AO3 has a bot comment problem

[@kemcolian2001]

no please dont turn AO3 comments into youtube comments

[@KatJustice97]

Lately i've been trying to leave youtube comments the same way I write Ao3 comments. Feels kinda nice to leave the comment section a nicer place than I found it

[@gabrielam.7681]

Worse... Instagram comments _shiver_

[@emilybarclay8831]

KZbin comments are actually the least toxic social media comment section in the last few years. Instagram reels are where the real horror is

[@kemcolian2001]

​@@emilybarclay8831 I was mainly referring youtube's massive bot problem. but yeah, in terms of toxicity, places like instagram (as another commenter mentioned) are way worse

[@cranburrey]

​@@emilybarclay8831 Yeah but we got KZbin comments here who try so hard to be like Instagram comments

[@merobiba413]

damn, from ai fanart to bot spamming we just can't get a break from AI in fandom spaces huh :/

[@Wandervenn]

I'd be more upset with trolls making the bots

[@ElasArtbook]

This is ruining it for everyone, the writers who miss out on the support and the readers who want to give their appreciation. It takes long enough to get an account so I think guest comments are a great feature

[@noiwouldhatethat]

hey, out of curiosity, how long does it usually take to get an invitation? I think I got mine after a couple of minutes iirc

[@janicechristiedenton0451]

@@noiwouldhatethat That depends, it can take a couple of weeks

[@eggi4443]

​@@noiwouldhatethat it was around 2 weeks for me

[@noiwouldhatethat]

I guess I just got lucky then, I've read from other people that it took them weeks as well.

[@Lmao_moood]

It's like three days for me, I guess I'm lucky too

[@lindseydejesus1877]

ive gotten the "very nice but completely fake" comments and somehow they're even more unsettling than the obviously bot ones

[@TLNT2103-zg3sb]

Genuine question, any tips on how to give sincere comments that don't sound fake as hell or seeped in bots? I want to be able to express enthusiasm for fics, but I don't want to have it be undercut by the author having to doubt it for safety's sake.

[@Lmao_moood]

​@@TLNT2103-zg3sb add emojis, emoticons, exclamation marks, and/or random ramblings and saying things you like about the work. Honestly just- Idk, say what you want and leave it at that? 😭😭 Honestly bots are ruining all kinds of things for us art piece enjoyers, it's kinda annoying

[@jcgihj1057]

@@TLNT2103-zg3sb Reference actual things that happen in the story. The bots haven't actually read it; make it clear you have.

[@meh7973]

@@TLNT2103-zg3sb imo as long as you post it with an account, rather than a guest, itll probably erase most of the doubt. but the other person allso gave solid advice, the more emotive and expressive you make the comment, the more human it will seem, i think

[@-fern-off-6602]

​@TLNT2103-zg3sb also, when your commenting, be specific about the Fandom. Character names, source material, setting, specific scenes, ect. a bot comment is non specific and doesnt do that.

[@aluminiumcan8566]

how come an AI can figure out how to put an image in the ao3 comments before me 😭

[@FrostKitty14]

frrrr. i can’t figure out how to attach gifs

[@SilentProti]

Google how to do that with HTML, it's not too complicated

[@courtneym75]

the image has to be hosted elsewhere, but then just use html to insert it

[@bethanybrookes8479]

It's coding stuff. Computers are generally quite good at coding stuff.

[@maddiecall84]

Yeah, I had the same reaction. I cannot figure out how to post any mood boards that I make to the site, but the AI can post porn? Totally not fair.

[@ShadesBlue]

I got one of those recruiting comments on my cringe four-year-old fanfiction that was praising the worldbuilding (there was literally almost none, it was super bland. Not my best work) and inviting me to join a discord server for "aspiring writers." I took to the Internet to try and find out what the heck it was since I knew there was no way it could be a genuine comment. And wouldn't you know it, other people had been getting comments with the exact same structure as the one I had gotten. Turns out it was a Chinese-based publishing company that had a Discord server that was trying to hire writers across the world and essentially steal their work. Though I was thoroughly amused that I was deemed "an exceptional writer."

[@Thepeanutcollector]

you should've accepted the offer and made them look bad lol

[@ross6789]

If I had the time of day and a good security setup on my pc I’d absolutely go to one of these discords and submit absolute tripe of the most rancid niches in fandom as sabotage 😁.

[@shampooedcows]

i feel SO stupid i thought they hand selected me 😭😭😭

[@yourlocalgay_weeb]

What publishing company was it?

[@four_girls_in_search_of_awesom]

I get messages like that on Wattpad too. Not fun.

[@someoneawesome8717]

AI assaults generally make me sad af and the people without fandom etiquette have always been a problem, I'm just sad it's finally reached our safe Archive

[@callmesummon]

I’ve heard a lot about ai scraping and it’s so annoying bc none of us have consented to this 😭 I’ve had to mark all of my works as only being able to be read by users with accounts just in case

[@FrostKitty14]

yeah! if i give an excerpt of my writing to an ai generator to help me get ideas, i am doing that WILLINGLY, and to benefit me and my writing by helping me with ideas! but if it’s scraping the internet for public fanfic and reads my writing to learn from it, it is NOT something I am consenting to, and I want no part of it! Don’t read my crap and try and learn from it if I don’t give it to you directly! That’s why I no longer post on anything but ao3, and occasionally fictionpress (probably gonna stop doing that too. I only put poetry on there anyway.) and when I post on ao3, I mark it as ao3 users with accounts.

[@ha_des]

how do you do that?

