Watch me be organised for once

[hils]

So, at writerconuk this year I am doing a presentation/workshop on the various different fanfiction hosting sites and their pros/cons

So far I have:
-Livejournal
-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fanfiction.net
-Personal website

Am I missing any big ones? And if you've used any of the above would you mind talking about what you like and don't like about it

Thanks!

Comments

[vella-amor-dm.livejournal.com]

dreamwidth
delicious?

livejournal
pro - fandom community interaction; easy to make fic reccs and have ficc rec lists; can give the author personalised feedback
con - erm. not sure. i am biased and love LJ lol

A03
pro - easy to navigate i.e. easy to search for specific types of fics within fandoms
con - ? i don't really use the site enough to find fault with it

tumblr
pro - ...
con - i am fiercely against the idea of having fic on tumblr. it seems entirely unintuitive because it's a graphics/media site

ff.net
pro - everyone knows about it so it's a common platform; easy to navigate
con - declining quality of fics lol

sorry about the crappy feedback. i don't really search out a lot of fic so i don't have much to say about the various services

[signe-chan.livejournal.com]

I think that's all the main ones.

I only post fic on livejournal and AO3.

I don't use tumblr for fic because it moves too quickly - it's not a good format for anything that takes more then a few minutes to appreciate and the different layouts can often make it hard to read fic. It's alright for linking out to fic as recs but I wouldn't post fic there and definitely not only there.

ff.net I used to post on but haven't in years. I find the interface a bit clunky and the quality of fic is worse in general. My sister actually uses it a lot so I'll ask her if she has any pros.

Personal websites, again, I've not had one of there since geocities. I think it's kind of an outdated way to host fic. It requires a massive amount of work and I can kind of understand it from the point of view of maintaining ultimate control over your own fic if you wanted to pull it down but it's a lot of work and upkeep to achieve that.

For things I actually use now.

Livejournal -
It's great for community building and interaction around fanfiction. It lacks a little as an archive. It's hard to find old fic and when people are posting multi-part work it can be hard to track and link all the different parts.

AO3 -
Let me write you a love letter to AO3. I LOVE AO3. I love that it's a fan controlled archive and I love the wide variety of features it provides. I like that the archive warnings are right there in the header. I love the search by tag function. I love the options to download as epub etc. I find the layout very user friendly. I love the kudos system as I often enjoy a fic but don't have anything I really want to say so that lets me leave that sentiment but it does still allow comments so if I do have something to say I can do so. I love the flexibility of it both for reading and writing - for example I love that I can easily embed art and videos within the fic and as a reader I love that I can chose to display chapter by chapter or entire fic. It's just little thoughtful things like that where you didn't really know that you wanted the option until I was given to you.
Downside is obviously the wait time for accounts. I can't really think of anything else. It would be good to see a facility on there for meta and since people already use if for podfic and art too away to mark something as podfic or art outside the tagging system, like within their archive warning/type/rating graphic only obviously not actually in there because there's no space.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Twisting the Hellmouth might be mainly for Buffy Crossovers, but the system allows for other things and the site is pretty big; 22,335 stories when I just looked; and I have one story with 70,000 hits, so a lot of readers.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

LJ - less fic posted these days, few readers comment now, too. Easy to post, but if the writer forgets the chapter links it is a difficult place to follow anything with multiple chapters. Good for people to post links to other places they've posted, though!

AO3 - I've never really got on with it. Their very feminist stance to start with (Fanfic is written for women, by women, and men have no place in it) annoyed me so much when they started, even though I am a woman. But I do find it hard to navigate when I do venture over there - probably because I don't use it much, though.

FFNet - don't post there, hardly ever read there. Too hard to find decent stuff.

Tumblr - no idea!

Personal website - don't post to one any more, and only actually read Ningloreth's!


Actually I post almost exclusively to fandom specific sites - they are usually easier to navigate, and all those I use are easy to post to. I read almost exclusively at them, too.

