AO3 Collections Advice

[dragonlady7]

with the advice on how to collect bookmarks, yes do this

via https://ift.tt/AGwpj7e

sparxwrites https://sparxwrites.tumblr.com/post/689872238916337664/ao3-collections-advice :

just a gentle reminder to say that i do not, and will never, accept unsolicited invitations to add my fics to collections on ao3. doing so gives the owner of the collection power over my work https://archiveofourown.org/faq/collections?language_id=en#collectionoptions - they can then make the work anonymous without my consent, or even hide it from view entirely on ao3. whilst i can undo this by removing the work from the collection, i prefer not to take the risk of this happening and me not noticing and ending up with a missing/uncredited fic

readers: using collections as a “i’ve read this and i liked it” list is a poor use of the many, many features ao3 gives you to save and rec stuff. what you are looking for instead is ao3′s bookmarks https://archiveofourown.org/faq/bookmarks feature! you can make a bookmark of a work (they even have specific bookmark types for recs!), and then add that bookmark to a collection https://archiveofourown.org/faq/bookmarks?language_id=en#bookmarkscollection without any of the issues i mentioned above (i.e. if you make the collection anonymous/hidden, it won’t affect the bookmarked work). you don’t even need author permission to do add a bookmark to a collection! and probably the authors will be delighted because, hey, more exposure without any risk of to work. using collections this way is a good use of collections, especially if you label them clearly (e.g. “the best of dsmp h/c fic”, rather than “ouoguguh hurty”), and is of huge benefit to the fandom community at large because it helps people find recs!

also, even if you’re going to ignore everything else i’ve said here, you should absolutely not be trying to add author’s works to collections titled “okay fics” or “fics that are a solid 5/10″. i will get an email telling me you are trying to do this, letting me know exactly what you think of my work just the same as if you’d left a rude comment. if you do this with an author who is on auto-accept, every other person who reads that fic will see that collection title just below the fic’s tags. if you want to remind yourself to avoid a fic, use a private bookmark; you can tag that with whatever you want because it’s between you and god. just don’t be a dick in public, please.

even with collections that don’t have derogatory titles, this is still worth thinking about; do authors really want “subtext is buttsex spelled differently!” in all caps or “uwu squirm worm” on their work? probably not. i get emails trying to invite me to collections like this maybe once a week, and it is phenomenally annoying (though, self-admittedly, i’m a grumpy old bastard). more importantly, it also makes your collections functionally useless to anyone other than yourself - no one is searching for “worm” or “buttsex” when they are trying to find collections of good fics. a clearly-titled collection that gives you a good idea of what’s in it, whilst less funny to you personally, turns it from a personal list into a community resource!

other authors: you, also, should probably not be allowing random people to add your works to collections. by default, people should have to request permission to; (if you’ve changed that to auto-accept, you can change it back by doing the opposite of the instructions here https://archiveofourown.org/faq/preferences?language_id=en#agreecollect), and i would strongly suggest rejecting unsolicited requests. anyone who’s not e.g. the the trusted admin of an event/challenge/etc. who is running a collection for those purposes should not have control over your work’s visibility. (Your picture was not posted)