Please don’t use collections to track your reading on AO3!
Someone is going through all my zimbits fics and adding them to a collection called “completed stories I’ve read.” Well, they’re trying to, but I’m denying all their requests.
Yes, ao3 has fixed the thing that made it possible for collection owners to anonymize your fics without your permission, so why do I not want all my fics in these random collections?
Well, imagine if 10% of the people who read my fics tracked their reading via a collection like this. Unlike bookmarks, all the collections a fic is in are listed directly on the fic! The fic I just got a request for has 12000 hits and 1300 kudos. If even 10% of the people who left kudos added it to a collection, every person who reads it would have to scroll through a list of 130 collections to get to the fic!
Please track your reading using bookmarks, not collections!
Bookmarks just add to a number on the fic itself, but if you click that number you’ll see the many ways people use them to track their reading. Some people use tags like “to read,” “read,” “complete,” etc. Other people use bookmark collections, which unlike regular collections don’t get listed on the fic - plus, they don’t require the author’s permission, so you can actually have an accurate list instead of just a list of the fics that got approved!
Whoever you are (I know their ao3 name but since they have no works of their own I have no way to contact them), I am very flattered that you like my stuff enough to go through and read all of it, and I very much appreciate it. But please stop using collections just to track your reading.
Bringing this back because people seemed to stop doing this for a bit but I’ve gotten two more of these requests in the past week.
If nothing else, it’s not an accurate record of fics you’ve read if some of the authors are rejecting your requests! Authors can’t prevent you from bookmarking or making bookmark collections!
BOOKMARK COLLECTIONS ARE FREE AND EASY TO MAKE PLEASE USE THEM
There’s someone going around adding fics to a collection called something like “fics I haven’t read yet”
ffs people have some common sense
I only just now saw this reblog. People PLEASE if you have ANY temptation to do this let me introduce you to my best friend, THE MARK FOR LATER BUTTON.
AO3 has AN ENTIRE BUTTON just for this! It’s on every dang fic if you’re logged in! Right there at the top! Then you go to your history and hit another button and it filters it down to just stuff you’ve marked for later.
This makes even less sense than a collection for fic you’ve read, because there is literally a whole-ass button at the top of every fic just to do this for you! *headdesk*
