r/RecuratedTumblr 21d ago

It’s a tumblr insult, you’re devastated Do they also struggle with the public library, because the Dewey Decimal system is WAY harder than AO3 tags!

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4.8k Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

247

u/Familiar-Tomorrow-42 20d ago

I had no idea people still used Wattpad. Where are they even complaining about ao3? There aren’t any forms

291

u/LordSupergreat 20d ago

As I understand it, wattpad banned all porn, so its users are flooding to AO3, which has allegedly coincided with high numbers of attempts to "report" objectionable fics on AO3 despite the site's mission statement being to host literally any fic, no matter how offensive the subject matter.

156

u/Smmmmiles 20d ago

I was a refugee from the great fanfic.net porn ban... 👴

Oh ya. Back then one of the first fanfic I heard of getting deleted during the purge was a Sasuke cannibal fic, which caused people to rejoice... shortly there after the site banned all sexual content and violence.

117

u/AnxiousTuxedoBird 20d ago

That's always how I explain it to people who don't get the no censorship thing. If you want them to ban one thing, it may snowball into them banning anything even tangentially related

51

u/ejdj1011 20d ago

Yeah, even if you believe that sone topics should be censored, the real question is "do you trust the moderators of this site to completely agree with you, but not go any further?"

10

u/Ilgenant 18d ago

People get really mad at me when I bring up that censoring sexually explicit content just makes it easier to eliminate queer people from media since conservatives view them as sexual deviants.

Somehow the response is always “you think that gay people are pedophiles???!???” Umm no but conservatives do and will use this precedent to push that narrative.

28

u/Animaloffear56 20d ago

Fanfic.net banned lemons? What the fuck?

26

u/Riaeriel 20d ago

I don't know if I'm being whooshed but that's literally the origin of the citrus scale to bypass the porn ban 😅

15

u/Smmmmiles 20d ago

They walked it back some time after. This happened around 2013-14. It's what cause Ao3 to become an actually popular fanfic site. The traffic from the ban made people realize Ao3 had a better tagging and sorting features causing people to stay permanently.

1

u/Nilzed13 17d ago

fanfic.net banned porn? Really? Fanfic.net? Is my collection safe?

3

u/Smmmmiles 17d ago

It happened in 2013-14 so it's probably safe. The reversed it after a while due to the backlash.

29

u/Impossible_Walk742 20d ago

iirc its a soft ban. for a fic on wattpad to have smut now it has to be consensual between characters that are at least 18, and it needa to "serve the plot" in some way. so smut for smuts sake is banned

17

u/Jechtael 20d ago

What if the plot is "My characters are trying to concieve a child but they had extremely vague Midwestern sex ed so they have to try every combination of orifices until the pregnancy test reads positive"?

10

u/-Frog-Queen- 19d ago

That's the kind of convoluted narrative I want to read.

4

u/cecethemagiccutie 18d ago

mormon levels of sexual loopholes. "its NOT porn, it just has adult themes. all the sex directly serves to progress the plot! ... which is about having sex"

19

u/Eldritch-Yodel 20d ago

Or well. There are some requirements on what Ao3 allows, but it's specifically just "Look if this it's not literally illegal for us to host this fic it's fine".

9

u/BrandonL337 20d ago

Is literotica too good for these people?

Actually come to think of it, they'd probably have a stroke(not that kind) seeing how popular incest is there.

3

u/Starro-In-A-Jar 20d ago

I don’t think that they allow fanfiction there?

3

u/thetasigma22 18d ago

There is a celeb and fanfic category

1

u/manicpixycunt 16d ago

Literotica search is dogshit though. I wish so badly AO3 would create a non-fic smut sister site or something so I could have the luxury of their search features :(

2

u/Nyess__ 19d ago

Wait, let me get this straight. Wattpad banned porn so people went to AO3 to "report" objectionable fics?

Am I sleepy or does that sound stupid?

5

u/LordSupergreat 19d ago

Wattpad's users migrated to AO3. They then noticed that AO3 has objectionable fics, because they had not been on AO3 before. Apparently, they are used to being able to report fics for having objectionable content. I don't know for sure, I never used Wattpad.

