I know placeholders are common here on Wattpad, but they are against AO3's Terms of Service and rules.
AO3 is an archive for fanfic, not social media. Placeholders are not technically fanfic (or fandom meta) and so will be treated as a violation.
AO3 does not allow non-fanworks. Fic requests, placeholders, and fic search posts are not allowed to be posted as works.
Again, AO3 does not have an algorithm. Wattpad users migrating to AO3 have no need for placeholders, as there is no algorithm to game. Furthermore, placeholders are annoying as fuck for readers who click on a fic with tantalizing tags, summary, and title only to find "To be written" or "will be posting soon" in the actual body of the work and nothing else.
Do not do it.
Simply post the fanfic to AO3 when you are ready to post it or save it as a draft and then post the whole work when ready. IF you post a placeholder fic, somebody who uses AO3 regularly will report it for violating AO3's TOS. The AO3 community is very touchy about this sort of thing.
To quote Tumblr user olderthannetfic: "AO3 is not Wattpad where unpopular stuff sinks out of sight and isn't bothering anyone: your non-fanwork cruft clogs up everyone's search results.
Nobody should be posting non-fanworks in the first place, but if you're going to post some crap you don't want others looking at, you should find an unrevealed collection and stick it in there. That way, it stays out of search results."
For that matter, here is a list of things that are common here on Wattpad but are NOT allowed on AO3:
* "help me find this fic" posts (not fanfic, not fanworks)
* tag collections with "just ignore" in the summary (again, not fanworks)
* "can someone please write..." fic requests
* "I'm keeping a list of these tags for myself"
* episode liveblogs that are not meta analysis
* story idea collections / headcanon collections / character profiles and bios
AO3 is not social media. It is not a blogging/roleplay hunting platform. Go make your own Tumblr for that; get back on LiveJournal, MySpace, or Dreamwidth; or go to the Forums section of FanFiction.Net.
YOU ARE READING
A Wattpad User's Guide to AO3
RandomTutorial/Guide for Wattpad users who are migrating to AO3, have never used it before, and/or are unfamiliar with the culture/etiquette on AO3. Written by a Fandom Old who has been using the Archive of Our Own since 2011.
