What is the difference between visitors and views on fanfiction

A hit is one time a page is checked. A visitor is a person that checked that page. The difference? But it shall be accounted as only 1 visitor anyway in terms of IP address.

If there are 2 people behind the same computer reading a story, it still shall be accounted as 1 visitor. Therefore, visitors are much more important a stat than hits. Hope this will help. If I am wrong oh well. Either way you still have readers : and you can add me on fanfic. Cookies help us bring you Fanpop. By using Fanpop, you agree to our use of cookies.

Learn More Got It! The Chronicles Of Narnia. The Hunger Games. I have noticed that Quality of fanfic on Archive of our own is definitely superior but one of my biggest complaints is every single fanfic in there except for Game of thrones Fandom is male x male pairing. I don't want pairing in my Fanfic and even if i do, i definitely dont want male on male action.

I am not even kidding, almost the fanfics in most of the fandoms are gay fanfics. I dont have anything against gay people, but i dont want that in my fic, thank you very much. I devoured almost every story on it and well latter I decided to look for another site for different stories and found archive of our own.

Also the stories are sweeter and dare to Soften House much more. They are more flexible to turn him into a more caring and nicer guy. Fan Fiction. Net has a much more variety of Fluff, it's more heart melting the way he is portrayed on those stories. The ones who write on archive BDSM do it very carefully meanwhile in the other ends up looking disturbing with a bad after taste. I honestly prefer AO3 however.

First off, as a writer, I tend to not only get more views, but I get more people who either want me to continue, or explain that they like what I have done so far. With FFN, this doesn't happen. Not to mention I can review a story on AO3 and the author can reply. I also find that uploading to AO3 is much easier, as is editing. I also really like the tag system. And yes, there are some problems I have with not being able to filter out tags or get more adult-oriented works that pop up than what I like, I also find it so much easier when looking for a specific author, work or tag.

I'm able to find what I want, I can find the ships I'm looking for, even the characters. I also like the way that you can look for a certain amount of words. On FFN, I like that the hits show me which chapters were read and how many chapters. AO3 only shows me how many visits to the story were made, so someone could have clicked on my first chapter and gone "Nah", and stopped reading, and another might have been enthralled and read all 40 chapters at one shot, but each would register as 1 hit.

But the reviews I've received on FFN so far have been crap. On AO3 I've found readers are far more generous with their comments. Some of the discussions we have in the comments thread are very satisfying, and can also be read and contributed to by others. On FFN no one sees my replies to readers or our discussion, and I find that detracts from the sense of community.

FFN loses for allowing only four characters in the tags. AO3 allows an infinite number of characters and relationships, and wins hands down here. AO3 also allows me to post other media, especially my art. So all in all, I enjoy being on AO3 much more. Well, FFN has a mobile app now, and you can download any story you want. It's all cool, and I like that it has a large community as well. You can get decent exposure there. Personally, I like AO3 by a long shot. I was first introduced to fanfiction by FFN, like many others.

I was actually introduced to AO3 last among the usual archives, but I found that it was far better in my opinion over the other archives. You can now filter out mature material, though not completely. The tagging can indeed get messy, but I personally do not mind the tags as they have connected similar tags to one another and helped make it much easier to navigate. And one of my issues about FFN is the aesthetic of the page.

The colors are very plain and the text is generally small. Also, something that I have seen multiple times and I definitely agree to is the sense of community in AO3 being better than that of FFN. I also must write here that the quality of works is much better in AO3, though there are still bad quality works. FFN is a lot more user friendly.

Sometimes a lack of options results in a simpler but more enjoyable experience. I generally prefer FFN. It was the first site I really used ans I still prefer their filtering methods over AO3's, which I find messy.

FFN's biggest limitations is their restrictions on people which I do think are pretty bad - but on the other hand we have AO3 where even now, you have to request to join and then it can take months from there All in all, I think we're still missing a site that "has it all" and I think it unlikely that it will ever exist on a grand scale but both AO3 and FFN have their strong points where people lean towards the site that fits their wishes best.

Awesome to see an author updating their articles even if they are few years old. Good on you on, though some of the link to other fanfic archives are now dead, may want to update that list otherwise great article. I personally use both because really i think its required to get all the stories, honestly if exclusions were available to AO3 i think it would be far superiour as a reader over ffnet.

I used Fanfiction in my early days of writing, and while I enjoyed writing fanfics, I just found the layout dull, and not as suitable in comparison to AO3 for usage with phones. I've also preferred AO3 for its cute little features; it's more of a community, letting guests and users leave kudos and comments instead of favourites and reviews.

You can talk with the author and thank them and they will reply and thank you as well. You can also gift work, and I think that's cute as well. I do enjoy the skins the most though, I read in the dark sometimes, and by setting a dark background it doesn't hurt my eyes.