[hils.livejournal.com]

I hadn't considered fandom specific sites so I'll add that to the list. Thanks!

[embroiderama]

LJ/DW:
Pros - Easy formatting (as long as you can deal with a tiny bit of HTML), easy interaction between readers and writers, feedback encouraged by the format, fairly easy to find and save things.
Cons - Limit on post length (especially on LJ and especially for people who inadvisedly use the rich-text editor LOL), no real site-wide search.

AO3:
Pros - Easy to find and save things, easy to import from LJ, not difficult to post in general, allows commenting as well as comment threads.
Cons - Forces writers to allow kudos thus giving readers an easy way to feel like they've given feedback when they HAVE NOT. (Yeah, I have a grudge against the kudos.)

FF.net:
Pros - Well-organized, easy to find things, allows commenting, easy to find and save things.
Cons - Difficult to post fic, no comment threads, too many idiots.

Tumblr:
Pros - When people post fic elsewhere with a note that it came from tumblr, that gives me a heads-up to not read it.
Cons - It's the most ridiculous place to post fic, and I can't believe that any intelligent person over the age of 16 would do so. It blows my mind that people who used to post fic on LJ post it there. WHY??? I can't speak to posting ease because I don't use it, but the reading format is HORRIBLE and commenting is pretty much impossible as far as I can tell. To me, posting fic on tumblr makes as much sense as using twitlonger to post fic on twitter.

Personal website:
Pros - You have total control over it.
Cons - It's so 1997? I mean, I posted that way back then, it was a pain in the butt.

Fandom-specific archives:
Pros - You know anybody reading there is into the fandom you're writing for, usually in-depth searching abilities, posting may or may not be easy.
Cons - Their existence tends to depend on one or a very few people, the archives have been dropping like flies, the archive software can be cranky and old, it doesn't usually allow you to make changes (or remove things) once you've posted your fic, commenting is a maybe/maybe not thing.

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

What about all the fiction archives like The Spuffy Realm, Supernaturalville and their like?

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, curiouswombat mentioned that too. I shall add it to the list

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

They are really the only place apart from LJ that I bother with - TtH, Faerie, and four or five others. You get a better quality of story, on average.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Waaah! Just lost my comment!

I'll try to remember what I said.

-Livejournal

Pros
a) Easy to use, though the new non-scrolling text box makes it almost impossible to make small corrections to a chapter once you've posted it.
b) If you find the right communities, your story gets a lot of attention.

Cons
If you post at your own journal, and your f-list aren't in the same fandoms, your friends don't comment :-(

-AO3

Pros
a) A nice-looking, well-designed site with a sensible system of warnings. I particularly like the fact that you can warn that you've chosen not to warn, then explain why in a note, and avoid spoiling your own story.

Cons
a) You don't seem to get many hits. I assume that's because it's a very big, multi-fandom site.
b) It's a bit 'worthy'. I suppose that comes with being 'Of Our Own', but the Bechdel Test tag made me hit the roof. As a result, I have an author's note that says, 'The story fails the Bechdel test because the female characters are actively involved in the plot and talk to whomever and discuss whatever their participation entails.' LOL.

-Tumblr

I don't have a Tumblr account, but it doesn't seem the right place for fics.

-Fanfiction.net

I don't think FF.net really deserves its bad reputation -- there are a lot of very good fics there if you're prepared to look.

Pros
a) They don't 'validate' your fics.
b) Fics have a long shelf life -- I posted some Little Legolas stories there a few years ago and they're still getting hits and the odd comment.

Cons
a) The interface is a bit of a struggle.
b) They don't allow MA fics. I've heard people say they post them there anyway, but I wouldn't risk it. (And, although my fics aren't PWP, the mature ideas tend to be integral to the plots, so I can't just strip out the sex scenes for FF.net).
c) It seems to attract vigilantes -- people who complain just to get fics removed.

-Personal website

I love my website! It's my baby! I designed it and my brother helped me implement it; I write all the stories and make all the graphics; I try to make it beautiful :-)

ETA: I've recently discovered the joy of turning my own stories into epubs and mobis -- they look so cute -- and I make those and pdfs available for download on the title page of the story.

