About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

liberal zionists while the rest of the world is viewing images of mass graves and miles of completely destroyed infrastructure in one of the world's most densely populated areas

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1090402436995473408

There is genuinely no such thing as an inappropriate book for a child.

I've seen several people mocking this one post on my dash and like. I get that the way it's worded can be funny in a "terminally online sentence" type of way but also like.

If people were mad this woman for supposedly refusing to acknowledge the racism in homestuck only to immediately turn around and mock the idea of her and her book club getting together to discuss the racism in homestuck then it's pretty clear that their idea of "acknowledging the racism in homestuck" actually looked less like "engaging with and discussing the racism in this piece of media" and more like "performatively grovel and self-flagellate in a public display of guilt about having enjoyed this piece of media"

before reblogging a post to say “because of capitalism” perhaps consider checking whether 1.) three words instinctively regurgitated counts as meaningful materialist analysis worth contributing to a discussion and if 2.) 4,000 people have already said the same thing

One thing I've been seeing a lot is the implication that patriarchy oppresses both men and women and actually only benefits a small minority.

This position is a fundamental misunderstanding both of how capitalism uses social divides to create division among workers and of basic feminist principles. Proletarian men fail to organize with proletarian women specifically because patriarchy gives them a position of power over women.

Men can find their actions constrained by patriarchy as well, which I've seen many people mistake for genuine oppression, but in reality men who can conform to patriarchal norms and standards are making a small sacrifice of emotional vulnerability in order to gain access to power and privilege women will never be able to attain within patriarchy. By contrast when women conform to patriarchal norms we find ourselves ever more severely limited and endangered, often losing basic bodily autonomy by force.

A woman went viral for being turned down for a next interview for a role, she asks the recruiter what she did wrong, the recruiter tells her they were “concerned about her lack of effort in her appearance.”

She explains she wore a freshly ironed blazer with a collared top. Her nails were painted a professional beige. She got a blowout for her hair, so a professional style. She had on subdued gold earrings.

The only thing she wasn’t wearing was makeup; she states she really doesn’t wear makeup, and only had chapstick on, as her skin is sensitive. Her lawyer mother has already explained she has no legal case against the company for any type of gender-based discrimination.

Just in case anyone wants to ask why feminists still refer to the “pink tax” or rail against more and more elaborate makeup trends being pushed on girls and women.

Women being punished socially for not wearing makeup is still a feminist issue.

Liberals will say shit like "Yeah, well Trump would be doing so much worse right now" while Biden and the Democrats pull shit like this

Fuck you and your lesser-evilism. I refuse to do the math you want me to. The appropriate level of fascism is zero. If you don't believe that, line up with the fascists and follow your leader.

One of my least favourite dialogue tropes is when a man tells a woman, “You can’t do that” or “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” and she says, “Why? Because I’m a woman and therefore too weak to handle this/can’t take care of myself?” or something to that effect and the guy replies with, “No, because everyone who tried that ended up with a bullet in their brain” or something equally reasonable and not gender-specific that paints him as the rational not sexist guy and the woman as an irrational paranoid feminist who searches for sexism in everything. This whole scenario is built on the idea that sexism is over and women’s fears and suspicions don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s also self-congratulatory pseudofeminism bc it’s supposed to make the viewer/reader/listener feel that in this specific work of fiction women are treated respectfully and as equal with men.

i dont know who needs to hear this but as a general PSA for those who pay people online for goods and services: KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE BUYING. While it might seem funny to write a clever note along with your transaction, any sort of hint that you're buying something nsfw or even mildly suggestive poses a huge risk that the person you're paying is getting their method of payment shut down permanently. transaction services are stricter than ever. "thanks for the boobs" is a pipe bomb that only needs one pair of eyes to be noticed. loose lips sink ships

You know what really fucking Annoys Me about internet censorship is stuff like swear words being heavily censored because that's entirely an American cultural hangup being forced on the rest of us. I don't know a single country where swearing is as taboo as it is in America. In fact most languages have swear words that would have the same effect on an American as giving a Victorian chimney sweep a pepsi max cherry.

i hate how liberals just want you to accept horrible anti worker corporate practices and decaying ancient infrastructure as unavoidable unchangeable things that no one is to blame for if something happens as a result, its like a sneak peak of what theyll say as climate change gets worse lol

It’s all so neat

LMAO. yeah haven't you heard? psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses serve to protect disabled people from eugenics! you can google 'psychiatry and eugenics' to find out more

not a big fan of how ppl on this site talk about poly styrene or x-ray spex ngl