I have no idea what either Wattpad or AO3 is.
AO3 is ArchiveOfOurOwn.org. They’re both fic hosting sites.
Both are creative writing sites with large/primary focuses on fanfiction. AO3 (Archive Of Our Own) allows for works depicting rape, incest, and pedophilia. IIRC Wattpad never did.
I’d describe it as Ao3 has a broader set of terms of service and permits a far wider range of stories to be told
Would you also describe Johnny Sins as an experienced, award winning actor whos played a wide array of roles? Cuz its true but…
Imagine fictional stories being illegal at all.
I use AO3 daily but wish there was a way to set tag preferences for the whole site so I dont have to manually filter out smut and rape
There are some scripts that might help? https://openuserjs.org/scripts/sarken/Blurb_Blocker https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/3578-ao3-saved-filters But it would be nice if it was easier.
part of the impetus for creating ao3 was a series of content purges intended to hit bad evil content also hitting, for instance, support groups for survivors, and g rated content if it was also gay.
its code is open source so i genuinely think people with their own ideas about moderation should take advantage of that or anything else (wordpress?) to make an archive. if there are good stories on it, i’ll visit. There should be more archives in general.
Wait, am I not understanding what AO3 is? I thought it was a site for fanfiction. This makes it sound like it’s something more than that?
What are the policies that AO3 is enforcing that Wattpad doesn’t? I honestly have so little context here.
I don’t know shit about either of the sites other than that there’s fanfic there, but my reading of the post is the other way around. I’m pretty sure they’re saying that:
- Wattpad enforced stricter standards than AO3
- Presumably Wattpad’s userbase diminished as a result
- Now that Wattpad has died or something, the people that supported Wattpad’s stricter standards have moved to AO3
- Those people now demand that AO3 enforced Wattpad’s standards
my reading of the post is the other way around
To be honest, one of my sources of confusion is that the second paragraph suggests Wattpad users are trying to make AO3 allow their type of content, but the third paragraph/second post implies AO3 is too permissive for Wattpad users. The two messages seem opposite each other in what they get across.
One possibility that had occured to me was that AO3 is too permissive for Wattpad users in terms of classification, but that AO3 was a fanfiction site and Wattpad maybe has a mix of fanfiction and OC and that they were annoyed at the OC not being allowed. That would seem to reconcile the mixed messages. But honestly there’s nowhere near the evidence from these posts and what little I already knew about the sites to be even remotely confident in that conclusion.
There’s a long history of wider fandom spaces becoming profit driven and then purging “problematic” content in order to appeal to advertisers. Someone can write a story with rape because they think it’s hot, and someone else can write a story with rape as a way to help process personal trauma, but both are removed because the content restrictions boil down to “all rape stories are bad.” This type of policy also tends to affect stuff with queer themes disproportionately.
Sounds like Wattpad has just gone the way of LiveJournal, FF.net, & others by implementing sweeping content policies.
AO3 was created by a fan-run non-profit to be a written works archive with very minimal restrictions on content, but younger folks coming from these algorithm-based platforms aren’t used to having to curate their own experiences via filtering tags & warnings. It’s the old have your cake and eat it, too problem.