Pros
a) Total control!

Cons
a) You don't get the passing trade a big archive attracts (though I do average 130 page loads a day, and many more when I'm actually posting a WIP). I used to advertise at a fandom-specific archive but they ripped me off (I think they were relying on my money and wanted more) so I stopped. I do maintain a mailing list and send out emails with links to the new material whenever I update. I suppose I think of it as a private LJ community.
b) You have to do everything. I love that, but it's not for everyone.

Fandom-specific websites

I post Draco/Hermione fics at Granger Enchanted (Hermione centred) and at Hawthorne and Vine (Dramione only), and I used to post Legolas/Eowyn fics at Open Scrolls Archive (het only, formerly LOTR only).

Pros
a) They attract the right readers.

Cons
a) They tend to 'validate' your fics, checking for 'quality' and canon compliance. This means you have to wait for your story to be made public. In the case of H&V, it also means that they may edit your stories, turning em-dashes into commas, for example, or changing something like 'We Floo to...' into 'We traveled by Floo to...' (in this case using the wrong tense, the US spelling, and getting the character's 'voice' all wrong). They ask you to give them permission by checking a box but I've no idea what they do if you don't check it. I hate validation, but if you want to be in the fandom's top archive you have to put up with it.
b) H&V fosters competition. They ask readers to nominate a 'featured author of the month'; they display stats and list 'top tens'; they run fests and then organise awards. I know their intention is to promote the fandom, but it fosters BNFs and I really hate it.
c) They allow readers to allocate stars. I hate stars because it's so easy for a malicious person to bring the average down. Some of my older LOTR stories have three stars. My spelling deserves more than three stars ;-)

[cantarina]

LJ/DW
Pro - no better platform if you want to actually engage with the writer (provided they want to engage, obvs)
Con - A much bigger issue on LJ, but the character limit on posts is the lowest out of all of these platforms (barring maybe Tumblr) forcing chaptering regardless of personal preferences.

ff.net
I don't use ff.net anymore except for when I'm desperate for something in a small fandom, but I've had an account there for over a decade. I remember the dust-up when they banned NC-17 rated stories and how it really changed the shape of the userbase. I think it tends to draw a younger crowd than a lot of the rest of fandom? And some older, die-hard writers who've been posting there forever.
Although the searchability is good, the flip side is that they limit character tagging really severely and the authors don't always use it in the first place.
(For what it's worth, adultfanfiction.net is apparently still a thing, although I haven't used the site in years. I remember being dissatisfied with the overall quality of the stories.)

AO3
I like having the option of reading full text or chapter-by-chapter. Also the way it makes the text available in various formats.

[cantarina]

Seconding ff.net's shelf-life! I still get the occasional dribs and drabs of feedback on stories posted almost a decade ago. AO3 might do the same as it ages, but for now it's the only platform to really provide that with any consistency (for me).

but the Bechdel Test tag made me hit the roof. As a result, I have an author's note that says, 'The story fails the Bechdel test because the female characters are actively involved in the plot and talk to whomever and discuss whatever their participation entails.' LOL.
I'm not tracking what this means at all, but I'm curious because women characters are my jam. Willing to explain?

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Oh, well...

All this probably shows is what a grumpy old woman I am, but the Bechdel test itself annoys me (because a scene showing two female cops discussing evidence about a male perp fails it, but an advert showing two female airheads talking about the calories in diet soup passes it). So, when I saw that AO3 had a Bechdel Test tag, I sort of got annoyed, thinking something like, "No, my stories probably don't pass the Bechdel Test -- so I can't claim that tag -- but my main female characters -- Eowyn, Hermione -- and most of my OFCs are strong*, witty, play a significant role in the story, and -- most important to me -- have het relationships based on equality and mutual respect, and I'm damned well going to say so!" So I did. (I hope I'm right about my own fics, though ;-)

* Poor old Draco, otoh, tends to get the shit kicked out of him, but it's his vulnerability in canon that makes him loveable.