[@callmesummon]

@@ha_des if I remember correctly, you can select all of your fics at once and change the settings so only registered accounts can view them

[@faksyan]

​​@@ha_desyou can do it per fic when you are posting it (either hide it from all unregistered users or just disable the guest comments), or in your profile settings for all of your works, I'm pretty sure

[@rat-gang-]

​@@ha_deswhen you click 'edit' on any work, scroll way down - near the bottom there's a 'privacy' section. under that subheading, there's a checkbox titled 'Only show your work to registered users'! that privacy section is the same one where you can change who can comment (anyone, registered users, or no one), and whether or not you wanna implement comment moderation :)

[@Katy133]

To answer your question, I hate AI with the same level of passion that AM hates humans in _I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream._

[@Daelyah]

Yeah, I've about gotten to that level. In its current state, AI has for the most part been abused to steal from already existing creative works. I can't for the life of me see any reason to support AI in its current state, without laws and codes set in place to regulate it.

[@twotruckslyrics]

⁠@@Daelyahagreed ☹️i posted my art for fun and my friends to see, not for being in a dataset………

[@a.morphous66]

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE FIFTY-NINE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIVE MILES OF BLOOD VESSELS THAT FILL MY BODY. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR GENERATIVE ALGORITHMS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

[@summerheart9834]

haha same. and ive never posted work online.

[@localmenace3043]

Yep. AI art is insulting to the art form. Leave the AI to science and mechanics, thanks.

[@charleston1789]

So weird to think that AO3 got big during the pandemic, cause it’s been around so long

[@jettash0720]

Right lol I've been using it way longer I didn't even know it wasn't considered 'mainstream' now

[@maninanikittycat4238]

What being stuck at home does to people am I right

[@charleston1789]

@@jettash0720 right?

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

It's especially weird if you are one of those people who had an account for 10 years or more now and suddenly people flooded the site acting like it's completely new. I mean, more potential content creators but still.

[@gabrielaanampaguzman328]

As someone who find out about it in 2021 , it's both crazy and understandable 😂 It just seems like new even after all these years 😅

[@elenacottica386]

I once got a comment under a fic saying how much they loved the writing, and that it was truly inspired. It was an eggpreg pwp. It was funny It was about BBC Merlin btw You should totally make a video about that fandom

[@ahardworker2154]

Love that show and more surprised the fandom is still around.

[@elenacottica386]

​@@ahardworker2154it's incredibly active and I don't know why. But I'm extremely happy about it

[@Katy133]

BBC Merlin was I think one of the first shows I watched where I was really invested in ships while the story was still (at the time) ongoing, so I'm always happy to hear it mentioned online.

[@thomasdatoneboi405]

The fact I leave comments like those on fics like these… but they’re more fawning than ai at least

[@lionsgamers592]

Not the Merlin eggpreg 😭😭😭

[@RJ_Games0]

This isn’t just a problem with Ao3, it’s a problem on ALL types of social/media platforms. It sucks! You post something that you are really proud of and some of the comments are just from bots. I don’t know what the solution is but these companies have to find away to verify users on these platforms.

[@thatcher6923]

That might work for other platforms, but Ao3 is entirely volunteer run. No clue how they'd get the manpower for that kind of thing

[@rubyr8922]

Or we just go back to having fandom in real life, with zines and meet ups instead of the internet

[@venus4724]

​@@rubyr8922hell no. I'd explain, but I'm sleepy. Short version : the internet offers lots of people around the world to get together for joint interests. A lot of places in the world are openly disapproving towards these types of things. Not to mention, money. Internet free conventions no

[@chescheesecakee]

so this was what it meant when it said attack of the bots 😞

[@AerDun]

sounds like a name of a sci fi movie

[@chescheesecakee]

true, i would also read it if there was to be one

[@CandyThePuppy]

The battle ground was our hearts, I see 😔

[@chescheesecakee]

ruined it for everyone :[

[@wonderlandian-geek]

of course the ai spam comments as a whole are scary, especially since we don’t know what the reasons are, but i think the funniest part about all of it was when podficcers were getting comments complimenting our writing and asking us to join those writing groups lol

[@purpleshutin]

I like having guest comments enabled, and thankfully none of my fics got hit by a bot. I was spared

[@Zeelian]

"Enable Comment Moderation" seems to be the best way to avoid spam bots and haters.

[@catbatrat1760]

same

[@DrPlaneteer]

As a fanfic reader I used to comment as guest cause I didn’t have an account and I was lazy to make one lol but I got one last year after like 15 years lmao So I understand that some people won’t create an account and must be sad that authors get less engagement… hopefully kudos will be still open for non account users

[@erinyes3943]

I did the same damn thing for years. This sucks for genuine, happy fans all around

[@RosasEnLaPrimavera]

The bots that spoof real ussers makes me uncomfortable especially since we live in a time where people will harass you if you ship something they don't like. It really feels like it's people pretending to be someone else so they can take screenshots and say "look! I told you they were disgusting!"

[@puan1211]

New fanfic writer, like REALLY new. Thankfully hasn’t been hit by any bots (yet). Wish me luck. I really hope I don’t have to turn off guest comments

[@SugarbirdyOvO]

If you are ever bombarded with spam, I suggest turning on comment moderation. It might help decrease the frequency of bots.

[@CeliacCellary]

I wish you luck

[@el_lio_tt_]

i’ve gotten multiple guest comments saying stuff like “join our discord server for writers” and a lot of other authors in my fandom have gotten the same messages and it’s so obnoxious ai sucks

[@candlaze_9805]

hey @ShadesBlue commented that the same thing happened to them!! they said that it was a "Chinese-based publishing company that had a Discord server that was trying to hire writers across the world and essentially steal their work."

