Forum FAQs Latest Topics

Can I upload pornographic pictures to the forum?

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 06:06:07 +0000

Yes and no. Pictures can only be uploaded to the Art Room forum – which is member’s only access – and then only of the drawn or digital variety; i.e., no photographs of real people. And no photo manipulations of any kind. Any pictures uploaded to any other forums will be deleted. Also, no pornographic pictures beyond mild nudity will be allowed to be used in your Signature, Cover Photo or Profile Picture.

So, why have we decided to do this? Well, firstly, this site always has been and always will be primarily about written smut, not smutty pictures. But perhaps the main reason is that different countries have different laws about what’s illegal visually and what isn’t, and we want to make it as difficult as possible for people to accidentally stumble on pictures that would be considered illegal in their country.

Outside of the Art Room forum, you can provide a link to a picture hosted elsewhere, as long as there’s a clear description of what the picture is of, and do not use any link that means the picture is downloaded to their computer as soon as someone clicks on the link; it has to be a picture that is viewable without needing to be downloaded first. This is to ensure no one tries to force a virus or anything else unsavoury onto an unsuspecting person. Any link not meeting these requirements will be removed and the member warned.

If you’re unsure whether or not a picture you have uploaded to your profile or signature is acceptable then please don’t hesitate to ask a moderator.

How to see everyone's status updates

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 05:27:14 +0000

With the previous versions of the forum software, you were able to see everyone’s status updates quite easily, but now with the new version, they’ve done a fine job of burying this information.

Yes, I know it was better the way it was. No, I don’t know why they thought this was an improvement. No, we can’t go back to the previous version.

And with that out of the way, I’m here to tell you how you can still see everyone’s status updates.

The first step is to mouse over the “Activity” tab up the top. Click “My Activity Streams” just below it. A drop-down menu will appear. Go down to the list until you see “Create New Stream”. Click that.

On the page that loads next, enter a name where it says “Stream Title”. My recommendation would be “Status Updates” but you can name it whatever you wish. Just make sure you understand what it is. Take a look at the picture below to see what options you need to select. The critical one is the “Content Types” options. Make sure you tick the “Status Updates” option. Once that’s done, click the “Save Changes” button.

From here on, when you want to view everyone’s status updates, mouse over the “Activity” tab up the top, click “My Activity Streams”, go down until you see “Custom Streams”. Below that will be “Status Updates” or whatever you named it. And there you have it!

I've joined the archive, have I now joined the forum too?

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 06:45:04 +0000

“I’ve signed up with the AFF archive, so does that mean I’ve automatically joined the forum as well?"

No, it doesn’t; they’re entirely different entities, meaning you have to sign up with the forum separately if you wish to join.

Some people have trouble signing up for the forum, but if you actually spend time reading the information that’s provided to you during the sign-up process then you really can’t go wrong.

What’s this ‘Archive Profile’ and ‘Archive Penname’ stuff about?

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 07:54:20 +0000

“When I was creating an account in the forum,” you inquire, “it asked me for my ‘Archive Profile’ and ‘Archive penname’; what on earth is that?”

Here is a brief explanation, along with the basic purpose of this forum.

This forum is here to support the archive (http://www.adult-fanfiction.org) where all the stories are uploaded to. That really is the fundamental reason for its being. So if you’re a writer, we want this forum to be here for you to ask questions or discuss your story, or the stories of others, or to pass on useful titbits to other writers.

So, because of that, if you wish to join the forum, you need to have an account on the archive. So if you’re trying to join the forum but don’t have an account on the archive already, you need to do that first, otherwise you won’t be allowed to join the forum. Don’t worry, the archive is just as free to join as the forum.

So the 'Archive Profile' box should include the URL of your profile on the archive, which will look something like this: members.adult-fanfiction.org/profile.php?no=1234957890. And the 'Archive Penname' will be the penname you use in the archive, which may or may not be the same as your forum username; some people have the same name, while others prefer different usernames for the forum and archive. It's up to you.

“But,” you shout pointlessly at the screen, “I want to join the forum to discuss stories, yet I’m not a writer; can I still join?” Absolutely! This is also a place for readers to interact with the authors. We do recommend signing up for the archive as it will allow you to leave reviews when you read even if the author has anonymous reviews turned off - As reviews are an author's best friend, please make sure you leave them! As for how to sign up when you do not have an archive account, please ensure you read the first part of the registration process, the Forum Terms & Rules and that question will be answered there!

