BronxWench

I’m tagging @manta2g to let her know about the dead links.

These random name changes may well be a result of the injection attack on the site earlier this month. I’m tagging our code queen @manta2g and @DemonGoddess regarding this issue. I’ve seen a few random name changes myself, but at the moment, with the archive in read-only mode, there’s not anything I can do myself to address the issue.

Hi, That would be because the archive is still in read-only mode while we make sure we aren’t going to be vulnerable to another injection attack like the one earlier this month. Fixing the issue is a very painstaking process, and takes time. We’ll let everyone know when the archive is fully functional again. Thanks for your patience!

The archive itself won’t support an actual link, but you can copy and paste the url for your readers. The profiles contain fields that accept links, but if we do that in the archive’s stories themselves, we wind up with all sorts of nastiness floating around in there, from highly NSFW imagery to outright malware.

We absolutely do allow our authors to link to their other stories. You can do it as an author’s note, up top or in a footnote at the end of the story/chapter.

Hi! As we’ve been telling other members, there was an issue with an attack on the site. In order to thwart the attack until we can finish securing the site, the archive is in read-only mode, which means no one can open a new account, post a new story, or update an existing story until the archive is back online again.

There’s a vast difference between a derivative work and a transformative work. In the case of this Seuss/Star Trek mash-up, the court held that it was not a parody, but instead did constitute a transformative work. Derivative work requires a license from the original copyright owner because it builds up and expands the original work, whereas a transformative work uses the original work in a new and new and creative manner. It’s rather like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters in that sense. The original work is transformed, and not merely used as a starting point to boldly go where the original copyright holder never intended to go. In the mash-up referenced in the YouTube video, it was the current copyright holder of the Dr Seuss franchise who sued, and not the Star Trek franchise. Obviously, the Star Trek copyright holders are better versed in copyright law and fair use than the Seuss crowd. AO3 calls everything on its site transformative, whether it truly is transformative or derivative in nature. However, you can’t merely label something transformative to make it so. As an example, if someone writes a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and creates a new work detailing everything that happened after Book 7, that is derivative. They would be using the canon work to serve as the launching point for their story, as they go on to tell us what happened to Harry and Hermione's children at Hogwarts. If JK Rowling were to object, I rather suspect she would prevail, because this work would, if published, infringe on any future novels JK Rowling might care to write about the next generation of Potters and Weasleys. If someone wrote a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and simply created a parallel adventure, or introduced a new character to interact with canon characters in familiar settings and events, that would be considered transformative, in that the new character might reveal feelings and motivations that would illuminate the author’s impressions of the canonical setting or event. It would not materially affect any earnings by JK Rowling from the canonical works or even future works, but it is still highly unlikely that any publisher would take the chance, without clear licensing, of publishing such a work. Legal defenses eat into the already thin profit margins of a publisher, after all. And, in both scenarios, there is a limited portion of the work that could be labeled as original writing. That’s why we call it fan fiction, after all.

Fan fiction works are not original works, even if the original work in question is a title in the public domain, on which copyright has expired. The staff of AO3 either drinks heavily or studied law under a very small rock in the middle of the Utopia Planitia if they truly believe that a work of fan fiction is an original work. I’d suggest trying to get it published (and not self-published) to cure oneself of that particular delusion. However, IF a fan fiction is properly disclaimed (attributes copyright of fandom to the actual copyright holder, states that no profit is being made), the portions of the fan fiction that were written by the author of the fan fiction may not be reproduced or used without permission, and yes, if your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission, you can certainly avail yourself of a DMCA takedown request. If your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission AND without attribution, under the name of a person who did not in fact write anything at all, that is plagiarism, which is the theft of your intellectual property. That is illegal and has cost people their employment when they’ve been discovered to be a plagiarist. I will delete a story posted by someone who is not the actual author of the story pursuant to the DMCA without question. I will delete a plagiarized story, along with the account of the plagiarist and all its content, whether stolen or not, and that plagiarist will be banned from the site permanently. Enthusiasm for a story is one thing; theft is entirely another thing.

The search function might not be fully available yet. I was able to search by author name in one archive, but not if I used a wildcard. I tried a tag search and it appears anything less that 4 characters isn’t working. If I search for HJ, I get nothing, but a search for a 4 character tag like Anal gets results. Of course, the archive pages aren’t fully restored yet, so this may be cleared up as each archive is fixed and brought back online.

I’m going to quote from our admin/coder: We’re working on patching the site. Keep an eye on this thread for updates: https://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/72627-archives-in-read-only-mode/

If there are at least five stories for this pairing, we can create a sub-category for it. Otherwise, we would not make the sub-category. If there are five stories already, please post the links here for me. When the subdomain is fixed and live again, I will make the sub-category and move the linked stories to the new category. Thanks!

Until we fix the issues that allowed the injection attack which redirected all of the archive subdomains to a malicious page, the archive is in read-only mode. That means you can’t post a story, update a story, review a story, create an account, or reset a password. Our coder is working all the free hours she has to get this fixed for us. It’s a huge job, so let’s all be patient. Trust me, we all want the site back to normal.

Hi! As we’ve been telling other members, there was an issue with an attack on the site. In order to thwart the attack until we can finish securing the site, the archive is in read-only mode, which means no one can open a new account, post a new story, or update an existing story until the archive is back online again.