I've found that searching for stories isn't particularly troublesome as I've always found what I wanted. I do have to say though, it's true that Fanfiction.

You'll probably get more feedback there. That's just my experience though. Look, guys, I don't know where do you get that FFNet's sysadmins are completely disinteres in sorting plagiarism. I write in Spanish, and thus, a lot more challeging to prove plagiarism in languages the admins don't read, and I've always gotten a satisfyingly fast responde.

Heck, you can even do this for translation plagiarism person translates work without author's consent and claims work is theirs , which was the bane of the Spanish Harry Potter fandom for a while, and I never had any problems taking down bad stories.

And there is no written rule that you can't do a report for more than one story. I've found that when you write a report for a story, but include other stories that are plagiarised, the sysadmins close the account. Favourites, stories, all gone. Good riddance. IT's just that people doesn't use common sense. I wonder how many reports they get that they can't go through them at all? I used ff.

It's best for crossovers and has a bit more for obscure fandoms, quality notwithstanding. For older fandoms, it contains the "seminal" works as well. There's also no priority filter designating primary ships would be a v. Helpful feature. I almost quit the site before I learned how to filter content, but it's been great since then.

I'm not knocking smut here, I've read it on occasion but my main focus in fandom isn't shipping so being a non-ship writer on AO3 can be a lonely life. I prefer AO3 over FF, and not just because of the adult content, but also because I can read fics even when I'm not connected to the Internet you can easily download them.

I read on both sites, but I can't be bothered to post anything on FF because I'd have to censor some parts or completely remove some chapters and that doesn't sit well with me.

There are some mature stories that aren't just porn without plot, but if you start removing the key parts of such a fic, then you're simply censoring yourself for the sake of posting it on a site, and that's not something I wish to do. I don't mind the lack of reviews on AO3, especially since the fandom I'm writing for isn't even that big, but the Kudos button is nice, so that's enough. I also find it really hard to edit fics on FF, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, I don'y know, but AO3 is much easier to use and I simply adore the interface.

You can easily dowload any story from AO3, while now in FF. It's also easier to find the kind of fanfiction you want in AO3, which have many more searching options. And the content of the story can be just as explicit as the reader wish, thus the warnings. Hovewer in ff. The feedback is better. I believe that a question of time, though. AO3 is booming quickly, and ff. I've had an account with FF. I stayed on after the original purges for loyalty sake but it just became to much.

Some of my favorite authors who actually wrote worthwhile fanfiction were leaving because of the loss of stories trust me, when they originally did the purges they lost stories that weren't even NC or M rated, wiped some stories of comments completely due to one belligerent review and they're servers were also lagging when they began putting advertising up.

The quality of fanfiction is much higher, I have no problems with the tagging system and adore the the community because a lot of community is connected with Tumblr. The lagging, server issues and adding new content are just AO3 evolving which I am completely comfortable to wait for it be fine tuned while enjoying their content.

It will pass like FF. Wow, this is quite the impressive lens. There's tons of well researched info on here. I've spent a lot of time on FFnet as a reader and writer, but have only read one story on AO3.

It takes an incredible amount of time to truly become familiar with either site outside of just one fandom. I use both sites for reading, writing, and initiating discussions with other authors. My experience has been the opposite of many who have commented here. I do not feel the least bit lost on AO3 and I find it easier to get from one place to another there.

I have also received at least ten times the written reviews on AO3 as ff. I love that ff. As far as finding quality work, what has worked best for me has been to look at the subscriptions, favorites, and bookmarks of an author I respect. It really grows from there, and it seems a little ridiculous to me to rely as heavily as some folks do on tag searches to find what they want.

But that's just me and I get it. I enjoy reading variety within my fandoms. When I go skipping around, Ao3 has the higher proportion of well-written fics. So far, on AO3, the stories I've read are fine grammatically. The adult content on there versus the adult content still stuck on ff. As for reading, I read on both. AO3 is still relatively new so I can't find a lot of stuff on there, but most of what I do find is good enough. As for ff. There's a lot more sifting to do to find them, though.

I'm pretty sure that AO3 is just so much cleaner of poorly written fanfiction because a majority of authors that is, the terrible ones haven't found it yet. Once it becomes more popular it will clog up just like ff. I like many others did use fanfiction. I find AO3 easier to navigate and easier to read from.

Personally i also think there is a lot less shit on the site compared to the quantity of crap on Fanfiction. I still submit to both websites but I no longer read or search on fanfiction. While some dislike the tagging system on AO3, I much prefer it as it does not stop certain types of fics being easily found, unlike on fanfiction. I use both sites pretty regularly. While I use most of my reading on fanfiction. I go to AO3. And when they did that recent purge, I almost left ff.