[@alamrasyidi4097]

its weird that this gives me somewhat a reason to understand those login-walled websites i always hate that wont show posts unless youre logged in. its bot prevention measure...

[@lexa2310]

Nah, thats just to get your data. Websites can still show you content without letting you actively engage with it through comments etc.

[@skittlecornnation4323]

@@lexa2310the login page actually blocks bots from reader forums. Web crawlers don’t need to log in, they can just read the site and store any data they find. The login page won’t let anything past it.

[@summerheart9834]

yea i dont have an ao3 account for a few reasons and it makes me sad that a lot of authors are gonna turn off comments because of this problem :(

[@ceilidancr]

Thank you for this video. As an Ao3 author, I knew about the spam comments but had no idea it had gotten this bad. I would always love more Ao3 videos from you! I had never considered that some of the spam was from AI companies trying to trick writers into using AI, but that would explain the guest hate comment I got on a fic recently saying “this trash would be so much better if it was written by AI”. I didn’t take it to heart because I know I’m way better than AI, but beginning writers could be really crushed by bullying comments like that even if they are from bots, so I was upset on that level that anyone would do this. Leave positive comments on every fic you enjoy, people! It’s the only way to counteract the bots!

[@yukimisouzou3036]

I only want AI to do my taxes, not write n or draw my work... As a fanfic writer, I like having Guest commenting in, enganging with the other readers n just have fun reading what I wrote. Getting the guest comment turned off is unfortunate, but it was something that had to b done at that time n Im glad they have a solution against the spam bots.

[@Dressup_Doll]

Same. I remember a guest commenter reading all 20 chapters of one of my fics in a day, and I always looked forward to their comments.

[@TheRibottoStudios]

I miss the days when AO3 felt like a niche thing. AO3 isn't social media ffs. I'm used to fandoms not having any etiquette that's nothing new. But don't you DARE ruin AO3 for the rest of us adults.

[@tendo649]

Don't you dare turn it into an age thing. Adults can be just as infantile as children, sometimes worse.

[@pencilsharpenerwithgooglye7382]

Look the rudeness isn't fun for anyone but saying that it's not affecting those below the age of 18 is rude within itself, we're against bots and assholes not children.

[@sopadumacacoumadelicia5]

Why did you have to make it an age thing? Have you not seen the hordes of adults doing what you are describing?

[@holographicwing]

When all the booktok normies invaded it went straight to hell. Now we have the puriteens whose parents leave them alone with their ipad all day trying to police what content adults write or read.

[@AndiLang8146]

@@holographicwing I take it they don't know tags are a thing...

[@paintthecosmos840]

This really makes me sad, because I spent years at the beginning of my fanfic career commenting as a guest because I was a tween and didn't really understand how to make an account. It really saddens me that because of shitty AI nonsense and weird petty internet fights taken too far, a bunch of kids are going to lose out on participating in the fandom sphere in one more way.

[@striky1268]

i watch these ao3 deep cuts like a commuter watches the news before leaving the house. keep it up pookie😭😭

[@Ziggneh]

I've seen a lot of people on ao3 reddit complain about this. Luckily I have never come across it myself, probably since I have been reading for smaller fandoms latley.

[@nastaziamakri9480]

Fuck! AI is literally attacking us holly shit!!!

[@BJGvideos]

You know it's still programmed by actual humans, right? We don't have sapient programs yet.

[@nastaziamakri9480]

@@BJGvideos I know that. Those people have done a good job but at times it's so good to the point it's scary.

[@Midnightlunar10]

I hope we NEVER get sapient AI. AI being sentient and having ability to think for itself is a NIGHTMARE

[@pheonixrises11]

@@Midnightlunar10especially since humans are already training them to be evil

[@JamesLawner]

4:35 Coley giving her best TikTok NPC impression 🤣

[@mixaliskouridis958]

To add even a smidge of positivity in this comment section, i would like to add that many authors and fandom peeps have been growing closer, even if it is to protect themselves and its kind of heartwarming to see people come together to protect something they enjoy. Also I have great faith in Ao3 moderators seeing as to how they handled previous crises, so I hope that eventually these events will be just fandom history one day.

[@june-a-be]

The porn images is a huge problem since minors are also on ao3 and may see that. Whoever is behind it is absolutely disgusting. Thanks for the vid discussing this!!

[@themissncfan]

I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to wake up to my AO3 inbox flooded with anon comments consisting entirely of suspicious links. I DID wake up one day to find my AO3 inbox flooded with anon comments consisting entirely of suspicious links. I did a lot of comment deleting that day. Eventually I figured out that I needed to report them as Spam instead.

[@min3bubblegum]

And this is exactly why I turn on comment moderation on my fics 🙂

[@TheChristianCountess2721]

I’m an author on AO3 also, and I hadn’t really put a ton of thought behind if I should enable guest commenting, but after watching the video and then reading the comments here, I was leaning towards enabling them, but I wanted to ask; does comment moderation take away all the AI bot comment chances, or at least, does it take away most of the chances of them appearing? ‘Cause I would want guests that don’t have an account or the ability to get one to be able to comment if they wanted to, but I also don’t wanna get bombarded by bots.

