Fanfiction.net Discussion

[magus_dark_sorcerer]

hows everyone? I'd work on fics but have beeninthe mood sinced3 came out and i got my new lap top.

[Kanekicase]

Curiosity and a sudden surge of awareness has me wondering if any of you have had a run in with the Critics United. They came to light in a few of my fandoms and caused a sudden influx of people moving to other sites (AO3, Livejournal, Dreamwidth). From what I've seen, they've bullied, been crude and have just been generally unpleasant.

Have they bothered you in your corners of ff.net? Any thoughts on this vigilante group?

Summary on what they're doing. and Critics United forum


And this is what I'm doing on a Sunday night when I should be busting out my Sherlock reverse bang.

[RiverSong1984]

I have never been bashed like that, what they're doing is cyberbullying.

[wastelandjunkie]

Thousands of great stories are going to be taken down on FF.NET due to violence, song inspirations and other explicit content. It doesn't seem fair.

help the petition!

[RiverSong1984]

Has anybody reported them to the actual mods?

[RiverSong1984]

Someone should go undercover and warn authors before their stories get expunged. Then WHAM! the group gets exposed before the spy goes down with them.

[Kadaj5]

I'm tempted to write a troll fic against them...

[RiverSong1984]

What else would you expect from someone with the name Son Of Palpatine?

[Kanekicase]

They are doing nothing that is againt the rules, so they cannot be reported. From what I've discussed with the moderators (I went and asked questions), they leave a review asking the author of a story breaking the FF.net rules to fix it. They wait one to two weeks, before reporting. After reporting, it takes the admins of FF.net a month or more to review the story. It gives the author time to edit the story, but that is it. I still don't like that they're going around and actually looking for 'badfic' as they call it.

Not all of the comments left by Critics United are cruel, for the most part, they are polite. It's the degeneration of some of the comments that got me. There is never a time where someone should write 'shitfic' or 'toxic bucket of waste' on someones work.

I know that the sudden deletion of 50 000 fics cannot be fully blamed on this group, but they are part of it. I can understand why FF.net is deleting songfics and RPF, because there is legal reasons that they could be taken down for hosting such fic, but it's still wrong. Although, I am still ridiculously confused why FF.net does not allow explicit work.

[Renkon Root]

elesteria

They are doing nothing that is againt the rules, so they cannot be reported. From what I've discussed with the moderators (I went and asked questions), they leave a review asking the author of a story breaking the FF.net rules to fix it. They wait one to two weeks, before reporting. After reporting, it takes the admins of FF.net a month or more to review the story. It gives the author time to edit the story, but that is it. I still don't like that they're going around and actually looking for 'badfic' as they call it.

Not all of the comments left by Critics United are cruel, for the most part, they are polite. It's the degeneration of some of the comments that got me. There is never a time where someone should write 'shitfic' or 'toxic bucket of waste' on someones work.

I know that the sudden deletion of 50 000 fics cannot be fully blamed on this group, but they are part of it. I can understand why FF.net is deleting songfics and RPF, because there is legal reasons that they could be taken down for hosting such fic, but it's still wrong. Although, I am still ridiculously confused why FF.net does not allow explicit work.

You can't even report individual users for the abusive comments they leave? What the group as a whole is doing might be perfectly legitimate by ff.n's rules and guidelines but what individual members are saying in those reviews is not. Saying a story is like 'sh*t from a baby's a**s' is NOT constructive criticism and is NOT warning the author of a violation of the rules. It IS a violation in and of itself. Instead of reporting the group, can't you just report the reviews they send?

Furthermore, posting links to the stories and asking members to go there and leave these reviews is promoting flaming and trolling. It has been a while since I last read through the ToS for ff.n, but isn't that also a violation?

[SakuraSyaoran]

Well it's official...I hate FF.net all over again. Why can't they just add an MA filter! I grew up on ff.net. From when I was young, reading rated K-T, to now reading the M! Thousands of stories are going to be destroyed and they can't say just move them! Some of those old fic writers aren't on FF.net anymore and probably won't get the warning to move their fics! I would say that aff.net is a good alternative, but it's difficult to find my favorite fics in there! I also like the idea of those fic writers making their own sites but that will be too many sites to keep up with! *Sigh* why can't they leave ff.net alone! I bet the only reason they are doing this is not because of the "rules" but because of the opinion of some "concerned" adult. Don't they care that by doing this they could be destroying some great fics!

Sure they could take out the inappropriate content, but in my opinion that is still butchering a story, no matter how adult the content is. And it's their fault for not enforcing the rules in the first place! I don't see it as the author's faults because the site shouldn't have made a rule they knew they could not possibly enforce because of lack of staff!

