Opting out of gifts

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2022-02-04 21:31:39 UTC

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In the next few days, we'll be rolling out a new preference to give users more control over who can give them gift works. This change is an important step in our ongoing work to give users more options to control their experience on the Archive and limit unwanted interactions.

The preference will be called "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes."

When this preference is enabled, any AO3 user will be able to give you a work. That's the current behavior on the Archive, and it will be the default behavior for all existing users.

When the preference is disabled, the only users who will be able to give you works are users who have either been assigned to create a fanwork for you in a gift exchange or claimed one of your non-anonymous prompts in a prompt meme. In other words, if you absolutely do not want to receive gifts from anyone, you can disable this preference and avoid signing up for challenges.

The preference will be disabled by default for accounts created after the roll out. (We'd usually disable any new preferences by default, but allowing gifts is necessary to avoid interfering with ongoing challenges.)

If a user has the preference disabled and you attempt to give them an unrequested gift, you will receive an error message telling you the user does not allow gifts.

The preference only applies to new gifts, so you will still be able to edit any existing gifts without removing the recipient.

Your Gifts page will remain accessible regardless of whether you've enabled or disabled the preference. You will still be able to refuse existing or new gifts.

Wait, what?

If you're an existing AO3 user, nothing will change unless you update your preferences.
If you never want to receive gift works, you can uncheck "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes" on your preferences page and avoid signing up for any challenges.

We'll update this post to let you know when the changes have been deployed.

Update 10:10 UTC 6 February 2022: These changes have now been deployed.

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gostaks Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:39AM UTC

There are a lot of settings on the preferences page! I know I didn't read through the whole thing until I'd had an ao3 account for a couple years. Like a lot of other people who have commented, I suspect that turning gifting off by default will lead to a lot of people never realizing that the setting exists. (I think this would be a shame, because gifts are great. Also, you can harass people in the comments of fics too, and commenting is turned on by default.) Still, I recognize the reason why you've chosen to make this change and I appreciate that turning off gifting is now an option.
As an alternate suggestion, would you consider some sort of notification or account setup step that tells new users about the gift function and asks them whether they'd like to opt into gifting? This could also be an opportunity to let people pick other user interaction settings like turning off comments on their fics by default.

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Nyris_Aaeryon Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:48AM UTC

My gods, this is all so unnecessary. Why won't you just give us an actual block function already?

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1. zessa Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:09AM UTC
  
  Yes, because a block function will keep a troll from creating many accounts, and continuing to send you nasty things.
  (That was sarcasm, to be clear.)
  A block function is not magic. You still need these sorts of options.
  Edited to fix a typo
  
  Last Edited Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:41AM UTC
  
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2. Khrysoprase Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:11AM UTC
  
  They've stated several times that they're working on it. It's something they've explicitly stated they are working to implement. I don't know why you're acting as if they aren't? Do you think this feature existing means a block feature cannot? Because multiple features can exist simultaneously.
  
  Last Edited Sun 06 Feb 2022 06:02PM UTC
  
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3. verhalen Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:23AM UTC
  
  Besides the fact that a particularly dedicated troll can make other accounts, there might be reason to refuse a gift fic while not wanting to necessarily block the giver.
  Person A leaves nice comments on Person B's M-rated/E-rated fic. Person B decides to write Person A an E-rated gift fic, not knowing that Person A can't accept because this is their main which is T-rated where their mom/grandma/whatever reads the fic and they don't want Mom or Grandma to know they're in horny jail. Person A still wants to read the fic on the downlow.
  Person C might have drawn art for Person D's fic and Person D doesn't really like it but thinks Person C is a good bean and doesn't want to block them. Person D deals with a lot of Person Cs because their fic is popular and would like to just disable gifts altogether to stop having to say "no please don't."
  I could go on and on.
  I do really wish that we had a more nuanced set of options rather than "all or nothing", like "no gifts unless they come from $USERNAME_A and $USERNAME_B", but anyway this is a long-winded way of saying a block function is good and we need it badly, I'm with you on wanting one ASAP, but this is still necessary.
  
