We have all seen them at this point, we all hate them. Few things are worse than the excitement of comment! morphing into the bitter disappointment of capitalism. And some people say they’re spam, or bits, or well-meaning idiots, but I’m here to tell you it doesn’t matter! The content of the comment is in fact a violation of the archive’s terms of service, specifically section two, subsection c:
II.C. Commercial Promotion
Promotion, solicitation, and advertisement of commercial products or activities are not allowed.
These comments specific violation is further elucidated in the Archive FAQ, with this section being the most pertinent, as it is explicitly about section II.C. I have taken the liberty of pulling the most directly relevant points for this post, but feel free to read the whole thing.
What kinds of things are considered "promotion, solicitation, and advertisement of commercial products or activities"? […skipping over other answers…] offering paid commissions […], advertising a paid service or product [etc].
Next question, does this apply to the comment section? To the readers as well as the authors? Yes!
Content is anything that you post on AO3 or otherwise submit to us. This includes, but is not limited to: […] comments […]
So we have established that the art commission comments are inherently a violation of the archives policy. Awesome!
What do we do about it? Report! Report! Report!
Here’s how (note that all images are without alt text because they are screenshots of exactly what the body of the post is saying to do, no information is being withheld, but rather I am sparing a screen reader user from listening to the same words twice, mwah):
Not the twink, the web link. There are multiple ways to do this. The easiest way in my opinion is to open that email that initially broke your heart and click the second interaction option “go to the thread starting from this comment”
This will take you directly to the comment! Right on its own little web page, as you can see below. Go team!
So now that we are on the page, scroll on down to the bottom, and click the report button, which I have circled in the screenshot below.
If you are logged in, and on the comments isolated page as directed, almost the entire form auto-populates! I have blocked out my email, but otherwise this is how the form shows up.
All we have to do is fill out two fields, which I have labeled in the screenshot.
Please note you must scroll past the form FAQ to reach the form. If you don’t see it when you hit the report button, just keep scrolling!
Here I little just write “paid content” or “commission comment.” You’re not writing an essay, just directing the report to the right people.
Now if this was a more complicated situation, we would want to give a more detailed description, but (un)fortunately this is cut and dry. Just basically repeat what you put in the summary box.
Step three: Hit submit, and move on with your day!
The policy and abuse team will take it from there, including deleting the offending comment after review! You should get an automated email confirming your report was submitted nearly instantly. Please do not submit the form again, the team is on it, and extra tickets just clog the queue!
Have a great day, and remember: commercial action on ao3? Report that shit!