[gillo]

I post to LJ/DW, AO3 and, occasionally, to Elisian Fields (Spuffy-centric).

LJ/DW (I import to DW as a backup, though I do get some comments there I don't get on LJ.)

Pro:The chance to engage with authors, invite and discuss concrit.
It feels like home to me, and I feel really comfortable with the interface.
Easy to deal with, add banners etc.
Good systems of reccing - I sometimes have comments on really old fic.

Con: It's definitely much quieter than it used to be. Thus fewer readers.
This is particularly true of DW - it has its passionate fans, but there are definitely fewer readers there - I've noticed that in particular with seasonal_spuffy.

AO3:
Pro: A good place to store fics together.
Good tagging and reasonable searching options.
Con: I find it fairly clunky to upload stuff. It demands more grasp of HTML.
I get far more drivepast readers, I think.
The most prolific writers seem to get the most readers.
The Kudos thing is uncomfortably perched between a FB "like" and an actual comment.
I don't generally bother to read there myself. I suspect I am not alone.

Fandom-specific sites: - preaching to the converted, obviously. But that means you only get readers who are actively seeking the specific pairing. Not that I expect to convert a Bangel fan any time soon!

Tumblr scares me - it looks messy, and very biased towards graphics. I don't get the whole "reblogging" concept. It makes me feel old. (Don't say it...)

FF.net - I do read there, for the SU Herald, but the crap:quality ratio doesn't encourage me to go there the rest of the week.

[miya-morana.livejournal.com]

It's pretty late, so plase appologize the roughness of this comment. :P

Livejournal
-Pros: easy to form communities/friendships between readers and writers, possibilities to leave actual feedback, each people can organize their tags like they want, themed communities for like-minded people, easy to organize challenges on it (big bangs, bingos and other ficathons)
-Cons: the powers that be don't care about us, slowly being deserted, difficult to find fic in new fandoms if you don't know where to go, some fandom communities don't believe in tags, drama/wank often occurs, sometimes horrible fonts/themes...

AO3
-Pros: easy to navigate, easy to find what you're looking for, everything is in the same place, possibility to leave actual feedback and "quick" feedback (kudos), made by fans for fans, awesome tag system (sometimes abused by non-tags, but still, it works very very well), not much drama/wank (that I have seen), built-in download system to save works to your e-reader or computer, nice and clean visual style (easy to read)...
-Cons: no real community sense, more difficult to form fandom friendships (since no blogging aspect, no meta posts and stuff), impossible to organize challenges purely through it/to communicate (basically what it says on the tin: it's an archive, not a social/community platform)

Tumblr
-Pros: I'm really trying to think of any...possibility to go viral if lucky or already popular? Possibility to reply to/be prompted by images/drawings/gifsets...
-Cons: EVERYTHING! >.< Almost impossible to leave feedback/comment/start a conversation with someone you don't already know, impossible to search for things, navigate, archive stuff (to be fair, I think tumblr is terrible at everything, but everyone's on it so if you're not you end up missing out on stuff... but fics on tumblr? Just no. I don't mnd the rendom 200-300 words ficlet after a gifset or fanart, but not actual fics, I beg of you writers!), so much drama...

FF.net
-Pros: well known, loads of views (so visibility), easy to leave feedback, searchable by fandom/characters/rating, everything in the same place
-Cons: no explicit material allowed, very strict rules (though very shitty enforcement of them), no refined sorting system (no tags...), very immature viewership (I'm talking about the readers), difficult to form friendships or a sense of community, some drama, not taken seriously anymore by most of fandom

Personal website
-Pros: the author can set up stuff the way they want, so potentially have a great sorting system, commenting system, maybe discussion forums to help create a sense of community...
-Cons: hard to find, the author can seem to have too much of an ego, if done poorly then can have bad sorting and/or commenting systems, will most likely not create a sense of community, no visibility/hard to get new readers, if for some reason the site is taken down (can't afford to pay for it anymore, for exemple) then everything is lost and all the links/recs/favorites will lead to nowhere...

