#archive locking

[anarchycox]

I decided to un-archive lock my fics.

Been archive locked for a couple years now, but in the last month I still got hit by the scam/spam bots.

I still got hit in the big A.I. scrape.

If it isn't protecting me I am not sure it is worth the lower interaction on fics. So setting my fics free and we'll see how bad the spam comments get, can always switch back.

[daviesroyal]

Fanfiction Update:

I know there are some cases where users can't get an account for safety or legal reasons. I'm truly sorry about that. But I'm not willing to expose my work to bad actors for exploitation just to potentially reach a few people.

I'm tired. So very tired of fending off efforts to steal work for money. Very tired of AO3 and other platforms saying "sorry, we'll do what we can within our ToS, but you gotta fight this battle on your own" and not doing anything to change and improve how they protect the creators that use their platforms in good faith.

During the lore.fm debacle (it's recently been announced that the creator is "happy to shut it down" though it's still up on the app stores. I'm waiting for the EU and other legal action already started to nuke it properly), when multiple authors were upset about their work being stolen without so much as a notice from AO3 as to what was happening, when we were talking in the r/AO3 subreddit about how AO3 hadn't made significant changes to their web security after the scrapers and bot attacks, I had a (self-declared, I didn't know how to verify and honestly wasn't willing to pick a fight about it) volunteer tell me that AO3 couldn't make those changes because they would all negatively impact the readers and "readers are just as important as authors."

(I am not going to go into a technical explanation/cybersecurity rant, suffice to say their grasp of how security measures work is... incomplete at best. They're wrong. Several measures could have been implemented with minimal impact to users overall.)

It says a lot about AO3 that they are unwilling to enhance their security to protect authors even a little bit just in case it inconveniences some readers, when this is literally how any website or software makes security decisions: you protect the most people to the best of your ability with the least amount of inconvenience. AO3 is putting convenience over protection.

The fact that a volunteer saw no issue with telling me, during all of this, that I wasn't thinking of the readers and should be making decisions about how my content is used and shared with them as a priority and shouldn't be criticizing AO3 for prioritizing the readers over the authors and their works is galling.

AO3 is supposed to be an archive, where creators can be assured their work will be safe from exploitation or censorship. If it's meant to preserve and protect works, why is it that readers are placed on equal importance? That's like saying a kid could handle the Book of Kells with sticky hands because the "reader is just as important as the author" or work.

I've not only locked my works, but also put them in an unrevealed collection. I have yet to decide whether or not I will reveal them again, or if they will eventually be taken down. AO3 as a platform (and OTW as an organization) would need to show that they're taking creators' concerns about this seriously.

This was not an easy decision for me, and I apologize to anyone out there who was waiting for an update, or marked a fic for later, or even just enjoyed rereading. I hope, one day, I'll be able to put my work up again without worry or fear.

[thai-drama-ao3-stats]

Thai Drama Stats Special Edition:

The Great Archive Lockdown 🔒

Hi folks! In case you weren't aware, there are various scraping bots that trawl through AO3 and use the data for AI training, content mill sites, or other vaguely nefarious purposes. One site, "Fanfic Books", is essentially creating an unauthorized mirror of AO3. Here are some posts about it.

To combat this, many users have recently chosen to "Archive Lock" their fics.

What is Archive Locking?

An archive locked work, or "restricted" work, is only visible to users who are logged into AO3. This prevents anonymous users (and bots that aren't using login credentials) from reading your fic or finding your fic in searches. This doesn't block all scraping bots, but it should keep most of them out.

What does this have to do with fandom stats?

The AO3 scraping I do doesn't use login credentials, so I can't count archive locked fics. That's totally fine! I am in no way telling you to stop archive locking! Lock or unlock to your hearts content!

It does, however, mean that the data I pulled from my Thai Drama AO3 Trends Dashboard this week (July 1 - July 7, 2024) are looking especially strange.

Holy moly! We actually have negative growth. More fics were locked than posted, which is why the Net New is negative. I'd estimate that about 1% of all previously public Thai Drama fics were archive locked this week.

This matches trends on all of AO3. This week, the total number of publicly available fics actually decreased by 0.7% -- and that's including all the new fics being posted!

When did this happen?

The timing for both Thai Drama fandom and all of AO3 is pretty consistent.

For Thai Drama fandom, most of the locking happened on Friday, July 5, but there was also some locking on Sunday.

When we look at all of AO3, it seems like most of the mass-locking happened on July 5th as well, with additional locking happening all throughout the weekend.

Which Thai Drama fandoms were most affected?

When we look at sheer numbers, KinnPorsche, of course, has a lot of newly-locked fics. 3 Will Be Free, My Engineer, and Dark Blue Kiss were locked down a lot as well.

