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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*
... 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.
---
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*
