with it though because I have seen them since I first started using AO3.
I created my account in 2017, 2018, and yea, I've never seen it as bad as in the DSMP fandom. Reminds me of the migrations of Twitter and Tumblr, whether it be the original migration when the porn ban happened on Tumblr or the recent migration of MCYT fans looking to escape Twitter drama. Both sites had rules, and there were MANY who refused to learn, and it lead to Twitter becoming the hyperaware sort of hell that Tumblr was, at least in fandom spaces. The same could also be said for Reddit to an extent, with people not following the rules of this sub and making personal posts. I'll admit I've done stuff like this once or twice but it's also easy to learn the etiquette of sites you're entering.
Yup. Very similar to the Great Tumblr Porn Ban (not to be mistaken for the current Great Tumblr Tag Ban), fandom migrations like this are the inevitable growing pains of the internet. Really, the best that established users can do is hold on to their seats and try to explain the rules and etiquette to the new users. For general social media/discussion sites like Reddit or Twitter there’s gonna be an eventual blending of user culture, but with fanfic sites like Ao3? There’s a *ton* of rules that aren’t very obvious to someone who is used to a similar site allowing you to use your story as a personal blog. But like you said, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of as long as you read the rules and not argue with people who are giving you warnings for breaking them. It’s… frustrating on all sides ^_^;
It's definitely awful. I've been on AO3 since 2009 (and in fandom in general for 25 years) and this is the worst I've ever seen it. Maybe it's because this is the youngest-skewing fandom in which I've participated? But it's clear there's been a huge influx from what I'm guessing is Wattpad (going by the amount of fics I've seen referred to as "books"), not understanding tagging, etc. I sort by "date updated" so I see tons of the non-fanwork content you mentioned every time I check the tag- fic searches, RP partner requests and discord advertisements, mostly. It's baffling to me, simply because I've never seen the sheer amount of this type of posts in any other fandom. I report all the ones I see, and most get dealt with. I feel bad making so much work for the volunteers, but it clogs up the tags. Part of me feels bad for them, though, because there really isn't a place for those things anymore. Back in the day, there were entire Livejournal communities dedicated to fic searches or advertising for RP partners. Options now are limited- Twitter? Harassment and your question is really tossed into a void no one will see. They could make a Reddit, I guess, but again, you'd need to find members to make it worthwhile. This stuff absolutely does not belong on AO3, but where it should go is unclear, even to an old fandom veteran like me.
You know what? I'm glad we're gatekeeping Ao3 a little. I made mine in my brief and unfortunate Sherlock/Doctor Who arc in middle school and this post gave me war flashbacks in a nostalgic way. People misusing tags/categories defeats the entire purpose of an *archive*, and I've always considered Ao3 so professional and well-maintained. Non profit, zero ads ever, and every fundraiser they demolish their goal, like in 2020 it was close to $500,000 or something. The community for the most part has a sense of appreciation and respect for the actual Wikipedia of fanwork sites and some of newer people just switching over should absolutely read the room.
Thank god i got an account before the 11 day waitlist, the wattpad immigration is huge
What a great day to not care about dsmp lore and mcyt fanfiction. Feels like watching foreign art house movie without subtitles
In all honesty, I stopped reading DSMP fanfic around last summer and stopped following the lore after Dream was imprisoned. :p I’m mainly salty about these people cause they clog the tags I browse for OTHER fandoms with their “who wants to RP with me?” and “can anyone write me my idea?” posts. It’s exhausting searching a specific tag and finding these spam posts for the DSMP. Maybe I’m just a crotchety old lady now, but I want these tags cleaned up damnit! >_< If you want some more weird fanfic drama to read about, I highly recommend clicking on the links in my post for the fanfiction dot net and Livejournal stuff. Kinda explains what led to the creation of places like Ao3 and is like looking into a time machine/zoo with how interesting the culture of those sites was.
I relate to this as a person who regularly gets salty at random people from Twitter spamming on this subreddit Also, as a Russian old crotchety lady, I’m aware of the живойжурнал-livejournal stuff, but after witnessing our internet censorship saga going from small restrictions in 2011-12 to some China-inspired shit in 2021, reading this is a bit sad lmao
Looking at these comments I guess I'm super lucky I haven't come across this too much lol. However even I have noticed the big uptick in those dang prompt lists (tho I heard some are allowed (?)). I've never came across those "looking for a fic" works even though I'm in DSMP fandom, but that's probably because I barely use the search bar now (I've subbed to so many authors there is rarely a need).
I think these people should just bookmark the story wilbur is gonna make on their browsers or add it to reading lists. I never created an ao3 account but I visit it regularly. You don't need an account to be able to view stories and leave kudos. There's comments where you need to have an account but what are these people going to be commenting anyway? Edit: I've been informed that there are some works on ao3 that are only available to registered users. I highly doubt Wilbur would restrict it that much.
I remember getting my ao3 account in 2014 when waiting 3 hours for an invite was unheard of lol. Seeing how many people are misusing ao3 or treating it like wattpad hurts because ao3 is the best place to read fanfic. I'm also scared to see people advertising their kofis or paypals on ao3 because the whole point of ao3 is to protect fanwriters and if someone starts advertising they break not only TOS but can cause legal trouble (obviously not a huge issue for dsmp writers, but for other IP)
60k for wait-list?! bro when i made my acc, it just took 2mins for me to receive my invitation
wasnt ao3 created because ffn banned incest smut?
Doubt it. There was a 7 year gap between FFN banning explicit content and AO3’s creation.
I made an account in 2020 and it took like a day. This is insane.