Excellent points, definitely. And I agree there are some functionality issues that need to be addressed by AO3--a pm system and crossover distinctions are two I'd love to see. But I do also see a lot of functionality with AO3 that I like. The skins are a godsend for me personally. the bright white of ffnet can be hard on my eyes, so being able to use a beige or grey background here is so much better for me.
The summary can be used for warnings and such, but it has a very low character limit so it's not easy to fit that in with a decent summary description. Having a limit of only two characters in a story is really limiting for me, and I like to be able to see all fics that feature a specific character, no matter how small their role is. I know I've missed a lot of good fics that had characters I loved simply because the story had multiple pairings and could only be classified with one.
I very rarely use ffnets search functions that they've recently put into place like number of hits, comments, etc because they never really give me satisfactory results (just because a story's popular doesn't make it great. One of my most popular fics over here is one that makes me cringe whenever I think about how bad a writer I was when I first wrote it!)
I don't use mobile services, but I can tell from what a lot of people have said on here that AO3 is woefully lacking in that department--I can definitely understand the frustration with that, given that more and more people are using mobile apps. I'm also lucky in that the fandoms I follow are relatively small, so I don't see the frustrations that people apparently deal with in the larger fandoms.
So yeah, even with the problems that AO3 has, I definitely prefer it over ffnet. AO3's also come a long way in functionality in the last two years since I wandered over here, so I feel pretty confident that changes will come about eventually, though I share the frustration of it not happening quickly.
I'm pretty optimistic about this site, and happy with what they provide overall. But my major site for posting fanfic before here was ffnet and I have too many bones to pick with them to maybe be as objective as I should. Their discrimination, high tendency to pull fics that don't violate TOS, and their refusal to address any concerns directly just stick in my craw. AO3 and OTW may not address every single concern like they perhaps should, but they do a much, much better job than places like ffnet and live journal.
Comment on OTW Board response to concerns about the meta decision
kelcat Mon 25 Feb 2013 11:18PM UTC
Comment Actions