This is important: it really is in your best interest to sign up to the forum and the archive using the same email address, otherwise it's possible your application to join the forum may be denied. Why? You can thank spammers for our scepticism.

As always, you’re welcome to ask a moderator a question if you’re not sure on anything. There’s a ‘General Staff Questions’ section in the forum where you can post your question if you can’t find the answer elsewhere.

Creating a review reply thread

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:06:53 +0000

You’ve received a review for your story, and in the review the person has asked a question. You’d like to reply to that person. So do you just leave a ‘review’ to your own story to reply to that person? No, you don’t. Why? Because it’s against the Terms of Service, that’s why.

The full reason is two-fold. Firstly, that’s not the purpose of the reviews. It’s meant to only contain genuine reviews, not discussions; it’s not a chat service or a mini-forum. Some people like to artificially inflate their reviews by leaving their own ‘reviews’ as replies to other reviews. Some people also like to carry on arguments with nasty reviewers. If you do get a nasty review that is clearly there just to be annoying then simply delete it. If the person keeps harassing you then report it to a mod here on the forum. Also, the archive website and forums are completely free to you, but they’re definitely not free for us! Therefore, saving bandwidth makes good economic sense.

But you really want to communicate with your fans! How? This is how.

On the main forum page, scroll down until you see the ‘Fan Fiction’ section. There are three subforums for you to look at. There’s ‘Anime/Manga (all)’, ‘NON Anime/Single Fandom Subdomains’ and ‘All Other Subdomains’. Find which subforum your story falls under and go there. For example, if your story is a Harry Potter story then you’d click on ‘NON Anime/Single Fandom Subdomain’ then on ‘Harry Potter’. Where was your story posted in the archive? If it was posted in the 'Het-Male/Female' section then click on that link, for example. Regardless, choose the appropriate category and click in it.

Once there, click on the ‘Start New Topic’ button. For the Topic Title, you should write something which identifies this tread as a review replies thread for your story. For example, you could write: ‘Review Replies for ’.

With that done, you should give some details of your story, such as the full name, perhaps a brief summary of your story if you like (without giving away spoilers, of course!), a link to your story on the AFF archive, and perhaps any other info you feel is relevant for the opening post. Then subsequent posts would have the username of the person you’re responding to and your reply to them. You could include replies to several people in the one post.

An important thing to remember is to mention this thread in your story posted in the archive, so readers know it’s there! If it’s a single chapter story, include an author’s note at the end of the story, telling people about your review replies thread, a link directly to that thread, and encouraging people to go there to see your comments! If your story is a multi-chapter story then you could include a short author’s note at the end of each chapter, if you like, to remind people of your review reply thread. But do not create a separate chapter for author’s notes or to reply to reviews! Both are against our ToS. Another thing you should never do is include an author’s note in the middle of your chapter. That makes your story look amateurish and you unprofessional.

What if you’ve just uploaded your story and you’re not confident that you’ll get enough replies to make creating a review reply thread straight away relevant? What if you later do get a number of replies to which you’d like to reply to? Simple! Just create the thread in the forum as mentioned above and then go into your story in the archive and edit it to include the author’s note information!

The most important thing of all is to have fun! Which includes no flaming in your review replies, but I’m sure you’d never do that.

Joining the forum

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:47:02 +0000

So you wish to join our delightful little forum, do you? You’re more than welcome to do so! But, like everywhere else, there are rules to follow.

The reason for this forum’s existence is to provide support for the author’s on the archive. They can advertise their story here; communicate with their reviewers; get advice. People that are reading the stories on the archive can communicate with the author on the forum, as well as asking for help to locate certain stories on the archive. There are other things you can do here, of course, such as play games in the Arcade and the forum and discuss non-story related stuff. But its raison d’etre is for author support.

When you go through the process of trying to join up for the forum, you’ll be provided with information. And there’s the reason for most people getting denied permission to join. It’s not there just to fill out space; You MUST read it! That information tells you, not just the forum rules, but also what you need to do to actually join.

You see, where people go wrong is that they don’t bother to read the information, which is a shame, because it tells you that you need to have an account in the story archive. Why? Remember what I just said about the reasons for this forum being here in the first place? “Oh but I’m not a writer! Are you telling me I won’t be allowed to join the forum then?” You certainly can still join! But here’s the kicker. You also need to actually read all that information during the forum signup, because in there it will tell you what you need to do to join the forum if you’re a reader/reviewer only. (I include ‘reviewer’ because you wouldn’t be the type of person to read people’s stories without ever leaving a review… would you?)

