Trace: • Fanfic Site Support

Table of Contents

Fanfic Site Support

This page describes the support various fanfic publishing platforms have for typographical and publishing standards, in particular HTML, and for discoverability standards, such as RSS.

Legend

Y = yes, the characteristic is supported
p = partial support
? = undetermined / untested
n = no, the characteristic is unsupported

Content Elements

Basic Typography

“Basic Typography” are the syntax elements considered in Mozilla Developer Network's article on "HTML text fundamentals", that is the basic elements to typeset a webpage: text emphasis, paragraphs, lists and spacing.

Site AO3 PokéCommunity DokuWiki engine BBCode general Canalave Library Thousand Roads Etherpad general FF.net
<p> Paragraphs Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
<h1>…
Headings 		Y Y Y Y ? Y [1] Y ?
<ul> Lists Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
<ol> Lists Y Y Y Y Y Y Y ?
Nesting lists Y Y Y p ? ? ? ?
<em>
Emphasis 		Y N Y Y ? ? Y ?
<strong>
Importance 		Y N Y Y ? ? Y ?
<i> Italics Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
<b> Bold Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
<u> Underline Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

Notes:

[1] Thousand Roads implements headings in BBCode as follows: 

<h1>${text}</h1> => [heading=1] ${text} [/heading]

Text Support

English is not the only language out there, and even then letter glyphs are not the only form of expression. For publication to be accessible to an international world, platforms have to support Unicode or at least extended Latin scripts, both in rendering and for internal storage.

Site AO3 BBCode engines FF.net
Extended Punctuation
Latin Extended A & B
(Unicode 1.1)
Letterlike Symbols
(Unicode 3.2)
Arrows_(Unicode_block)
Unicode support in the renderer

Extended Typography

This section covers typographical elements that are Standard on the web but are not covered under “basic” (newspaper-like) typography. This section also focus on the “web” part of the web ie.: hyperlinking and metadata.

Site AO3 PokéCommunity DokuWiki engine FF.net
Same-site links Y Y Y p
General / Outbound links Y Y p n
Interwiki p n Y n
<sup> Superscript
<sub> Subscript 		Y Y Y ?
<q> Cite Y n Y n
<abbrv>
Abbreviations 		Y Y Y n
<ruby>
Furigana annotations 		Y Y Y n
Inline code blocks Y Y Y n
Inline quotes Y ? ? n

Notes:

PokéCommunity might support inline quotes via user-level PokéCommunity CSS, pending their migration to Xenforo.

DokuWiki supports Furigana annotations and inline quotes via plugins.

Media and Hypermedia

Besides text, it's also possible to convey information with media. However this is sometimes too advanced for even the best of sites.

For this section, only (mostly) unrestricted support for media preferring free formats is accounted for.

Site AO3 General BBCode engines DokuWiki engine FF.net
Store images n P [1] P [2] n
Link images Y Y Y n
Embed images Y Y Y N/A
Store music n P [1] P [2] n
Link music Y Y Y n
Embed music Y Y Y N/A

Notes

[1] Depending on the particular platform there are restrictions on how many contents can be uploaded, subject also to size or format constraints.

[2] Depending on the particular site there are restrictions on the size or format that content can be uploaded with.

Layout

Site PokéCommunity AO3 DokuWiki engine Etherpad general FF.net
Indent blocks Y Y Y p n
Column layout Y Y Y n n
Float Layout Model Y Y ? n n
Grid Layout Model Y Y ? n n
<hr> Spacer line Y Y Y Y Y

Notes:

PokéCommunity supports column layout, grid layout and float boxes via user-level PokéCommunity CSS.

Discoverability

Site AO3 PokéCommunity DokuWiki engine FF.net
Open Read Y [1] Y Y [2] Y
Embeds to ActivityPub
RSS for publication Y Y Y Y
RSS for
section / index 		Y Y p Y

Notes

[1] In AO3, the author can set their stories to be accessible to site members only.

[2] In a Dokuwiki engine, the author can set their content to be accessible to site members only.

Signing

No matter how good the site's support is, it's useless if an author can't create, maintain and control an account. For this there are a number of open Standards and this section describes the support for those across various platforms.

Site AO3 BBCode general FF.net
Registration via
e-mail 		Y [1] Y [2] Y [2]
Registration via
OpenID 		n n n
Registration via
ActivityPub 		n n n
Syndicate remote document n n n
Upload remote document p
[3][4] 		p [3] p [4]

Notes

[1] Signing in is subject to an approval queue.

[2] Subject to rules of the site's administrator.

[3] It is possible usually to “copy” a document to a rich-text editor.

[4] In addition to [3], it is usually possible to store a document copy in a format suitable for publication.

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