When we look at the top fandoms by negative growth, The Player saw almost all of its fics vanish overnight. 3 Will Be Free was cut neatly in half.

This data is cool I guess, but... so what?

If these numbers are accurate, it represents another sudden and massive shift towards archive locking on AO3.

According to @star-grazing's stats about archive locking in December 2022, the total number of archive locked works on AO3 increased by 70% in just a couple weeks after a reddit post went viral about AI bots scraping AO3 for machine learning material.

Those stats show that in December 2022, 5.79% of AO3 fics were archive locked. When I checked the numbers again today, 9.37% of all works were archive locked.

Using rough estimates, from the last few days of AO3 data, I'd say that the total number of archive locked works increased by 8% since last Thursday (7/4). And trends seem to indicate that the great lockdown is still going!

Anyway...

Thanks for sticking with me! This is a really fun time to be collecting AO3 stats :) If you have more questions, feel free to reach out. I also put some more details under the cut! Thanks y'all!

Are we sure it was archive locking, and not some other data issue?

Er, good question. It's my best guess, and I've tried to rule out other potentially culprits. The AO3 Fandom Trend Analysis Dashboard, which has data about all fandoms on AO3, doesn't seem to show anything amiss. Their data uses login credentials, meaning they can count archive locked fics.

I also went through several tags manually while logged in and logged out to compare numbers from this week to previous weeks. It doesn't seem like there was a mass deletion or retag that I could see.

I also used the "restricted:true" search operator to search for archive locked fics while logged in. A lot of those missing fics pop back up!

I absolutely welcome other theories though, if you think of one!

Is this still happening?

Seemingly yes, for Thai Dramas at least! When I checked the "All Thai Dramas" AO3 search this morning, the total number of Thai Drama fics had dropped below the 40K mark - lower than when I first started keeping track a month ago!

We probably have a lot more archive locking in our future!

How do I archive lock my own fics?

There's a really good tutorial over here.

Help! I don't have an AO3 account, so I can't read all these archive locked fics anymore.

Please message me! I have some spare invites.

Which fandoms are the most "locked down"?

I'm not sure, but there is a Fanlore article about Hockey RPF and the Fourth Wall which provides some comparison stats. Hockey fandom has traditionally been one of the most locked down fandoms; less than half of hockey rpf fics are publicly available.

You can also peruse this AO3 search to see all archive locked fics.

[anarchycox]

Consider Archive Locking your Fics

We are what at the fourth, sixth bots and scraping happening on AO3, and for now at least it seems that it can be protected against by archive locking.

Archive locking won't protect you from everything (I had an individual upload my fics under their name on Wattpad) but it will protect you from shitty spam bot comments, from being scraped by AI, from being bot scrape for a bullshit site that is potentially a phishing scheme.

AO3 is free to sign up for. People can make a free email that just exists for AO3 so it can't be tracked on their regular accounts. These days it isn't even a long wait to make an AO3 log in. There is no excuse for not having an account. And if you insist guest is the only way to read AO3, then there are millions of fics to enjoy, but they won't be mine.

It does hurt your stats and comments, I won't lie about that. It might hurt your mental health to have those numbers drop, I can't speak to your personal well being. But I can say it is a relief to know my fics are protected at least a little bit. And honestly I adjusted to the change in my numbers and am now unbothered by the lower kudos count, lower comments - because I also get less anon jackassery.

So yeah, just consider how you feel when you find out yet another scraping bot thing is happening, how gross it feels. Does the less kudos hit harder than that? I dunno, you do. But it is worth considering.

[anarchycox]

Brief reflections on archive locking my fics on AO3

So a few weeks ago, AO3 suggested archive locking as a way to potentially stop your fic from being scraped by AI. This is acknowledged as being a it couldn’t hurt thing to do, and yes potentially you have already been scraped.

Now it seems that people have lots of opinions on this because internet, and that’s cool. You do you, you wacky little people who live in my phone.

But I did decide to archive lock my fics on the chance it might help not be scraped. I work hard on my fics, and do not want them used to train what is fancy predictive text. The timing was also handy because starting full time job, an extra layer of security, well, I don’t hate it. 

Been in it now for almost long enough to draw some conclusions.

It definitely WILL affect your kudos and hits. I am a pretty popular writer in small circles, people seem to enjoy my work. But I want to say I’ve taken about a 10-15% drop on kudos and hits. My kudos email are generally the same length they’ve always been but the amount of names on each listing is less without the guest kudos.

I have NOT noticed a big impact on my comments. Guest comments did happen, but they were maybe 1 in 25 of the comments I got, and if I were to get a shitty comment (usually about my grammar and spelling), they tended to be guest comments. But commenting was scant before I locked (and again I actually get comments and know I am lucky), and they remain scant after. 