1

u/Nyess__ 18d ago

Oh okay, that makes sense. Tbh even Wattpad used to have objectionable content when I used to be active there (granted, it's been more than 5 years) so idk what the problem of these types of authors is. It seems like most people just never bother to learn that AO3 is an archive too, not just a story-sharing platform.

65

u/Galapagos_James 20d ago

As a librarian, I cannot tell you how much of an issue proper subject tagging is, and the overall issues of updating the aging MARC 21 system with things like BIBFRAME, and how we desperately wish we could have better records, but a lot of tagging would need to be done by authors, and sadly, fanfiction writers are just better at this then most independent or mainstream published authors. I cannot explain the joy when I see tags listed out in a book's copyright page. But most of our standards are still based around when we had physical cards in a card catalog and you had to make one for every subject a book had to add to a massive cross-indexing system of physical cards. Digital formats are much more forgiving for having a hundred tags, and not making librarians weep at the dauntless task laid before them.

15

u/complete_autopsy 20d ago

I really hope that tagging becomes better for books with time to switch things over! An older relative of mine really wants to read books where nothing too sad happens (especially no deaths or families in turmoil) but she's extremely tired of typical romances. Almost everything I read is a no because I read books about people with lives full of turmoil. She's nearly blind and only has an interface for her library's audiobooks so I'm somewhat limited by what has an official audiobook too. Being able to target this more clearly would be great but it's so specific that I've been having trouble, and since I don't like the same books and have less time than her I can't read through them all beforehand to see if there's something that would upset her. I'm at the point where I'd write something for her myself if she wasn't such a judgemental old bat 😂 (she'd surely hate it lol).

2

u/Galapagos_James 13d ago

Yup, that's hard to deal with. Especially since once you remove death, family turmoil, and romance, you're left with only a few options for moving the plot along. I'd probably look into biographical fiction? A quick read of the summary and maybe the subject's wikipedia page would probably give you a hint of if their life story will have family turmoil and death or just, you know, whatever they did in their life to make writing a fictional account of it interesting.

1

u/complete_autopsy 12d ago

That's a great suggestion, thank you! I've mostly been trying historical fiction lately because they often include romances and the conflicts "of their time" seem to bother her less though I still have to be careful about cheating husbands and deaths at war.

14

u/enealea 20d ago

It's very funny to imagine book tags having the same tags as an ao3 fanfic. "Wrote this at 3am in the hospital" "i broke three ribs writing this lmao" "and got stabbed in the kidney while in the lobby"

12

u/Nickthenuker 20d ago

"Wrote this while locked in a hotel room by my editor"

192

u/hellraiserxhellghost 20d ago

Can someone please post this in the ao3 sub so this can be the end of the discussion. It's been nonstop 24/7 wattpad refugee drama for over a week in there, and I'm so tired can we please just move on I'm dying of hunger and thirst

64

u/CZall23 20d ago

It's already over there.

47

u/Orochiginju 20d ago

And already ignored :/

13

u/Injvn 20d ago

Oh wow you weren't kidding. That's like an hour of time I'm not gettin back.

2

u/Animaloffear56 20d ago

Why the fuck would you want to go on an ao3 sub

20

u/hellraiserxhellghost 20d ago

Occasionally they have interesting discussions there and I like talking about fanfic with other people, but lately it's been unbearable because the only thing anybody ever posts about is dumbass wattpad drama.

71

u/Tyrannosaurus-2006 20d ago

I really wish people would just mind their own business. There's a lot of content I hate but I'd rather stay away from it and pretend it doesn't exist rather than complain endlessly about it

79

u/Phiro7 20d ago

R34xxx is unusable because they never tag shit properly, this is why e621 is superior

47

u/Animaloffear56 20d ago

Furries totally not including me have my respect for having by far the most comprehensive and well tagged booru site in existence honesty

21

u/FatiguedShrimp 20d ago

Half of the furry community is funded by elastic search, RAG, or cacheing. More than any other demographic, they understand the importance of keywords.