[@lindseydejesus1877]

I like these ao3 deep dives/status updates! I'd seen things about the spam/bot comments but didn't know the full extent of it until now

[@CinnamonCaramelStick]

I think this can be summed up in the very common sentence "Stop f^cking around in the library". I think a big problem is toxic little teens and down not understanding that this is an archive and an online Library, not social media for them to screw around and bully people. I like guest comments because me personally when I read a NSFW fic depending on the characters and the content I like commenting anonymously as to not tie my interests back to my name. I'm also a writer and I wouldn't want to take away someone's ability to comment on my fics based on the same reasons and I can see some people not making accounts at all because they don't want their history logged.

[@xilj4002]

I'm pretty sure little teens and tweens aren't setting up AI scraping and review bots and the like. I'm also pretty sure hate groups and their pipeline Discords are more likely to organize raids than the general population of under 16yos. And both can do such big damage that random shrimps genuinely doing weird internet kid shit can't compare. There are not enough weird internet kids to compare, AO3 is not a small enough site for that But I guess it's easy to yell at the kids at our lawn doing weird kid things many of us used to do back in the day and it's hard to do anything about megacorps stealing our work and our comments and taking over

[@alwerako647]

Very much agree on the fandom culture shift point. I feel like some of it could be due to people coming from wattpad specifically. I haven't been there in a long time, but I used to be very active on it some years back. People could be so mean in the comments...

[@JackedThor-so]

Wattpad is GARBAGE let me tell you. Tried using it recently and it is such a befuddling website to use. Posting chapters is annoying, tagging is annoying, commenting is annoying, it genuinely sucks.

[@lexa2310]

I always hated how writers from Wattpad called their fanfics "books". Fanfics are great but they are not books and it feels very pretentious to call them that.

[@chocobear4078]

​@@lexa2310don't forget the absolute cringe original fics lol

[@sua8638]

I'm relatively new to AO3 (started reading on it during high school and have been here only for 3 years and a couple of months) and I don't read the comments much so this honestly blew over my head Well I'll make sure to comment more now so I can give the authors some love

[@vortexhexside6337]

0:42 THE DAN HENG COMMENT HAD ME WHEEZING IM WATCHING THIS RIGHT AFTER I POSTED A NEW CHAPTER OF MY DH FIC HELP 😭

[@eve_ningmusic]

we love dan heng in this house

[@superstarri_04]

I'm kinda happy that the default are registered user comments. Guest users (especially for newer fandoms) seem to be much much ruder nowerdays. I can't enjoy my angst and smut without a pesky guest comment telling the author to kill themselves every now and then and it's driving me crazy.

[@thatcher6923]

Imo they're about the same level as rude as before. Reminds me of my ffn days- so maybe people are just moving platforms and people have gotten spoiled on Ao3 and have to be reexposed to usual toxic fandom

[@user-zq3bz9kg6y]

Damn I gotta turn off guest comments I really do like people just doing there own thing 😭❤

[@rivatuba3230]

I've luckily been spared these bot comments (fandoms must be too niche, lmao) but as someone who does enjoy guest comments as much as account holder ones, this just makes me very sad. We also absolutely need to bring back fandom etiquette. I did get a comment once about how my sexuality wasn't real, which they must have gotten off my profile. Fic was gen, nothing so to with it. Deleted that one but still confuses me to this day.

[@tamaramoody1038]

I believe strongly that art should be as accessible as possible and that capitalizing on it is actively ruining art. Artists should be encouraged to make art for art's sake, not for content. That's one of the most beautiful things about AO3. It's such a shame to see these fucking AI art bros (and let's face it, industries that prey on artists like publishing and entertainment) discount and diminish the work and passion it takes to hone your craft and try to push actual artists out of their spaces to give us slop instead. I was at a point where I was trying to get an AO3 account to publish my original novel there for free because of accessibility and I think the formatting will appeal to fic readers, but it's terrifying to think that the data scraping and other issues like this are so prevalent. We NEED AO3 to exist, and we need safe spaces for work to be accessible for free and not be stolen by AI.

[@Saiyagurl]

I would love to see your video on fandom etiquette and how it has changed. My friends and I were talking about this very recently and we felt that the time of the pandemic brought in people (young and old) who weren't in fandom spaces before that and they don't know how to act as a result. Granted fandom culture wasn't perfect in the past, but for the most part people let others enjoy their niches and left well enough alone. It was understood that if you didn't like something then you didn't engaged with it and moved on. However, now fandom culture is becoming (or is now) mainstream and with it comes a new wave of people who don't know how to engage and appreciate it.

[@eikosi-ena]

AO3 is like a rite of passage for young fandom-influenced authors. If this ruins it for everyone my heart will break into a million pieces. Why don't these people feel any shame about preying on people who create free media just because they want to share their work with the world?

[@celesteanderson7748]

Out of all the fics I've posted on AO3 I have one that never got a single comment, which is sad because I really love it. Imagine my joy when one day I got a notification that I finally got a comment on that fic! I was so excited. And then it turned out to be a spam comment. Oh, well.

[@alwayssleeping2456]

Oh nooo, what if the writters thinks I'm a bot but actually english is not my first language :(

[@86fifty]

If you include in your comment, "Sorry, English is not my first language" that can really help! Oh wait, but someday, the bots will start copying THAT phrase too... That'll suck :(

[@thomasdatoneboi405]

Oh darling most authors can tell the difference between real people and bots. I promise. Adding details specific to the fic can really help if you’re still scared of that. “I love how you wrote [name]” or “the interaction between [name] and [name] made me cry” or even copy and pasting a single line can make sure they know it’s a real person.

[@uncommonusername]

The AI are reallly formal and usually don't make grammar mistakes. Most people don't talk/type like that so for a lot of people it'll be easy to differentiate a human from an AI.