At that point I was reading a lot of "Harry Potter Characters read the books" type of deal, and suddenly all my fav authors get their stories taken off. Why the heck should I stay on a site the doesn't promote spell-check on a regular basis? At least the "Smut AO3" has great writing in it.

While the tags are tricky, when you want a specific story, and you get a page full of awesomeness? Most tags require patience. When you don't have the patience to find a good, well-written story that caters to your ideas Well then, sorry.

While now I use a lot of different sites to find what I am looking for, FF. But when all the good stories seem to be LJ? And you want them on your E-book reader? I will always turn to AO3. As most LJ writers seem to post here. Never disregard something just because the "tags are too tuff, i want something simpple. For all you ff fans that disregard AO3 just because of the difficulty of the tags, I beg of you to give it a little patience and some good will.

After all, soon, your fandom may be deleted of its best stories and then you have to go to another FORUM to read them, then the forum closes and then you are stuck with no way of getting those great stories. Also, I hate writing reviews. It's a long-drawn out process. Most of the BAD authors want one, but I am someone that can't criticize without making it flamey.

Why should I make a flamey review when the author is just going to diregard it? Leaving Kudos? Well at first I had no idea what the Kudos was for, but now Well sorry, I rather just leave a kudos.

It took my soul. Main thing about this? I will always start with FF. If you think one is better than the other, then you are living in a fantasy. I use both sites, as a writer and a reader.

I will say that there are two features of AO3 that are incredibly important to me. The first is that you can set your own style for the page. This is good for me, as I read primarily at night. Who knew that changing the background to a pale gray or tan would reduce eyestrain and headache? I can honestly say that it did for me. The second and it is mentioned, but not emphasized in this article is that the tags allow you to be very specific in what you're looking for. You can search, for instance, for fics that generally include You can then narrow it by character, relationship, AU i.

Harry , circumstance i. Time Travel And that's just by adding additional tags to the search! On FFN, I'd have to hope that someone made a Community or make one myself in order to have a good list of similar story types. And, by the way, there is an easy way to search for just crossovers. Just pick one fandom i. Harry Potter , and then add a second fandom tag Fullmetal Alchemist, perhaps? Further filter by language setting English , decide I only want complete stories, and we have eleven. I can't really choose either since I have not checked out AO3 that much.

Also, loads of stories in FFnet are crap and it's getting harder and harder to find only the best and well written stories. Plus there's so much slash pairings and Yaoi compared to hetero pairings which I prefer. AO3 looked complicated to me, as well. Thank you so much for this article! TeacherSerenia: I'm not on FF. N any longer I left after the first adult content purge in on principle.

I do have an AO3 account but prefer not to link my fan-writing account to my general on-line ID. I'll send you a private message, however. So out of curiosity - can I ask what your profile name is on FF net and what genre of stories you write, read or favourite? Great lens idea! Something I can really get behind : I love fanfiction.

Li Li. I think FFN is much surperior, and unless you're in the Glee fandom, or like anime, there's a lot of amazing stories out there for you to read. And, let's face it, AO3 is a disaster right now. Maybe once it finally gets out of beta, it'll be better, but it's borderline unusable right now. Don't even get me started on the tags. They make me want to disembowel myself with a blunt teaspoon.

And AO3 is really ugly. FFn's simplicity is oft complained about, but I think complex site's with lots of bright graphics and such are distracting to the story. There's also quite a bit more community at FFN. You actually get, y'know, reviews. I know you AO3 people must think they're just myths, but they exist over at Fanfiction. Though, if you don't like either, Livejournal is a good alternative!

I never had any idea sites like this were out there. Though I don't do it much, I do creative writing exercises involving my favorite characters Conan, James Bond, etc. I'll have to check out both sites and decide on one. I've used both sites, and I really don't get AO3's structure. When you click on a tag, you have to sort through a bunch of stuff you don't want, and it's a pain to deal with overall.

Although at times it's quite useful, I generally dislike the tag system. With ff. Also, in regards to what some have said about the quality, I honestly don't think it's that bad. Sure, there are fics with bad grammar and spelling- but not everyone is a great writer, and it seems to me that a lot of people don't respect that enough.

Also, I haven't found this to happen exceedingly often. There was one instance of an author spelling the main character's name five different ways- all of them wrong. This is just my opinion of course, but I'm not really against the purge. I have found way too many misclassified fanfics, and as a fourteen year old, I don't think it's right to find an extremely graphic sex scene under a T rating. I'd like to preserve my innocence, thank you.