As long as it doesn’t wind up the way the HBO version of Game of Thrones did, with an ending that not even the author liked.

I find short fiction to e actually harder to write. When the challenge prompts were more active here, I’d always wind up writing a 1,000 word flash fic, and then going back over it a few times to make something clearer, which meant trimming words elsewhere, and the next thing you know, I’d be sobbing in my coffee and longing for a cigarette. BUT flash fiction made me hone my writing. You have to grab someone’s attention, hook them, and satisfy them in 1,000 words. There’s no room for verbal clutter, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to remove stories from other sites. If we are made aware of AFF stories being posted elsewhere, we do try and notify our author of the plagiarism and encourage them to report the theft to the other website. We also check our membership for the offending author, just to make sure that we’re not permitting a plagiarist to maintain an account here. I will say that some of our authors use different pen names on other sites, and while it’s rare, we’ve had reports of plagiarism because the pen names differ between sites. We always check that as a possibility before we ever make a determination of plagiarism, just to be thorough.

It’s pretty bad, but I’m not going to call troll yet, unless the author posts a bunch more stories exactly like that one, especially in more than one fandom. Then I’d call it trollery for sure. The review, however, is gone.

I’m tagging our code experts @DemonGoddess and @manta2g on this one. Those search parameters should work, but we’ve had a few odd glitches after our recent migration to the new server.

I’ve done both. I used to play in the Challenges a lot, and I’d do a lot of flash fic one shots in response to those (which reminds me that I need to update the links to those, dammit). I also did multi-chaptered stories comprised of flash-fic chapters. That was actually sort of insane but fun. And of course, I did a four-part short story series for the Holiday prompts, only because the setting I created wouldn’t leave me alone. So honestly, I’d say to do it the way that feels most comfortable to you as the author. If you like the pieces as individual one shots, that’s how you publish them. If you feel they work better as a multi-chaptered work, that’s what you do.

Welcome aboard!

Show-off! I want to do something very, very different this year. No fey, no gods… something visceral this time around.

Please email me the information you are using to log in. This way, I can check to make sure the email address matches what we have in the database, and I can see if there’s an issue with the password. I do not recommend posting member email addresses on this forum, since it’s public and we all hate spambots. The email address to use to contact me is tos_team@adult-fanfiction.org.

Okay. Your Forum Profile will not have a Control Panel, because stories are not supposed to be posted to the Forum. So, don’t look around in the Forum for a place to post a story. The first step is to log in to your Archive Profile. Navigate to this url: https://www.adult-fanfiction.org/html-index.php (The first link you provided above was to a blank page because it is the old http link and not the current https link.) At the top of that Archive home page, you will see a menu bar, as illustrated in the first FAQ I linked. At the far right, you will see the Login menu option. Clicking that will open a dropdown, where you need to type in your email address that you used to make the Archive account, and the password you set for that account. Do NOT use your pen name, or your user ID number. Those won’t work. Please also remember that the password is case sensitive, so if you used a capital letter anywhere when creating the password, you will always have to remember to use a capital letter. You should also have a password that is 8-12 letters and/or numbers long, with NO punctuation, spaces, or special characters like @ or &. Just letters and/or numbers please. Then click the button that says “Login” right below where you typed in your email address and password. Once you have successfully logged in, you will be able to see your pen name in that far right end of the menu bar. That’s where you will find the Control Panel, in the dropdown that opens when you click on your pen name. Clicking Control Panel takes you to the page where you will begin the process of posting your story. There are two menus on the left side. The first menu contains links that will let you update your Archive profile. The second menu lists the Story Managers for each subdomain. It is important that you post your story in the correct subdomain, so if you have a story about Harry Potter, you will see that the fandom has its own subdomain. That’s where you would post the story, as opposed to Books or Movies. If your story is about a particular movie, you would go to the Movies subdomain. Once in the correct subdomain, you can choose a next-level category. The FAQ I linked for you in my first post explains this with illustrations, so it may be a good idea to read that FAQ again. As far as browsers, unless you are trying to use the late and unlamented Microsoft Explorer, you should not have any issues. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and other current browsers work with our site, both in desktop/laptop versions and in mobile versions.

Hi! Stories get posted in our Archive, which is comprised of a number of subdomains based on your fandom ‘verse, as well as Original Writing. You can find the Archive Home Page here. We have a FAQ explaining how to upload a story to the Archive right here. Some other very helpful FAQs cover disclaimers, story tags, and general information about stories in the archive. And finally, if you have an issue uploading a story, or aren’t sure what subdomain you need, you can always reach out here on the Forum in the General Staff Questions thread, or via email to tos_team@adult-fanfiction.org. The email address is monitored regularly, and we try to respond to every inquiry within 24 hours. I hope this helps!

Generally, you would need to log in from the menu bar at the top of the screen, since the side menus only exist in the Control Panel or Profile page views and no longer function for logging in. Try using the dropdown login at the right corner of the menu bar on the top of the archive home page. Your old password should work. If it doesn’t, please let me know and I’ll send you a link via email. The Outlook issues should be cleared up now that our site uses HTTPS protocols. It seems to be better, as far as I can tell!