I'm probably forgetting a lot of points, but I hope this helps you anyways. :)

[miya-morana.livejournal.com]

too many idiots

I think that pretty much summarizes everyone's opinion of FF.net XD

[miya-morana.livejournal.com]

I particularly like the fact that you can warn that you've chosen not to warn, then explain why in a note, and avoid spoiling your own story.

Yes, this is very good. Sadly, since the "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings" option is selected by default instead of "No Archive Warnings Apply", a lot of people don't bother changing it and in the end it's impossible to know if someone actually chose not to warn or if they just didn't bother and there are no warning needed at all. Also, there should be a "Other warning (see notes)" option, imo.


I don't think FF.net really deserves its bad reputation -- there are a lot of very good fics there if you're prepared to look.

I agree. The main problem on that website in my opinion is the readers/commenters who are, very often, idiots.


[about ff.net] Fics have a long shelf life -- I posted some Little Legolas stories there a few years ago and they're still getting hits and the odd comment.

I still get hits and comments on stuff I posted ten years ago. O_O

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

What about WWOMB? I still get emails from the yahoo lists telling me how many stories in which fandoms have been added in a month, so I think it is still active, although I can't remember the last time I visited.
Historically it was one of the biggest sites because it allowed writers to post themselves, when most archives were still hosted by the owner. Historically, as I'm sure you remember, the yahoo mail lists were the major source of fic circulation.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Twisting the Hellmouth is very big and very good. It's my primary posting and reading site these days.

Pros: A lot of very high quality fics (and, alas, a few utterly dire ones, as is always the case).
Incredibly easy to post.
Excellent system for reviewing and recommending.

Cons: At least 50% of your fics have to be crossovers between the Buffyverse and another fandom.


Fanfiction.net
Pros: very easy to post these days (they've dramatically simplified things recently).
A system that works in a similar way to tagging that is extremely flexible and powerful.
Easy to review.
You can find *anything* there. If it exists there is fic of it at ff.net

Cons: replies to reviews don't show up on the site, they go as PMs directly to the reviewer.
No adult-rated fic allowed.
The default setting for searches excludes the most adult fics and you have to remember to manually set it to show all ratings.


I don't use or read Tumblr and I would never post at AO3 because I find the sexist attitude of the people who created it offensive. I only read there when I can't find the fic anywhere else and, when I do, I find it far less user-friendly than almost any other archive.

LJ: pretty much dead as a fic-posting site these days.
DW: never even came to life. It's dreadfully clumsy and ugly compared with LJ and the only thing it has going for it is that the character limit on posts is much bigger than LJ's. The readership is minuscule.

Fandom-specific archives: if you don't count TtH then I only read, or post, at the Tolkien-specific site Faerie. Superbly easy to post there and it has quickly developed a wonderful sense of community.

[scribblemoose]

LJ/DW - I've recently made the decision to link to my work on Ao3 rather than post on LJ, because although LJ is a great platform for developing relationships with readers, I don't trust its owners, it's become unreliable and as I tend to write longer stories these days the character limit is a real pain. DW is better - trustworthy, reliable and easy to use - but does not as yet have much of a fanbase for my main fandoms. I live in hope! The only time I plan on posting fic on DW/LJ would be if it was a requirement of a community - I do think communities are good for fanfic, allowing more discussion etc.

Ao3 - I LOVE Ao3. I find it easy to use as a writer and a reader and I really like kudos. I find I get maybe 20% or so less comments than I used to on LJ, but I get way more than that in kudos - and the comments I do get are more detailed. As a reader I like the option to give kudos for a quick read I enjoyed but don't have much to reflect back to the author, or if they've really sparked something in me I can give a comment. As a reader I really like the download feature as I prefer to read on my iPad or Kindle.

If Ao3 had discussion communities, that would be even better!