Another reason why we have to make people jump through small hoops is because of spammers. We get spambots trying to join the forum on a daily basis. There are sections of the forum which allows people to post without joining, and these areas still get hit by spammers, which are quickly dealt with. If we didn’t personally check every single person trying to join up on the forum then it would be quickly overrun by spambots. Doing what we do at least ensures that a human is trying to join up. It’s no guarantee, but it’s better than the alternative.

You can read more information on why you may have been refused permission to join the forum on this FAQ.

A story in the archive is gone. Can I ask someone to send me a copy?

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:54:58 +0000

So, there was a story in the AFF archive that you want to read but is now gone, and now you want someone from the forum to send you a copy of it? And by 'copy', you're referring to an actual file, such as a TXT file, DOC file, PDF file, etc? Now you want to know if that's allowed?

It's not.

There's two main reasons why a story in the archive is no longer there. Firstly, AFF staff might have removed it because it broke one or more of our Terms of Service rules, such as the person was a minor when they wrote and uploaded it. Another reason is that the author might have removed the story themselves, for a variety of reasons, including wishing to have the story published.

So what's the big deal, you say? The big deal is that, regardless of who removed the story, it was done so because it was no longer meant to be read, at least online. You need to either respect our wishes, or the wishes of the author. If you respect neither then you’re no longer welcome here, it’s as simple as that.

Can I join the forum even though I won't be uploading stories to the archive?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:41:55 +0000

As some of you may know, the normal rules for joining this forum are that you must have a profile on the archive. If you don't then you'll be denied permission to join. You can thank spammers for the extra security. But there is an exception to that rule; you can join still join if you're a reader of the stories on the archive and don't intend to upload stories!

Here's what you need to do. During the signup process with this forum, you'll be provided with information, which includes the rules that apply to using the forum. Everyone needs to read these rules, because if your excuse for breaking them is that you didn't realise it was against the rules then that excuse won't be accepted. Now, in this information is also instructions that you need to follow if you're a reader/reviewer only and don't intend to upload any stories to the archive. A part of the process will involve you sending an email to an admin, where you'll be provided with further instructions. It's vitally important that you follow these instructions exactly, because failure to do so will mean a refusal to join. It's also just as important that you use the same email address for contacting the admin as for joining the forum.

When you do send an email to the admin, please don't do what many do and get upset because you didn't get a reply within minutes. You may well have to wait a day or two. We're all just volunteers who have lives outside of this, so sometimes real life is actually more important. Please be patient, but if you've waited several days without a reply (and you're sure the reply didn't end up in your email's spam folder) then either send an email to here or send a PM to preferably DemonGoddess061, who deals with that side of things, or otherwise send a PM to me.

If you're still wondering just why we ask for people to be a member of the archive then it's because the whole point of this forum is to provide a support service the writers uploading stories on the archive, and as a means for the readers and reviewers to contact those writers.

Why was I refused permission to join the forum?

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:18:27 +0000

Okay, so you went to register to join our lovely forum just to get rejected. Why? For the love of god, why!? Well, there could be a number of reasons.

Firstly, did you actually read the instructions provided when you went to join the forum? I mean all of it? Many problems occur when people either don't read or just skim over the information provided. You really do need to read everything there.

You might have been rejected because you didn't have a profile with the AFF archive. Didn't realise that was required? That means you didn't read the information that was clearly provided to you during registration. But there is an exception. You don't need to have a profile in the archive if you are a reader and/or reviewer only, i.e. you don't intend to upload any stories to the archive. When you try join the forum, you must read all the information provided, because there you will see information on what you need to do to join the forum as a reader/reviewer only. You will need to follow those instructions exactly, otherwise you won't be approved to join.

You might have provided false information. (yes, we do check)

You might have decided to join the forum using a different email address than the one you joined up to the archive with. We check each person looking to join to make sure they're one and the same person, and if the email is different then - since we're the skeptical sort - chances are you'll be denied.

Also, if you recently tried to send an email to the email address provided to notify that you're a reader only and wish to join the forum, then you wouldn't have been successful, since we had major problems with that email address. This was roughly from November to December 2009. We now have in place an alternative email address, so you can now try again if you weren't successful before.

If none of the above reasons are true (and you're 100% positive!) then it could simply be human error. We do check each and every person looking to join the forum, and it's possible we accidentally denied you instead of being approved. We get spammers and spambots constantly trying to join. If you truly are sure you followed all the rules then try signing up again.