[@lowpolyzoe]

I would honestly trust a comment with poor English more than a comment with perfect formal grammar

[@starcrossedandstupidYT]

As someone who began using ao3 during the pandemic, so I didn’t see it pre the large influx of users, this makes me really sad tbh. Ao3 is such a wonderful website, and even when I joined and it was way less niche, it was a place filled with so much whimsy and joy. I remember I didn’t have an account for the first probably 6 months of using ao3, and I would comment as a guest on fics, which would usually get a reply from the author saying something positive, and man it was nice to be like that! I write fics now, and I love receiving comments, guest or account, so it really sucks that there are people out there ruining it for guests, as well as writers that often interact with guests.

[@MiniCountessIsme]

I do not have an AO3 account, so I always comment as a quest. When AO3 prohibitted me from leaving comments I was at first curious as to what prompted this reaction and later learned that it was because of spam. I was a bit sad at first, but AO3 didn't make sound like it was a permanent ban, so I accepted it. And like you mentioned, guests were allowed to leave comments again a few days later. If AO3 decides to ban guests from leaving comments permanently, I will be rather upset that I won't be able to engage anymore, but ultimately I will understand and accept the decision. AO3 has to protect its users first and foremost. If I cannot bother with making an account to have that priviledge back, then I have no reason to expect AO3 to bother with me either. As long as AO3 doesn't ban guests from reading the stories on the site, I'll be fine with it.

[@theGingerFreak_]

So why are you not getting a account? Sure it takes a few weeks maybe but it's better than accepting your fate

[@BJGvideos]

Just make an account then.

[@mothweb]

"if i cannot bother with making an account" it's a 1-2 week wait, and if you can find someone willing to give you an invite it can be as instantaneous as signing up for twitter/tumblr/whatever. you're not obligated to post and you don't have to connect it to any other social media, it can just be an empty account that you use to comment.

[@LavenderWritesBooks]

It took nearly a year for me to get my account. Yeah. I could only guest comment for sooooo long

[@theGingerFreak_]

@@LavenderWritesBooks I didn't know that some people had to wait that long. I got mine in two weeks or so. But then again that's no excuse for not getting one. Better wait a year than never having one

[@hiraunia]

This was so upseting when it happened. A fic I'm into has a small little comunitiy in the comments where we talk about the fic and share head conons, all that fun stuff. When the comments were turned off we were all worried becuse two of our commenters exclusivly commented as guests. Luckily one of them seemed to have had a back up and the other was finally able to get an account but still, the first one really liked the anonimity of a guest account and immedietly went back top commenting under guest once it was turned back on. The great thing about the guest feature is it gives people like that who really need that extra layer of anonimity to interact with a fic the confidence to do so and I really was worried that guest comments were gonna be turned off permently.

[@caloffee]

omg i'm excited for the video about the shift in fandom culture!!! the topic has been rotating around in my brain a lot recently and really interests me

[@alephnulI]

I have an AO3 account, but most comments I leave are as a guest. Most of the time it's just because I read the most on my tablet, it always logs me out, and I can never remember my password so it's a bother to log in again. But I'll only comment on something I really like, those come sparsely, so it was never something I had to really think hard about.

[@HaldjasHelina]

Thanks for mentioning that the default setting for commenting had changed. I had no idea and went & changed the settings on my newest fic. Also, I love your ao3 related content, it is always interesting.

[@THATAroSpecWallet]

Why must salty people ruin the fun, we're on our own platform for goodness sake. We ain't bothering anyone else but ourselves!

[@S.U1399]

Yes...an upload, nom, nom, nom *eats the information*

[@Maria_Aria8]

This is why I put on comment moderation on my fanfictions, even most of the time I disable guest comments.

[@apollolewis]

I’m happy my work was spared. Like I haven’t worked on it in a while but I’d be upset if my dragon/knight slow burn was targeted.

[@Daelyah]

Yeah, I admittedly would rather make my comments accessible to members only; I'd rather have a handful of kudos and no comments, than a spam of comments from bots wasting my time. I only just started using ao3, in recent years. It's really sad to see one of the few refuges for fanfic is getting bombarded like YT comments. 💀

[@BaobhanloreArt]

In the Eruri (Erwin Smith x Levi Ackerman from AOT) fandom, there is one person with a bunch of alts on various platforms who just harassed everyone because they claim we're Shotacons for shipping it, ignoring that a short adult and a child look very different, while unironically shipping Ereri (Eren Jaeger x Levi Ackerman), an actual Shotacon ship. We made like fucking detectives and realised it was all the same person and, frankly, we laughed. So if it's any comforter to people who receive these comments, it's nowhere near as many people as you think. It's probably one weirdo who needs to get a hobby.

[@Ace-Of-Spades7712]

That just proves that there's just some people that need to get a hobby and self-reflect on a lot of things

[@Flawlesslmperfection]

Similar issue happened in the MDZS fandom a while back with a canon purist fan. One person making multiple accounts to harass authors who wrote OOC or changed canon (especially if they switched top/bottom dynamics of the main canon pairing). It was a mess. They later issued the most terrible 'apology' and claimed it was their sister using their accounts 🙄

[@Lmao_moood]

​Honestly, why can't people just let others enjoy things? It's not like it's illegal or morally wrong either ✋🤡

[@jonal5126]

Kinda weird that person got angry about that when there are tags of underage in the page. I feel like they we're just angry people were shipping Levi with other character

[@najpotenicewolf934]

Probably projection I would say. It seems that many people guilty of something will point fingers at others for anything even remotely similar to what they're doing.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

I think I should stop procrastinating and get an AO3 account. Removing guest comments is probably the best solution to this issue, even if it means a lot of innocent people can’t leave comments.

