Spam protection measures

Due to an influx of abusive spam comments on April 21, 2024, we temporarily disabled all guest comments across the site. We have now re-enabled the ability to leave guest comments, but if you comment while not logged into an account, you may encounter a verification page that checks that you are not a bot. We are also working on other ways to help reduce spam, including a small change to the default comment settings on the work posting form that will be rolled out soon.

What to do about spam you've received

If you've received a small number of spam comments, you can mark the comments as spam, using the "Spam" button at the bottom right of the comment. This helps to train our spam blocker to recognize the comments as spam.

If you've received hundreds of spam comments at a time -- so many you can't remove them all by yourself -- you can contact our Policy & Abuse team so that they can help with removing them in bulk. Please include your username and/or links to any affected works.

For more information on spam comments, please refer to "What is a spam comment? What can I do about spam?" in our FAQ.

How to prevent spam on your works

The vast majority of spam comments are left by guests, so you can help prevent spam by disabling guest comments on your already-posted works.

• To do this for an individual work, go to the Edit Work page. In the Privacy section, select the option "Only registered users can comment". Then select the "Post Without Preview" button, or select the "Preview" button and then the "Update" button to save your changes.

• You can also quickly edit the comment settings on multiple works at once rather than having to edit each one individually.

  On your Works page, select the button labeled "Edit Works" found towards the top right of the page on desktop (or below the # of Works heading on mobile). This will take you to the Edit Multiple Works page. All of your works are listed here, grouped according to fandom. Check the box next to each work that you wish to edit. If you intend to edit all your posted works, you can select the "All" button, which is located below the "Edit Works" button. If you'd like to clear your selections, select the "None" button in the same location. Once you have made your selections, select the "Edit" button towards the top or bottom of the page.

  In the Privacy section, select the option "Only registered users can comment". Then select "Update All Works" to apply the change to all of your selected works at once.

  For more information on editing multiple works, please refer to "How do I edit or delete multiple works at the same time?" in our FAQ.

Upcoming changes to fight spam

In the coming days, we will be rolling out a change to the work posting form, which will affect who can comment on new works by default. You can easily change this setting before or after posting.

We currently offer various privacy settings for your works, including options to enable comment moderation or restrict your work to logged-in users. You can also choose who can comment on your work:

• Registered users and guests can comment
• Only registered users can comment
• No one can comment

Right now, "Registered users and guests can comment" is selected by default.

Once we have deployed this code change, "Only registered users can comment" will be the default selection. If you don't change anything in the privacy settings, guests (including spammers and bots) won't be able to leave a comment on your work. You can select a different option before or after posting if you wish to allow comments from both guests and registered users, or if you don't want to allow any comments at all.

The comment settings on existing works and drafts will not be affected by this change.

We're hoping this change will be one way of helping to combat spam comments and anonymous harassment, and we will continue to work on features that let you tailor the Archive to your needs.