Come and wail about AO3 with me

[birdsofshore]

I noticed today that my Smoochfic, Hungry, has been read 5000 times on AO3. 5000 times! Who are all these people? It feels very strange to know that people are reading my fic, which is quite a personal and even, in a way, private thing to me, and I have no freaking clue who they are, or if they liked it, or anything.

I never even wanted to be on AO3! I am such a Luddite, I was going to stay on LJ forever and ever, where it is safe and warm and cosy and I know (kind of) everybody. I blame those wicked hd_smoochfest and hd_erised mods! *shakes fist and blows kisses simultaneously* But now I am on there, I want to understand it.

Some random questions:

Why do we put our fics on AO3 (if we do)? To get more reads / comments? I can't imagine anything else I post to AO3 would get this number of reads; I presume it's because it was in the Smoochfest, which is an adored, popular fest. But for all those thousands of reads, I got erm, I think 8 comments on AO3, and 5 of those were from people I know on LJ anyway, who probably would have read it if I'd just posted it to LJ only. I don't know. *shrugs* I suppose I don't really care how many thousand people have read it, if I don't know whether they liked it?

Bookmarks. What's that all about? If someone bookmarks your fic, does it mean they are halfway through and want to come back later? Or that they liked it a lot and are marking it as a favourite, to read again?

Finally, how do you stop feeling paranoid that only a few people commented because they all hated it? Hungry had Angry!Ron and Mean!Gryffindors in, and I get the feeling that was not so popular with everyone. Maybe 5000 people CLICKED on it, and 4952 of them then BACKBUTTONED because they loathed it?

You see, AO3 is really not good for me. It looks all shiny and tempting, with its stats and all those readers waiting with open hands, but it's perplexing and makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, those 5000 clicks can be two fingers up to Mr Birds who thinks there are only about 20 of us deviant Drarry-lovers in the whole wide world. He thinks the handful of people I talk to on LJ are the only ones who could possibly be weird enough to be into it, and that we have all found one another and are clinging together like this purely by luck :DDD.

The other thing that cheers me up is thinking that maybe Draco was one of the 5000 clickers. If so, I like to think that this would be his reaction:



by Microbluefish on Deviantart

Comments

[amorette.livejournal.com]

I have sooo many unpopular thoughts on AO3. But first:

Omg Draco loves it so much! He is pretending to be appalled, but he's secretly totally interested XD And that is one nice Draco drawing - I love it!! I love his face, his hair, omg he's so attractive! <3

So, Ao3. At first, I think the people who posted to AO3 did so as a place to archive their works and not necessarily for the purpose of getting more comments than on LJ. I remember when people would re-beta their fics before posting there, just so everything on AO3 was complete and shiny and as close to perfect as possible.

Now, AO3 seems to me like a big mess. I love love love the concept behind a fan-run archive, and I appreciate that aspect of it so much. But from my experience and from things I hear, it has unfortunately become a big old mess. I hear more people getting shitty, rude comments on AO3 than in any other place. Also, the tagging system is messy. And navigating through there to find fics is not fun because I feel like they aren't organized well... maybe because the tags are fan-made. And yeah, I know the AO3 "mods" can't make every tag for every fandom themselves, so it's just an unfortunate circumstance about the site. And people list way too many tags, and characters, and they s=post all these short, unbeta'd things on there. That's just the impression I get. I am not a big fan of the Kudos because I'm like, can I just get a comment? The kudos just feel impersonal to me.

I know a lot of people disagree with these sentiments, and I'm okay with that, and I don't mean to insult anyone who really loves AO3. I do prefer reading on there simply because their screen fits my phone the best... but that's about the only reason.

[birdsofshore]

YOU ARE SO RIGHT, Draco loves it. Look at him blushing and he can't take his eyes off the screen. This comic is so great, I love his face and hair too! And his cute robes and polo neck :D

I find AO3 really good for reading on the phone, the best site, definitely, with all the browsers. Some other sites I can only use Opera to browse, and I don't really like the navigation on there.

I never search for fics on there, and I have not had any rudeness at all, so I can't comment on your other points. I am quite amused by the tagging system, though. I like it when you go to tag your fic and you type in a couple of letters and get suggestions. I have seen some really funny tags that way.

Have you seen who_la_hoop's amazing tag poem? You have to read it:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/591845

[fantasyfiend09.livejournal.com]

I agree about the shiny fics on AO3. It's actually why so few of my stories are on there. I feel like I would have to clean them up to a level beyond even fest-worthy. It's kind of intimidating.

I also agree that there are ruder comments there than on LJ. I was shocked more than once during Smoochfest. I think because of the community feel of LJ, people are more likely to keep their unkind thoughts to themselves. AO3 is almost too anonymous.

I like AO3, but if I could only have one sight it would be LJ.

[birdsofshore]

Oh, no, I didn't see any bad comments! That's the first thing I said to Omi when I saw the Smoochfics were going on AO3, "OMG we will get BAD COMMENTS!"