The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum
Creative Corner => Academy Board => Topic started by: Yuuago on April 28, 2022, 01:16:46 PM
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I’ve noticed people occasionally have questions about how to do certain things on Ao3. The threads where this comes up aren’t always the best place for this digression.
The Ao3 FAQ can be impenetrable at times, so let’s help each other figure things out. All questions related to Ao3 functions can go here, as well as things like filtering, tagging advice, etc.
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Great idea Yuuago! Thanks!
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Thank you! I think this will be most helpful
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To start, I'd like to share one filtering feature that isn't immediately obvious:
OTP:TRUE - This is a trick for the Sort and Filter bar. If you're browsing within a fandom and put "otp:true" into the "search within results" field, it will bring back works with only one relationship.
More importantly, if you're browsing within a relationship tag and put "otp:true" into "search within results", it will show works where that relationship is the only one tagged.
My top favourite pairing often gets tagged as a background pairing in ensemble works, even if they're only there for a paragraph; but otp:true narrows it down to works that are exclusively about them.
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Ok second question (The first was answered in prompt of the week ;) )
I tied to make a collection, it would not let me select stories on A03. (Some were not mine, but the error stated they already existed on A03)
I tried to make a work, figuring I can add stories individually to the work. I do not know if it would let me add someone else's stuff.
I also tried to make something and add every one as co-authors. That did not work very well also. I'd like to make a singe group title to allow other people's work and that allows me to connect different stories to one idea.
Thanks
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Did you try just adding bookmarks for existing stories? It looks like you should be able to do that. Although I don't know what the results would look like.
Actually, I can't even figure out how to add a bookmark to a collection, or even set the fandom.
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I think the way to add a bookmark to a collection is to create a bookmark for your account, then edit it, go down to Add to collections, and type the collection name there.
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I tried Yuuago's otp:true tip, which was a new one to me that I was eager to try. It does work, but I tried it first with a search that I have bookmarked, finding all works for SSSS and some other custom filters. the Sort and Filter box does not appear in that view, and cannot be used there. I had to start afresh, selecting the fandom, so I had a Sort and Filter box to work with.
My experiment used the otp:true and F/F category (relationship marker), since I know it's not as widely written for and would have a smaller pool. It did pick up every work marked F/F (or multi, where F/F was one of the tags given), and picked up works with only one relationship tag. However, it did not discriminate between & or / relationships, and also included tags like 'Everyone's Paired Off in a Pretty Conventional Way'. That is only one relationship.
The otp filter would work best for your actual OTP, where you select that particular relationship as part of the categories. It worked a lot better, for example, when I unticked F/F and selected Sigrun/Agneta under the Relationships instead. Bang, 6 works featuring Agenta/Sigrun Eide (hey! including one of yuuago's!).
tl;dr Thanks Yuu!
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Ok second question (The first was answered in prompt of the week ;) )
I tied to make a collection, it would not let me select stories on A03. (Some were not mine, but the error stated they already existed on A03)
I tried to make a work, figuring I can add stories individually to the work. I do not know if it would let me add someone else's stuff.
I also tried to make something and add every one as co-authors. That did not work very well also. I'd like to make a singe group title to allow other people's work and that allows me to connect different stories to one idea.
Thanks
I think, for what you're trying to do, the easiest option would be to have an open collection (like you have already created) and then get the authors in question to add their works themselves using the "edit work/add to collection" function. But here are some options to add other people's work to collections:
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To invite someone else's work to a collection:
- Go to the work you want to invite, and scroll to the bottom. Above the comment box, next to "Bookmark" and "Comments", there is a button that says 'Add to collections'. If you select it, a box will come up for you to type the name of your collection in.
- This should send an invitation to the collection, and then the author can either accept or reject it.
Note: Some people always reject collection invitations. This is because having works added to collections gives up a degree of control; collection owners have the ability to hide works or make them anonymous. Obviously in this case you don't need to worry about that, but it's something to keep in mind.
I'm not sure about the error you received saying you couldn't add stories on Ao3 - do you remember anything more about what the error said and which screen you were looking at? I can try to replicate it and see what went wrong.
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To make a "bookmark collection":
- First, create a regular collection (you already did this).
- Go to the work that you want to add to the bookmark collection. Click the "bookmark" button to create a bookmark.
- At the bottom of the bookmark creation options, there is a section that says "Add to collections". You type in the collection name here. Then save the bookmark as normal.
- This will show up in the "bookmarked items" section of your collection.
