Talk:FanFiction.Net/Archive 1

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Pointless

There is absolutly no point in having the NPOV tag here. This is an encyclopedia which provides information, and that includes listing the current contreversies so people will know about the highly unpopular policies of fanfiction.net as well as general information and its positive aspects. Although many of them may not provide sources, one has only has to go the site and see for themselves that they are true. Information about the site's creators, owners, founding date, etc. have already been provided. Seperate critisms and contreversies sections must be created with extensive research done on these topics.

WTF? That makes no sense.
Yes, it is the subject of controversies. Even rightly, in my opinion. However, the controversies had seeped into other NON-controversy areas of the article, which I know, because I just had to edit it for exactly that in some spots. Also, even in the "Controversy" section, it was worded in a way that obviously sympatheized with the view it was describing, in several places. That's not how we do things here. I share a lot of the opinions and frankly have experienced first-hand the hideous automated bureaucracy that is ffnet to the point of eventually abandoning it altogether, but I know better than to make the article itself agree with me, when it's only intended to report FACTS, not opinions. If I hadn't fixed a whole bunch of POV stuff just now, I'd definitely tag it, and I'm tempted to do it anyway still.
By the way, sign your posts, or at least time-stamp them. Otherwise people have no clue how long that comment's been there without digging through the history of the Talk page! Runa27 07:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Official sources are restricted

The problem with citing sources in this article is that much of the relevant information on FF.net such as the story guidelines, banned author-source material (such as Anne Rice) are trapped behind a login requirement which can't be directly linked. The problem with POV issues is that most of the discussions of fanfiction.net are within a realm of blogs (largely LiveJournal), internet forums, chatrooms, which are difficult, unprofessional, and nearly impossible to cite reliably for long periods of time. This is simply a difficult and gray subject like a lot of internet-only topics. --Draxle 22:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Sources

I don't really know how to source some of the information that is there. The staff list source comes from having been on staff, from TaraLJC and Steven Savage. The date for the founding of FanFiction.Net comes from an AIM conversation and an e-mail I had with Xing back when I was on staff. The Anne Rice information came from a site admin and an irc chat room. It was also confirmed by Steven Savage. The September 12 date for the removal of RPF material comes from my own memory. When they did that, it crashed my site at the time. :/ The cease and desist information came from Steven Savage, the fanfictionarchivist mailing list and metafandom. I have no idea on what planet "FanFiction.Net begins a more aggressive movement to remove works that do not comply with their policies. Complaints by the authors of some of the removed works are alleged to have been unanswered by staff members." comes from because FanFiction.Net has no staff besides Xing at this time. I could put in the nitty gritty of the staff disputes and implosion but I'm not going to. "FanFiction.net bans songfics from being posted in the archive. Already archived songfics are required to have lyrics removed, regardless of attribution to original artist." That was done in response to cease and desist letters being sent to German sites where they were threatening to fine websites 5,000 euro per song lyric they had even if they retroactively removed them. This was discussed on metafandom and fanficarchivist. The FanFiction.Net policy change was confirmed by Steven Savage. The pedophile part in the dispute part comes from having been on staff, from Xing and Steven Savage. Are there any more bits of information that need citing? And how do I edit in citations that are myself or personal conversations? --PurplePopple 10:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy changes

I removed Often this has led to uproar, such as the multiple petitions currently going around to get back script format. from the policy section. If you want to talk about the reactions, put the reactions in the timeline with sources or put in the controvery section. It does not belong in a statement of policy changes in the site. It seems important to keep that part, the disagreements over policy changes, out of the sections where it doesn't belong to help make the article be more neutral. --PurplePopple 10:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed Both of these decisions are intensely controversial among the site's authors, some loving the site for this and some damning it to hell with white-hot fury. As is fairly obvious, neither of these is probably correct. from the policy section. Same as before. --PurplePopple 11:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

Virtually every public forum site on the Web has debates about its policies, petitions to change things, angry users, etc. This should be an encyclopedia article with factual information - for example, who runs this site? who owns it? how long has it been around? - DavidWBrooks 22:34, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that's fine. I'll go add a few more things. Ambush Commander 22:35, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

