u/santiagus-succ asked:
Anyway to know the combined word count of the fics you read?
Was curious but also dont want to spend an entire hour checking each specific word count, maybe there is an option I didnt notice?

---

u/nevereverevee replied:

This popped up in my email, and I thought "ahh yes, exactly my skill set." This solution is involved but it should get you about the right answer.

• Install the Google Chrome extension Webscraper.io ¹. It's a very simple to use scraping tool and will suit us well for this task.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+I on your keyboard to open developer tools and click on the tab "Web Scraper"
• Click the "Create New Sitemap" dropdown and select "Import Sitemap". In the box that says "Sitemap JSON" paste the following text, replacing the bolded elements with the correct information for you:²
• {"_id":"ao3_read_wordcount","startUrl":["https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOUR AO3USERNAME/readings?page=[1-NUMBER OF PAGES IN YOUR HISTORY]"],"selectors":[{"id":"fic element","type":"SelectorElement","parentSelectors":["_root"],"selector":"li.reading","multiple":true,"delay":0},{"id":"title","type":"SelectorText","parentSelectors":["fic element"],"selector":"h4 a:nth-of-type(1)","multiple":false,"regex":"","delay":0},{"id":"wordcount","type":"SelectorText","parentSelectors":["fic element"],"selector":"dd.words","multiple":false,"regex":"","delay":0},{"id":"author","type":"SelectorText","parentSelectors":["fic element"],"selector":"a:nth-of-type(2)","multiple":false,"regex":"","delay":0}]}
• Click "Import Sitemap" then click the dropdown menu titled "Sitemap ao3_read_wordcount" and select "Scrape"³. Make sure that you are logged in to your Ao3 account before you do this.
• The extension is going to open another window, it should pop up in your toolbar as a little spiderweb. The scrape will take anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours, depending on how long your history is. Just let it run. When it finishes, the extension should make a little pop up to let you know.
• Back in the Webscraping menu, click the dropdown menu "Sitemap ao3_read_wordcount" and select "Export data as CSV". When that data downloads, open it in your spreadsheet software of choice.
• Use the formula =SUM(D:D) to find your answer!

It won't count the words of any fics that have since been deleted, and if a fic has updated since you last read it, it will count those words too. It also doesn't know if you haven't read a whole fic (like if you opened it and then didn't read it, or only read a few chapters) But it'll get you pretty close!

Let me know if you try it!

¹ firefox extension here
² i made a separate version that works better for me by scraping bookmarks instead of history. if you're like me and you bookmark everything you complete, this will be a better solution for you. i've put together my sitemap below:

{"_id":"AO3_Bookmarks","startUrl":["https://archiveofourown.org/users/[YOUR AO3 USERNAME]]/bookmarks?page=[1-[END PAGE]"],"selectors":[{"id":"Fic Element","parentSelectors":["_root"],"type":"SelectorElement","selector":"li.bookmark","multiple":true},{"id":"Title","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"h4 a:nth-of-type(1)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Category","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".category span","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Rating","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".rating span","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Fandom","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".fandoms a","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Relationship","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".relationships a","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Summary","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".userstuff p","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Author","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"a:nth-of-type(2)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Word Count","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"dd.words, dd:not(.language):nth-of-type(1)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Completion Status","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".iswip span","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Warnings","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":".warnings span","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"My Tags","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorElement","selector":"div.own.user>ul.meta","multiple":true},{"id":"My Tag 1","parentSelectors":["My Tags"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":":nth-of-type(1)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"My Tag 2","parentSelectors":["My Tags"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":":nth-of-type(2)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"My Tag 3","parentSelectors":["My Tags"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":":nth-of-type(3)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"My Tag 4","parentSelectors":["My Tags"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":":nth-of-type(4)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"My Tag 5","parentSelectors":["My Tags"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":":nth-of-type(5)","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Chapters","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"dd.chapters","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Date Bookmarked","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"div.own.user>.datetime","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Date Posted","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"div.header>p.datetime","multiple":false,"regex":""},{"id":"Tags","parentSelectors":["Fic Element"],"type":"SelectorText","selector":"> ul.tags","multiple":false,"regex":""}]}

it grabs the title, category, rating, fandom, (first tagged) relationship, summary, author, word count, completion status, warnings, chapters, date Bookmarked, date posted (or last updated), and the work tags.

³ do NOT do this. before you begin scraping, adjust the request interval and page load delay to 30000 ms each (30 seconds). otherwise, you'll overload ao3 with requests and get a "retry later" page, however, the scraper will keep scraping, which will lead to incomplete data. you'll probably overload ao3 with requests once or twice this way too, but it's better than nothing. if you choose to go ahead with the default times, don't say i didn't warn you.