It would have been alright if they had kept the MA rating, and just kept it separate from the rest. Very nice lens! The truth is that I prefer AO3 despite several drawbacks, I feel a comfort to read. The interface is friendly and the typography of the text is beautiful, I think the fact that it has the possibility of Kudos, is great and encouraged to comment, despite all claims to the contrary.

And I can download the pdf format of the fic to keep it in a folder! It's great, that and to allow the MA rating, although some people seem inaccurate. Where does it go then? It's a fanfic! No more censorship. Just I wish the site was more orderly, and there were more fics in Spanish, but that I must wait. Lots of information here which is great. I used to use FF.

I have used AO3 more recently and I like it except for the unavailability issues mentioned. I have avoided FF. I'm not surehow to safely find out however. Anyway I have issues with both sites so for now I have to go to alternative sites like LiveJournal for instance. Thank you for the article. I can't stand FFnet, stopped using it six years ago, removed all my fic and won't touch anything posted on it.

Apart from the eye-watering bad writing on the site, the reason I read or write fanfiction at all is because I appreciate how creativity flourishes in spite of external controls, so when a pack of highhanded and self-entitled authoritarians try to control what gets posted, it defeats the purpose and what little enjoyment might be had out of that steaming pile.

The censorship and purging actually started years ago. A word of warning about FicWad -- the owner hasn't been around to fix many of the errors that are developing and the forums are full of spammers. So use at your own risk. I read from both but only have fic posted on LJ.

My preference is for AO3. The silly purging on FFnet and the very childish, 'review or I won't post' peeves me off royally. Initially it seemed as if AO3 might be harder to navigate but as you use it you should find it very user friendly, My one complaint about AO3 is the frequently very slow loading of the fandom pages, the stories come up fairly quickly when you click on them.

I assume it is because of the high volume of transfers they are getting right now both from FFnet and Prospect. Hopefully it will ease up in a month or so aftewr all the stories are transferred. You raise some good points, pro and con, about both sites. Several of the criticisms of my preferred site, AO3, are valid Nothing I've heard or seen leads me to think the FF.

THanks for a great article! I know it's become a popular place for people to post their "kink meme" stories, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a lot of adult content is moving there after the recent FF. N crackdown. N and AO3. It seems as though the recent crackdown on Mature content at FF. N has brought a lot of people to this page looking for more information to compare them both, so I am trying to work on updating as best as I can.

Thanks for reading! This is cool. I like how you laid everything out. I admit to being very familiar with ffnet but found AO3 rather confusing while trying to navigate a few months back. I was surprised by how current your information is and was looking for when you posted this but couldn't find the date. Is this just something that is under constant construction as the sites roll out new policies?

Some of the descriptions for the stories should be screened. They are very hard core, and I wish like FF. I find both sites perfectly functional personally. I must say AO3 has recently become, at least for some fandoms, nothing more than a smut dump. I don't really see any quality increase in the fics either. If AO3 actually allowed for the ability to filter out a tag it'd be much more pleasant. Not everybody wants to read about an author's homosexual pedophilia incest fanfic filled to the brim with absolutely creepy kinks and personally don't even want to read the description of said fic.

The fact that said fics are even allowed on the site is kinda iffy if you were to ask me. Glad to see another fandom person here. I write fanfic under a different name but have been active on ff. I definitely agree that both of the archives serve different purposes and audiences; I used to post to ff.

And even though I have my own fic site and archive my stories on fandom-specific websites, I've found cross-posting to AO3 has certainly brought in a new audience for my work. My biggest issue with the site these days is the tagging system and how unwieldy it is, particularly in fandoms with a lot of characters and pairings that haven't been "tag-wrangled" yet.

I definitely do more browsing for fic on AO3 these days than elsewhere, but I do have a lot of lingering concerns about the site architecture and how well it's designed for future growth and expansion. I just hope their means aren't exhausted by their lofty goals. They've wound up serving different purposes. Many of us hoped AO3 would be the answer to the problems of ffnet almost wrote ficwad there, gack , but it introduced a host of new problems.

Searching and the lack of community are the biggest ones, although the migration of most of my fandom to DW and some to Tumblr has the spillover effect that people are commenting a little more on AO3 where we'll see it. On the other hand, AO3 makes challenge communities and exchanges so much easier, and I am really grateful to be able to integrate my own illustrations and reader-submitted fanart right into the story -- or, heck, share my fanart!

AO3's download and reader functions make it easier for those who have migrated to tablets they are really helpful if one has minor vision issues. I like AO3 better. But in practice, I get more reedback on ffnet. So I cross-post. Party Games. Drinking Games. Lawn Games. Creative Writing. Card Games. Magic: The Gathering. Comic Books. Harry Potter. Board Games. Performing Arts. Musical Theater. Circus Arts. Tabletop Gaming. Metal Detecting. Outdoor Hobbies. Model Trains.