Kudos

Kudos is the praise and honor received for an achievement.
In fandom, it is a term co-opted by Archive of Our Own.
==Some Examples of Fannish Use Before AO3==
===1978===
===1997===
==The Archive of Our Own Kudos==
The kudos button on AO3 is a form of feedback that allows fans to give a "thumbs up" to a fanwork without having to leave a comment. 
Kudos probably had origins in the "Like" feature on Facebook. It was introduced to the archive on December 15, 2010, and an admin reported four months later that archive users had already hit the kudos button 200,000 times.Commenting and kudos on the AO3 - some stats!. AO3 News post, 2011-04-06. (Accessed 8 June 2014) Before the kudos feature was introduced, the only AO3 feature for authors and readers to talk to each other was the comments section on individual fanwork pages. (The AO3 comment function is roughly equivalent to Fanfiction.net's story reviews, but is more visually similar to LiveJournal comments.) Many other social media platforms offer similar functions. For example, on tumblr fans can show their appreciation by clicking on the "Like" button.
Some fans like this feature as it allows them to give the fanwork creator a compliment without having to put a lot of time or effort into their response. Some fans are not as enamored of the kudos feature as they feel it takes away the chance for conversation and discourse. 
In 2014, arsenicjade attempted to locate sources of the pro and anti-kudos debate. The essay can be read in its entirety here.
In 2018, ao3commentoftheday conducted a poll to determine whether authors and readers interpreted the meaning of a kudos differently: in the replies, longlivefeedback noted that "There has been some discussion as to whether authors attribute less positive meanings to kudos than people who are only readers, and the answer to that appears to be a firm yes." , 16 January 2018.
==Fanworks with the Most Kudos==
In June 2014, the fanwork with the most kudos on the AO3 was DILF by twentysomething, with 11777 kudos.DILF by twentysomething. Posted 2012-08-16 in the Teen Wolf fandom. Found via the Works Search function on 8 June 2014. However, by 29 August 2014, it had been dethroned by I Am Groot, with 12867 kudos.I Am Groot by sherlocksmythe. Posted 2014-08-04 in the Guardians of the Galaxy fandom. Found via the Works Search function on 29 August 2014.As of 8 August 2015, I Am Groot was still in the lead, but DILF had slipped to third place, after Twist and Shout, a Supernatural fanfic posted 1 August 2014. 
As of 2023, All the Young Dudes is now in the lead, with over 130 thousand kudos.Found via the Works Search function on 3 February 2023. 137,324 kudos!
As of February 2023, the top ten fanworks sorted by kudos on the archive are:Found via the Works Search function on 3 Februay 2023.
* All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 (Harry Potter)
* I Am Groot by sherlocksmyth (Guardians of the Galaxy)
* passerine by blujamas (Dream SMP)
*Yesterday Upon The Stair by PitViperOfDoom (My Hero Academia)
* In Another Life by LittleLuxray (Haikyuu!!)
*a reylo fic by treezie (Star Wars)
* count your blessings, not your flaws by PitViperofDoom (My Hero Academia)
* Then Comes a Mist and a Weeping Rain by Faith Wood (faithwood) (Harry Potter) 
* Deku? I think he's some pro... by Clouds (My Hero Academia)
* Hero Class Civil Warfare by RogueDruid (Icarius51) (My Hero Academia)
==Pros==
[Note: points and examples welcomed]
*Kudos are technological friendly (ex: some users of mobile devices have limited ability to type)jokiddingright Link; fail-fandomanon Link.
*Kudos enable those who cannot comment in English to communicate their appreciation for the fanfiction
*Kudos enable those who have physical impairments to communicate their appreciation for the fanfiction
*Kudos enable those who have anxiety issues over direct interaction with other fans to communicate their appreciation for the fanfictionLink
==Cons==
[Note: additional arguments welcomed]
arsenicjade explains why some fans object to kudos and want to be able to "opt-out" of the feature at AO3:
Others have pointed out that authors do have tools to manage kudos. For example, on AO3, authors can turn off notifications so they will not be notified when someone leaves a kudos or a comment. In addition, shortly after arsenicjade's post astolat designed a "skin" that fans could install on Ao3 that would hide the number of kudos they had received.atolat's post dated July 9, 2014; WayBack Machine link.arsenicjade clarified that while this is helpful, it is not a complete solution:
Others agree and have pointed out that disabling kudos is very much like being able to disable comments on blogs, a tool many authors have used in the past to limit interactions with their readers:
==Reception==
Much wank and discussion of the kudos feature has occurred on Fail Fandomanon. One iteration of wank that occurred in February 2013 was documented on FFA's wiki and resulted in the posting and subsequent deleting of the infamous "Free Food Restaurant" meta/rant (the podfic is still available). The author compared posting fic to opening a free food restaurant and leaving comments to customers expressing appreciation in lieu of paying. The community reopened discussion of the topic of kudos following arsenicjade's July 4, 2014 post.kudos are triggering? dated July 9, 2014; WayBack Machine link.
On December 12, 2013, jedusaur created a meta fanwork entitled "Kudos On This Work" with the text "I just realized you can kudos your own work if you leave kudos before you're added as an author. So I've initiated a mass collaboration, wherein everyone who leaves kudos will be added as an author, because the work consists of the kudos." Jelazakazone offered to podfic it. Unfortunately, someone deleted the work on December 18, possibly by accident. At the time it was deleted, the work had 176 authors, including orphan_account.
==Wishing You Could Say More==
Image:butyoudontunderstand.jpg| "BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" by paracosmdreaming
File:Kudos comic.png| Popular 2013 Tumblr fanart reflecting fandom's embrace of the Kudos button. FFA anons complained in 2015 that the image represented a culture of fans unwilling to leave more substantive feedback, but the comment on the original post suggests a more complicated reading of the image. 
File:Kudos meme.jpg|A version of the American Chopper Argument meme, that features kudos. Highlighting frustrations some fans may feel when they can't give kudos for each chapter of a fic. As of January 2019, it has over 1100 notes on tumblr 
File:Extra kudos comment meme.png
==Meta/Further Reading==
* archive link (Septemper 29th, 2013)
* archive link plus ; archive link (July 7th, 2014)
* , sproings.tumblr (October 15, 2015)
* ; archive link (November 22nd, 2015)
* ; archive link (May 15, 2015)
* archive link, mod dragonling (February 20th, 2018)
* ; archive link, comments on Reddit (2017)
* ; archive link (February 28th, 2018) by ellenannes
==References==
Category:Archive of Our Own