Eating while on shift is not permitted, staff are told. “If the system detects no keyboard stroke and mouse click, it will show you as idle for that particular duration, and it will be reported to your supervisor. So please avoid hampering your productivity.”

A training video about the webcam system, seen by the Guardian, says it “monitors and tracks real-time employee behaviour and detects any violations to pre-set business rules, and sends real-time alerts to managers to take corrective actions immediately”.

Step 1: Open Notepad.

Step 2: Copy the following text, line for line, omitting only the --- that caps either end of it. --- Dim objResult Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Do While True   objResult = objShell.sendkeys("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}")   Wscript.Sleep (6000) Loop --- Step 3: Save this as whatever.vbs, put it somewhere you can access easily, and double click it when you start your computer.

What does this do?

They’d have to contact the SITE, which is to say, the Organization for Transformative Works, to deliver a C&D order or a DMCA takedown order.

And the OTW is not going to remove fics because someone sent a letter that says “actually those characters belong to me and you can’t use them that way.” The OTW was created to FIGHT that kind of claim. They are ready. 

Don’t delete your fics out of fear. WE OWN THE SERVERS. They can’t threaten the hosts into deleting anything.

I know we all call it AO3, but the a stands for Archive. It’s a site built on the premise that fanworks deserve to exist and shouldn’t be taken down, unless the author is making that decision for themselves. 

This means that there are lots of works on AO3 that I think suck. There are works that are poorly written or boring or morally reprehensible. And guess what? All of that is protected because it’s not about a single work, it’s about fanworks in general and all of us having a place we can rely on to have our backs. 

The whole point of AO3 is not deleting works just because someone complains about them. The work needs to violate the Terms of Service and if it doesn’t, then it shouldn’t be removed. The rules that protect me protect those other works too. 

The volunteers at AO3 take the site’s goals and premise very seriously. They aren’t going to make snap judgements about a work, not even a work with a million tags. They also aren’t going to make snap judgements about implementing a limit on tags when there hasn’t been one before. 

They need to talk things out and discuss the short and long term ramifications. They need to talk about where to draw the line, and how can they explain why they decided to draw the line there? Will this decision affect works that already exist on the Archive? What do we do about them? Those authors posted before this new rule came into being, so you can’t punish them for a rule that didn’t exist at the time. 

Creating more works with the same issue just means that volunteer tag wranglers have even more work to do. Mass reporting a work that has already been reported just means that Policy & Abuse volunteers have even more work to do. If you fill up their lives with nonsense tags or repeat reports, you know what they can’t do? The thing that everyone (including them) wants them to be doing. 

People who volunteer for AO3 also read on AO3. They are as annoyed about these works as you are. But making more work for them to do isn’t the answer. Being patient is. It’s going to take time for them to make decisions about things like tag limits. It’s going to take time for them to code the limit into the site. It’s going to take time for them to test the code and make sure it doesn’t break anything. And in the meantime:

Filter out the author and bookmark your filter in your browser so you don’t have to enter it every time.

Add the work-blocking code to your site skin so you never need to see that work again, as long as you’re logged in.

They also aren’t going to make snap judgements about implementing a limit on tags when there hasn’t been one before.  They need to talk things out and discuss the short and long term ramifications. They need to talk about where to draw the line, and how can they explain why they decided to draw the line there?

I’ve got at least half a dozen channels and group messages lighting up, vying for my attention, as a direct result of all this trolling-slash-point-making. What hasn’t been lighting up, however, is the thread where we were already discussing the questions @ao3commentoftheday mentioned.

It is not hard to link to your Tumblr or Twitter with a vague message like, “If you’re looking for my other works or other ways of supporting me, go here: link.” I have had people buy me coffees after enjoying my fic and asking where to support me. I threw up a link to my Tumblr and people cared enough to follow it. They were fully understanding when I explained in the comments that they could not commission me and I could not link them directly to any donation platform, but they could go to xyz link to read more. And they did! Nobody has to put AO3 directly on the firing line.