Tumblr - I don't think Tumblr is a good way of sharing fanfic; the flowing timeline makes it hard to find things and it's not easy to have a dialogue.

Fanfiction.net - I haven't used since 2002 as I disagree with their ratings/adult content policies.

Personal website - I have one, but it's turned into an archive of my old anime/gaming writing; I don't update it anymore. Too much hassle!

Fandom archives - I prefer to keep control of my own material where possible, but have contributed to them in the past.

What really worries me is the disparate nature of all these archives. I do feel fandom has become fragmented across platforms and that makes it much harder to meet new people and have more detailed discussions.

[signe-chan.livejournal.com]

My sister who uses it regularly says ff.net is good because they still have a lot of stuff even if it's a small fandom. The search feature can be helpful - search by genre, character, rating, complete or in progress and keyword. Groups! They can be useful for finding fic similar to ones you enjoy - tend to only have the good fic in so it filters for quality for you.

[cantarina]

You're allowed to be frustrated by the Bechdel Test! It isn't and shouldn't be the only measure of whether a work can qualify as feminist. ("Alien" itself only passes by the skin of its teeth, which was probably meant to be a part of the original critique.) I like the tag for when I'm in the mood for women engaging with other women, which is honestly a *lot* of my fannish engagement, but there are definitely stories that don't hit that spot, even though they qualify for a Bechdel pass.

I am actually mostly okay with airheads? My bigger issue with them is the way they tend to be over-represented in pop culture.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

("Alien" itself only passes by the skin of its teeth, which was probably meant to be a part of the original critique.)

In the script, Ripley was a man, and if she'd been played by a man, Alien would have been just another film. As it was, the combination of a woman behaving 'like a man' AND the original audience responding to her first as a stereotypical woman -- 'She's impeding the hero's progress, refusing to break quarantine, wasting time analysing the distress call...' -- and then (gradually, reluctantly?) coming to accept her as the hero made the film a classic. We learned an important lesson because of that shift in stereotypes. (And even then we were afraid that Ripley wouldn't survive, because women didn't survive, not without male help). So, accidentally (and because they cast a remarkable female actor as Ripley), we got a pioneering film that proved that women could be heroes, and created a new genre and a new market.

As for the Bechdel Test, I'm frustrated with any critical theory that makes selected elements of a story more important than the storytelling. The inclusion of 'sexist' scenes doesn't make a story sexist if the purpose of those scenes is to throw the non-sexist scenes into relief, and if the final impact of the story is non-sexist. People (especially, it seems, Dr Who fans ;-) argue that the author's 'real' intention is to mask 'his' sexism with a bit of feminist lip service, and that's a YMMV thing but, for me, to insist that certain types of scene don't appear in a story, disregarding how the story uses them (provided they're legal), is the top of a very slippery creative slope.

Very personally, I dislike the Bechdel Test because it dismisses what I'm trying to do -- write het women heroes who interact with men as equals. Are you in the UK? Have you see The Fall, with Gillian Anderson? That programme brilliantly exploits the fact that het sex is still seen as male-dominant... Or, if not, as something a slut does.

Oh, and the airheads... I'm an aging Technical Author who used to have to battle with male software developers who assumed I was an airhead, and now has to battle with male and female software developers who assume I'm an airhead, so I'm a bit biased!

[midnightheir.livejournal.com]

Mediaminer.org is a fanfic archive for anime/manga.

Honestly I think that ff.net gets a bad press especially when compared to AO3. It's a numbers game imo - both have corners that are well populated and others that aren't which impacts the ratios of good to bad. Neither is really superior to the other though I'd argue that ff.net is better known and doesn't require a code to join so people can get started faster.

A well maintained website is probably a bonus though I don't know that a user would get much in the way of hits if they aren't well known. How would they advertise or get it out there?

I think that LJ was a pretty steady and reliable source of information actually. If it hadn't of had the DDOS attacks I think it'd still be a busy and effective archive location. Unfortuately that isn't to be anymore.