this is rude

[dragonlady7]

this, not to start drama but this is rude, and i'm done with it, it's fine to not read WIPS, it is not fine to smack the author with it, fuuuuck oooofffff

via https://bit.ly/3rauDXl

HI i am salty.

I have been getting more and more of these kinds of requests, and this one pushed me over the edge last night. This is a wildly inappropriate use of the Collections feature on AO3, and it’s rude as fuck, to boot. [image: image]

[img desc: a screenshot of an email from Archive Of Our Own, that reads: “Dear bomberqueen17, The collection maintainers of Series that I want to read once they are complete would like to include your work Meet Death Sitting in their collection!” end desc]

THIS. IS NOT. WHAT COLLECTIONS. ARE FOR. This is RUDE as FUCK, and I’m going to explain why, first in general and then in specific.

1) When a work is in a collection, that collection appears in that work’s meta-data. This means that the title of this collection appears, when you load a work’s page, after the title and tags, but BEFORE the summary or content of the work itself. So everyone else who reads this story will know before they know anything else about the work that it’s in this collection. (The name of the collection actually, I just checked this, appears BEFORE the part of the metadata that tells you whether the work or series is completed.)

2) There’s not usually a ton of information about a collection when you click through. You have to take it on face value. In the past I’ve allowed stuff to be collected, and only later, looking at the collection and the very curious selection of works included in it, did I realize that this collection was a rec list of fics that were all Approved by some opaque ideological criteria I belatedly realized I did not want to be involved with– but having that banner on my fics was effectively advertising my tacit condonement of that worldview. I had not realized I was signing up for that, and yet, that’s what it was! A very uncomfortable realization.

3) The collection maintainers now have a stake in my metadata, and the ability to effectively delete my fic. Oh, yes, AO3 patched it so I can undelete it once I notice, but this still gives this collection maintainer the power to hide my fic, and if this happens after I have left fandom and moved on, and I don’t undelete it, then that’s that. My works are gone and I am permanently silenced. They have that power. Bye-bye, to all the stuff in there, unless the creators in the collection notice and spend collectively dozens of hours undeleting themselves.

So, in general, that is why I am not going to allow my works to be collected. I would consider it, perhaps, if it were a rec list maintained by someone I know, but at this point I’m just getting spammed with requests from total strangers and it’s easiest to blanket-deny. The only collections I’m in are ones that were relevant to the creation of the work.

Now, in specific, about this specific one and why it sent me over the edge, and why it’s so fucking rude!

Meet Death Sitting https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639717 is a series that has been updated weekly almost without exception for almost exactly two years. It contains 27 finished works, and one WIP I updated yesterday. It is over seven hundred thousand words long. It contains 27 finished works. You can see this, if you look, and see that it was first uploaded on Feb 5 2020 and most recently updated fucking yesterday.

So I’m just gonna offer this collection maintainer a cordial invitation to fuck right off. This isn’t what collections are for.

But shit like that, when it is so clearly for personal use– maybe Mark For Later doesn’t suit because you have too many fics in it? Okay make a bookmark. Tag those bookmarks in a way that is then easy for you to sort. Hey presto! You can even change the category of the bookmark later.

BETTER STILL, tag it privately. This is not a public rec list! This is a list of things you have not read! What the fuck are you doing publicly listing shit you’re not going to bother to read unless and until it’s done??? What is the point of that rec list??? At that point I’m better off searching the fucking tags myself if I’m looking for something to read, which would be the reason I would consult a rec list! This list is completely useless for anyone but the collection maintainer, and as such, it’s pointless to have it be public.

And then once you’ve read the fic you can change it from a Private Bookmark to a Rec, so that other fans can go through your recs and see things you’ve 1) actually read that you 2) like! Which is what a rec list is supposed to be.

I know that AO3 puts the Add To Collection button right there when you’re looking at bookmarks, but I promise, that is not what this is for. edited to add: you can add things to a collection’s bookmarks without adding them to a collection! a further use for bookmarks, which do not interfere with the work’s metadata! news you can use.

In conclusion, I cannot express how fucking demotivating and upsetting it is as an author to publish seven hundred thousand words of fic at a rate of about 5k a week for two fucking years, with 27 completed works, and have someone ask to smack a banner across the top that says they’ll read it when it’s done. When it’s done! When it’s done is when I’m done with this fandom, whereupon I will not particularly care anymore.

The reason there are 27 completed works and 713,963 words in this series is that from the beginning there have been people engaging with me on Tumblr, commenting on AO3, talking through ideas and reacting with excitement to updates, asking questions, getting involved in conversations on Discord, talking me through plot points, beta-reading or even just cheer-reading my stuff, making art, making music, clicking kudos enough that not a day has gone by in this pandemic that I haven’t gotten that digest email from AO3. The Witcher fandom has been, overall, so warm and welcoming, so supportive, I’ve gotten through some very difficult times these last two years with the support and encouragement and conversation and– just, everything, it has been wonderful and I’m so delighted in everyone who has read this stuff and had something to say about it.

Who the fuck are you and why am I going to give you control over the metadata of this work when you are so clearly not involved in it? You are not involved in this. You don’t get an ownership stake in this work! You are the only person who does not get an ownership stake in this work. The commenters, the kudos’ers, the rebloggers, the co-creators, the recipients of the gift works, the co-participants in the exchanges, the collaborators on Discord I shout out by name, they get an ownership stake. You want to prominently mark this fic with a banner that says you haven’t read it ??????

Like, not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck off, and then keep fucking off until you’ve fucked all the way off, and when you’ve done that, cut this shit out. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[j00j]

w o w why are people like this!?

Anyway, I sincerely enjoy your work and continue to be astounded by how much of Meet Death Sitting there is to enjoy!

[rmc28]

zomg that is so utterly rude

I get such a little zing of joy when there's an AO3 update notification for MDS; I'm so glad you get kudos every day and the comments area is usually so enthusiastic that it's worth reading too for more joy in the world.

[naath]

that's just... should be a bookmark. Or a pile of open tabs... my tbr 'pile' on AO3 is big, but I'm not sharing that with authors. Besides, you loose the fun of engaging with the work if you 'wait' and anyway waiting for you to 'be done' is like waiting for the end of Discworld at this point, many stories ARE FINISHED and make sense as done (and also are good)