ff.net thing isn't really going anywhere

[wallwalker]

It can be pretty well summed up in seven words: "Still shouting into a void, with captchas."

Things that are good:

- Being able to add four characters instead of just two.
- Being able to make "pairings" of more than just two characters, and filter for whether or not you want to read the pairing fic (which does make it easier to find genfic, in theory. See below, though.)
- Being limited to four characters and two "pairings." Cuts down on search bloat, especially when you're looking for fic that actually features a minor character.
- The review box is more prominent than the "Favorites" links, and require less work.
- Having access to PMs to reply to reviews and such... that's nice, I guess. I do wish other archives had that.

Things that are not so good:

- The Pairing feature must be new, and seems to be relatively unknown. (I read at least one very-much-romantic fic that had the three characters listed, but not "paired." This makes it harder to filter for them and easier for people who just want genfic to stumble onto them.)
- The Character feature suffers from the same issue as the Pairing feature. It wasn't built into the archive. It was added when I was active there at first, but that was years after the site was actually established, and so a LOT of older stories were never actually tagged. This means that if you only search by filtering characters, you will miss a lot of older works that you might enjoy.
- So many annoying captchas, I swear. I can't be the only human being who has trouble reading those, can I?
- Favorites are unlimited now, which just makes it easier for people to use them like Kudos on AO3. (Seriously, why did they do that?)
- You can't just edit a story. You have to create a new document, edit that, and replace the old story.
- The Worlds menu does make it kind of difficult to find particular fandoms; I searched for an MCU-specific category in the Movies section for a while before figuring out that I had to go to Comics, select the comic book series the movie was based on, and select the World for the movies.
- And yes, I'm still unhappy that six separate fandoms are stuffed into one category, without even a Worlds dropdown menu to set them apart. I'm going to try to request that, at least. We'll see if they listen this time, but I doubt it.

So yeah, largely unchanged, still a lot like screaming into a void, only this void has more obnoxious steps to navigate. Maybe if I wrote in more/newer/more popular fandoms, it would be more worthwhile... which is the exact same complaint I've heard about AO3. Really, I can't see why one is better than the other for finding readers, and AO3 is much more user-friendly for writing and uploading stories.

Comments

[adraekh]

I have never figured out how to change the order of the character tags on FFN. I had a thought, when I started uploading on FFN again, that I wanted to tag characters in order of significance to the story, so I input the characters in a particular order when selecting, but the order reverted after I posted the story. I spent another five minutes trying to find a way around that, but then threw up my hands and gave up. (This is my reaction to most things FFN.)

I'm not entirely certain what the Pairing feature is myself -- is that when they bracket characters off? -- but then again, I don't often write pairing fics and am generally loathe to tag pairings when they're not the primary focus of a story. (Yes, I'm one of those irritating people who sometimes slots stories-with-pairings under gen. Sorry. AO3 is a little more flexible for me in that regard.) D:

I'm also occasionally unsure how to categorize some stories when presented with a World choice. I usually go with the broadest ... I do that with AO3 as well, but at least AO3 allows for more than one choice.

I post on FFN because I know there are people who exclusively read fics on that site; I remember I recommended an author's AO3 fic to someone, and they subsequently took the time to go find the author on FFN, read the story there, and reviewed there on FFN rather than on AO3. The audience overlap between AO3/FFN is also not 100%, and I think for certain fandoms, you might be able to say that FFN is actually more popular than AO3 as an archival site (e.g. FF8). I guess it just ends up being a question of whether or not you think it's worth the effort to post on FFN in addition to AO3.

I try to regularly review stories on FFN, AO3, and DW/LJ at least a couple of times a month. I have been neglecting it lately since I haven't been reading a lot of fic over the past couple weeks but do plan to get back into it at some point when my brain isn't gobbled up by schoolwork. (Speaking of which, I very much appreciate AO3's "Mark For Later" button. It's one of my favorite features on AO3.)

I long for the days of ff_press and more active comms, but that ship's sailed. XD

[wallwalker]

I'm not sure there IS a way to set character order, honestly. It seems to do its own thing, unless you have them paired. Then it shows them in order (pair 1, then pair 2.)

I'm not entirely certain what the Pairing feature is myself -- is that when they bracket characters off?

Pretty much. And yes, it's supposed to be for romances (or queerplatonic relationships, I would imagine; I just haven't posted one there.) The argument that I saw was that AO3 is so centered around relationship fic that it's hard to find gen, and ff.net makes it easier to find gen fic... which it does, in theory. But in order for a feature to work, people have to have used it, since there's really no way for anyone else to make them use it.

I don't care about the categories one way or the other, personally. But I know some people really, really get sick of romance in everything, and the argument that I saw that inspired this whole mess was probably from one of them. For them it would be important that this feature worked.

(Also, I think that the main difference is that genfic doesn't specifically focus on the relationships between the characters. That's what I was always told, anyway. Having background relationships might be okay.)

I just keep hearing rants about how AO3 is worse than ff.net (one even said "in quantifiable ways" and I'm hoping they'll clarify what that means, since I sent a message.) I might keep posting there - there are a few fics I've already gotten reviews for that never got much attention on AO3. But probably I won't crosspost everything.

[adraekh]

I'd be interested to hear what these "quantifiable ways" are, so if you get a response from them, please let me know! AO3, to me, seems to be more or less structured like LJ/DW except with a kudos button, and I have personally always found it to be more user-friendly in a lot of ways compared to FFN.

I'm ambivalent about shunting fics into anything but the broadest categories. Too much stringent labeling tends to dispel the tension in a story, but at the same time, I know it's important to readers; a lot of them have limited time and don't want to waste their time reading a fic only to find out it isn't what they thought it would be. Still, I wish people were more willing to approach fanfic the way they might approach original fiction without as many assumptions. Labels influence reader expectations, and it's such a common practice in fandom to label fic that eschewing certain labels has a similarly profound influence on reader expectations.

[adraekh]

Thanks for reblogging the person's analysis, btw. I don't actually use Tumblr all that much but popped in today and saw it on your page.

I honestly can't say I agree with the poster's opinion. I have always linked the decline in comment culture to fandom's migration to fast-paced social media (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr), which encourages consumption over production. The fact that commenting is a dying practice everywhere -- DW, LJ, AO3, FFN -- makes me doubt that it is a problem that is being particularly exacerbated by AO3. To be sure, the site could use some improvement -- you know I'm not completely happy with it myself -- but I have always thought that AO3's set-up is just a way to cash-in on an irreversible consumer-focused trend that had already been developing prior to the archive's creation (and is still continuing to develop). Even if AO3 had not been created, I do not think that comment culture would be healthier on FFN, LJ, or DW. Everyone would simply be on Tumblr, clicking "Like" instead of "Kudos," which ultimately amounts to the same thing. Either that or they'd be clicking "Favorite" or "Follow" on FFN.

Just my two cents. I'd respond to the person on Tumblr, but they don't allow anonymous commenting. Also I hate being confrontational in public, so I hope you're okay with me continuing to spew my opinions in your fic journal. :/