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alias_sqbrAn Archive Of Our Own (AO3) is an archive for fanworks. Any work posted there needs to be given a title, a fandom, a rating (from "General Audiences" to "Explicit", with the option to pick "No Rating"), and warnings. Here's the AO3's guide to using warnings, note that it deals with some possibly triggering subjects.
Note these two cases in particular:
These are not the same! But the specific differences can be muddy.
From A Moving Forward PSA for everyone using AO3 by kkglinka:
So I thought this was roughly true, if a bit over-simplistic, then decided to do some rough poking at the AO3, and now I don’t think it’s true at all: as far as I can tell, while works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" are overall lower rated and "safer" than works marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", the difference is small enough to not be much of a useful guide to the content of any given fic.
For example: using the AO3 search, 14% of fic tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" are explicit, while 16% of those tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" are. A difference, but not a hugely significant one. And under the cut I have a bunch of examples of dark topics which are about half as common amongst "No Archive Warnings Apply" works as "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" ones: a significant difference, but not large enough to make "No Archive Warnings Apply" safe.
My goal isn't to criticise kkglinka, I agreed with them until I ran the numbers (and it is of course possible that I somehow ran the numbers wrong) My goal is to encourage an accurate understanding of how AO3 users use these tags and warnings, and also to have fun playing with numbers because I am a nerd. In the likely event that my own analysis is flawed, I would be interested to hear about it.
And I do agree with kkglinka's final point: if you see something marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" you should check the notes and tags very carefully, especially if there's subjects you find triggering. From broader fandom context I suspect kkglinka is pushing back against the situation where someone posts a worked marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" that contains major character death or whatever, and a reader(*) gets angry because they think "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" means "No Archive Warnings Apply". And it does not! It means the work could contain literally anything, and if you can't deal with that you shouldn't read it.
So I guess my point is that readers should also check the notes and tags for works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply". If a work marked that way contains major character death etc then yeah, you have a right to be pissed off. But a whole bunch of other stuff is fair game, including porn and other "unsafe" content. Always step carefully.
Content Note: discussion of triggering tags/content
I think there's two important things to remember here:
1) A lot of sexually explicit works don't involve any of the AO3's warnings, eg they involve consensual sex between two adults where no-one dies or gets graphically injured. It doesn't even have to be vanilla sex. "No Archive Warnings Apply" covers a wide range of content, much of it neither PG-13 or "safe": not just porn, but sad break-up fic, psychological horror etc.
2) People use "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" for a lot of reasons. I have heard of a lot of people who use it for all of their (often G rated, innocuous) works just because they don't want to have to think about whether any warnings apply. And a lot of other people use it the way I do: to indicate that a work doesn't quite need any of the archive warnings, but skirts close to them, or to other common triggers, so readers should be wary and check the notes for extra details. And then there's using it to hide a twist or keep things ambiguous: if a character dies then unexpectedly comes back to life, using "No Archive Warnings Apply" would spoil the surprise.
Note that I and many of these people have been on the AO3 from the beginning, and I think our usage of these tags is reasonable.
Now for some more detailed number crunching. If I, like, remembered what a p-value is, I might do something more complex. But I don't, so. Simple percentages it is!
I am, of course, assuming that tags are an accurate measure of content, which is not always true, and have probably included some unconscious bias. Also, past experience suggests that I will have gotten some of these numbers flat out wrong. Finally, it's important to note that these flat numbers don't capture the complexity of all the different subfandoms and subcultures, who will often have their own approaches to tags and warnings.
Please take all of this with a grain of salt.
So! Even when we consider subjects that don't technically hit the Archive warnings, but will still be upsetting for a lot of readers (eg the kind of content I would personally tag "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings"), the difference is non-negligible but not overwhelming.
Violence:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 3%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 3%
Incest:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.7%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.9%
Abuse:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 1%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 2%
Suicide:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.7%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 1.5%
Implied/Referenced Character Death:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.3%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.5%
Horror:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.2%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.4%
Angst:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 12%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 14%
Which is to say, for example, that 3% of works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" are also tagged with "Violence". The odds of reading a random work marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" and it being tagged "Violence" is 3%, and this is about the same as the odds of encountering the "Violence" tag if you read something tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings".
It's interesting to note and consider the variations but I don't have any conclusions to draw from them. What I can say is that that "dark" subjects are more likely to be marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", but a fair amount get marked "No Archive Warnings Apply". And while you're twice as safe reading "No Archive Warnings Apply" if you want to avoid suicide or horror, your odds for encountering angst or violence are about the same.
Meanwhile...