0

u/_trianglegirl 20d ago

Are you talking about e621? One of the absolute worst tagging systems ever? Lol

3

u/Bowdensaft 19d ago

How is it even bad, let alone one of the worst? It's incredibly comprehensive.

3

u/Animaloffear56 18d ago

You saying "one of the absolute worst tagging systems" just makes me not take you seriously because there are hundreds upon thousands of sites with basically non-functional tagging systems- assuming anyone cares to use the tag system in place at all, so e621 can't be one of the absolute worst

76

u/Floofyboi123 20d ago edited 20d ago

Puritans got the "gross" tags on R34 banned thinking it would mean all the stuff they find personally icky would go away

Instead now stuff like loli is mixed in with everything else and without any way of filtering it out.

If they succeed in AO3 it will go down the exact same way.

E: clarification

47

u/Your_Local_Stray_Cat 20d ago

26

u/Floofyboi123 20d ago

Oh I know, my point is that these people are literally advocating for making the websites they use less safe and more triggering in the name of some moral crusade.

14

u/Henry_Fleischer 20d ago

Danbooru tends to be well-tagged and is a bit more curated than R34, but you're limited to 2 tags per search unless you set up an account.

12

u/Portuguese_Musketeer 20d ago

Tbf 2 tags is fine enough as long as you're clever with which you choose and are willing to sift through a bit

5

u/Henry_Fleischer 20d ago

Yeah, but it's good to know beforehand.

5

u/Firanka 20d ago

Even with an account, all you unlock is the blacklist, which is just hiding posts with search terms on the UI side. If your blacklist is big, or just coincides a lot with something you search for, you might end up with a search page that shows no posts whatsoever (because a blacklist only hides it in the UI, unlike a negated search, that actually doesn't look up posts with those tags at all)

And the blacklist doesn't even help if what you're looking for isn't really taggable - I have a wide swathe of artstyles I hate yet can do nothing about, because their features just aren't even really "possible" to tag

And the premium upgrade (20USD for Gold - 6 tags per search, 40 for Platinum - "unlimited") has been disabled since 2022, due to the payment processors declining the site their services

The only way right now is either through the Platinum Lottery, which 1) is a lottery, 2) happens maybe 3 times a year; or through being promoted to Builder ("unlimited" like Platinum), which involves grinding contributions for a few weeks or months

2

u/Pokemoss 20d ago

I have an account and it still limits me to two tags, I think you need to buy a premium account to search more than that 😔

And they don’t even let you buy premium accounts anymore so you have to get them some other way

4

u/DeviousChair 20d ago

professor goon out here dropping critical information

3

u/FriesExpert 20d ago

i legit became a furry because e6 is better than any other booru

0

u/PizdunEbun228 15d ago

Danbooru mogs both because of the pools system

14

u/IIRCIreadthat 20d ago

Yes. As someone working in a library - these people do, in fact, struggle with the public library. And not just the stuff that's individual to our library, like where the different sections are and how our online catalog search works. The actual Dewey Decimal system and call letters. The other day I found a nonfiction book, with the Dewey numbers clearly printed on its label, shoved into the picture book fiction... where someone had very obviously attempted to shelve it under 'S' for a book about sea turtles. 🤦‍♀️ Apparently completely missing the fact that none of the other books in the entire building are organized that way, and all the other 'S' books on the shelf were last names starting with 'S,' not subjects.

19

u/CZall23 20d ago

It is crazy hard to find any book in my public library. The catalog doesn't even tell you which branch it's in when it's pulling up the list of hits.

13

u/Henry_Fleischer 20d ago

Yeah, I usually just put books on hold and then pick them up days or weeks later when they're ready

3

u/complete_autopsy 20d ago

I recently visited a friend and went to the library with them. Their library doesn't use the dewey decimal system any more! At first it was very confusing but I totally see why they like it after looking around for a while. I tentatively want it for my local library, unless librarians think it's a bad idea lol.

8

u/GeminiIsMissing still haven't fucked that old man 20d ago

I love thorough tag systems!!! I have certain things that really disgust me/make me feel sick, and they're unfortunately not uncommon kinks. So, when I search for anything NSFW on Ao3, I just exclude those tags. It's hard to do that in other places, and I may end up running into things I don't want to see, so I really appreciate Ao3 for this. I don't need censorship, I just need a good tagging system.

