Wattpad

[arduinna]

I've been hearing about Wattpad for the past year or two, generally in the context of "there's this GIGANTIC ARCHIVE that all the kids are using now, it leaves even ff.net in the dust". And earlier tonight, I was link-hopping and saw it mentioned again and thought okay, I actually want to look into this now. So I did; I went to Wattpad to see what was what. And, ugh, it's one where you have to log in to see anything. I hate that; you shouldn't have to be a member unless you want to post content. But by now I was really curious, because lord knows the non-logged-in front page was kinda useless. So I made an account and logged in, and went searching.

... Okay, seriously, why do people complain about the AO3's search*, when this is what's out there as the shiny new face of awesome?

There is a search bar, at least, into which you can type keywords. You can also pick a category (of which "Fanfiction" is one - you can't narrow any kind of fannish category beyond that), a length (... in "pages", not words, and I have no idea how many words make up a page in Wattpad terms), and a language. You can also tick a box for "completed" or "mature".

That's it. Typing in a fandom name while filtering for fanfiction will probably get you at least some fanfic in that fandom, but will also potentially bring up non-fanfic, people whose names match your fandom's name, summaries that include your fandom's name, etc. (This is not a good place to be a Supernatural fan, in other words.) And there's no way to filter down from your results; all you can do is go page by page.

This is awful; we had more control over archive searches 10 years ago on basic, early-days automated archives like AA or efiction.

I know it's not purely a fanfic archive; it's meant to be a clearinghouse for all writing everywhere. But it has to be miserable trying to find something in *any* category. Is this seriously something that pro writers think is awesome and a great way to reach readers?

Searching is bad enough that I'm starting to think that those stories that have nearly 2 million reads get them just by virtue of being the first results to show up.

Man. I do not think I'll be using this account much. Or at all. I honestly feel bad for the people who think this is the best thing there is.

*This was a rhetorical question.

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Unrelatedly, I think this makes 30 posts in 30 days. \o/ I've never managed to do that, ever. I may keep using the tag just to see how long I can go without breaking the streak. *g*

Comments

[thirdblindmouse]

Don't you know lack of user control is the wave of the future in web programming?

[arduinna]

arrrrgh!

[sholio]

It kinda makes me wonder if maybe there is some sort of cyclical thing where each new generation of computer-savvy kids has to independently reinvent the wheel. Maybe in a couple of years they'll have made the discovery that you don't have to discuss things Tumblr-style (you can have comments! threaded, even!) and it'll be the next big thing, and we'll be all set 'til the next generation comes along. *g*

[arduinna]

Ha!

Although I think part of the problem now is that the folks coming in aren't building things for themselves; they're expecting to have things built for them, by corporations, and they prefer it that way -- they want to just be given things. When I was reading Worldcon threads earlier this week, I was gobsmacked by how many people were earnestly arguing that the biggest problem with Worldcon is that it's run by volunteer fans, when everyone knows that cons these days are a business, and should all be run by business/corporations. If only more for-profit corporations were in charge of running fannish entertainment, things would be great! After all, no con is worth having or attending if it doesn't have at least 10,000 attendees, and 100,000+ is even better.

And I'm just... wow, leave me in my tiny little pond with my tiny fan-run cons of ~150 people, where we're all doing our own thing for our own reason, not standing in whatever line some corporate hack thought we should stand in for three hours.

And it's like now that's spreading out to social interaction; why on earth would anyone want to choose how they interact with someone, when they can wait for a business to choose for them?

... *waves cane crankily* ahem.

But yes! Maybe this new generation will figure it out in a few years for themselves, when the boxes they're in start to get too cramped. *g* I hope so, anyway.

[astolat]

Actually, I think that you're not meant to actually go there and find something random -- I think that for the most part the concept behind it is that these sites are outsourcing the browse functionality entirely to outside social media sites like twitter or LJ or facebook. Which isn't totally crazy if you have massive volume and expect most of the content to be ephemeral, it's IMO not doing what a real archive does at all.

[arduinna]

Ah! Okay, that makes more sense. It was just bizarre because while I was trying to search their help for "how do I find things" *g*, I kept seeing suggestions people had left for improving the site that includes things like "it's hard to find writers who aren't well-known - can we bring back the sharing groups?" so it look like they've actively dismantled at least some of the social-type features they already had. It sounded very tumblr-ish in the whole "oh dear, the users have found a way to communicate. Break it!"

But there are a bunch of share buttons, and if they're basically more or less integrated into other services, I can see it.

I'm still twitchy about it, though. *g* Argh, give me *infrastructure*!

[cesperanza]

KEEP GOING! 30 days was JUST A SUGGESTION! :D :D

[arduinna]

Heeee, and a good one! <3

[nemonclature]

I feel weirdly vindicated in wattpad's awfulness. Not that I really had anything invested in it, but it's nice to hear fandom still beats pro in that respect.