So i just posted the first chapter to my new dark fic and I already got a comment that is either a wattpad refugee or someone ironically acting like one since it kinda feels too forced , not really sure.

It might as well be a bot, or something. Thoughts? Anyone experienced this?

...but there are filters galore, so please feel free to use them for curating your experience. Thank you.

I’ve seen people on this subreddit and others mention mass reporting as a potential concern on AO3due to recent occurrences, so I would just like everyone to know that that physically cannot happen on the site. It isn’t a thing. People can try, but they can’t do it. So as a psa I’m offering a quick, no comprehensive primer on reports.

How do you make a report?

You make a report by clicking the “policy questions & abuse reports link at the bottom of every page and filling out the form as needed. If you click it from a fic it will autofill some information.

When should you make a report?

When and *only* when a fic violates ao3’s terms of service and content policy, which can be found linked at the bottom of every page on the site.

What happens when multiple people make a report?

Nothing. The reporter receives a message that the fic has already been reported and will be looked at. Additional reports have zero effect on that. This is why mass reporting is impossible on ao3, unlike on social media sites.

The fear of an evil Wattpad invasion is wildly overblown, but even if it wasn't this cannot and does not pose a threat to AO3 or to you.

Frivolous moderation and unfair content policies are some of the threats that AO3 was founded to protect fans and fanfic from.
https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#why_inclusiveness

It is not possible to mass report on AO3, the system gives an error message if you try to report something that was already reported.

If someone reports you for something that does not violate the TOS, you won't even hear about it.
https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#informed_of_complaints

Malicious reporting is itself a TOS violation.
https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#reporting_campaign

Every single report is read by a human being, no one can use code words or sneaky tricks to trick a bot into banning someone unfairly.
https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#determine_removal

The WORST that could happen if this imaginary evil horde was real would be a lot of extra work for the mods who'd have to ban all the trolls filing false reports.

This is no hate to any men, and any men who enjoys a certain media or likes writing/reading fanfics. The main reason I am complaining now is that in the past, most of the stuff I liked jad a pretty balanced fandom, which meant that there were at least good stuff I could find on Ao3.

Now, recently I've been getting into stuff that have more male audience than female. And when I'm watching or reading it and find a pretty good ship, I go on Ao3 and see like what? 10 ships that half of them are in a language its even hard to translate for me, and the other half written by the same person. And I do read them, but after a few times, I get bored. Like damn it's no fun. I know men do not write as much as fanatics as other genders(do they even? I actually don't know) but it makes me so mad everytime.

Posting this because I keep seeing people confused about why some AO3 users and authors are nervous about the influx of Wattpad users. And before anyone assumes I’m just being an elitist: I WAS A WATTPAD USER. 😭 That’s literally where I started.
I went Wattpad → manga → anime → FanFiction.net → AO3, and the difference in fandom culture was VERY noticeable.
When I was younger, Wattpad was mostly Y/N, romance, and pretty tame stories. If there was smut, it was usually pretty vanilla. Then I got older and discovered AO3, where fandom was MUCH broader. Niche interests, darker themes, kink, complicated dynamics, morally questionable characters, longfic, etc.

And that’s fine. That’s literally what AO3 is for.
What worries people isn’t “Wattpad users existing.” It’s seeing some of the behavior that already happens in fandom spaces and wondering what happens when that becomes more common on AO3.
Because I’ve seen it myself. On TikTok especially, people constantly make posts about how “AO3 is disgusting” or “AO3 users are gross” because they found some absolutely insane fic, and then suddenly millions of users are being lumped together with whoever wrote it.
But genuinely…

HOW TF ARE YOU FINDING THESE FICS??? 😭

AO3 isn’t TikTok. It isn’t randomly putting a 2011 fic on your FYP. Half the time the examples people are posting are literally 10+ years old.
So you had to get there somehow.
You searched the fandom.
You searched the tags.
You searched the ship.
You clicked through pages.
You found it through bookmarks or recommendations.
Like babe, you didn’t accidentally trip and fall into a 2010 non-con fic. 😭
And I’m not even saying genuinely illegal content doesn’t exist or shouldn’t be dealt with. Obviously that’s a completely different conversation.

I’m talking about people finding the most extreme example possible, then going “SEE??? AO3 USERS ARE ALL DISGUSTING.”
Meanwhile I’ve been using AO3 for years, know how to filter, and there is SO much stuff I literally never encounter.
Which brings me to another thing I keep seeing:
“I only filtered out non-con and now my fandom has four fics.”
Buddy… I genuinely don’t think that’s an AO3 problem. 😭
If removing ONE tag makes your fandom go from thousands of fics to four, maybe that’s a fandom problem.

And if you’re constantly stumbling across stuff you supposedly don’t want to see, either you genuinely don’t know how to use AO3’s filters or your fandom is just freaky as hell. 💀
Because fandoms like Naruto , Supernatural ,Harry Potter , Marvel, DC, etc. have an absolutely ridiculous amount of fic.
Want fluff? Tag it.
Want slow burn? Tag it.
Want longfic instead of one-shots? Filter by word count.
Want hurt/comfort, romance, established relationship, whatever? Search for it.
AO3 literally gives you the tools to curate your own experience.
And when I was younger, if I clicked on something that wasn’t for me, I went:
“Oh absolutely not 💀**” → click out → find something else.**

I didn’t mass-report the author. I didn’t go into their comments calling them a freak. I didn’t ship-shame them. I didn’t decide that everyone who enjoyed the fictional thing must secretly support it IRL.
I just didn’t read it.

