A lot of people have brought up things that I can relate to. But specifically:
As a reader:
AO3 is pretty easy to navigate. With fic comms on sites like LJ and DW, not everyone posts to the same comms so you sometimes have to follow several to find new fic. And sometimes it can be hard to spot fic in busy comms. And unlike fanfiction.net, AO3 provides a lot more criteria to find stuff you're interesting.
As others have pointed out, other sites don't always hold up to the test of time. Some older personal or fandom-specific archives have disappeared because, for example, they were hosted on something like Geocities. And having recently gotten into an older fandom, I've been frustrated with how many LJ fic posts have been deleted or changed to friends only. AO3 is still pretty new, so there's no way of knowing what will happen to it five years from now, but it seems like the maintainers are keeping this stuff in mind.
As a writer:
I find it really easy to upload to AO3 for the most part, which I love.
It's also nice to have places that I can just post my fic. My LJ used to be entirely for fic, but over time I've gotten to know people somewhat and I've used it for more personal things, as well.
But mainly, anything that puts my fic out there for people to see is a good thing, I think. I want my fic to get read, and AO3 provides more opportunities for that. I still post my stuff on my journals and use comms, but AO3 is a nice addition.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-03-20 04:02 am (UTC)A lot of people have brought up things that I can relate to. But specifically:
As a reader:
AO3 is pretty easy to navigate. With fic comms on sites like LJ and DW, not everyone posts to the same comms so you sometimes have to follow several to find new fic. And sometimes it can be hard to spot fic in busy comms. And unlike fanfiction.net, AO3 provides a lot more criteria to find stuff you're interesting.
As others have pointed out, other sites don't always hold up to the test of time. Some older personal or fandom-specific archives have disappeared because, for example, they were hosted on something like Geocities. And having recently gotten into an older fandom, I've been frustrated with how many LJ fic posts have been deleted or changed to friends only. AO3 is still pretty new, so there's no way of knowing what will happen to it five years from now, but it seems like the maintainers are keeping this stuff in mind.
As a writer:
I find it really easy to upload to AO3 for the most part, which I love.
It's also nice to have places that I can just post my fic. My LJ used to be entirely for fic, but over time I've gotten to know people somewhat and I've used it for more personal things, as well.
But mainly, anything that puts my fic out there for people to see is a good thing, I think. I want my fic to get read, and AO3 provides more opportunities for that. I still post my stuff on my journals and use comms, but AO3 is a nice addition.