A lot of people like this option because it allows collection maintainers to add whatever works they want without requiring action/approval on the author's part, and it doesn't give the collection maintainer any control over the work (so, the work can't be hidden).
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Co-author function: To my knowledge, you can't add an existing work to another existing work; you can only add authors to one work and then add new material to it as new chapters. It looks like you've already figured this function out.
I think that covers everything, please let me know if there's anything that is unclear or if I misunderstood the question!
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Yuu, would you like to repeat the instruction on how to add pictures on AO3? It was just answered elsewhere, but adding it here would make it much easier to find in the future. Just as you planned when you opened this thread :)
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Yuu, would you like to repeat the instruction on how to add pictures on AO3? It was just answered elsewhere, but adding it here would make it much easier to find in the future. Just as you planned when you opened this thread :)
Okay!
Ao3 doesn't host images; it only allows embeds of images hosted somewhere else. So if you want to post art on Ao3, you need to upload it somewhere like PostImages (https://postimages.org/) or Imgur first.
To post art as a work on Ao3:
- Upload your art to a site that allows external linking. Then open a new window for Ao3.
- Go to the 'New Work' screen on Ao3 and fill in all of your fandom/character/etc information as normal. I recommend tagging your fanart as 'Art' or 'Fanart', in addition to the usual tags.
- Work Text: This is where your image goes. You have the option of posting with HTML or using the Rich Text editor. Personally, I prefer the HTML editor.
- If you're using HTML: From the Post Image options, copy the coding for "Hotlink for Website" and paste it into the Ao3 box. Or, you can copy the Direct Link and insert it into the Ao3 box using this coding: <img src=DRECTLINKGOESHERE>
- If you're using Rich Text: Copy the Direct Link from the Post Image options. Then on Ao3, select the 'Insert/Edit Image' icon. The Insert/Edit Image box will pop up; the direct link goes into the Source section. Then save.
I hope that's clear!
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i just got a message saying i tried to reset my password in Archive of our Own (Which was not the case)
Is there a way to set up two-factor for this and the forum?
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dmeck, I got that too! Someone must be trying to hack multiple accounts.
If I end up posting weird porn, you will know why: I got hacked.
I don't see any way to set up two-factor. I might file a report with Abuse, though, and see what they say.
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I got that message too, three times in three minutes. I did go ahead and change my password to something *really hard* to guess.
Something weird is going on with kudos, too. In less than 12 hours, 20 "guests" have left kudos on a single work of mine. While I appreciate the feedback, I'm pretty sure it isn't real, though I can't imagine why anyone would go to this trouble.
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Is it 'MikkelRulez'?
My passwords are always random strings of chars and numbers.
Anyway, it's looking like someone is targeting authors who posted recently?
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Is it 'MikkelRulez'?
My passwords are always random strings of chars and numbers.
Anyway, it's looking like someone is targeting authors who posted recently?
No, but that's a good one. I'll have to use it as part of the next password I need. My passwords are very long (24 or more chars, if allowed) and include upper and lower case, numbers, and special characters if allowed.
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And ... two more kudos since my last reply. Maybe somebody really, really, really wants me to write another chapter?
I don't even know how you'd give extra kudos like that without at the same time increasing the hit count (which isn't increasing). At this point, that work has more kudos than hits.
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Is it 'MikkelRulez'?
My passwords are always random strings of chars and numbers.
Anyway, it's looking like someone is targeting authors who posted recently?
No, I use an algorithm for my passwords, and every site is unique. Did you get a message also recently? I also did not share the email address (hopefully that would help also ) That may be it, I will just need to change the passwords more frequently I gather.
Though two-factor would definitely help.
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And ... two more kudos since my last reply. Maybe somebody really, really, really wants me to write another chapter?
I don't even know how you'd give extra kudos like that without at the same time increasing the hit count (which isn't increasing). At this point, that work has more kudos than hits.
I just add +kudos in comments to add extras. Especially if a chapter had been added after I read the initial offering.
But new chapters are always welcome ( :sparkle: )
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I got two tries yesterday. What would anyone try to accomplish with this, I have no idea. All the fame and glory within out huge fandom?
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I got two tries yesterday. What would anyone try to accomplish with this, I have no idea. All the fame and glory within out huge fandom?
I wonder if it hit any other fandom. Maybe the whole site was targeted.
