Fanfiction.net has too many spammers

I am, like: old... and stuff. I was there in Lollapolooza moshing to the Beastie Boys. As such my leadin to the fanfiction universe was fanfiction.net. So when I started writing, that's where I went. It was a pretty decent place up to 2018ish. You could still get noticed. I didn't want ArchiveOfOurOwn on account it looked like it was being branched-out for housewife smut. I play it G to PG-13.

I am pondering a switch these days. And no, not because I'm horny.

When I posted my latest attempt woo-hoo, I got six emails. But that was weird, because I didn't actually get six hits on the story! On a read through these mails, they were all quick reads. Why? Because five of them were advertisements, all on the same theme. (The sixth had "questions". I responded to that one. I noted all the spam I got in case that's what this one is after. And today a seventh showed up also sniffing for commission.)

I noted that (now) seven out of seven presented as female, or female-coded. Hmmm. What are the - oh wait, I have a statistics degree and am a Dungeon Master. I know those odds! 1 among 2⁷ = 128. Sex sells. Or it might if I weren't old and still gave a toss.

I suspect ff.net's spam problem is why so many authors leave their fix unfinished and quietly avoid the place anymore. I am certain spam is why AO3, for their part, makes applicants wait so long before admitting them as users. (If I'm blocked thence, that'll be because of my social-credit. Because it's a smut site, and sinners don't want to hear from the saints - nor from those of us in Communion with them.)

I report spam to support@fanfiction.net with the [abuse] header, but I never hear back what action be taken. FF might consider commission-begging as part of the experience. FF might even take money to look the other way.

I reported them anyway. I don't much want to give the five (more like seven) spammers free exposure on this blog so, I'll not drop their names here. Some of those idjits were dumb enough to include their gmail and discord.

I'll go further: commission spammers, even if honest artists, are driving people like us off the human art and into the arms of AI. We simply don't want to deal with their ilk anymore. That the spammers are certainly on AI themselves doesn't matter.