Things that are a fanfic writer’s responsibility:
The category for relationships (Gen, F/F, M/F, M/M, a combination, something else)
The right category for ratings (is it for General Audiences, Teenagers, Mature, Explicit, R-Rated, Nc-17?)
The relevant warnings (violence, rape, underage sex, anything else you deem relevant)
The relevant tags on it (what relationships are covered in the fic? What characters? Is it light and fluffy fic? Funny? Sad? Dark? Does it have sex, and if so, what kind? Is there violence? Tags are used by readers to find fic and to avoid fic)
A summary that informs the reader of what kind of fic they’re gonna read.
Author’s notes for everything else. You can use the summary or author notes to explain certain tags, or add caveats, or thank your beta’s.
Things that are not a fanfic writer’s responsibility:
Kids stumbling across your fic and reading your fic and assuming that whatever is written about in the fic is 100% cool and normal.
The mental health of people who don’t like the subject matter of your fic.
I got 99 problems and being responsible for your competent use of the internet ain’t one.
Or, if you feel that’s more suited for the experience: user CHOSE NOT TO USE ARCHIVE WARNINGS. In which case, even more strongly than normal, READER BEWARE.
i agree with most of this but “creator chose not to use content warnings” is a bullshit tag that shouldn’t exist. it isn’t an actual warning, it doesn’t mean anything except maybe “this author wants to be ~edgy~,” and there’s no good reason for its presence on ao3.
seriously, i cannot think of a single situation in which “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is appropriate to use except maybe, maybe if your piece has content that could be a common trigger but isn’t available as an archive warning (e.g. incest), but even then it still feels like a cop-out and you absolutely have to make sure that content is still tagged for in your main tags
CNTUAW is perfectly fine, since it says: “I’m opting out of the warning system and you’ll have to decide for yourself if you’re willing to read my fic and whatever might be in there”. That is a valid choice for an author, and it’s just as valid for a reader to say: “What? Nope, not gonna read this.” Nobody forces anybody to read a fic that has a CNTUAW tag. The only reason I can think of why people think this warning is invalid is because they assume that they somehow are entitled to every story they see, that somehow the authors owe them their fics. Which is ridiculous nonsense. People like the above are why I by now refuse to use Archive Warnings and exclusively tagg ALL my fics “Author chose not to use Archive Warnings”. It’s so that people who feel entitled to my fic will not want to read it :) (I still get enough engagement on my fics. Boo fucking hoo ;)
Idk how to answer someone’s question when they block me but… well.
They don’t seem to understand that “I’m opting out of the warning system” is a PART OF THE WARNING SYSTEM on Ao3 and even the DEFAULT Archive Warning according to their TOS FAQ.
To suggest I don’t post to Ao3 because I like using their default warning is…more than a little bizarre xD Again, it all boils down to “ONLY THE WAY I DO FANDOM IS RIGHT!” - while Ao3 instead explicitly offers authors several different ways of doing fandom/posting their fics, which aren’t inferior to each other. JUST DIFFERENT.
But then, far too many people don’t understand that “different” doesn’t mean “bad”, and even when the site specifically tells its users “We offer you different ways of doing this”, apparently some people think that those who actually take advantage of that offer should…leave? *lol* Also, I threw a fit after people told me how authors were “exclusionary” and “dicks” etc. etc. for using CNTUAW as if they were owed to be able to read every fucking fic. Which they are not. (Yet another fact this person doesn’t get.)
In short:
Every time I see wank about the “Choose Not to Warn” option on AO3 I remember how controversial the idea of MANDATORY WARNINGS was when the archive was created. This was 2008-9! No one in the wider world had heard of trigger warnings! They WEREN’T A THING!!! No where! Fandom was the place where the concept of trigger warnings caught on and a big part of that was because of AO3′s inclusion of tags and warnings.
So there was so much debate over WHAT kind of content requires MANDATORY warnings? And why? This wasn’t how fic worked before AO3. Yeah, many authors would warn for things like non-con or graphic violence but it was still very voluntary and up to each individual.
Many authors at the time HATED the idea of including warnings or being forced to warn because they felt that putting a warning for things or a tag at all would ruin the suspense and surprise reveal of their plot. And this wasn’t a fringe concern!
That’s why there’s an opt-out option! Because a community is about compromise and balancing the needs of authors and readers and people with very different feelings about how fiction should work. So having mandatory requirements to warn for certain things AND an option that lets people opt-out of this requirement while still warning readers that these are DANGEROUS AND UNCHARTED WATERS is a fucking compromise.
I know a lot of younger people seem to have never heard of compromise because they’ve been raised by the extremes of online discourse and Fox News but when you’re literally building community infrastructure it’s the name of the game.
It kills me that kids somehow think AO3 was made without considering these issues, that previous fandom generations haven’t already hashed out these fights. That the extreme growth and popularity of AO3 isn’t inherent proof that the system that was put in place after MUCH discussion and consideration WORKS.
This doesn’t feel like compromise to me though because the people who say “Fics don’t need to be tagged” get 100% of what they want for their stories, and people who say “All fic needs to be tagged” don’t get what they want at all. It’s the illusion of compromise.
Basically, if the people who don’t want to do something come out of the argument able to behave exactly as they wanted before the argument began, you have not actually created a compromise, you have given them the win
I’m 41 by the way, started reading fanfic back when it was primarily personal archives
The disconnect I think you’re having is that you are thinking of AO3 as a service for the readers instead of for the authors. It is an archive created by and FOR fanwriters and it takes a multitude of differing fanwriter perspectives into account by giving the CREATORS control over their own stories. And it provides warnings to readers who only want to read tagged works. But it doesn’t allow readers to dictate how writers present their work, because it’s not a reader-customer-focused business, but a nonprofit to preserve fanwork. The compromise is that instead of imposing one way of doing things on every user (i.e. every writer) each writer gets to choose for themselves.
The customers of AO3 are the writers, not the readers. That millions of readers do enjoy it, is basically a bonus. (That costs the organization money instead of makes it because it’s ad-free.)
@iamwestiec‘s tags are EXACTLY right:
reblogging for that last one SPECIFICALLY archive of *our* own writers are readers and readers are often writers but the ao3 is not a goddamn content provider
Also like, some readers want to go into a fic knowing as little as possible and treat any information almost like spoilers, so they prefer no warnings.
Like you’re not entitled to any fic so if you aren’t comfortable reading something with no warnings it’s like… too bad, life does that sometimes. But it’s not unfair.
