It's not just Ao3 that's going through this, sites/forums like fanfiction.net are also going through a similar situation, in the case of fanfiction.net it's even worse because there's no way to even delete such comments.
In addition to this, there are other scams that Ao3 users should be aware of:
Discord Scam: Certain commenters (mostly anonymous) will make generic comments praising a fanfic and invite the author (and, by extension, anyone who has access to the comment) to a Discord server. The problem is that these servers are often set up to extract data, hack, or otherwise lure someone into a scam.
Webcomic/Comic Scam: Very similar to the art commission scam, the comic scam is when a commenter posts a highly complimentary, flowery, and generic comment about a work, and asks the author if they'll allow them to draw a comic/webcomic based on that fanfic, leaving only a single link as contact information.
Webnovel Scam: Similar to the two above, authors receive comments inviting them to join a community/forum/Discord related to the webnovel site, a paid platform for reading officially translated novels and manhuas, as well as publishing original books and fanfics.
This platform has generated controversy in recent years, as many authors from Ao3, Fanfiction.net, Wattpad, and other platforms have had their work reposted on the webnovel without the original author's knowledge, and worse, behind a paywall.
The situation is worsened by the fact that several writing sites have been inundated with invitations from supposed webnovel members trying to convince authors to "migrate" to that platform. I myself have seen several commenters warning authors that this is a scam.
Re: FFN—it's not entirely true, that the comments cannot be deleted, tho (I know, bc I crosspost from there).
Guest reviews/comments can always be removed. And with regards to signed-in ones—FFN Admin are v much aware of the situation and are trying to tackle things, so using the ⚠️ icon on a review (from the reviews page for a story) allows someone to report the review for abuse, where we can mark it as spam and quickly describe it as part of the ongoing scambot situation. These reviews *can* then be deleted by FFN Admin, as well as see the attached offending accts terminated, but it can take a moment, and sometimes the reviews numbers stay up while things cache/refresh. Admin are inundated, plus they're working on implementing a whole new site at the same time, apparently, with a v tiny staff.
So while an author doesn't have as much direct control over deletion, the report process IMO is simpler than AO3's. It's smthg of a trade-off.
(Have yet to encounter things on SqWA, but reporting on tumblr and on pillowfort, where else I post, falls somewhere btwn FFN and AO3. 🤷♀️)
Unfortunately for me, all of the ones I've gotten on FFN are direct PMs. Luckily the scammers are pretty obvious but reporting them is kind of annoying because you still have go through the email form.
My above comment rly was just pertaining to comments/reviews on stories. But for the PMs on FFN (which has its pros and, in this case, clear cons 🥲), I can offer one suggestion, esp if you end up with a lot at once, as I've done this in the past—
Send *one* email to FFN's support email, with a subject line along the lines of "Reporting multiple scambot accounts." And then just list both the usernames and associated user IDs, in list format. 👍 Since there isn't rly an email form over there, just emails for folks to use (as well as specific topic tags to include in the subject lines), this might be easier for you, that way you don't hafta send so many emails. IME, one of the Zacks gets to it fairly quickly.
Sending some good vibes your way, fellow FFN user! :'3
Wait, where are you getting your information?! From what I've found, FFN only updates their Twitter/X once in a blue moon and I can't find any other source of news from them.
The FFN admins are almost completely silent as far as I can tell, to the point where I sometimes genuinely wonder if anyone is still running the site anymore or if it's been left to drift through space on autopilot ._.
Their very belated crackdown on the spambots was the first sign of life I'd seen from them in quite a while, and even then, I could only tell they were doing it because when I went to routinely block a new batch of spammers, the accounts had already been suspended, which was a refreshing change from the previous year of unchecked spambot hell.
I've been blogging about this situation on pillowfort for over a yr now (bc folks talk about this occurring on IG and dA, etc, too; my posts on the topic are locked to logged-in-users there, tho 😅), but aside from my first-hand experience on FFN, I check forums over there as well as use Nitter to stay on top of their Twt/X bc I don't have an acct there.
Their last post was from Sept 3rd, but they've been moderately active. And Admin/Staff are deffo tackling these things across sites, wherever users are posting. (I know tumblr nips things p quickly.)
They rly aren't silent, tho; they're just a small team.
It's hard to tell with Twitter/X because tweets are now posted in a COMPLETELY RANDOM order as far as I can tell, rather than chronologically. X'''D I can't find a way to sort tweets by date rather than by whatever insane metrics the algorithm uses (???). At least, I can't find a way to do it as an anon; maybe that's something you can only do if you're logged in?? Who knows.
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