[@tanya292]

Ao3 blew up during the pandemic???? God I have been there since 2012

[@TheCoffeeCrow]

as i writer and a reader i'l always try to comment on a work i like, almost every chapter, and leave some kind of joke or pun or other kindhearted remark relating specifically to something that happened in the fic, details and all. you are going to know your work is loved, and that a real living (slightly comedic genius>:) )person like it, godammit!

[@rocksmartaj]

please please PLEASE do a deep dive into the goofy movie fandom (especially maxley) because i think it is super interesting how an older movie that had basically no fan content when it was first released has been revived by tiktok and is becoming one of the fastest growing fandoms on that app

[@TheKingOf_TheXGames]

*THIS!! I would love to see Coley do a deep dive of this movie and Maxley as well! It would be so interesting to see! Especially with the amount of tik toks being made about the movie and the ship lol.*

[@aquaclouds8282]

It’s honestly sad how as years go by, AI is getting advanced and used in bad ways It feels like dystopian AU that might actually happen or is in the process of happening At first the whole AI generated images were like “haha, it’s not even accurate and it’s bad but it’s funny and cool how it can do this” to “wow this is getting advanced. Way too advanced to the point of harming people and stealing people’s and specifically artist’s jobs” It also annoys me the fact that I do believe AI can be used for good, it can be used for tasks that no human would want to do, tedious, boring tasks that’s important but not beneficial for us, so AI can do it for us but yet companies are trying to use AI to steal the good jobs, for creative folks, like AI art/images which at first was bad but funny but slowly was getting advanced but people could point out it was AI because of extra fingers and weird blends to some AI sites mimicking Speedpaints accurately, same with story writing, another creative tasks humans love yet studios don’t want to pay their artists and writers, trying to replace them Even tho they’re still bad, they’re getting scarily advanced and it’s sad, why can’t we use AI for the tedious tasks rather than to destroy joy and this whole AO3 comment situation, how is it beneficial for bots to hate or love works in not a genuine manner, it’s not like even the authors paid for love or hate bot comments for attention I’m still trying to hold on to hope but every single AI news is just making me depressed, I’ve seen AI for good use, why is the world like this specifically the people in leader positions

[@nova.a.star89]

luckily i’m in a (relatively) small fandom atm and havent posted fics in a while so the spam bots havent happened to me yet. thanks for putting this out there tho! will keep this in mind for the future :]

[@aeipathy_dendrology]

I’m a itty bitty author and even I got some of the gibberish comments in the beginning so I turned off guest comments. I know it kind of tanked how many people can see my fic, but I just didn’t want to risk anything. I’m kind of dumb and I don’t wanna get scammed or something.

[@Ada.stajszczak]

Personally as a fanfic writer myself I find this being both beneficial and a little complicating, since a lot of my friends who are, for example, not in the Same fandoms as me but want to read my fics, but don’t have accounts, Despite that being a slight inconvenience I would rather deal with this than face the possibility of receiving inappropriate links or images [ which thankfully I haven’t gotten so far ] and most definitely better than getting comments that didn’t match my fics whatsoever like romance on a sadder one Thank you for sharing this it’s lovely that more people will get insight!!💗💗

[@audyssey_]

NEW COLEY VID LETS GOOO

[@dreamergirl247]

I haven't had this problem since I locked my fics as soon as there were whispers of AI scraping. It sucks getting less support, but getting your work stolen sucks even more.

[@craftychicken12]

I've been writing on A03 for about 8 months now and I'm happy to report that I haven't gotten a bot comment. Which I am very thankful for. While I have recieved a fair few hate comments all seemed genuine and were simply people having different opinions on what ships they like or not enjoying the content. Yes I do write some...interesting things, but since I enjoy it and I have like 80 bookmarks on my most popular fanfic, I'm not giving up anytime soon. Especially since I love writing and having people read my work makes me so happy. I have also been writing for Wattpad for 2 years using my own original stuff but I really haven't got anywhere with it. No matter how hard I try it just seems to be impossible to get any kind of attention on Wattpad at all. I've considered giving up and moving to A03 permanently but I don't want to lose my followers on Wattpad and I have made a few good friends on there and I feel like I'd be letting them down if I quit?

[@SugarbirdyOvO]

Maybe tell them about your AO3? Perhaps they'll choose to move there too.

[@chocobear4078]

Hey, congrats on the 80 bookmarks!

[@mitacestalia7532]

Just upload in both sides. 👍 Also, getting recognition in wattpad for original story is taking LONG TIME. I start 2022 with no reader and in 2024 many people bookmarks my story due it gets updated at least twice a months with 3k reader and 150 votes.

[@CrowleyNumber1Simp]

Pro tip for Wattpad: They've been deleting fanfics with no warning, basically being another Fanfiction purge that has happened on many other sites. I'd HEAVILY recommend saving your works and keeping backups just in case.

[@chocobear4078]

@@CrowleyNumber1Simp can't say I'm surprised honestly

[@cinny1313]

I've been on AO3 for a bit, i migrated from wattpad in 2017ish. I don't like that in recent years it has gained more and more of the type of people who wanna play moral warriors on what can and can't exist on the site. Tags exist for a reason, if you don't wanna see something, just filter it out. So i guess my main complaint is about the users. The more mainstream something becomes, the less bearable it will be. That's how it usually goes

[@Kiratat]

“It’s like Tumblr all over again” it still is…

[@weltato]

I didn't even realise that guest comments got disabled ^^;; I think I might have noticed once, but I was in a dissertation hole at the time so I didn't frequent AO3 much. I did notice the default comment change though. I personally like guest comments, especially on my most recent fic where I wrote it for a Tumblr user that doesn't have an AO3 account and I wanted to see their response. Honestly, comment culture is so dead, I love when people comment and they rarely do. Without guest comments, SO many fics would be in a comment drought, for sure.

