#don’t do shit online you wouldn’t do irl and expect 0 consequences

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok the whole thing w/ clogging up ao3 tags is stupid for multiple reasons, like how it fucks with screen readers for one, but the MAJOR issue is that having too many tags isn’t actually a problem w/ ao3

Like seriously guys? There is a lot to criticize. And I say this as someone who heavily relied on fandom spaces to get me through some really really hard times and still loves ao3. I can say I love what it does for fandom while also acknowledging there’s some seriously fucked up shit going on both behind the scenes and with ppl who use the site. It’s literally like saying “I love tumblr but I acknowledge there are literal nazis on here and as a Jew/human with a working brain I hate them and that they’ve been here so long”

Like. I get u think ur sticking it to the man or whatever. And idk I partially agree bc. There’s so much nasty shit and some technically illegal shit that I don’t want to even mention! But ur not even wasting the moderators time or anything ur just being obnoxious and then everyone starts discoursing on tumblr and I’m legitimately tired of it. I don’t wanna see ppl defending gross stuff and I’m tired of talking about the ppl who do defend gross stuff bc I don’t wanna remember that they exist bc I have shit to do irl and not enough space in my brain for them

So. Idk ima propose at least a temporary solution before I have to hear one more argument for or against censorship bc y’all seriously don’t understand how to have a nuanced conversation

How about instead of asking AO3 to take down gross fics (which may or may not be morally correct but will 100% reopen a very over done conversation) instead we ask for some specific plausible things

1) when you use ao3 explicit and unrated fics are automatically filtered out. They do this on ff.net. Yes it may be like 2 extra clicks for ppl who wanna read explicit stuff but ppl who don’t are going to do that anyway, and it protects the people who don’t know to do that and don’t want to read graphic tags. Most importantly it requires consent to browse explicit fics. Yeah you need to give consent to read explicit stuff, but you can look through the incredibly graphic tags/summaries without consenting to anything. It’s literally the default. Which is both upsetting to ppl who don’t wanna see that and also maybe a bit of a legal loophole they should close up

2) a “suggest tags” feature. This would be moderated by authors not ao3 staff. Basically ppl can like..... idk entire a series of tags and you can choose if you want to add them or not. The person submitting them has an option to be anonymous or not. Obviously the author doesn’t have to add every random tag and it might be annoying but it would help with making sure triggers got tagged. It would be helpful if it didn’t let you suggest tags that were already suggested/on the fic but I’m not too picky. Like I said the point of this is to make sure ppl can block stuff properly, and it honestly might also help authors with visibility bc like. Obviously you know the tags you use but you don’t know what tags other ppl look for. Again maybe it may be obnoxious with ppl having a lot of tags but people already have a lot of tags

3) a dispute rating button. Now before someone bitches at me that the ao3 moderators don’t have time to go through disputes- I know I already took that into consideration. Basically the idea is when you dispute the rating the site will ask you what rating you think it should be and anonymously log it. So if someone rated something M but you think it should be an E the site will log that and send a message to the author. The author has a choice if they actually want to listen to ppl and change the rating or not. They don’t actually have to listen to the ppl disputing the rating. Unless they get a certain amount of disputes. I was thinking maybe like 50 or so?* So if 50 ppl say “hey this really needs to have a different rating” then and only then would the moderators take a look at the fic. And the moderators would then figure out what the rating should be.

(*idk if 50 is the right #. I was thinking it should maybe work on like a percentage of your hits in the fic?)

3.5) have a sexual content marker. This is marked as 3.5 bc i feel like this idea if implemented would be misused. But yeah in theory you could just have a sexual content marker that could be clicked by the OP and then automatically filtered. Again you could use the system from #3 but again I feel like ppl would missuse it.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to give some viable solutions ppl on both sides might actually agree with. Like I get not wanting to make concessions with gross ppl, but it’s a lot faster so I’m ok with doing it for now while the rest of y’all continue to debate or w/e

Final note- please for the love of g-d learn how ratings work. Ask someone else’s opinion if you have too. I have seen so many explicit fics marked as mature or teen it’s a legitimate problem. I’ll give a quick rundown of what each rating means but pls guys

General- g- basically go by what you’d see in a Disney cartoon

Teen- pg/pg 13 - there are swears there’s violence, sex may be mentioned, you might call someone sexy or smthn idc, but no one is shown having sex or or discussing/thinking about it in detail

Mature- R - injuries/gore may be described with more detail. Uhh there could be some heavy making out and the characters might talk about sex or feeling sexually attracted to someone. But actual sex is not shown!! If you have to mention or refer to someone’s genetalia in any sexual way you should probably move it up to an E. Even if ur characters are fully clothed the entire time. Also If you’re talking about kinks outside of a quick joke or reference you should probably move it up to an E.

Explicit- NC 17- sexually explicit content. (You can put non-sexual violent stuff under here but most ppl leave it under mature)

TLDR/oversimplification(for the ratings) -

General: nothing sexual

Teen: implied sex

Mature: refrenced sex

Explicit: shown sex

General tldr:

Some criticisms of Ao3 are valid and needed, and some are just stupid and infuriating (specifically talking about the tag thing stop it’s annoying and ableist). There is constant arguments and drama surrounding those criticisms, and I decided to offer some solutions that actually have a chance at getting implemented, even if I would prefer a different option.

#ao3 #ao3 drama #ao3 tags #I’m really swinging a bat at a bees nest huh #shipping discourse #ao3 discourse #I don’t want anyone to come yell at me for either defending OR demonizing ao3 #please understand that I can have a nuanced opinion where I both love and greatly dislike it at the same time #also I’m tagging this with shipping discourse and shit but pls don’t bug me about that #literally all I have to say on it is a) don’t harass ppl b) don’t do gross shit c) if someone likes something harmless don’t be a d*ck #and d) u are not immune to criticism #if you get called out for being racist or gross you don’t get a get out of jail free card just bc we’re online #if you hand sew a nazi flag ppl are allowed to get mad even if it’s ur hobby #if you harass someone by mail your going to jail #don’t do shit online you wouldn’t do irl and expect 0 consequences #this is several bees nests and I am a coward so I’m posting this and immediately going to bed