Fanfiction.net/fic-hosting sites

Fanfiction. net is finally clamping down and enforcing rules it put in place ten years ago regarding MA-rated fic. Not only are they not allowing anything too sexually explicit, but also nothing overly-violent either.

Not entirely relevant to our fandom seeing as we're not big on those kinds of genres as a whole, but I can already name a few fics from other fandoms that won't make the cut. Still, it prompted me to make a thread to discuss fanfiction.net's policies/effectiveness as a site.

Speaking of - has anyone tried this new 'image upload' feature out yet? I really don't get it at all. Could be a neat gimmick, but a tad pointless.

And since it's somewhat relevant - where else do you all host your fic, if at all? I'm a fan of Archive Of Our Own and LiveJournal, both of which I've used in recent years.

EDIT: Songfics are also in jeopardy, so if you have any of those you might want to back them up, just in case.

I don't like the new image thing. It seems like people with better artist skills will get more hits and reviews. Being a terrible artist, I prefer people to read the fics based on their quality, and not a flashy cover.

Also on't like the new rule enforcing (I know, being awful complaining). I feel that they should enforce that MA fics be allowed under MA. Why have a genre where no one can post under? Not sure what too violent is, either. That seems too subjective.

They probbly meen stuff that's R or X ratd...

I notcd yestrdy that we all had our authr pictres next to our fics...It might be cool, but I honstly don't know how big an impct it will make...

There are petitions that people have made to get rid of the purging of stories deemed "MA".

I don't like the new rules about MA, besides the ratings bit automatically goes to K-T and filters out M, so when you're browsing, you choose rated M at your own risk. Maybe they could put in that system when you're looking at people profiles as well for fics :L
Not really all that fond of the pictures thing either, because no doubt somewhre along the line, they'll be someone using anothers art and then blah blah art-theft(which I don't agree with) blah blah your fic is terrible blah blah blah (-.-")

I might be compltly parnod, but when I took a look at the new Imge Mangr, I notcd that you have to mark that you basclly have the rights to use that pictre...Is it just me, or is that somthng that might easly turn into somthng that Hollywod big wigs might try to destry...?

I'm probbly thinkng abot this a litle too much...

I don't know or care about any of the changes that fanfiction.net have made. I don't really care for M or MA or whatever stories. I don't really care for the pictures. Whatever happened to don't judge a book by it's cover? Besides, those pictures are too small to really have that much of an impact. But that's just me. I'll still keep on updating my stories, and reading other people's stories.

The incident with FF... Idk. The authors of the fics do care about what happened to their work. Many readers and fans of said fictions also care. Some people who aren't interested in MA rated fics also oppose what happened.

So, the rules were always there. It took FF 10 years to actually notice that and out of nowhere they purge the site of these fics. Some argue that they can't do that... Sadly they can because it's their site and they already had the rules for a long time. I have checked some forums and both sides have made good arguments. I am not getting into any of that because it's too troublesome and I have loads of studying to do. I will say that it's all about how they executed their "purge". Yes, you had the rules and those sinners (lolwut) haven't followed them, but it's been 10 years since you have enforced the rules. No need to try and prove a point by wiping everything out. Again, some say that you should always have backup blah blah but still, 10 years!

They could have put an announcement or a warning with a deadline or something. Idk how effective that can be tbh. Anyways, the petition would achieve what? I have signed it because I disagree with how they have carried out their "rules enforcement" despite not even knowing an effective way of warning people. But even if the 20000 (last I checked) who have signed left the site for good (unlikely) FF would hardly blink. Again some would say it's not about the numbers and it's merely a way to show them that we were on the receiving end of a cruel way of enforcing ancient rules that no one cared to enforce...etc. In the end, what's done is done and if FF decides to be sympathetic and do something, i would raise the hat for them. If nothing happens... Yeah. Everything stays the same and authors with MA rated stories would have to travel all the way to another "link" on google for a site that hosts these types of stories.

Oh god, I better return to studying.

I hear you, but the thing is just because it was never enforced (and I wonder how that could really be proven in either way) doesn't give people the right to break it for the simple fact that it is a rule, and everyone knows that if you break a rule, you're pretty much putting yourself in the position of facing punishment. Then again, I didn't even know this rule existed (I never really read the rules all the way through, and that's bad on my part). So I'm sure there are others who are in my case, but that's just an excuse though. I mean we have laws that were created but weren't necessarily enforced when they were created. That doesn't mean it's cruel or wrong for the country to start enforcing them. It just means they're being lazy and not living up to the standards they set themselves.

What I think is dumb is how vague it is. One of my fics has a slightly graphic murder scene in it. I'm concerned that it may be considered 'too' graphic, as it has recently disappeared off fanfic, but I put it back.
It's dumb. To dumb. Who's judging? 'too graphic' is too vague. I'll bet over 85% of the fics pulled's authors didn't know they were 'too graphic'.