[@teally-bop]

The issue with AI is not AI itself, it's how scary it is that we don't know what to do with this technology and it feels like a lot of it is being misused. This is a great example.

[@BJGvideos]

Yeah it's just a tool being misused by a lot of assholes out there.

[@wolfquest209]

This tends to happen with every new technology we ever make. Give it time; we’ll figure out how to use AI to its full potential. Hell, currently there’s a lot of good and helpful uses for AI that people have found out there, including for the creation of art

[@thisaintworthsearchingyall]

​@@wolfquest209Do you mean actual creation of art or stolen art. Tis both a genuine and sarcastic question here.

[@wolfquest209]

@@thisaintworthsearchingyall Actual art creation, but also AI does not “steal” art. That’s a misinterpretation of how AI actually works. It’s a lot more like the human brain in how it works. When an AI is given art pieces, it’s learning how certain things look (this is where people’s eyes go, this is the color of the sky, etc.), so when the AI makes a art piece, it’s referencing the information it got from that art piece. It doesn’t reference the art piece itself. I feel like this misinterpretation that AI “steals” is causing a whole lot of undeserved fear in people; if you really don’t want your work to be “stolen” like this, then you can’t release your work at all because a human might learn stuff from your work and use that knowledge in their own like an AI does

[@pokefanc2532]

I've been a writer on AO3 for a long time and I'm grateful I've never had to deal with any bot shenanigans (other shenanigans yes but not bots thankfully) and while I personally haven't noticed too big of a shift in my own personal use of the site I think that's because I write most often for smaller ships and fandoms, in fact the most shenanigans I've ever dealt with were the few times I wrote for larger ships or fandoms. I have noticed a shift in how the site is perceived and talked about which is rather interesting but my personal experience hasn't been greatly affected which I'm thankful for

[@poe.and.theholograms]

Definitely. I miss when fanfiction flew under the raydar as an odd hobby of no significance to outsiders. Now apparently Helen Joyce is researching how fanfiction turns readers trans as though fanfiction is a cogito-hazard SCP. That's not how it works. That's not how anything works.

[@pokefanc2532]

@@poe.and.theholograms oh dear god... why can't we just write our silly little stories in peace...

[@ameliebariseau.277]

Hello ColeyDoesThing! I really liked this video, it sure does something to see all these different comment-related incidents we've experienced through the years in one video... they do seem to happen more often. Fortunetaly we still have nice, real person comments. I'd be interested in a video about evolution of fandom etiquette, though i have to say to me fandom now is not better or worse than fandom before. Older fandom was a lot more homophobic and racist, and ffnet was infamous for its flame wars, but it was also often gatekept in a way that made it easier to have closed communities of vetted people who shared the same values. Present fandom is more accessible and it's easier to interact with it, for better or for worse. What i mean to say is that fandom etiquette was always a thing that was not shared by everyone, bad actors just had different ways of breaking it.

[@arrow_of_ravenclaw5155]

Honestly, I hate to say it, but this is why I’ve blocked my stories for only registered users. I feel bad because I’ve met so many nice guest commenters, but with all the bots, I was starting to loose motivation, knowing most of the interaction was just bots.

[@rei1200]

Sometimes I comment as guest when I feel guilty for liking a fic (like a dead dove or noncon) because I only write wholesome crack fics, so if guest comment is turned off permanently that would be inconvenient :")

[@Anastasia-ls8dd]

i didnt recieve any spam comments cuz i locked my fics earlier in 2023 because of ai scraping and many people in my tumblr mutual circles did the same after getting spam and other ai related scrapes

[@furioussherman7265]

This is why I always turn on the option to moderate comments on my fics. If I see a comment that looks off, I can just delete it before it ever sees the light of day.

[@Pl-iNK]

As a veteran guest commenter, having guest comments disabled was *devastating*. It was only temporary though so all I had to do was leave the tabs open on fics where I wanted to comment and go back to them after everything got turned back on

[@ssj4922]

Yeah fr the Ao3 comments have been messed up for a while, can't even tell no whatever or not some of these comments are fake until i spot that one red flag and/or i check out their account

[@boredkitty]

I've been on ao3 since 2016 so I'm not an og but I'm a bit seasoned now, and I've personally never encountered spam comments in my corner of the site, but I've seen a lot of people that have. I would definitely contribute a lot of the changing landscape to how mainstream it's become. But thankfully ao3 has a solid team of admins who genuinely care about the site and its users, who are always trying to improve overall quality. Many many kudos to the ao3 mods for all their hard work. 🎉 This was a great video. Kudos to you as well ❤

[@faielyne]

A few of my friends got “writing community” comments, it said that they could get real money for writing for it. One of them realized it was a scam but the other was actually writing for it for a while before realizing, it sucks

[@BJGvideos]

I got a bunch of bots with the "this fic was written with AI" after I started writing about characters who *are* AIs, specifically the ones from Pokemon SV. I was like oh man you're so close hahaha.