Fluff:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 20%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 17%
Graphic Depictions Of Violence: 10%
Major Character Death: 7%
Underage: 10%
Rape/Non-Con: 7%
I would not have expected 7% of works marked "Rape/Non-Con" to also be tagged "Fluff", but I guess it's further proof that you gotta check this stuff carefully.
Also, a totally irrelevant coincidence I noticed: As of me typing this, there are almost exactly the same number of works tagged "Underage" (107083) as "Rape/Non-Con"(107108). Anyway.
Now let's consider the range of ratings.
If I restrict myself to searching one tag I get a nice sidebar with a variety of useful information. I can't figure out how to get the side bar to show up for all works, so will arbitrarily pick the "Alternate Universe" tag, as something nicely pan-fandom and large.
Alternate universe:
General: 22%
Teen: 36%
Mature: 18%
Explicit: 16%
Not rated: 8%
Alternate universe + No Archive Warnings Apply:
General: 30%
Teen: 39%
Mature: 13%
Explicit: 13%
Not rated: 5%
Alternate universe + Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings:
General: 18%
Teen: 33%
Mature: 19%
Explicit: 15%
Not rated: 14%
For all three, the most common tags that weren't to do with the specific nature of the AU were Fluff, Angst, and Romance.
So. Those tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" do tend to have lower ratings than the tag as a whole, which tends to have lower ratings than "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings". But the numbers are mostly similar, and the tags are very similar.
Now consider:
Alternate universe + Non-Con:
General: 1%
Teen: 9%
Mature:33%
Explicit: 52%
Not rated: 5%
Most common non-AU tags: Angst, Rape/Non-con Elements, Hurt/Comfort
That is a LOT more higher rated fic, and darker tags.
So yeah. On the whole, works tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" do tend to be more innocuous than those tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", but it's by no means a clear line, and readers should always be careful.
EDIT: I added a clarifying intro for more context. Alsovelithya pointed out that there's probably a correlation between "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" and a relative lack of tags. I think my analysis still holds overall, but it's worth keeping in mind.
(*)As a fanartist I try not to assume everything posted to the AO3 is fanfic, but can't think of a nice replacement for "reader". They say a picture is a thousand words, right? ;)
Note these two cases in particular:
Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Use this if warnings may apply but you don't want to use them.
No Archive Warnings Apply
Use this if AO3 warnings don't apply to your content
These are not the same! But the specific differences can be muddy.
From A Moving Forward PSA for everyone using AO3 by kkglinka:
“No Archive Warnings Apply” means the fic is PG13 at worst, probably fluff, totally safe.
“Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings” is the polar opposite. It’s a glaring Enter at Your Own Risk billboard. It means: a shitload of warnings apply but I ain’t telling because this story requires shock value. It’s very important to read the author’s notes for those fics because they might be using that older format from above.
So I thought this was roughly true, if a bit over-simplistic, then decided to do some rough poking at the AO3, and now I don’t think it’s true at all: as far as I can tell, while works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" are overall lower rated and "safer" than works marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", the difference is small enough to not be much of a useful guide to the content of any given fic.
For example: using the AO3 search, 14% of fic tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" are explicit, while 16% of those tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" are. A difference, but not a hugely significant one. And under the cut I have a bunch of examples of dark topics which are about half as common amongst "No Archive Warnings Apply" works as "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" ones: a significant difference, but not large enough to make "No Archive Warnings Apply" safe.
My goal isn't to criticise kkglinka, I agreed with them until I ran the numbers (and it is of course possible that I somehow ran the numbers wrong) My goal is to encourage an accurate understanding of how AO3 users use these tags and warnings, and also to have fun playing with numbers because I am a nerd. In the likely event that my own analysis is flawed, I would be interested to hear about it.
And I do agree with kkglinka's final point: if you see something marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" you should check the notes and tags very carefully, especially if there's subjects you find triggering. From broader fandom context I suspect kkglinka is pushing back against the situation where someone posts a worked marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" that contains major character death or whatever, and a reader(*) gets angry because they think "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" means "No Archive Warnings Apply". And it does not! It means the work could contain literally anything, and if you can't deal with that you shouldn't read it.
So I guess my point is that readers should also check the notes and tags for works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply". If a work marked that way contains major character death etc then yeah, you have a right to be pissed off. But a whole bunch of other stuff is fair game, including porn and other "unsafe" content. Always step carefully.