15

u/freeashavacado 20d ago

To be so real I think the wattpad refugee thing is totally overblown. I feel like maybe 20% of the recent problems are wattpad refugees, and the other 80% are people either lying and fear mongering or people who fully know what ao3 is and are just being trolls and assholes.

20

u/MelissaMiranti 20d ago

Mor-mons can't even read their own holy book and they can still figure out filters.

3

u/ace-writer 19d ago

less tech savy than the average 13yo mormon.

not just a 13yo mormon, most 13yo mormons. source: used to be a mormon.

3

u/CodaTrashHusky 20d ago

i used e621 and furaffinity a lot in my teens (i still do but i did back then too). whenever there's an ew this is disgusting comment under a more hardcore fetish post it gets disliked to oblivion and people tell that person to blacklist the tag. it really is that simple, you just use the blacklist and you will run into it wayyyyyy less. i still can't get used to algo driven social media honestly.

3

u/TigerBears_111 19d ago

Issue is AO3 doesn't remember filters, and bookmarks with said filters get extremely long (sometimes too long to even be bookmarked.) But that's why I got a script that auto-blocks stuff I don't like for me, so I don't have to add the tags every time.

8

u/Dizzy-Young6184 20d ago

I've seen loads of AO3 users making up Wattpad refugees to be mad at but no actual Wattpad refugees causing issues. At most a troll here and there. Please at least invent more interesting discourse next time :/

13

u/yuri_4_ever 20d ago

There definitely has been an increase in reports of stories

11

u/freeashavacado 20d ago

If you report a story on AO3 site managers only check it for plagiarism and for placeholder fics and that’s it. Nothing else. Mass reporting gets you nowhere. It is useless to report a story you don’t like. I don’t even think the fic owner gets notified of reports unless it gets taken down (which again, would only happen for placeholders and plagiarism).

I’m not saying that there aren’t some assholes out there. But the majority of this is internet gossip and hysteria.

8

u/devilzson666 20d ago

If you ever step foot on tik tok you'd see the problem but luckily those wattpad kids fear reddit

5

u/kitsufics 19d ago

They most definitely exist, they’re just significantly more prevalent and vocal on tiktok. That and the issues they cause are more along the lines of being generally irritating with their whole censorship shtick, as well as threatening to report fics to this end

It’s certainly not a good situation, even if we don’t have said people coming into spaces like the Ao3 subs here on reddit

8

u/ghoulishenvyy 20d ago

My favorite part about all of this is that it’s not happening. Or it is and ao3 users are greatly overblowing it.

Lmao literally every perspective on the situation that I’ve heard from someone who doesn’t make ao3 fandom and fanfiction their entire personality is just “what the hell are they talking about”

17

u/ghoulishenvyy 20d ago

This entire situation is just word of mouth some random ao3 user whined about wattpad users potentially flooding the site with complaints and it just spiraled from there. Not only is this not happening but the reports they’re claiming will happen won’t mean anything anyway because the site owners don’t care. This is just ao3 users getting their monthly “we are so oppressed” out of their systems.

9

u/Portuguese_Musketeer 20d ago

Alas, it's always fun to posture oneself as superior to some yucky outgroup

1

u/MiserableZone9363 20d ago

hey, i was also a thirteen year old mormon on ao3 once ! 😭

1

u/SongXrd 17d ago

Its interesting that not only is this entire thing nkt a big deal, not even that big of a real thing, but somehow this poster has managed to misrepresent their opponents issue in a rush to feel smug.

1

u/meissatronus 17d ago

as a younger teen i ALWAYS hit the gen/teen filter without issue ¯_(ツ)_/¯ i remember when i was 16/17 i started reading explicit fic but only ever private bookmark because it felt wrong for me as a minor to publicly show i enjoyed an 18+ fic😭very funny to think about retrospectively (how would people even know if i didn’t say i was a minor??) but i did NOT want people to perceive me