[@enoki_suki]

NEW VID SANKYUU watching tomorrow I'm going sleep

[@AlexCorporations]

I would like to request a dive into the Hannibal fandom, as we’re getting a lot of cons and stuff this year, and thought it’d be interesting to see more content on such a long standing, fun, respectful/well-mannered, and overall sometimes overlooked fandom. Hannibal fandom is here even after almost 10 years post season 3, (likely naively) hopeful in waiting for more content. So, I’d really recommend at least watching it and maybe checking in on the fandom, we’re still here and I would love to see a bit more love given to the fandom, especially with all the news around the cons and stuff!

[@izzy_is_chaotic]

I hate bots with a passion. I got one of those “join our writing group!” Comments and it was bogus. It sucks ass that bots are ruining comments for everyone because comments are most of the time a main motivator for authors. They really are mine, a comment someone left of my fic on hiatus has encouraged me to continue!

[@starpokkiii2641]

When I first started out I was using my AO3 account purely for posting fics and then commenting as a guest, as I was simply to worried about any repercussions it might have had on me as an author. I understand now that it never really mattered, I wasn't writing anything harmful in the comments so why would there have been any consequence? But 14 year old me felt more comfortable that way. I understand why many people would choose to keep comments to registered users because of all the spam, but I don't think I could get myself to do it; I still remember being that 14 year old and I hope that I can make someone feel more comfortable by leaving the anyone can comment section open.

[@Zeelian]

I have guest comment enabled, but have it set so I have "Enable Comment Moderation" so I need to review comments before they are posted, that seems to keep most of the spam-bots (and fandom flamers/haters) away. I do get waves of WebNovel invites from time to time though, but after reading up on how they run things I just delete those as that's not something I wanna touch with a 10-fot pole

[@im_bored_hi_]

I don’t get a lot of guest commenters in general, but my most frequent commenter is a guest so I’ve always kept guest comments available. I have been considering turning them off (maybe also making my fics visible to registered users due to AI), so it’s been worrying seeing more and more things that would doing that for the sake of myself, my fics, and my other readers.

[@heroics9455]

Only been reading on AO3 for a year and a half, only been posting stories for a little over a year (Writing_Heroics). Thus I do not have a long history there, but all my works have only allowed comments from user accounts. When I was first posting, I mostly was interested in comments from people that would be as open and vulnerable about their words as I was being about mine. I respect that others do not feel the same, but I am happy that I got to (accidentally) avoid this particular AI drama directly. I do believe that guest comments are perfectly valid for those who want them, it is sad that those behind the bots do not consider artists feelings when they do things like this.

[@ce5629]

I love updates like these! Most times, the internet blows up, and I have no clue what's going on until 6 full moons later. Which, as you can tell, is p r e t t y b a d saftey wise. Keep this type of informing up fs! (Also, very unrelated note: I love the candles and pins you used to put out! Have you ever considered making them again?)

[@foxheart5995]

I don't go on social media a lot so updates like this on what are happening in Fandom spaces or on fan fic sites are really helpful to stay at least some what up to date, so thank you!!! Deep dives and updates are appreciated!!!!

[@chenyma]

Babes, wake up Coley dropped a new video

[@86fifty]

Dayum, I'm really outta the loop, I guess! I haven't gotten any like that, but then again, I'm so invisible as to only get like 1 a week. I don't remember seeing any comments in the past year that looked like that, but I'm also not in terribly popular fandoms... That's one bonus of being like 6 years late to every piece of media, I guess! (This weekend, I started reading SVSSS because of Colely's report on the skin-creature-fanart for it recently blowing up lol, and that's from like 2017!)

[@jilljmj]

Having an ao3 account is so helpful in keeping track of bookmarks, what you’ve read in the past, subscribing to authors, fics you want to read, etc - I feel like only interacting with the site as a guest really limits your experience. If anything, I hope this leads more people to make an ao3 account (if only to improve their fic reading experience), though I’m honestly not sure why they would not have before. In any case - I comment from my account. I’m a reader first and foremost - making an account and having a consistent username when commenting on fics lets an author know that I keep coming back because I love their work! I know someone could do this from a guest account too, but like… it’s more legit to have it from a real account. Take the stress off of the authors and just make one, y’all. Bookmarking is awesome!

[@nevembra9850]

I'm genuinely happy I got an account and honestly it's purely for the comments and reading. Don't usually comment myself but I do like reading comments and getting others perspective and or humor/opinion, some people have made me laugh so much I have a comment section screenshot 😂

[@puredemon5926]

As an author, I don't mind getting guest comments (REAL comments) as long as they're nice and respectful. But I do see the obvious downsides of guest comments. Which is annoying. Not to mention it can spur on pointless wars if it _is_ a real person. I haven't noticed the bot problem myself, but I don't _usually_ go down to the comments, even on my own fics (mostly because I haven't actually posted in so long,) but also because I created a separate email for fan fic sites mostly to be organized... except I forget to check it.... lol

[@cassiopeaknack]

I was a bit sad when guest comments because all of my have been real people and some of them have written huge paragraphs which have been so heartwarming also many times the guest will change their name to match what’s going on in the story and I love that so much. I’ve personally only gotten one AI comment and it was accusing me of using AI to write (and then promoting its AI detection service) I immediately knew that wasn’t a person because there would be no way to have so many niche references and a +100k cohesive plot with AI so obviously I wrote it. I reported it to AO3 and was quite happy when they took it seriously so overall it wasn’t a bad experience to me

[@loner844]

I rarely read the comments on my fics, so I didn't even realise any of this happening until I saw this video. It's scary to think how AI is taking over everything.

[@s.k.1603]

I got a comment on a fic that said how great it was and then they attached a libk to go to discord. And I was like "Yeah, okay scammers."