AO3 Meme

[wallwalker]

Feeling somewhat better now. Eating out seems to have restored some of my strength, especially since it was relatively healthy food for restaurant fare.

Anyway, let me try this again.

*ahem* Okay. These are the eleven stories that have the most hits on my AO3 account (Wallwalker) - it was supposed to be the top ten, but I had a tie for number ten.

None of these are above a T rating, so I'm not going to worry about posting ratings.

---

1. Acclimation (7061 words)
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Bernard, Helmholtz
YT 2009
358 hits

2. In The Beginning (619 words)
LOLcats
Basement Cat, Ceiling Cat
YTM 2009
346 hits

3. Making The Most Of It (1220 words)
Final Fantasy VIII
Julia/Caraway
FFEX: Chocobo Down '09
194 hits

4. Envy (2947 words)
Final Fantasy IV
Rosa, Rydia
FFEX 2010
192 hits

5. Innocent (1,405 words)
Chrono Trigger
Glenn, Magus, Marle
YT 2009
188 hits

6. Pruning (1328 words)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Valerie/Ruth
YT 2009
185 hits

7. Merciful (1027)
Good Omens
Aziraphale, Crowley
No collection
117 hits

8. Devil (1156 words)
Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VIII
Kain, Seifer
No collection
102 hits

9. Worthless Servant (1104 words)
Final Fantasy IV
Kain, Golbez, Cecil, Rosa
No collection
101 hits

10. (tie) The Most Important Thing (3421 words)
Final Fantasy VI
Setzer, Celes, Locke
FFEX: Chocobo Down 2009
99 hits

10. (tie) Mountains (1120 words)
Final Fantasy IV
Kain, Valvalis, Rosa, Cecil
No collection
99 hits

So seven out of eleven of these are either in one of the 2009 YT collections, or one of the FFEX collections. Not a big surprise. If anything, I'm surprised that nothing from YT 2010 or NYR 2011 is even coming close to anything I did in the previous year.. The things that aren't in collections... well, I'm honestly not sure what differentiates them from the others, since most of them didn't get many comments to tell me what people like about them. Especially Devil - that one really surprised me. (They all seem to have the fic_on_demand tag in common - maybe that's it?)

Anyway. I don't know. Maybe AO3 is too slow for most of my fandoms to really be a great archive at this point, but frankly? I can't even go to the main page of ff.net anymore without having the browser window hijacked by an ad that tries to force me to take a survey before I can even get back to the site. I can't handle that BS anymore.

(Besides, let's be honest, here. Getting upset about most of my small-fandom fics not getting lots of hits is a bit like getting upset that the sun is hot. I'll never get as many hits as someone who's writing in a big, popular fandom. That's just how things have always been, and I didn't expect this archive to be any different.)

Comments

[renay]

I think it's useful to note that fanfiction.net was opened in late 1998. AO3 only opened for Open Beta (it's still in Open Beta, actually) in 2009, over ten years later. In internet time, ten years is like a century. It is a extremely young for an archive, still invitation only and still, well, growing up. For example, it only just added user subscriptions because we had to wait for better servers, ha ha. PROGRESS!

Also, the fandoms you cited are gaming related. In my experience in Final Fantasy fandom and with anime/manga/gaming outreach, those communities tend to be spread around lots of different sites and platforms, which makes reaching out to invite them in harder. And then it comes down to the whole waste of time issue -- if no one is reading there, why upload? It's an awful Catch 22, I spent a lot of 2010 throwing myself on that particular grenade. I think of AO3 as not a "home" for fanwork, but an archive that will keep my fanwork safe. :) I consider my DW journal my fanfic home and probably always will, but it's a complicated message to get out.

I also suspect a culture issue. I can mention fanfiction.net to nonfanfic reading friends and they know what I'm talking about, but have no clue about AO3. Fanfiction.net was an entry point for a lot of fans, and AO3 lacks that and maybe always will. If we're inside the gate of fannish knowledge and people establish elsewhere, it becomes an issue. I don't necessarily think it's only about people uploading, but that unlike fanfiction.net it hasn't yet established itself as a place to read? You have to have a balance between both reading and writing for an archive to reach critical mass. I think the next five years are going to be really interesting to watch as AO3 establishes itself and begins to enter into popular fannish culture (it will take longer for it to reach FFN in terms of recognition outside fandom). I think the hit counts / review counts will change, especially with the introduction of Kudos, which are a neat way to interact with fanwork and something few other archives have. I think it's a wait and see game. POPCORN.GIF, basically.

Ugh, I am sorry about being a creepershark and vomiting words at you, but commentary like this fascinates me from a fannish sociological standpoint. ;lzkd;lkds JUST IGNORE ME IF YOU WANT.

[vilkacis]

Heh, "creepershark".

I'm actually not entirely sure about "kudos". I get a feeling people will take the easy way out and just click "like" rather than leave a comment, even some of those who would have commented if the kudos option hadn't been there. Sure, a "+1" is better than nothing, but very barely so. A personal comment is something I can go back to and look at in a year or two and it'll make me smile - I'd rather have one of those than a dozen "likes".

But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens with AO3, and it probably will get more attention as time passes; it's just that I'll be watching it happen, not participating.

[cypher]

There are actually some early stats on the effects of kudos in this news posts: http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/129

The short version: people leave more kudos than comments, but comments are still increasing after the introduction of kudos, not decreasing.

A lot of people shared your worry about them, but it looks so far like it's turned out better than that.

[vilkacis]

Hm. That does look surprisingly promising.

[renay]

Thanks for that! I wandered around looking for it but couldn't find it. This is why we don't leave comments at 3am. XD

[wallwalker]

That IS promising. Thanks for the link, somehow I never see those news posts.