Helpful information for new AO3 users
Main things to know
• If you see something you don’t like in a work close it and move on. The only time it’s okay to mention it is if it’s not tagged for the work and you should only politely ask for it to be tagged.
• General rule about commenting and public bookmarking is don’t be an ass. Straight up don’t interact if you see something you don’t like. Authors can see public bookmarks so be mindful of that. If the author doesn’t ask for you to point out flaws don’t. And don’t report people for writing things you don’t like there’s no censorship on AO3.
• Tags are essential. Don’t avoid tagging something. They exist so people can avoid reading certain things for whatever reason the readers have don’t be a dick about this. And if you decide to no longer include something in your work but you had it in your tags remove it.
• Hardly anybody tags ship names on AO3 so don’t use that to search for fics. Instead search for the ship you want like this: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes.
• If you want to search by a certain fandom click on the fandoms button at the top left, click on the category it belongs to and use the letters and numbers to get to the fandom you want quicker. Example for Horizon Zero Dawn & Horizon Forbidden West: Fandoms > Video Games > H > scroll down > click on Horizon.
• Wait time: this is a free site that runs on donations and volunteers so it cannot allow everyone to join immediately as it would probably crash the site and create a giant time consuming mess.
• There is NOT an app and there’s no plans for one to every become a thing. Making an app would result in censorship, more money needed and more work.
• AO3 does NOT allow placeholder chapters aka a chapter saying you’ll be posting something soon or is just an authors note.
• Pseuds: if you want to use a different username for certain things but have it still tied back to your account use this. You can use it for works, bookmarks or for comments.