Speaking of wondering what someone is trying to accomplish, in the past 15 hours, someone has added 41 kudos to my "The Battle with the Kade", without increasing the hit count. I took a look at the page source, and kudos are added through a form, so you could have a program to "submit", if you knew how to generate the "authenticity_token", which looks like it's been base64ed, but is not human-readable when you unbase64 it.
So I can see how it could be done, if you knew that one detail, but I can't imagine why it would be done, particularly to my work.
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It sounds like you got hit by the kudos bot.
I’ll check to see if I can find clear explanation but in short:
- this is a bot and not a person
- it’s a known problem
- ao3 doesn’t have a way to fix it (yet?)
- the only way to stop it is to lock your work to ‘logged in users only’
The password thing - that is also a known problem, I don’t remember if it was discovered what’s happening there. Changing your password to be safe won’t hurt.
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Thanks Yuu! I was just wondering the same i.e. whether this is happening just to us or in other fandoms as well. I changed my password earlier, but got another try just now.
I suppose someone just finds it exhilarating to think how they are making everyone puzzled. Other than that, it seems kinda moot.
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It sounds like you got hit by the kudos bot.
I’ll check to see if I can find clear explanation but in short:
- this is a bot and not a person
- it’s a known problem
- ao3 doesn’t have a way to fix it (yet?)
- the only way to stop it is to lock your work to ‘logged in users only’
The password thing - that is also a known problem, I don’t remember if it was discovered what’s happening there. Changing your password to be safe won’t hurt.
I locked it. If I unlock it in a few days, will the bot desist?
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Thanks Yuu! I was just wondering the same i.e. whether this is happening just to us or in other fandoms as well. I changed my password earlier, but got another try just now.
I suppose someone just finds it exhilarating to think how they are making everyone puzzled. Other than that, it seems kinda moot.
It's definitely happening in multiple fandoms. Don't worry, it's not just us. If you already changed your password, it's unlikely you need to do it again.
I looked through discussion on Dreamwidth related to this issue, and the current suspect is a malfunctioning spambot. Anyway, Ao3's PAC is definitely aware of the issue but will probably take a while to make an announcement about it.
I locked it. If I unlock it in a few days, will the bot desist?
Short answer: I don't know.
Long answer: For works already posted, I'm unsure if that will work, but it won't hurt to try. For new works, if you post it locked, leave it for a day or so, and then unlock it, that might prevent the bot from hitting it. At least for a while. (But this is only anecdata - one of my mates was getting hit by it repeatedly whenever she posted something new, and this helped.)
It's possible there is more than one bot - the one that does this is a type of crawler that goes in and pushes every button on the page that it can find.
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It does seem like two separate things (which my or may not be related) as I get the passord thing but not the flood of kudos.
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I think the way I'd fight the kudos bot is this: add a field to the work which is "kudos since last hit". Reset to 0 every time there's a hit; update every time there's a kudos. In general, you might have a few kudos added without a hit registered (because a registered user looks at it, then comes back, looks again, and adds kudos), but if you get more than a certain threshold, that means the bot is at work, so auto-lock the work to registered users only and send a notice to the account-holder.
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I think the way I'd fight the kudos bot is this: add a field to the work which is "kudos since last hit". Reset to 0 every time there's a hit; update every time there's a kudos. In general, you might have a few kudos added without a hit registered (because a registered user looks at it, then comes back, looks again, and adds kudos), but if you get more than a certain threshold, that means the bot is at work, so auto-lock the work to registered users only and send a notice to the account-holder.
lwise,
That is probably a good idea, this way you are keeping the list accurate. Today I got two password requests and 49 kudos..
Yuuago,
Thank you for the info.
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Or maybe you could have another status, not locked to registered users only, but accepting kudos from registered users only. So anyone could read, but the kudos bot would be stymied. I think AO3 should add that as an option.
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Ao3 has been having issues with spam comments recently. I've seen several confused posts about it on Dreamwidth, and have received a lot of the spam comments myself, so I figured I'd post about it here in case anyone got hit with it and was confused about what was going on.
Ao3 is aware of the problem (https://twitter.com/AO3_Status/status/1599945968069541889):
Spam in your comments? First: don't follow the link! But do use the "Spam" button on the comment to report it. (No need to send in a separate support or abuse report! And please don't mark it as spam in your email, or your provider might start thinking all AO3 emails are spam.)
What they don't mention here is that there isn't any way to report comments as spam to Ao3 from the email notifications or from the Ao3 inbox.
