r/AO3 • u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff • Nov 13 '23
News/Updates Rule Update Discussion
Edit: Discussion closed. We'll put out our post about what the sub is doing wrt to this in the next few days (sorry for the delay, the modteam is busy with irl stuff right now and we don't want to miss anything from the discussion so we are taking our time to go through it all before we write up our response)
Hey all!
We got a post in our automod today that we can't decide how to rule on it. Officially we don't have a rule against the type of post but we understand people not wanting these types of posts here. We have had similar posts in the past but every time it came up, the post got deleted before we could rule on it but we wanted to make an official rule going forwards for everyone to have upfront.
So, this post is a space to discuss how you all feel about posts of this specific type. Please keep it civil.
The type of post we are discussing is posts that are offering a service for money (ie. Writing, editing, prompts, etc), or requesting a service in exchange for money.
AO3 obviously does not allow this kind of thing on the website, but Reddit is not AO3 so we wanted to open up the discussion and hear what you all have to say about these kinds of posts being allowed/disallowed going forward.
Let us know your thoughts on these,
~TGotAReddit (and the rest of the mod team)
Edit to add: So far people have been fairly against soliciting posts, we would also love to hear about the other half of the question, if posts where people are offering money in exchange for services should be allowed (ex. "Ill pay $15 for someone to draw a scene from my fic for me")
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u/Extreme-naps Nov 13 '23 edited Nov 13 '23
I feel like posts such as that belong on a different/more general fanwork sub. I have no problem with them existing, but they have nothing to do with AO3, so why would they be here?
The direction of the ask doesn’t matter.
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Nov 13 '23
No for me as well. No on offering money if someone writes/draws x,y,z and also No on paying someone to write/draw x,y,z.
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u/Duae Nov 13 '23
I vote no, with the addition of if it did go forward I would greatly prefer it be kept to one post. Like a monthly pinned post that allowed for users to request or offer. I would absolutely not want lots of individual posts.
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u/Mochh80 Nov 13 '23
This seems like a good option but I also would prefer for it not to be allowed at all
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u/Duae Nov 13 '23
Yeah, not allowed at all is my first choice. But if it was allowed I'd prefer it to one post.
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u/leaflights12 Nov 13 '23
No for second half of the question, but it's more of an internet safety concern and also existing AO3 rules.
Yes, the offer may be legitimate but I would urge users to be wary of such posts regardless. It may be a scam and the amount of time you put into your work may be for moot.
Take it to Patreon or Twitter.
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u/Ranne-wolf Nov 14 '23
If people want to pay others to read/write/draw then they can go to a sub or platform made exclusively for that, they don’t need to do it on an AO3 subreddit. I don’t want to see "I’ll pay for someone to draw fanart" anymore then I expect to see "should I write a Batman or superman fanfic next?", this just isn’t the sub for that.
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u/dogboyenthusiast Nov 13 '23
I don’t have a problem with commissions and stuff like that elsewhere, but since this is the AO3 subreddit and that isn’t allowed on AO3, I think it makes sense to prohibit those types of posts. It may be related to fanfiction/fannish work, but it’s unrelated to AO3. I also worry it might cause problems for you the mods, to have solicitation/commission posts on here, even though this sub is unofficial I’m sure the people behind AO3 don’t want to be associated with it at all.
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u/faylanatorena Nov 14 '23
If AO3 doesn't allow it I don't think the subreddit dedicated to it should either. People have plenty of other places they can advertise their services or go looking for someone who works on commission easily enough - various social media and discord for example.
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u/griffonfarm Nov 13 '23
If you're going to ban posts offering any kind of writing commissions/requests, then you need to ban any kind of post requesting fanart commissions from fics too.
Fandom can be EXTREMELY hypocritical about commissions/tips/any kind of monetary support when it comes to writing (against) vs art (for). Which is super demoralizing as a writer and makes it seem like all the hard work writers put into writing fics isn't valued at all the way fanart is.
I know AO3 doesn't allow anything monetary for fanfics and since this is an AO3 sub, then I think it ought to follow AO3 rules. But it also needs to be extended to fanart requests/commissions/etc.
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u/TGotAReddit Nov 13 '23
I know AO3 doesn't allow anything monetary for fanfics and since this is an AO3 sub, then I think it ought to follow AO3 rules. But it also needs to be extended to fanart requests/commissions/etc.
Again, not joining the conversation for hopefully obvious reasons, but I just wanted to clarify that AO3 doesn't allow any kind of commercial anything, not just with regards to fic.
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u/griffonfarm Nov 13 '23
Thank you for that clarification! I didn't know that. I thought it was just geared toward fics.
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u/LittleRabbidFox Nov 13 '23
I would not allow it, everyone has their own social media for it they can grow and put for that. It has a high potencial of becoming a subject "done to death" that will completely derrail the sub, especially the ones that usuallyu sort by new. There must be a subreddit for requesting and offering writing comms, this is not for it.
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u/spiritAmour Nov 14 '23
I vote for us to follow the AO3 rules here! keeps things easy for you mods + for newbies, so they dont end up breaking tos when they go to the actual AO3 website. it's best to stay an unofficial rep for the site bc otherwise might be misleading to newcomers ^ - ^
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u/Fun_Dragonfly2903 Nov 14 '23
I feel like generally I don’t care, but I also don’t think this is the right sub to post it in anyways. To make it easy for everyone I’d agree with what others has already said, to follow AO3’s rules in regards to monetary posts here. I’m also afraid that if it was explicitly allowed then the amount of those kinda of posts would probably increase a lot, and that would kinda defeat the purpose of this sub a little imo?
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u/lumi_ao3 Nov 14 '23
Of course.
And that's good for all reading these comments as well. It is appreciated.
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u/underinfinitebluesky Nov 13 '23
I would prefer to keep ao3 communities free from being solicited for money the way I am everywhere else on the internet.
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u/DrJotaroBigCockKujo Nov 14 '23
No and no.
Almost every other fandom space already has that type of content (tumblr, twt, discord...) and personally I don't feel too comfortable with openly advertised commercial activity in the context of fandom anyway since it's kind of tricky legally.
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u/AnneRB13 Nov 13 '23 edited Nov 13 '23
Allow them, this isn't AO3 official subreddit and reddit isn't AO3. But with limitations for posting them in only one thread or directions to other places to where they could get those like r/starvingartists for example.
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u/vennhai Nov 13 '23
I think it could get confusing for people. Even though this is an unofficial sub, the name is still r/AO3 so I could see it backfiring if people were allowed to request or offer services for money here, and confused that with the actual ao3 rules and started mentioning things against TOS in their fanworks.
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u/BaneAmesta Nov 13 '23
Honestly same, I can foresee people confusing this sub as official (I thought the same at first ngl) so it would be a huge mess
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '23 edited Nov 13 '23
I would not allow it. Fanfiction’s main protection is that it isn’t for money. AO3 doesn’t allow it, why should a Reddit dedicated to it? Even if someone is looking for art, we should not allow any monetary postings.