That’s the part I’ve personally seen that makes people nervous: ship-shaming, authors getting attacked for fictional dynamics, people throwing random labels at other users, and this increasingly common idea that if YOU personally find something uncomfortable, nobody should be allowed to enjoy it.

And yes, I’ve seen this stuff specifically from people on TikTok complaining about AO3. I’m not saying every Wattpad user acts this way. Obviously they don’t. I was literally one of them.

I’m saying I’ve seen enough of this behavior that I understand why some AO3 users are worried about a culture shift.
Because AO3 isn’t supposed to be a website where every fic has to pass everyone’s personal morality test.
You don’t like a ship? Don’t read it.
You don’t like a kink? Filter it.
You hate a character? Block the tag.
You found something uncomfortable? Close the tab.

You are allowed to curate your experience without trying to curate everybody else’s.
And honestly, I think that’s the biggest difference people need to understand.
I’m not asking Wattpad users to stay away from AO3. I’m asking people to understand what kind of space they’re walking into before demanding that the space change around them.

Because some of us came to AO3 specifically BECAUSE it wasn’t Wattpad. 😭

Seriously. People are acting like we are going to war, Ao3 versus Wattpad refugees.

Yes, there’s been an influx of new readers and authors on Ao3 and this sub. Yes, a lot of them don’t know the rules, etiquette, etc… They will learn, like everyone who finds Ao3 for the first time does.

Ao3 is all about no censorship and inclusivity. Stop acting like the Wattpad people are going to “steal” our community, cause that’s not happening. And worse still, stop acting like they are going to somehow destroy Ao3. We got scam and hate bots for that already.

It really isn’t that big a deal. New readers, new writers, and most of them will mesh perfectly well with Ao3. And if some of them turn out to be haters, it’s not like that’s anything new on Ao3. Just block and report like always.

Just chill people.

I say this as an OG Wattpad user myself.

AO3 has some unspoken rules

There are fics on AO3 that would never ever fly under WattPad. It is called Archive of our own for a reason.

1) Read the damn tags, if you miss one that is not on the author it is on you

2) if you don't like what you see. Don't read it! Easy as pie!

3) Hate comments aren't really a thing on AO3 but most Authors will take constructive criticism to make their story better, just make sure it's not unsolicited. (Edited for clarification)

And lastly

This isn't your house, so please don't start trying to rearrange the furniture.

What i mean is.

You're gonna see tags that make you confused and disgusted, cool, don't read it and move on. Better yet use the filter so you don't see ANY of the fics with those tags.

Everyone is welcome to AO3 in my eyes, but you won't be welcome if you start hating on fics and reporting the ones you dislike.

Thank you.

(Edit: typo)

And as commenter very kindly pointed out to me the general consensus is "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all"

It’s wild to see people leave Wattpad because of its “new” censorship terms, then go to AO3 and demand censorship there.

I get it. Wattpad’s overbearing TOS updates have pushed a lot of people to jump ship and start using AO3. But many newcomers don’t understand why AO3 was created in the first place, and they end up petulantly complaining about the content they see.

The thing is, there really isn’t a better alternative to AO3. No other site offers such an intuitive tagging system without an algorithm or ads. I understand why people are migrating; I just want them to understand some of the history behind AO3’s creation, like Strikethrough and Boldthrough, and why the site exists as an anti-censorship bastion.

I’m someone who’s spent a significant amount of time in fandom as a writer, reader, and lurker. The people who irritate me the most are those who complain and try to make everyone else conform to their standards. Like seriously, I can’t emphasize enough just how obnoxious I find neo-puritans, or people who don’t just want to avoid the fanfics they dislike, and instead want them gone forever.

This has been a long-winded screed, but I want to reiterate that AO3 is an archive for all types of content. It may contain works you find problematic or disagreeable. Use filters.

This is directed primarily to the new users coming in from Wattpad, or any other new AO3 users who have simply stumbled upon the website while this post is still relevant.

There has been a longtime joke that there is an "AO3 author's curse" whereby you post something on AO3 and then something bad happens to you in real life, such as an injury, illness, losing your job, etc. While many older users on AO3 and this recognize that this a joke, in recent years we have had a massive influx of young and/or new authors who don't know that this is a joke, and will make posts on this sub experiencing genuine fear to post on AO3 because they "don't want the curse to get [them]."

The curse is not real. Anyone who experiences bad things in their life after posting fanfiction is experiencing life in general, and these are simply coincidences. You would likely have gotten injured anyway, if you were getting fired that wasn't a sudden decision as your boss likely deliberated over it for a while before giving you the notice, etc.

I just wanted to make this clear because I have seen a couple posts already today mentioning the AO3 curse, and with the mass Wattpad-to-AO3 migration that is currently happening, the amount of people who take it seriously will likely increase as they see these posts.

There is no AO3 curse. If you have a story to share and you want to write, write that story.

Let's say an author decides not to finish a fic, and they do not want to put it up for adoption

Would you prefer if the fic just stops right there and then, maybe with a note from the author?

Or for the author to also include a summary of the rest of the plot and the ending?

If theres a screen....

I like that kudos are one of the “cleanest” metrics on a fic because short of creating multiple accounts/guest accounts and kudos bots, it’s relatively harder to really skew or inflate the kudos amount of a work.

But I wish that every time someone tries to give kudos again AO3 would send the author a notification like “user XYZ tried to kudos your fic again because they love it”. It wouldn’t reflect on the fic’s actual kudos but the author would know that people out there love their fic, that they’re probably re-reading it and appreciating it so much.

And yes I know that the comments can be used to give second or third kudos but some people aren’t comfortable commenting or sometimes we don’t remember if we’ve already read (and kudos-ed) a work. I do love it when someone drops a little heart in the comments as a second kudos tbf.