Now that is a problem. And hopefully it's something that they'll work on. That could possibly even cause some T rated fics to get pulled if they didn't think it was too gory or violent to be M rated, but because of one slight sentence, the fic gets pulled. They could at least send out a warning maybe, saying, "This chapter/story has a gory/explicit scene, please revise this chapter/story or it will be removed."

How effective would that be? To find a single "graphic" scene you would have to read the whole thing if you suspect it. Means they would have to read every single T-M rated fic. I am sure they have means to do that, but it's a lot of work.

After all, I may have nothing suspicious throughout my story, but end it with a "graphic scene". I agree that it's vague. But when I think about it, if they do specify what they consider graphic it would lead to more problems.

I saw an author say something like "MA rated stories or stories that may contain heavy graphic scenes are easy to find". They're using this method to purge the site. MA stories are obvious from the summary. Smaller things are a problem though.

About the earlier point, some punishments actually don't get carried out if a long period of time has passed since the incident, but ofc this is not what we're talking about.

Give it a month or two and it would be forgotten imo.

Well ultimately, I still don't care that much because it doesn't really affect me. That may sound mean or . . . uncaring, but that's the way it is. Honestly, I know that's not very effective because we're talking about a grand scale of thousands of stories, but normally it's just one scene that could do it for you. I don't even see how it's all that vague come to think of it. Normally people can agree on what's too gory and what's too explicit. It's like movies. You see one, and could probably have a good idea if it's going to be PG/13, R, or whatever. You should have an idea what not to write. And the more detailed, the easier it is to go from M to MA.

The problem is bad rating systems. I'm a younger teenager, and I know of at least one fanfiction (in the Invader Zim section) that could be likely in the violence category takedown, and I read it without any trouble. Code Lyoko fanfiction is also probably in danger- there is a lot of fighting on Lyoko, and fandom requirements don't translate that well with ratings people.

There isn't any gore or "violence" strong enough on Lyoko to danger the CL fandom. Ofc, it's all about what the author writes.

The images bug me because they're so tiny. They don't seem to do anything but distract you when you're just trying to skim the summaries.

I wish MA could have its own section on the site because I feel like if you're browsing the internet alone, then you should have the common sense to know what you can handle. And if you aren't mature enough to be browsing the internet, then your parents should be supervising you to make sure you don't get into any nasty stuff. Though I don't read MA fics (though maybe I have, I'm not sensitive to gore at all, so who knows), I feel like people should have the option to read them. If you're mature enough and you want to, then go for it.

As for other sites, I just discovered Archive Of Our Own! I haven't actually used it but right after watching The Avengers, I decided I had to find something about the Black Widow and Captain America. For one that I have used, I really liked HPFF. I haven't used it since 2009 or something like that, but I remember it being a great site.

Fanfiction.net is removing M rated fics.......in order to stop this, anti-censorship groups on deviantART are organizing a boycott to the website tomorrow (6/23). Read more below:

http://fav.me/d54kkow


(Post moved/merged here from General Discussion. -SJ)

Wait a second. Someone must have read that wrong or have intentionally wrote it in a way that would scare people.

I doubt they would remove all M rated fics, just ones that should be rated MA and above. I don't mind people spreading the news, but if they twist and distort it in their own ways people are going to be misinformed and receive the wrong information.

But they're too vague. What's M vs MA? A lot of fics people think would be rated M are really MA. Heck, I had a T story pulled.

I still have my doubts that they are going to get rid of all M fics as people are going to say, after all, their statement clearly says -

Please note we would like to clarify the content policy we have in place since 2002. FanFiction.Net follows the Fiction Rating
system ranging from Fiction K to Fiction M.

However, this statement, made by them, is too vague -

Detailed descriptions
of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature is considered Fiction MA and has not been allowed on the site since 2002.

And the problem is that critic groups have been seizing that part of it. I haven't had a fic pulled as of yet, but that could be a possibility come tomorrow if bullying critic groups were to come across my story and reported it without my knowledge. So I'm staying off the site tomorrow for that reason, but I think the protest should center on those bullying critic groups who do nothing better but to discourage authors to write.

I haven't seen an official ff.net source yet saying they were going to go out of their way to take stories down, only them reminding people of the rule policy. Of course I can't say anything about critic groups, but I don't really plan on making it a problem until it is- they've always existed on ff.net.

SeeMeInTheShadows wrote:I haven't seen an official ff.net source yet saying they were going to go out of their way to take stories down

That might have been a smart thing to do. Sadly they are taking stories down and they didn't say they were.

Am I just way behind, or have the favs/alerts each story has always been listed for the readers to see.

I was just checking a story this morning when I realized it.

Research wise, it's fun and very effective. Won't be using it for anything else though.

Naru's "How to mix business with pleasure" is the 7th most followed.

Kitty's "A story of love" is 24th in terms of most reviews.

Rena's/Lune's "April fools" is the 17th most Favorited.

Lune actually has three stories on the first page of most Favorited. Two of them are one-shots with 220 favs and a multi-chaptered story with 85 favs.