I feel like this little orange hellsite has gotten a HUGE influx of new members fairly recently (mostly in the past two years). At the same time, I've also seen some long-time accounts discussing how these newer people aren't sure how to work the site/app or the typical customs practiced on it. Most learn through experience, but with the particularly heavy flood of new users since the pandemic, instead of learning from people who've been around for a while, they're all communing together and, especially in comment sections, outnumbering so-called "veterans" of this place. Therefore, I decided to make this little chapter about Wattpad etiquette— or, as I call it, Wattiquette.

This is not to shame anyone who's new or who doesn't know these things/has done some of the negative things mentioned. It's meant to help you learn! If you join any sort of platform, it's going to take some time to understand how it works (hell, I've been on Tumblr since 2012 and I still get confused on how to work certain aspects of it). This is especially true if you are exclusively a reader or exclusively a writer on here. There are things about reading on here that writers may not know, and things on the writers' end that readers-only may not know.

As another disclaimer, I am not the end-all of Wattiquette, which is why I'm dedicating a space at the end for my fellow Wattpad creators/readers to add anything I may have missed. I've been on here for a decade now, so I've learned a thing or two, but I'm not an expert on the way this site works.

Without further ado, let's get into it.

THE BASICS

— IF YOU WANT EASY ACCESS TO A BOOK YOU'RE READING OR WANT TO READ, ADD IT TO YOUR LIBRARY. Your library is private — visible only to you — and you can have tons of different books in there; I don't think there's a limit, but I could be wrong. You can choose how to sort your library to your liking and make it easiest for you to find books. Authors do not get notified when you add their books to your library. It's completely confidential. Adding something to your library allows you to get notified when new chapters are posted.

— TO FURTHER ORGANIZE BOOKS YOU'RE INTERESTED IN, MAKE READING LISTS ON YOUR PROFILE. This is an efficient way to keep track of certain fandoms, tropes, languages, completed/ongoing statuses, etc. You can organize these in any way you like. Want all of your English stories in one place? Boom. Want a list of the stories you haven't read yet, but are interested in, so they don't get lost among the chaos? Boom. Want a special list dedicated to your favorite stories so you can read them again and again? Boom.

Please note that authors do get notified when you add their story to a reading list. It will say "username added storytitle to readinglisttitle" in their notifications. For example, if I added someone's story to my teen wolf reading list, it would tell them, "stilestastic added teen wolf fanfic to teen wolf". It is generally frowned upon to create reading lists for stories you didn't like for this reason. Authors will be notified that you added their story to something like "Trash" or "Books I hate" or "Couldn't get into it." If you don't like a story, simply remove it from your library and move on.

— THE LITTLE STAR ICON AT THE BOTTOM LEFT OF THE READING PAGE IS THE VOTE BUTTON. It's the equivalent of leaving kudos on AO3; it's basically letting someone know you enjoyed their work or a little acknowledgement that you were there. You can vote once per chapter. This is how most writers gauge reader engagement since the "reads" count isn't very reliable as it goes up every time someone comes back to the chapter. This means... if you like a story, VOTE! Simply reading will not tell an author that you enjoyed a work. The author will have no idea you exist. The millisecond it takes to press the button means the world to us!

— IF YOU LIKE AN AUTHOR'S WORK, FOLLOW THEM! That way, you will be able to read any announcements they send to their followers so you can be aware of any future works, updates, etc, and get notified when they publish something new!

— THOSE LITTLE "REACTION" THINGS AT THE TOP OF COMMENT SECTIONS DON'T GIVE US NOTIFICATIONS. I sometimes don't even notice them until years later. Most authors prefer comments and votes to those.

— PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BE A SILENT READER! A silent reader is someone who reads a book without interacting whatsoever— no votes or comments. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a book of mine added to a reading list like "Favorite books of all time" and yet this is the first time I've seen them in my notifications.

We authors love to engage with our audience. Nothing makes me happier than seeing comments and votes in my notifications. It tells us that people appreciate the time and effort we've put into creating the chapter, that they're excited to continue on, etc. If you don't vote or comment, how will we know you liked the story? In terms of writing for free, when the continuation of our Wattpad "careers" are essentially based on feedback, it's so important to show authors love.

Some people have said they never interact with stories because they get nervous or scared. Please, don't be intimidated? Not sure what to say? A simple "I loved this chapter. Thank you for writing it!" will absolutely make an author's day. It does not have to be something outlandish or a 5-paragraph essay about how a chapter made you feel.

— DON'T WORRY ABOUT COMMENTING "TOO MUCH". I love the people who spam my notifications with 300 comments on a single chapter of a book as they read. It makes me so happy!! Knowing that people are engaged enough to comment that much makes the vast majority of authors on here so excited. I'm not kidding when I say we will remember you. Some of my closest friendships on here began because they commented a lot and it allowed us to develop a relationship.

— THAT BEING SAID... THERE ARE SOME EXCEPTIONS ABOUT COMMENTING.  So I've told you about what to comment and why it's important. But what about what you shouldn't comment?

