kanata: Archive of Our Own

Travis (

kanata) wrote,
@ 2009-11-13 22:52:00

Archive of Our Own

So I have an invitation to Archive of Our Own if anyone wants it.

I'll be honest here, although I'd had a beta account for ages, I stopped using it because it really, really felt like they didn't actually care about getting feedback. I ranted to

anatsuno last night about it and you can see my concerns here (I'm the "friend" in the posted conversation).

I find the site incredibly frustrating to use both as a writer and reader, but since I don't know whether or not the things that make it unusable to me are things they mean to fix or things they think are "features", I've decided not to use it at all until it's out of beta. (At which point, if it's still the way it currently is, I'll likely just delete my account rather than leave a handful of random fics hanging there.)

It's especially frustrating after working with Dreamwidth and seeing how a good beta relationship should work. With AO3, it's all one-sided. You send them feedback and never hear back one way or the other. So my frustration with them has actually made me appreciate DW's excellent communication skills even more.

So yeah. That's all to say, I have an invite available if you want it, but I am not advocating it as a wonderful service. I just know there are a lot of people who want to try and I figure might as well give out the invite since I have it.

(22 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	helens78 2009-11-14 07:06 am UTC (link)
	Oof, this does not fill me with confidence re: the bug I submitted today (the importer breaks if it encounters any non-standard-English characters). :/ (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-14 07:15 am UTC (link)
	Yeah... I mean, I don't expect them to jump up and fix it right away (though DW has spoiled me for that, I must say!), but just an acknowledgement that the comment went through and a yes or no on whether it's something they ever mean to fix would be nice. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	scrollgirl 2009-11-14 07:15 am UTC (link)
	I sent feedback about the URL importer just now. Will see if they respond directly or make a note in their updates, whatever. I don't need a personal email, but neither have I figured out where to follow their bug tracker. You are so right about those filters though omg. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-14 07:21 am UTC (link)
	I haven't looked at the bug tracker, but I do read their emails when they send them out about stuff they're working on, and the filters have never been mentioned... (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 10:31 am UTC (link)
	Well, I would like it if you do not have any other takers. (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

(Screened Comment)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 11:29 am UTC (link)
	Thank you! Um... might you want to screen this thread so other people don't use it? :) (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-14 11:32 am UTC (link)
	Done! It really never occured to me that someone would come along randomly and take a code meant for someone else. O_o But just in case... (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 11:37 am UTC (link)
	Someone probably would not, but one never knows. And my schedule is such that I'm not sure I'll be near an internet when things go online :) Thanks again! (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 11:59 am UTC (link)
	Oh, hey, apparently I need the whole link, not just the code. (And... apparently it's open now, so I can just click through without worrying.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-14 12:10 pm UTC (link)
	You need a link? There was an option to send the code as an email, so maybe I should do that (and presumably it will give you whatever link you need). (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 12:13 pm UTC (link)
	Sounds good. aris at sandwich dot net. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-14 12:18 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, that should have sent an invite! (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	aris_tgd 2009-11-14 12:32 pm UTC (link)
	Thank you! Hopefully they will get on those bugfixes. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

facetofcathy
2009-11-14 03:42 pm UTC (link)

My first feedback to the archive was, wouldn't a list of known issues be a good idea? It was, of course, never answered.

I didn't even know they had a bug tracker currently. Their communication is better--it could only go one way--with an actual FAQ section and the reports on the OTW blog, but it is their big weakness.

The filters sat there useless until the tags issue was dealt with. They seemed to be completely unprepared for RPF fandoms and all the possible pairings and fandom names, and that's still not totally sorted--there are several categories for RPF fandoms that totally overlap. I want to say something snide about the media fandom bubble, and I guess I just did.

I'm not sure what the plan is for filters, but right now, I never use them. To be honest I've found all filters on archives effectively useless, as they depend on people filling in meta data in standard ways and people are people and don't all do things the same way.

For all of that, I still love the archive, and I like looking through the works and fandom categories for fic, and some of the coming features sound great. But it will never fit everyone's needs, and I can totally see people not wanting to participate. Your approach to wait for it to be out of beta sounds sensible.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

kanata
2009-11-14 03:53 pm UTC (link)

Well, it's not even an issue of the filters across multiple users, but like if I go into my own fics, there are seven of them in several different fandoms, but if I click on the sidebar, it only gives me the choice to show, I think, Harry Potter and SGA. With seven fics, it's not too much trouble to scroll through the whole list to see what's there. But if I were to upload all of my fics, which is like 150 or something, it would be impossible for someone to see what fandoms I had written, since I have a ton of stuff that's only one fic per fandom and thus won't show on the list. Someone would come in, look at the sidebar and think I'd only written in these handful of large fandoms (same with pairings, etc; they could click on SGA and it would look like I'd only written John/Rodney because the other pairings I've written have just been one fic each). I would rather have no list than one that is misleading as to what's there.

I keep hearing that filters is a tag-related problem, but I don't see how this specific problem it has is at all related to the tags being messy. It's simply that the filters are set to only give a list of things that appear more than once, which is completely unhelpful and, as I said above, misleading.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

facetofcathy
2009-11-14 04:46 pm UTC (link)

Right, the filter acts as information as well as a tool. And if you can't filter for single items, then how do you find the needle in the haystack?

The only thing I know that's been done is that some have been changed to radio buttons from ticky boxes. I don't think filters are just a tag-related problem, I think they're an issue that's below tags on the priority list because they partly depend on tags.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

anatsuno
2009-11-15 07:19 am UTC (link)

It's simply that the filters are set to only give a list of things that appear more than once

No, apparently it's that the sidebar filters dip into the part of the DB that has 'wrangled' tags, as in, tags that someone has already integrated into the standardized set*. So because the tag wrangling is not finished, a lot of fandoms or pairings don't appear in the list yet. Someone came and commented to explain on my post, here - the fact that we noticed how it applies to stories appearing only once in the results is apparently coincidence / patter recognition. :)

*(it's a complicated issue, but basically, if you write in a tag on a fic of yours listing Viggo/Elijah, your tag is not wrangled until someone comes internally to mark this tag as similar to the pairing tag Elijah Wood/Viggo Mortensen - this is what wrangling means; it also means that even if you mispelled something, it'll later be findable once wrangled for people looking without mispelling like you.)

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

	awils1 2009-11-16 12:59 pm UTC (link)
	Hi! Biased OTW/AO3 Support chair here, but your request for a public list of known issues was completely read and looked at; as cesy has commented, we were incredibly short of support volunteers for a very long time. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)(Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-16 01:11 pm UTC (link)
	Cool. :) Since everyone and their mother has been talking about the archive, I gave in and was poking around/uploading more over the past couple days and I can definitely see an improvement in communication, etc. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

facetofcathy
2009-11-16 02:44 pm UTC (link)

After I wrote that, I thought to myself, you know you haven't looked for new features in a while.

So I made a post pointing to the FAQ, the known issues list, the bug tracker etc.

I do think a lot of people have an I don't want to be a bother response, when they try to use something new, and they don't file support requests when they think the problem is that they just don't understand. Sometimes they just want to ask around, but they don't know where around is.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

cesy
2009-11-16 10:08 am UTC (link)

Support-wise, we were very short of volunteers until about a week ago. We're gradually catching up on the backlog, but it's going to take a while to sort everything. If there's anything urgent or that you think has been missed, feel free to re-send it - there was a new Support tracking system from about a week before Open Beta, and the stuff on the old system is going to take a while to get through.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	kanata 2009-11-16 10:14 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, I have gotten sucked into using it again and submitted several support requests, a couple of which I actually got responses back on, so I've definitely noticed a difference. (Reply to this) (Thread from start)(Parent)

(22 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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