coaltide | Coal All The Way

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Coal All The Way

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As part the rejecting fics conversation (I personally am in the rejecting-for-bad-writing-that-isn’t-a-DNW-makes-you-an-entitled-asshole camp, to disclaim), people mentioned the weird “seeing a fic on your gifts page every week when you don’t like it” thing (including coalie with goldfish brain who reads each gift fic twice a week), and it made me wonder: do people genuinely click on their dashboard link with regularity? What do you do there? Is it a way to manage comments and replies? Or kind of akin to a vanity google, a reminder that you exist on AO3? Snark aside, I only ever click on this link to get to other stuff (ie to fulfil an assignment), so I’m wondering about these users who are on there all the time.

I wouldn't say I do it with regularity-- maybe once a month or so? because I have had trouble in the past where AO3 has not notified me about gift fic or related fic. I want to make sure that if someone is looking for my attention in those arenas, I give it to them.

I will also occasionally (once a year, maybe?) check my gift page to see if anyone has said anything nice about the fic, because I like to know I'm not the only person who knows about it if it's good. And hey, I once discovered a sequel/second chapter that was pretty worth looking at.

I think anyone can reject at anytime because who cares really, but agree people that go to their gift page a lot astound me. I’m equally shocked that an author would notice the gift had been rejected through because who is looking at their works page that much??????

During YT when you might be checking obsessively, would it stop saying “gift for x” in the description?

Yep.

AYRT

I guess I should clarify, using your Works in Collection page makes sense during the exchange, but rejecting during the anon period is very rare. I mean that the recips that wait a month or so to reject. I honestly wouldn’t notice because I only check my page for the latest fics during anon periods and if a recip did go missing, I would assume they deleted. I wouldn’t even be inclined to try to remember how the exact username was spelled and go searching to see if they were still around. Maybe it’s because I’m a prolific treater and have a lot of things pushed down mu works page regularly or (without trying to tempt fate) that I’m lucky enough that I’ve never had a badly received gift so I don’t know how traumatic it would be, but I HAVE had recips delete before and I didn’t even notice until someone mentioned it on FFA months later.

Well, most people go to their works page at least every time they post something new. They'll only see newer works unless they go several pages back, but being on the dashboard and works page happens fairly regularly.

No?

I post new non-exchange works by using the "post" link in the header from the AO3 homepage. And then I check the fandom tag to see if I have to redate it to tomorrow if it's already halfway down the page immediately after posting. My works page doesn't factor into the process at all.

I go onto my dashboard quite a bit, because that’s how I keep track of comments/stats (I have emails turned off). But I also don’t go on my gifts page unless I know I have a gift or to do some tag-shaking, so seeing a gift I didn’t like wouldn’t bother me.

I don't check my gifts page itself that often, but I do check my dashboard itself pretty frequently. Part of it is habit, because I'm pretty sure the "most recent items in your inbox" and "random items you Marked For Later" feeds on the front page are new, so for a long time if I wanted to go to my comment inbox, or my fic history or marked-for-later fics, I went through my dash. Part of it is just glancing at the public-facing stats on the most recent non-anon fics I posted. Or sometimes I want to go to one of my own fics (to reread it? to check out a comment? Reply to a comment? One time I lost my notes for a WIP and needed to check what I'd named an OC.)

And when I'm on my dash, there's the link to my gift page. I get used to seeing one number, and then when there's a new exchange, it increments! Now "47" means "excitement!" Then I read #47, and NOPE DNW, and now "47" in that spot just gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach and brings back the negative feelings from the fic.

Heck, in the runup to an exchange, I tend to refresh my dash a lot looking for that number to increment rather than refreshing the gifts page itself. Idk, I just use the dash as my homepage for AO3.

Part of it is habit, because I'm pretty sure the "most recent items in your inbox" and "random items you Marked For Later" feeds on the front page are new.

They're not new, but if you had a smaller screen and didn't scroll down, they wouldn't have been visible. Like if you don't follow any tags, that part is blank so you don't know it's on the front page.

I don't care about bad gifts, but +1 to the rest of this, esp. the dash generally working as a homepage.

including coalie with goldfish brain who reads each gift fic twice a week

If your reading comprehension is as bad with your gifts, I get why you don't reread them.

I said I was on my gifts page rereading old gifts twice a week. Which amounts to rereading an individual gift I received maybe 2-3 times per year (some more, some less). No, I don't go on AO3 every Monday and Thursday and reread 200+ gifts every time. Shocking.

Hey, if you have 200 gifts, wonderful for you! Not exactly an average number. If you humbly mentioned this gift total in your initial response, then my bad for not remembering it. If you didn’t, poor reading comprehension isn’t the charge to level—just making an ass out of u and me because I thought you’d have an average number of gifts.

(Though if you have 200 gifts and are still in the rejecting-when-you-don’t-like-a-fic cohort, I still have questions for you, The Collector..)

Re: AO3 behaviours and gifts

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-31 08:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: AO3 behaviours and gifts

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-31 14:31 (UTC) - Expand

I'm on my dashboard all the time. It's the start page of my browser. I use AO3 constantly, though. I'm very active in a fairly large fandom, I post a lot, I read a ton.

I got annoyed at the unread number, and turned off the AO3 inbox entirely - I only get comments through email. So I never use it for that.

But for a few days after I've posted a fic, I refresh my statistics page practically hourly, so there's that. Other than that though, yeah, I pretty much only go to the dashboard to fulfill exchange assignments.

My AO3 dash is probably the website I visit most after Google. From there I navigate to everywhere else on AO3, posting, stats, gifts, bookmarks, ship and freeform tags. And I read my own fics a lot too. So, yeah, I'm on my works page every day.

I go to my dashboard daily (it's my homepage). It's an easy way to get to the fandoms I check every fic for, my stats, or whatever fic I just posted. I usually reread old gifts by going to my gifts page, because they're in chronological order and sometimes I get a "oh yeah I should read that one too!" moment while scrolling to the one I want.

I do go to my dashboard regularly, for a few reasons. I like my own fic and reread it. I love my gift fic and reread it. I have a bad habit of using similar or the exact same titles, so I go through and make sure the new one isn't too close to the old ones. I've also missed gift notifications before, so I do regularly check my gift page. Sometimes I want to answer comments on one fic at a time and I go from the dashboard to the comment section to do that.

I've never rejected a gift fic, though I'm not saying I might not run into a reason to do so in the future, but I don't understand why people are so bothered by seeing gift fic with bad writing on their gift page. I don't have to understand it, though.

I have a bad habit of using similar or the exact same titles, so I go through and make sure the new one isn't too close to the old ones.

Ha, same! Every time I write a fic, a scroll through my works in the same fandom to see if I used to same title before.

I'm pretty much never on my Gifts page, unless I'm refreshing to see whether I'm going to get a gift for an exchange.

But I'm on my dash a lot just to get a glimpse of the latest hits/kudos/bookmark count on my recent fics. I know there's the daily kudos mail! But I just like seeing the numbers change.

- Numbers navel-gazing like how many works I have in a fandom, what ships I've written the most fic for, that kind of thing.

- If I want to go to a fandom, ship, or freeform tag that I've written fic for, I usually navigate to it via going to my own fic and clicking the tag link, rather than using AO3's dubious search engine.

- CHECKING FOR NEW GIFTS

- Checking my stats

I check about 3 times a week, because the email I have associated with my ao3 account is one I almost never check, so I don't see comments (and gifts) that way.

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