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Edonohana Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:54AM UTC

I suggest that instead of making it "gifts not allowed" by default, that the user has to choose whether or not to enable gifts when they set up their account. That way there's no possibility of any of the problems caused by making no gifts the default. Anyone creating a new account must actively choose whether or not they want to be able to receive gifts.

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1. nahsikaya Tue 08 Feb 2022 06:10AM UTC
  
  Seconded. I think it's really important that new users know that allowing/not allowing gifts is a choice and that they're presented with the opportunity to actively choose for themselves.
  
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twb Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:28AM UTC

thank you!

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moonbathingrite Sun 06 Feb 2022 07:33AM UTC

I'm amazed at how the simplest, sincerest thing to exist can always be turned into something malicious. I never thought that authors could experience harassment via gifts until today.

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autumnsong Sun 06 Feb 2022 10:43AM UTC

Could you possibly adjust the wording on the settings page so that it more accurately reflects what this option does?
Currently it says "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes", which implies that if you have it unchecked, you can still receive gift works in gift exchanges. However, that's only partially true, because your ability to receive gifts in fic exchanges is in fact severely limited by leaving it unchecked, in so far as you can only receive a work from your assigned author and no one else, and treats are not a possibility anymore.
I feel at the very least, people should be told the truth about what exactly they're opting into or out of.

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1. chicago_ruth Sun 06 Feb 2022 04:02PM UTC
  
  I'm seconding this! The wording is extremely confusing and I can already foresee issues within gift exchanges from people who misunderstand this.
  
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2. Elsin Sun 06 Feb 2022 07:09PM UTC
  
  The ? bubble explanation is more accurate, but also probably going to be seen by fewer people, since it isn't right there in front of you.
  
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3. 1. autumnsong Sun 06 Feb 2022 08:18PM UTC
    
    The problem is that the "Allow others to give me gift works outside gift exchanges and prompt memes" sounds clear to someone who reads it, so most people wouldn't even think to check the in-depth explanation and realize that the original text is misleading.
    
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lovelit Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:28AM UTC

I see from other comments that allowing for treats in exchanges but outside of assignments was considered but decided against: my question is whether there's any possibility that this could be a three-way toggle with that as an option, rather than a flat yes/no? So users could choose between "all gifts allowed", "only gifts fulfilling an assignment/claimed prompt" or "only gifts within exchanges you're signed up for". If it's possible on the coding side of things, I think giving users that little bit of extra control would go a long way.

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1. Topaz_Eyes Mon 07 Feb 2022 06:50PM UTC
  
  I see from other comments that allowing for treats in exchanges but outside of assignments was considered but decided against
  The replies from AO3 staff also state that's because anyone can submit works to an exchange collection. You need to be signed up to receive an exchange gift; you don't have to be signed up to write a fic for the exchange.
  
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2. 1. lovelit Mon 07 Feb 2022 09:22PM UTC
    
    I did read the full replies, yes. That's why my question was whether it could be a third option - so, opt-in for everyone - that would let users basically say "okay, I am willing to take the risk that a harasser will be dedicated enough that they go through and find an open exchange I'm signed up to in order to post harassing gifts, but don't want to be open to unsolicited gifts from just out in the void". And anyone who wasn't interested in running that risk or who did want the option for gifts fully outside of exchanges would simply use one of the two current options.
    
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  2. 1. Topaz_Eyes Mon 07 Feb 2022 10:13PM UTC
      
      If exchanges were set up so that treating was limited only to the participants in an exchange, with no treats allowed from non-participants, then your third option could work. That's not how exchanges are set up on AO3, where currently anyone can write for an exchange without signing up for it.
      