The Anne rice thing dates back a few years and isn't recent. Why is that comment in there? The latest FanFiction.Net fannish stuff has involved the issues pertaining to songfic. --PurplePopple 20:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I edited out the comments on user friendly. There really isn't an agreement as to its user friendliness as it isn't viewed as particularly author friendly with the review process. The some times artibitrary policy regarding the deletion of stories also is a point against the being user friendly. The site being called FF.Net by users is rather irrelevant as FanFiction.Net is also known as the Pit of Voles. --PurplePopple 01:36, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

mmm. I thought about it. The ongoing controversy thing is all wrong. The fact that people did not like the site policy changes seems rather irrelevant. This is an article about the site. If people perceptions and reactions to the site are important enough to be included in the article, put it in a new section, not masquerading as factual. A lot of people were happy with some of those changes and didn't view them as controversial at all. It should be clearly worded as a policy change to be factually accurate. And the songfic thing, if you look at the timeline, it clearly states why that was done. It is irrelevant that people thought FF.Net was bad in protecting its behind. --PurplePopple 16:23, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this article is too "glowing." ff.net has way too many issues and complaints do not get heard. Right now, the staff is going through and removing "scripted" works. At least that's what they're calling it. I had 6 works removed and not 1 of them was in script format but that's what they were removed for. No staff member can be contacted and there's no method of appeal. --drmike

I disagree on every opinion on this page. If this is an article of FanFiction.net, why can't it contain info regarding the controversies? I mean, I am an author in the site *and I WILL protect my identity* and I have heard complaints about many authors regarding the policies and unjustified removals. It's more than fair and at the same time informative for anyone planning to go to the site. (NOT a Wikipedia user) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.145.29.19 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 19 September 2005 (UTC).

I am a user on ff.net and I find that the rule that we cannot respond to our reviews at the beginning or end of a chapter unfair. Who cares if we talk to our reviewers, we're just thanking them for their review. Can't we be polite?! (Unknown[not getting my pen-name!]) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.12.116.9 (talk • contribs) 11:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC).

I agree with you, whoever you are, that said that "I am a user on ff.net and I find..." (and etc about that comment). You are totally correct. But this person is right!! And I agree with whoever that was that said "I disagree on every opinion on this page. If this is an article on FanFiction.net..." (and etc). I'm a user of fanfiction.net and am pretty sure I'VE thought of a solution to the review problem, which I'll be submitting a ticket about soon.

The problem with the controveries as listed is they permeate almost every single sentence and treat the site like users have a right to say what they want. It also fails to address the flip side. There was no mention of say "Many users protested the removal of NC-17 material while other parties thought it was high time that the pornographic material was removed." The controversies treat it as a one way street. If a controversy section is something you want, title it "User Reactions" or something like that and include the flip side of people who wanted the otherside. Mention the fight over RPF vs. no RPF, NC-17 versus no NC-17. And even that, most of that stuff was not going on on the site. The discussion was elsewhere, off site, and did not have an impact on the administration of the site. --PurplePopple 11:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

FanFiction.Net deleting stories with out telling people why. Huh. Who knew? The problem is that the Terms of Service for the site says that they can do that. It sounds like user griping, not because FF.Net arbitralily enforces their Terms of Service but because they don't like that part of the Terms of Service. Add a new section to that as a seperate policy dispute if the whole non-notification issue is a problem. --PurplePopple 07:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


I personally don't see why Controversy isn't seen as a part of factual information. I mean people should know why, before they hear the gossip. I see controversy section on tons of other pages here, about movies, countries, games, etc. But I don't see you all disputing thoes. Controversy is a part of the facts, so leave them. --71.195.245.28 02:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have been to fanfiction many time and one day suddenly i got about 50 viruses from it does anyone know if this is ongoing or is it just an isolated icident? 10:09pm Pacific December 12 2006

NPOV

Based on some previous comments and this flagrant statement:

This repercussions of the founding of this archive will be felt for years to come as a certain amount of fannish terminology and discussion, posting habits, centralization of small fan fiction communities revolve around the site.