A big impact is archive locking means you won’t be able to advertise your fic on a discord discussion board by just throwing the link up - you would have to let people know you posted a fic and naming it for them to seek it out. Which again that will impact kudos and hits because making it 2-3 steps will turn some people off.

Will I remove the archive lock at some point? I don’t know to be honest. Maybe. This might have done nothing to stop AI, but like I said, I have other reasons. Some people argue that they don’t want to deny their fic to guest readers it should be available to all, and if they view it like that then fine. I tend to err on it is available to all, they just have to wait a couple days to get an invite. But this is difference in opinion that won’t change minds on either side. Your fic, you do it how you want. 

If you tie the worth of your fic ENTIRELY on kudos and hits, archive locking will definitely mess with your head and proceed with caution. But right now, the minuses do not outweigh the pluses for me. 

[anarchycox]

Continued Thoughts on Archive Locking

Part 1

Part 2

Hello all, welcome back to the series of my thoughts about archive locking fic.

Hit my first real test of it affecting readership.

I write a pool noodle of a ship. This is not an exaggeration. There are 7 fics - one of which is a parody according to its own tags, a couple are just huge lists of ship the character with everybody and 3 are mine.

(The ship is Smoker/Sanji from One Piece if you care).

I posted Part 3 in the series yesterday. Parts 1 and 2 were put up before I archive locked, part 3 after.

And yeah this is where having the locking hurts.

Part 1:  Kudos: 185 Bookmarks: 19 Hits: 1609

Part 2:  Kudos: 67 Bookmarks: 6 Hits: 509

Part 3:  Kudos: 12 Hits: 67

Part 3 has only been up about twenty four hours, so it will get a bit more love, but still, a pretty clear picture is painted by the numbers.

I would say this is the clearest evidence that not having guest accounts see your work will impact viewership and response. Unless you specifically follow me, eyes just won’t see this pop up.

The big question is how does that impact me?

Sucks a bit, I’ll be honest. I think it is a rare pair that deserves more attention. It is hot as hell. 

My options are deal with less readership, unarchive lock pool noodle ships, or unarchive lock everything. And currently? I am still very much in the benefits outweigh the cost. I like worrying less about hate because comments about my spelling and grammar tended to be guest accounts. I like knowing there is another line of security between me and my job reading my fic. And I really like not dealing with spam bots. 

I won’t lie and say it didn’t impact me at all, but it was more a slow head nod and saying now that’s a damn shame and then moving on to plan the next random thing I want to write. 

So that’s where it is currently at.

[anarchycox]

Continued Reflections On Archive Locking My Fics on AO3

I did a post a week or two ago about what I had noticed with archive locking my fics. Post can be found here.

Kudos and hits remain significantly down. Commenting remains the same (and I wrote a one shot that really hit and got like 12 comments - that was a great couple of days not gonna lie).

When I say kudos and hits are significantly down, this is guess work and vibes - I wasn’t tracking my numbers before, and I am not tracking them specifically now, but one shots that before would have crossed 100 kudos just aren’t. My ao3 daily email, the list of fics with kudos has stayed about the same, but the amount of names attached to that list is much less.

So here is the thing:

For me (and again me alone) it has been great for my mental health when it comes to fic. This is not sarcasm, I am entirely sincere that archive locking may have been the best thing for my writing process in a long time.

If you follow me, you might be here because a fic in a fandom brought you here. When Kingsman was active, I was one of the top writers there for the not main pairing.

But more, I had two Witcher fics that just popped off. One is closing in 8k kudos, and if you search by kudos (eternal reminder don’t do this but I know a lot of people do) it is in the top 75 out of 21k fics. 

I was a decently sized fish in small to medium ponds, and I got used to my fics getting a few hundred kudos unless I was writing really obscure pairs or weird things.

Which meant when I switched to smaller pairings, in smaller fandoms, the lack of kudos and hits was really doing a number on me. Did my writing stop being good, am I breaking secret rules I don’t understand. Should I try to write different things to appeal to people? Brains aren’t they fun?

Then I archive locked, for the thin protection it may or may not give against AI, and I archive locked for the thin protection it may give from work finding me on social media.

And my numbers dropped.

But I knew they would, I was prepared for it. I made a choice that would impact readership and accepted that.

In doing that, in making the choice, it flicked the breaker in my head. It reset my worries and expectations about how a fic would do, and let me write whatever random thing I wanted again. I don’t care that I don’t have 150, 200 kudos on a thing - 45 people kudos it. If I put 45 people in my house it would be way too full. That is a good chunk of people to have made happy on their lunch break or reading before bed.

So yeah, for me? Archive locking was the best thing I could have done, and I won’t be unlocking any time soon.

[themonopolyhat]

public service announcement: i am going to archive lock all of my work on ao3 sometime this week. i just found my stories on some goddamn ai-driven search engine app, and I Do Not Like It, Sam I Am.