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verhalen Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:31AM UTC

Staff: will there possibly be a future tweak to this where we can allow gifts from specific users outside of gift exchanges and prompt memes, like someone might want to disable gifts generally because they've been harassed or are wary of potential harassment but would be OK allowing it from a couple of their friends? I really wish this wasn't all-or-nothing. To be clear, I support people being able to opt out of gifts because I know very well this can and does get used for harassment, and I would rather have this than nothing at all, but it also still seems unfair to the person wanting to protect themselves from harassment to make them disallow all gifts ever unless they sign up for an exchange [and a lot of us who've been harassed don't... do... exchanges...].
[And yes I am very aware someone could just be like "this goes out to So-and-So" in the summary or author's note BUT the Gifts page is handy for finding things right away especially when one has a lot of bookmarks and/or the author has a lot of works, so a non-gift dedication is less convenient than it being a gift.]

Last Edited Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:35AM UTC

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drozdoff Sun 06 Feb 2022 06:14PM UTC

Maybe you'll consider updates that actually improve AO3 experience like blacklisting tags/works/users?

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1. Mireille Sun 06 Feb 2022 09:35PM UTC
  
  This *is* an update that actually improves AO3 experience. There are definitely some kinks to work out with the feature, but "harassment via gift" is an actual thing. (And rejecting the gift is not enough, because you've had to see a gift whose title is nothing but slurs and abuse in order to reject it.)
  
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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 01:57AM UTC

The #1 feature we need is to be able to filter by/against reader fics.

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1. grommile Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:13PM UTC
  
  To clarify, is that "filter out all works with 'Reader/X' as a relationship tag, without having to individually exclude every imaginable Reader/X tag"?
  (If so, then that certainly sounds like a good thing to have.)
  
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2. 1. tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:42PM UTC
    
    Correct, this is what is needed, especially as Reader fics overpopulate the "new" fics in certain fandoms, driving the new non-second person fics to the bottom of the results. Ugh, it's just so bad.
    
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3. eelia_faustus Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:21PM UTC
  
  This can already be done with the current tagging system by including/excluding the reader tag among the characters. As always, though, it works properly only if the fics are properly tagged by their authors.
  
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4. 1. tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:40PM UTC
    
    No, it doesn't. Because most of reader fics are of the "shipping" variety, not the gen variety, and so you have to do something like: -"*/Reader" in the "also exclude" search box which doesn't work everytime and you can mistype it incredibly easily.
    Seriously, I can't believe that "Oh people need to be able to not-be-gifted fanworks" is somehow more important than helping people get to the content they want.
    
    Last Edited Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:42PM UTC
    
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  2. 1. eelia_faustus Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:49PM UTC
      
      If you ship Canonical Character A with Canonical Character B in your fic you put both of them in the characters section as well, though. Which is the same with Reader fics: Reader is always a character in shippy fics with them as part of a ship. Or should be, if people tagged properly. It's part of the very well known issue of tagging (in)correctly with the tagging system we already have.
      
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    2. 1. tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 04:04PM UTC
        
        No, that's not true.
        If you're looking for a particular ship, you just go to the tag for that ship, "John Doe/Jane Smith"--and then filter/sort from within the tag already.
        If you're looking for something new within a fandom, you can't get rid of the reader fics that are clogging up the front page very easily at all, other than what I already said.
        
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      2. grommile Tue 08 Feb 2022 12:02PM UTC
        
        There are valid reasons to apply a relationship tag but leave out one or more of the character tags; a story can be about a relationship while not actually featuring all the parties thereto.
        Also, some people are just bad at tagging; being able to use wildcard filtering on relationship tags has clear positive utility to Archive users.
        
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    3. themoonandstars1989 Mon 07 Feb 2022 05:52PM UTC
      
      I'm all for any changes that prevent harassment and that it should be prioritize over readers who just have to click through some more pages or filter out some more tags just to get content others posted on AO3. No one should suffer through targeted harassment. The backend/inner workings of making any small changes to the site requires a lot of work, especially since this site is run by volunteers who has lives and work outside of AO3.
      But, for your issue, have you considered using browser extensions or various scripts that are out there, e.g. AO3 Enhancements for Chrome? I use many to customize my AO3 experience to my liking, so I can spend less time browsing through pages and filtering out fics I know I will not read. There are some out there that are great in filtering out works based on tags, languages, authors and if the work has too many fandoms listed, etc. It's your own curtailed blocklist that you can add or remove from.
      Here is also the admin post on some hidden search operators that can help with your search/filtering.
      