Of course, any rudeness, hate, or anything of that sort is off-limits. If you don't like a story, literally just click off of it. This isn't a library of published works where the author will get paid because you at least bought the story. They're producing this content for free, and commenting how much you hate their work is the equivalent of hate mail. If the book is hateful in some way, like it has racist themes/expresses vile hate speech/is super problematic, then of course it's okay to mention that in the comments, but going off about an OC you didn't like in the author's comments is just lame.

Criticizing someone's work in their comment section like you're a literary critic is also lame. Unless someone explicitly asks for constructive criticism (note constructive criticism, not just criticism), don't supply it. For example, I often write about communities (ethnic groups, religions, sexualities) that I am not a part of myself, so I ask my readers who do belong to those groups to please correct me if I get anything wrong.

Some other forms of comment-specific etiquette can vary from author to author. However, here are some commonly-disliked things some people do:
— Commenting an entire song line by line. The comment section is a place for people to interact in ways that are relevant to the story. It can be disappointing to see that you've received a new comment, only for it to be yet another person commenting a line from Hamilton in a thread that someone started in 2017. And I say this as a fan of Hamilton. It's okay to comment song lyrics if a line/scene reminds you of them, but just don't make it a humongous thread.
—Having personal conversations with another person that go on forever. It can be awkward as an author to witness two people going back and forth for 2 weeks about random stuff. I'm talking about people who are like "What do you like?" "I like X, Y, and Z!" "Oh cool! I like those things too! What did you think of the newest episode of X?" and I'm just watching it like 🧍🏼‍♀️ There are private messages for a reason.
— Commenting something that's already been commented like 48281 times on the same paragraph. There's a comment section in my book Different where like 300+ people commented "newtie cutie" and it literally took me going in there SEVERAL TIMES asking future
commenters not to add onto it for them to finally listen. It was very annoying.
—Referring to an OC with first person pronouns like "me/I/us/we". They are original characters, not reader-inserts.
—Commenting "Update" or demanding updates. It's different if you say, "Can't wait for the next update!" or something, but just commenting "UPDATE" is the equivalent of going up to Joe Keery after the newest season of Stranger Things and yelling in his face, "BE IN MORE TV SHOWS NOW." We understand that you're excited to see what happens next, but it feels very discouraging, and might make us demotivated to write that story.

— IF SOMEONE IS REALLY BOTHERING YOU, YOU CAN MUTE THEM. This is the equivalent to blocking them. It means you won't be able to interact with them at all.

— DON'T ADVERTIZE YOUR STORY ON ANOTHER PERSON'S BOOK OR ACCOUNT. Some people like to find popular books in a certain genre/fandom and use them to place an advertisement for their own story. Or I've had people post the same thing on my message board. Unless people are asking for recommendations, it's a very rude thing to do, and odds are that your comment or message will just get deleted, possibly with the addition of you getting muted.

— YOU CAN ONLY SEND THREE (3) ANNOUNCEMENTS TO YOUR FOLLOWERS ON YOUR MESSAGE BOARD PER DAY. If you post more than three, even if the "announce this to your followers" option is ticked, your followers will not be notified. Pick and choose which things you want them to see!

— DON'T GIVE AUTHORS SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT TO WRITE UNLESS THEY'RE ASKING FOR IDEAS. Sometimes people will come onto my message board or PM me asking me to make a fanfic for The Walking Dead. I've never seen The Walking Dead. Therefore I will not write a fanfic for it. Most authors are already juggling a bunch of new stories and ideas they just haven't published yet, so don't give them more to worry about. Don't worry— new content is probably still coming (and for a topic they want to write about).

— DON'T STEAL PEOPLE'S WORK. This is a given but still needs to be taken. Do not take other people's story ideas, covers, graphics, titles, characters, plots, etc. The original author will find out one way or another. Come up with something original. Feel like you aren't good at making covers? There are plenty of graphic/cover shops all over Wattpad. Don't know how to make a character? You should probably just learn about that, since it's a skill necessary for writing fiction, so do proper research. Can't think of a good plot idea and you just love that one scene from another fanfic so you want to paste it into yours with minimal changes? 🚨🚨🚨NO!!!🚨🚨🚨 *bops you with roll of newspaper* NO!!!

TL;DR: Interact with stories. Don't be an asshole. Don't steal.

If there are any points I've missed and you feel they should be included, please comment them here (on this paragraph). Anything that's helpful for people on Wattpad to know about etiquette is welcome. I will put some of them in the chapter with credit. I'm mostly looking for things across the board, not isolated incidents of "this one time, a single user did this."

Whether you're new here or have been lurking here since the dawn of civilization — or are somewhere in the middle — I hope you learned something.

Tagging some people who I think can provide some valuable insights, or maybe would just like to share this so others outside of my followers/readers will see it: nocturnalamp silentwishing cryptidminds starryeyedturtle tinkertaydust vividparacosm volbeats crownsmist nightwvngs HannahDottier -isaaclahey Iydiamartin xonceuponatimex metalbenders supernovass violadavis KleeAlise11 beesunbee luckyvirgo

I tried to include a bunch of different people to get diverse opinions! (Also check all of these people out, they're amazing!) I wish I could've just tagged everyone I follow but that would've taken forever. So if you aren't tagged, I'm sorry, I'm probably just lazy.

Thanks for reading! Also this wasn't edited before I published it and I wrote it all in one sitting in a flurry of passion while eating ravioli so my apologies if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes.