AO3 abusers annoy me

[feng_shui_house]

I kinda wish that when you went to post a work on AO3 you'd see a note that it wasn't to be used as a message board- including fic searches, beta reader requests, RP partner requests, requests to fill prompts, requests for input on which prompt to write, and personal notes.

Some of them simply don't know better, I'm sure (particularly the users who don't have any other posts), but more and more often I see one that blatantly states they know it's against the rules, and don't care, they're going to do it anyway and even if people comment to protest, they reply with entitlement- you can skip this and read something else, AO3 will take care of it later, I'll take it down once I get what I want, etc.

Man, if I owned the ban-hammer, anyone who says they know the rules and deliberately breaks them would get their ass kicked out. They could get a different email and try to sign up again BUT checking the invite requests means they'd have a Damn Long Wait- currently more than 63 days.

https://archiveofourown.org/invite_requests

There are currently 15814 people on the waiting list. We are sending out 250 invitations per day.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

If you do find anyone posting non-fanwork content like that, just report it to Abuse and they'll delete it or contact the author, depending on what it is.

The invites are on hold at the moment due to some issue with spam, unfortunately. Hopefully it should get back to normal once the spammers have been defeated!

[feng_shui_house]

I do report them- whenever I'm bored/tired I run a restricted search of <1000 words <1 day English works and collate them into 2 Abuse reports (one for works that violate TOS, and one for works incorrectly tagged English- those aren't violations of course, Abuse will correct the language tags with no penalty to the user.)

I had been running Spam Hunts several times a day doing it the same way, to try to optimize Abuse's efforts.

Invites resumed Nov. 13. AO3 hasn't announced it, but once the banner went down I checked & saw the invite queue went from zero and started piling up.

(Currently on page 9 is where commenters noticed the queue had begun again.)
https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8848

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, wow. That's very dedicated! I'm impressed. I only ever report things to Abuse when I stumble over them as a wrangler. (Usually in top level RPF - it is apparently the place where people put the weirdest things!)

I'm glad to hear the invites have resumed - last I heard they hadn't, but that is a long wait, then!

[feng_shui_house]

I'm so glad I joined years ago- if I had to wait 2 months for an invite I doubt I would have. Thinking back, I probably joined in order to participate in a challenge & the organizers may have been able to get invites passed out quickly.

Doing the search the way I do it is pretty quick- I scroll just short of blur speed. Abuse works generally are formatted so differently that they leap out at me, then I stop and verify they are Abuse and what type they are- the 6 categories I mention cover most of them.

One thing I DON'T report, even though it's technically not supposed to be on AO3, is Original work. It is a Creative Work, and I think is worth being preserved and shared.

[thisbluespirit]

Abuse don't usually delete Original Work anyway - if someone's decided it's fannish Original Work, then they don't tend to argue. But stuff that isn't fanwork at all, they will. (I've reported some stuff that was really borderline - like when it's sort of me and my friends RPF/Original work, because it's hard to tell where it stops, so I hand over to Abuse and they usually just keep it. But, as I said, I do occasionally wrangle top level RPF and people stick some very peculiar things in there, so occasionally I get stuff I'm a bit unsure where it falls.)

I once found someone's geography homework! (In top level RPF, of course.) They had put in the author's notes that they couldn't seem to get Google docs to work, so they were just posting it to AO3 instead. lol. Yep, that's what a fan fic archive is for! /o\ I think that's my favourite Abuse report I've had to make.

Doing the search the way I do it is pretty quick- I scroll just short of blur speed. Abuse works generally are formatted so differently that they leap out at me, then I stop and verify they are Abuse and what type they are- the 6 categories I mention cover most of them.

It's still impressive and praiseworthy!

[feng_shui_house]

Geography Homework! Heck, I could probably MAKE that a fanfic, just go with Spiderman or the Teen Titans, put a line in front 'Oh my GOD, I could be saving the day, but instead I have to do my geography homework!' and then paste in the whole thing and at the end put 'I hope my teacher is satisfied, I just saw a villain outside the window! BYE!'

It would be a VERY BAD fanfic, but technically, you know?

I got hooked on Spam Hunting, and when I ran out of spam... I guess it was like when England wiped out the native lions they went to hunting foxes instead. :^)

[thisbluespirit]

LOL, they had not gone to that effort!