      Last Edited Mon 07 Feb 2022 05:56PM UTC
      
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    4. 1. tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:24PM UTC
        
        I'm mostly on android. Thanks for attempting to help, even though your entire first paragraph is not, in fact, helpful at all.
        
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      2. themoonandstars1989 Mon 07 Feb 2022 08:36PM UTC
        
        I’m mostly reacting to this bit you wrote:
        ‘Seriously, I can't believe that "Oh people need to be able to not-be-gifted fanworks" is somehow more important than helping people get to the content they want.’
        Either it’s a poor choice of words, or you really think you deserve to get the content that you want in as easily fashion as possible, which is little self-serving in my opinion, while ignoring why having 'opting out of gifts' is needed.
        I applaud for the change as someone who experienced harassment via gifts in the past. Unlike filtering and customizing the website to suit our needs, which we can do without AO3 input, we can’t opted out of gifts unanimously and with no interaction on our part without AO3 changing the backend. This is one less tool harassers can use in their arsenals and will make a better user experience in the long-run.
        
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5. (Previous comment deleted.)
6. 1. tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:25PM UTC
    
    Is anyone actually reading this thread? I already explained why this doesn't work.
    Again, authors do not tag the reader independently of the ship and therefore the reader fics FLOOD the fandom.
    
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Acorn_Squash Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:45PM UTC

This is a good idea, thanks for making this change!

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Yemi Hikari (Yemi_Hikari) Tue 08 Feb 2022 06:01PM UTC

So, I'm with the others who've commented that if the default is to have gifting turned off for new users, then they need to be informed when they sign up, not after the fact, particularly in a place they might end up skipping and thus never seeing.

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gostaks Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:39AM UTC

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Nyris_Aaeryon Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:48AM UTC

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zessa Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:09AM UTC

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Khrysoprase Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:11AM UTC

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verhalen Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:23AM UTC

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Edonohana Sun 06 Feb 2022 02:54AM UTC

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nahsikaya Tue 08 Feb 2022 06:10AM UTC

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twb Sun 06 Feb 2022 03:28AM UTC

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moonbathingrite Sun 06 Feb 2022 07:33AM UTC

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autumnsong Sun 06 Feb 2022 10:43AM UTC

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chicago_ruth Sun 06 Feb 2022 04:02PM UTC

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Elsin Sun 06 Feb 2022 07:09PM UTC

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autumnsong Sun 06 Feb 2022 08:18PM UTC

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lovelit Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:28AM UTC

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Topaz_Eyes Mon 07 Feb 2022 06:50PM UTC

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lovelit Mon 07 Feb 2022 09:22PM UTC

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Topaz_Eyes Mon 07 Feb 2022 10:13PM UTC

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verhalen Sun 06 Feb 2022 11:31AM UTC

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drozdoff Sun 06 Feb 2022 06:14PM UTC

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Mireille Sun 06 Feb 2022 09:35PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 01:57AM UTC

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grommile Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:13PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:42PM UTC

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eelia_faustus Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:21PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:40PM UTC

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eelia_faustus Mon 07 Feb 2022 03:49PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 04:04PM UTC

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grommile Tue 08 Feb 2022 12:02PM UTC

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themoonandstars1989 Mon 07 Feb 2022 05:52PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:24PM UTC

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themoonandstars1989 Mon 07 Feb 2022 08:36PM UTC

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tamarama Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:25PM UTC

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Acorn_Squash Mon 07 Feb 2022 07:45PM UTC

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Yemi Hikari (Yemi_Hikari) Tue 08 Feb 2022 06:01PM UTC

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