To flag a spam comment, you need to go to the comment itself. In the Ao3 inbox, the link to your fic next to an anonymous commenter's nickname will take you directly to their comment on your fic, and that is where the report option is. (Or you can go to your fic and scroll until you find the spam comment.)
Note that spam reports are only an option for anonymous comments - If you ever have a problem with a logged-in user, that requires filing a Policy and Abuse Report; the link to the form for that is at the bottom of every page.
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Oh, yeah, I was hit with that yesterday. Thanks for the advice!
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Thanks for that, yuu. I got quite a few of those among my old works - I was quite relieved to note that helpful spam button on the comments.
(While I was there, I read the fic. Dayum, some of those were actually pretty good, if I do say so myself.)
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Is anyone else seeing strange comments in AO3? They're not exactly spam, but I don't believe they're legitimate either.
Over the past several weeks, I've gotten a number of comments with the following characteristics:
1) The commenter is a real AO3 author, but their name is not linked. I've checked them with AO3's search function.
2) The commenter has no apparent connection to the SSSS fandom.
3) The comment is very nice, very polite, but completely generic.
4) There are no links in the comment and nothing trying to direct you elsewhere.
I got two today. Here's one: "The way you handled the themes and messages in this fic was thought-provoking. It added an extra layer of depth to the story, making it both entertaining and meaningful. Kudos to you!"
This comment is on "Turning Fourteen", which is a short humorous story (339 words) about Mikkel and Michael making gunpowder for fireworks for their fourteenth birthday. I don't think there were a lot of themes and messages in that.
The only explanation for this that I've come up with is that someone is training an AI by having it make comments and seeing who responds. After the first two, I've stopped responding to these comments.
Edited to add: Here's another of these comments on "Turning Fourteen": "I can't get over how seamlessly you integrated the new elements into the existing canon. The way you expanded upon the lore and added your own twists was absolutely genius. You've created a fanfic that feels like a natural extension of the original story. Simply amazing!"
I don't think any real person would write this about a story about Mikkel and Michael making gunpowder.
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I haven't received any personally, but I've heard about this, so I went digging.
These are comments are from bots. The biggest hint for me is that the usernames are real Ao3 usernames - there is no way to "accidentally" post logged out like that.
Here's a post I found on tumblr about it; the description matches your issue precisely, so it's definitely not just you receiving these:
https://beemovieerotica.tumblr.com/post/721683287951769600/psa-bot-comments-are-taking-over-ao3
And some speculation on Dreamwidth about what the purpose of these comments are:
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/601725.html?thread=3688237693#cmt3688237693
Basically it's to break up the pattern when scraping so that the bot is less likely to get blocked as a bot.
So, I suggest deleting them. Unfortunately, the only way to stop comments like these altogether is to archive-lock your work.
If you want to report these as spam: The easiest way to do this is go to the comment thread page for the comment (archiveofourown.org/comment/long string of numbers), then hit the spam button. Or you can scroll to the bottom of that page and click "Policy Questions and Abuse Reports" to fill out a full report describing the problem, if you want to report on the problem more broadly. (If you're reporting as spam, best to leave the comment up instead of deleting it.)
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Ah, thank you. The comments are generated by an AI, of course. My explanation (that someone's training an AI) is so much more interesting than that bots are just doing this to break up their pattern of behavior. Reality is so boring.
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Here's yet another comment on a 339-word humorous fic about Mikkel and Michael making gunpowder:
This fanfic is an emotional rollercoaster in the best way possible. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't put it down until I reached the end. You have a gift for capturing the essence of human emotions.
I find myself giggling over this comment.
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Interesting irony how the bot wants to praise you for how many feelings it gets from your text :)
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I assume it cried over the destroyed chicken coop. Or perhaps the possibility that the boys might not get to enjoy their birthday party.
This fic takes a page and a third to print if you print from AO3, but my original document fits nicely on a single page. The bot is a slooow reader if it couldn't put the thing down until it finished.
I may as well respond to these comments with humor.
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Butbut... are they wrong?
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Your comment was great. I tossed off a little humorous story in honor of Mikkel's birthday, and here you found all these themes in it!
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Well that certainly explains some things. I think 'Down Deep' is a few things but 'a warm hug' is a particularly strange description.
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Your comment was great. I tossed off a little humorous story in honor of Mikkel's birthday, and here you found all these themes in it!
*takes bow* And thank you for providing me with the impetus to write more than I have in months. Granted, it was in the service of a s***post, but I'll take it.