[haowopcmasjkka]

SakuraSyaoran

AFF is pretty crap now. Some ownership drama and some weird drama going on with accounts and stuff. They also don't have any way to leave reviews. I'd probably say that AO3 is the best option, if there was a way to get the whole FFnet community on there.

But I agree, they should just add a MA filter and allow MA fics. If they enforce that rule, they're gonna lose a lot of writers.

I saw that notice thing and I'm going to back up all my work, probably post it to AO3. Just in case. I haven't seen those trolls though...I'll keep a look out.

[SakuraSyaoran]

Kitsune No Tsubasa

SakuraSyaoran

AFF is pretty crap now. Some ownership drama and some weird drama going on with accounts and stuff. They also don't have any way to leave reviews. I'd probably say that AO3 is the best option, if there was a way to get the whole FFnet community on there.

But I agree, they should just add a MA filter and allow MA fics. If they enforce that rule, they're gonna lose a lot of writers.

I saw that notice thing and I'm going to back up all my work, probably post it to AO3. Just in case. I haven't seen those trolls though...I'll keep a look out.

AO3 would be perfect, I just didn't think of it cause it didn't have my favorite pairings in their filter. But it would be a wonderful place for everyone to move their fics. Yeah, AFF.net is getting crazy. It's only good because you can put "adult" fics on there but I have to agree with the review issue. I miss reviewing to my fav fic writers and one of my fav fic writers finally got pissed off and left. She made her own site so I'm cool with it. xd And the new background image for the page sometimes hurts my eyes. crying Now as for the older fics issue, some of these authors may get the warning, but I'm still wondering if they might care if their fic gets removed or not. I mean, they haven't written a fic in along time and may have grown out of fanfiction and not care what happens to their works. I know that most fic writers care about their fics like it's their child, but there are still those rare cases.
I'm also worried that the fic writers who have adult content in their works will stop uploading fics for a while because of this issue. I was really looking forward to some good fics today!

By the way....if you happen to see a troll.....SQUASH HIM LIKE A BUG!

[haowopcmasjkka]

SakuraSyaoran

Kitsune No Tsubasa

SakuraSyaoran

AFF is pretty crap now. Some ownership drama and some weird drama going on with accounts and stuff. They also don't have any way to leave reviews. I'd probably say that AO3 is the best option, if there was a way to get the whole FFnet community on there.

But I agree, they should just add a MA filter and allow MA fics. If they enforce that rule, they're gonna lose a lot of writers.

I saw that notice thing and I'm going to back up all my work, probably post it to AO3. Just in case. I haven't seen those trolls though...I'll keep a look out.

AO3 would be perfect, I just didn't think of it cause it didn't have my favorite pairings in their filter. But it would be a wonderful place for everyone to move their fics. Yeah, AFF.net is getting crazy. It's only good because you can put "adult" fics on there but I have to agree with the review issue. I miss reviewing to my fav fic writers and one of my fav fic writers finally got pissed off and left. She made her own site so I'm cool with it. xd And the new background image for the page sometimes hurts my eyes. crying Now as for the older fics issue, some of these authors may get the warning, but I'm still wondering if they might care if their fic gets removed or not. I mean, they haven't written a fic in along time and may have grown out of fanfiction and not care what happens to their works. I know that most fic writers care about their fics like it's their child, but there are still those rare cases.
I'm also worried that the fic writers who have adult content in their works will stop uploading fics for a while because of this issue. I was really looking forward to some good fics today!

By the way....if you happen to see a troll.....SQUASH HIM LIKE A BUG!

Oh hell yeah. Ain't nobody troll me and get away with it.

On AO3, they only don't have your pairing in the filter because there aren't any fics written in that pairing yet. AO3's still growing so it's not as big as FFnet or anything, though I'm hoping that a lot more people will at least start cross-posting there. I haven't yet but I probably will.

Yeah, I'm worried about that too. There are a lot of great fics I've read that the writer hasn't been on FF for ages, and I really don't want them to get deleted.

But I don't think it's been the first time there's been a group going around and getting fics deleted. Before there was a group called Red Button or something. I don't know the exact details, because I wasn't around then, but a lot of my favourite fics seemed to make it through.

[Tiana Luscinia]

I don't have any explicit fanfiction up. But if ff.net is going to turn into an abuse fest spearheaded by minimods then I don't really want to be a part of it. gonk

Abusing beginners isn't going to make them better. It's just going to make them want to quit. It's completely counterproductive.
And just because you don't like something doesn't make it crap. I've read some poorly written fics that had good ideas going. And if the author kept getting better I'm sure they could make those ideas really shine.

This group just looks like a bunch of people with too much time on their hands because it's summer and they are bored. confused

They need to just add an MA filter so that the kiddies cannot read erotica.

I haven't heard of AO3. I checked out the site's main page. Seems interesting.I'm guessing they allow mature content.