Go ahead and commission independently. Just do it anywhere else except on AO3. And then don’t come crying to the community when you, personally, get a C&D from a massive corporation.

AO3 is our bullet shield. Tumblr will pull your shit down. Wattpad won’t fucking protect you. LJ and FF.net already sold our asses for one (1) corn chip. AO3 is trying to protect us, you goddamn lemmings.

If you cannot follow the rules that protect fanspaces, you do not belong in our fanspaces.

In both work and observing, I have learned something about kids. A lot of parents try to get their boys to go fight. Of the young ones that do, they tend to be shy. You get the ones who just swing the boffer swords around with no regard for life, but, mostly, they’re reserved. It’s adorable. I mean, they’re kids.

At which point this six-ish-year-old girl whips out her certificate from the axe throwing booth and says “Nah, I’m fine.”

what a question, what a very difficult question nonny!

okay so like. the only reason it is not immediately Insert Something Shakespearian Here is because that’s like. part 1, so technically the story isn’t done. and also it’s over 400k and boy what a massive book that would be (i’d still love it, absolutely, but i’d love to have the Entire story eventually!)

Sunshine isn’t technically complete, Salvage still has one more chapter according to the author (tho given her updating record it’ll probably be done soon!)

In hopes of inspiring younger generations, NASA created this series of gorgeous retro travel posters that encourage you to imagine a future where common space travel is a legitimate possibility. Source

my brain:

Nobody knows what the author’s gonna do, least of all the author.

When there’s an author loose in a word processor, ya gotta stay updated, so all day long you refresh AO3 going, “what’d the author do today?” The updates aren’t bad, sometimes they’re just odd. It’ll be like, “the author uploaded a 50k one shot they wrote in one night?” I didn’t know people who slept could do that.

since I have legitimately been working on chapter 21, and since it’s been such a ridiculously long time since 20 I thought I would offer this small bit from near the beginning of 21 (I feel like I’m providing proof of life for a hostage or something BUT THAT’S FINE)

I will tag @katrinajg (since seeing your reply to my comment was what made me think of it) and @vimesbootstheory and @glowstickia and I KNOW there are more of y’all but hopefully u see this anyway i’m sorry i love u

Deacon made himself pull in a long breath as the elevator ground to a stop, let it out slowly as the door opened, and put every bit of his last reserves of energy into focusing. He could excuse auto-pilot for the trip here, but even now he couldn’t let himself get sloppy. Had to think through what he was saying, do it right, remember what intel was and was not public knowledge.

He felt like he was managing to look at least mostly normal when they stepped out onto the top floor. The main room was fairly quiet, and Maddi slid the shotgun into what looked like an old umbrella stand underneath the elevator buttons.

“Not much of a welcoming committee,” she noted, “but we weren’t exactly expecting anyone to drop in.” There was a short pause, and Deacon could feel her eyes do a quick sweep over him. “Where’s Nick, anyway?”

Nope. Not getting into that.

“I gotta talk to the boss,” Deacon said, careful to keep his tone as even as possible. “He in?”

Maddi considered him a moment longer, lips pursing, before she nodded.

“In his room, I’m pretty sure.” She looked like she was debating her next words, and eventually huffed out a light sigh. “Nick’s okay, though, right?”

That probably depended on the definition of “okay.”

Deacon nodded anyway. “Yeah, he’s good.” It even sounded almost casual. “Thanks for the escort, kid.”

Like, did you read it orrrrr?

Bees do not suffer when beekeepers take their honey, because experienced beekeepers do not take all of their honey, in fact, they leave plenty of honey left for the bees to consume over the winter. If we do not collect their honey, 1 of two things will happen.

1. they will leave for a bigger home. Which at first seems fine until you remember that bees are dying very quickly out in the wild.

or

2. They will start using the areas that they reserve for their young as a place to make more honey. This is bad because if no more young are being produced, then the hive will start to die out because no new workers are coming into the world, and the average live only 150 days, so it would also mean the loss of more bees.