Content Note: discussion of triggering tags/content
I think there's two important things to remember here:
1) A lot of sexually explicit works don't involve any of the AO3's warnings, eg they involve consensual sex between two adults where no-one dies or gets graphically injured. It doesn't even have to be vanilla sex. "No Archive Warnings Apply" covers a wide range of content, much of it neither PG-13 or "safe": not just porn, but sad break-up fic, psychological horror etc.
2) People use "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" for a lot of reasons. I have heard of a lot of people who use it for all of their (often G rated, innocuous) works just because they don't want to have to think about whether any warnings apply. And a lot of other people use it the way I do: to indicate that a work doesn't quite need any of the archive warnings, but skirts close to them, or to other common triggers, so readers should be wary and check the notes for extra details. And then there's using it to hide a twist or keep things ambiguous: if a character dies then unexpectedly comes back to life, using "No Archive Warnings Apply" would spoil the surprise.
Note that I and many of these people have been on the AO3 from the beginning, and I think our usage of these tags is reasonable.
Now for some more detailed number crunching. If I, like, remembered what a p-value is, I might do something more complex. But I don't, so. Simple percentages it is!
I am, of course, assuming that tags are an accurate measure of content, which is not always true, and have probably included some unconscious bias. Also, past experience suggests that I will have gotten some of these numbers flat out wrong. Finally, it's important to note that these flat numbers don't capture the complexity of all the different subfandoms and subcultures, who will often have their own approaches to tags and warnings.
Please take all of this with a grain of salt.
So! Even when we consider subjects that don't technically hit the Archive warnings, but will still be upsetting for a lot of readers (eg the kind of content I would personally tag "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings"), the difference is non-negligible but not overwhelming.
Violence:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 3%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 3%
Incest:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.7%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.9%
Abuse:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 1%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 2%
Suicide:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.7%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 1.5%
Implied/Referenced Character Death:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.3%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.5%
Horror:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 0.2%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 0.4%
Angst:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 12%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 14%
Which is to say, for example, that 3% of works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" are also tagged with "Violence". The odds of reading a random work marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" and it being tagged "Violence" is 3%, and this is about the same as the odds of encountering the "Violence" tag if you read something tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings".
It's interesting to note and consider the variations but I don't have any conclusions to draw from them. What I can say is that that "dark" subjects are more likely to be marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", but a fair amount get marked "No Archive Warnings Apply". And while you're twice as safe reading "No Archive Warnings Apply" if you want to avoid suicide or horror, your odds for encountering angst or violence are about the same.
Meanwhile...
Fluff:
No Archive Warnings Apply: 20%
Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings: 17%
Graphic Depictions Of Violence: 10%
Major Character Death: 7%
Underage: 10%
Rape/Non-Con: 7%
I would not have expected 7% of works marked "Rape/Non-Con" to also be tagged "Fluff", but I guess it's further proof that you gotta check this stuff carefully.
Also, a totally irrelevant coincidence I noticed: As of me typing this, there are almost exactly the same number of works tagged "Underage" (107083) as "Rape/Non-Con"(107108). Anyway.
Now let's consider the range of ratings.
If I restrict myself to searching one tag I get a nice sidebar with a variety of useful information. I can't figure out how to get the side bar to show up for all works, so will arbitrarily pick the "Alternate Universe" tag, as something nicely pan-fandom and large.
Alternate universe:
General: 22%
Teen: 36%
Mature: 18%
Explicit: 16%
Not rated: 8%
Alternate universe + No Archive Warnings Apply:
General: 30%
Teen: 39%
Mature: 13%
Explicit: 13%
Not rated: 5%
Alternate universe + Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings:
General: 18%
Teen: 33%
Mature: 19%
Explicit: 15%
Not rated: 14%
For all three, the most common tags that weren't to do with the specific nature of the AU were Fluff, Angst, and Romance.
So. Those tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" do tend to have lower ratings than the tag as a whole, which tends to have lower ratings than "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings". But the numbers are mostly similar, and the tags are very similar.
Now consider:
Alternate universe + Non-Con:
General: 1%
Teen: 9%
Mature:33%
Explicit: 52%
Not rated: 5%
Most common non-AU tags: Angst, Rape/Non-con Elements, Hurt/Comfort
That is a LOT more higher rated fic, and darker tags.
So yeah. On the whole, works tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" do tend to be more innocuous than those tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", but it's by no means a clear line, and readers should always be careful.
EDIT: I added a clarifying intro for more context. Also
velithya pointed out that there's probably a correlation between "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" and a relative lack of tags. I think my analysis still holds overall, but it's worth keeping in mind.(*)As a fanartist I try not to assume everything posted to the AO3 is fanfic, but can't think of a nice replacement for "reader". They say a picture is a thousand words, right? ;)
