Chapter Summary

This chapter has no summary.

Questions / Thoughts without a home yet.

• Where should a discussion of bookmarks (public vs private, recommendations) go?
• General overview of the OTW? Probably should at least mention Fanlore, since it's a useful resource.
• Using (or not using) bots/LLMs.
• If you use LLMs, then you should be clear about what you're using them for, etc. If you hate it when other people use LLMs, do not flame people for using them: you'll only drive the LLM users into hiding.
• https://old.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1i75p0v/constructive_criticism_and_fic_etiquette/
• https://github.com/darthkrallt/AO3rdr
• https://github.com/vaaas/aooonewcrap
• https://archiveofourown.org/works/38685597#pageone
• https://archiveofourown.org/works/42103392/chapters/128424691#workskin
• I'm thinking that the "Navigating AO3" chapters should be interleaved with the other chapters, placed where relevant, but (1) maybe this is not so and (2) maybe it is so, but they should come after rather than before.

Refer to equivalents for kudos, bookmarks, etc., eg bookmarks on AO3 are like Favorites on FFN, like ? on Wattpad, etc. "This thing on AO3 is like that thing on the whatsit you're more familiar with." Doc manager on FFN is like "Save as draft" on AO3.

AO3 Etiquette

This is at least partly a recap of other notes in other chapters. Trying to formalize and increase awareness of traditional fandom etiquette, e.g. comment/review norms, YKINMK. Cf. three laws of fandom.

Not sure where this should actually fall in the order of chapters. Feels like either first or last.

Navigating AO3: Finding Works

Filtering and searching for fics. Ways to narrow down your search results. Keywords and symbols for the "search within results" field.

Comfy-fy Your Reading Experience

• Installing and using Tampermonkey
• Maybe discuss Tampermonkey earlier/elsewhere, and refer back to it when necessary.
• Wherever it's discussed, also refer to this.
• Using ao3 savior and ao3 crossover savior to hide works based on tags.

Caveat Lector

• If a fic has "Chose Not to Warn," be careful even if you don't see any tags that you'd consider a warning. Extra tags are not a requirement! There could be dead baby cannibals who say bad words, and you can't be mad about it.

Site Skins

• How to find, install, modify skins, including the following:
  • How to block stories based on the number or type of tags.
  • How to hide tags.
  • How to reorganize how tags are displayed.

Navigating AO3: Reading Works

Downloading fics, and what happens when you download them (e.g. the skins get borked). Downloading and using Calibre.

The details tag; clicking it.

What the Buttons Mean

Bookmarks

Difference between private and public bookmarks. What recs are.

Reading

• Is it down?
• There is no official AO3 app. There probably will never be an official AO3 app.

Commenting

• Etiquette around commenting.
• How to write a comment when you're nervous or don't know what to say.
• Tools that make commenting easier.
• Lots and lots of encouragement to comment, because there's no better way to encourage your fav writers than to comment on their fics.

Beta Reading

Navigating AO3: Your Personal Pages

Section 1

Covers the Dashboard, Profile, Pseuds, Preferences, and Skins pages.

• Profile: Miscellany like "stuff that I, a fannish historian, wish more people included in their profiles."

Section 2

Covers the Works, Drafts, Series, Bookmarks, and Collections pages.

Section 3

Covers the Inbox, Statistics, History, and Subscriptions pages.

• Inbox: There are no DMs, PMs, etc.
• History: Make sure to note enabling/disabling history, deleting history.
• History: Make sure to note that the "Mark for Later" system depends on history.

Section 4

Covers the Co-Creator Requests, Sign-ups, Assignments, Claims, Related Works, and Gifts pages.

Writing

Chapter length, foreshadowing, writing visual descriptions, other general advice.

Posting on AO3

Useful tools for formatting stories on AO3 with a minimum of fuss, to avoid weird spaces and extra line breaks.

Story Meta

• "Dates Matter: or why do I care when your work was first published," by snowgall, is about the importance of accurate publishing dates: they're useful not just for fannish historians like myself but for readers, whose expectations will often be shaped by the publication date (e.g. pre-2007 stories have no chance of being DH-compliant).

Tagging Guide

Guidelines on when to use non-story related tags.

Chapter Summary

If it's been more than a couple of weeks since your last update, then consider including a short recap in the chapter summary or opening notes. If it's been more than a month since your last update, then definitely include a short recap.

Opening / Closing Notes

If you think that it would be a good idea to make a content warning but you don't want to spoil things for people who don't want to be told about anything, then you can give the content warning in the chapter's end notes, and mention the presence of the content warning in the chapter's beginning notes.

Formatting

How to format with HTML + How to use VS Code (both of these will probably be extremely sketchy and mostly point in the direction of existing tutorials elsewhere).

Fanfiction.net is a dying nightmarescape held together by duct tape and Faustian bargains, whose founder disappeared years ago when the Devil came to collect his due for reasons that are a mystery to us all. I will speak of it no further except to say that, if that site is dying, then Ficwad is undead. Furthermore, I know nothing of Wattpad or whatever else the kids are posting on today.

All of this is to say that my formatting advice is exclusively for posting on Archive of Our Own. If there are other guides for other websites, then I may add them to this list if you let me know of them.

Work Skins

How to use work skins, including a list of work skins that are neat or just plain useful, like work skins for emulating social media.

Navigating AO3: Exchanges, et cet.

[Organizing Your Work]

All of this could fit into previous chapters but they also fit together. Probably okay to repeat information in order to make it easier for the user to find.

• Collections, series, etc.
• How to Anonymize your work, how to orphan them, difference between these.
• How to use Series and/or Collections to package large numbers of small fics in a way that works well with the Archive's tagging system, instead of cramming them all into a single unsearchable ficlet bin. Also, why you might not want to do that, and what you can do instead.

Appendix: AO3 Stylesheet

A copy of the stylesheet that AO3 uses, breaking down what the different bits mean. Will need to include a disclaimer that AO3 might update their stylesheet without my notice, etc. etc.