I think we've got to work on this article. I'm currently surveying the extant of this POVness. Ambush Commander 20:52, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. After rereading the timeline, I'd have to say it's near hopeless POV. Let's get this fixed. Ambush Commander 20:57, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

How is that statement not neutral? It is a fact. FanFiction.Net is why Review and Feedback became synomous. A lot of framework of the discussion involved around reviews after that. The site's changing their rating system caused many others to do the same. A number of communities were centralized around that site including the Scarecrow and Mrs. King. --PurplePopple 17:13, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just because a statement is literally true doesn't mean it's neutral. It can have implications that are incorrect or otherwise biased without actually saying something that's wrong. In this case, I read the sentence as saying "the founding of this archive was a bad thing, which will have negative consequences for quite some time." Now it might not have been the writer's intent to imply that, but it is implied by that phrasing. I'd suggest a phrasing more along the lines of "The archive's influence on the fan fiction community has been widespread, as a certain amount..." etc. JulesH
Trust me, the entry I just made is NPOV compared to what it would be like if I had added some examples from the article. For example, there was a picture of the Fanfiction.net logo, and underneath (pertaining to the line "Unleash your imagination" in the logo) was this line: "Unleash a lot of other things as well." Saying that the article is very critical of the site may be a somewhat toned-down assessment, but a logically sound one and preferable to stating any of the examples from the article itself, which would almost certainly not pass the NPOV test. Chanting Fox 02:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Phrasing that I think needs work:

On the other hand, some of the more controversial rules may be encouraged by outside factors out of the control of the site owner such as the civil and criminal liability issues posed by ... songfics (music publishers could sue for copyright violation over publication of lyrics). However, since normal fan fiction also raises possible legal issues with copyrights and trademarks, it is not clear why those things are singled out for banning.

The last sentence is clearly out of place. Its author might not understand why songfics (etc) are more legally problematic than other fanfic, but it is much easier for such direct copyright infringements to be prosecuted than most other actions against fan fiction, which usually rely on fairly poorly defined copyright laws about what is and isn't a derivative work, and are by no means certain to succeed. See the "Legal aspects" section of fan fiction for more details.

Fanfiction.Net, in a highly disputed move, removes all NC-17 stories from the site.:

Disputed? Perhaps "unpopular" would be a better word. The operators of the site clearly have the right to remove anything from it that they want.

Any comments? JulesH 15:51, 8 July 2005 (UTC)

Timestamp your comments, I have no idea when I'm replying to this, but here's my two cents: be bold. The article needs a lot of work as a whole, and at this point it's okay to start NPOVing the article by yourself. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 22:12, July 18, 2005 (UTC)


Actually, in the TOS that the website had posted at the time of the removal of the NC-17 stories, ff.net claimed "common carrier" privileges. The removal of these stories thus violated their own TOS, which have now been altered to reflect the new policies. [25/8/05] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.79.142.174 (talk • contribs) 07:57, 25 August 2005 (UTC).

Fanfiction.net or FanFiction.Net

Which one is it? Most of the text here seems to favor the camelcapped text. Ambush Commander 20:58, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, it is FanFiction.Net. I'm moving the article. Ambush Commander 20:59, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
Except that the site logo seems to have it as Fanfiction.net, which would argue in favor of the former spelling of this article title. *Dan* 01:33, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
That's what I thought. But it turns out that they didn't capitilize anything on purpose. Even the site refers to itself with the camelcaps. Ambush Commander 01:45, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Too Far?

Lets face it - the FanFiction.net users are in an uproar. And while most of us understand that the staff at FanFiction.net have to protect themselves from legal problems, they are handling it completely wrong.

I've sent in multiple complaints to the staff over at ff.net and have recieved either very rude or no responce at all. It appears that even they are getting fed up with the complaints.

In example - any ff.net user must renounce any and all ownership if a non-origional character. This is down through a written disclaimer at the begining of each story. Most authors - by the way - ignore this. However, if a disclaimer can be used for a character, why not a song?

I've sent in a calm - no aggressive - email to the staff asking that question. The responce was imediate and harsh "if you do not write it - do NOT post it". Word for word, any dispute - get over it.

It is simple, if you have a problem with them - they just don't care.


UPDATED on November 27th 2005 Myself and a few hundred other authors have thought of boycotting the fanfiction site in an attempt to take away their 'highest popularity' status. Our desision is still under dispute. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hanyou1911 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC).

I won't delete this topic because that would be censorship, but let me warn you: Wikipedia is not a soapbox. The talk page is for discussing the content of the article, not the article's subject. Furthermore, please sign your comments with four tildes: ~~~~ — Ambush Commander(Talk) 03:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

This shouldn't be allowed to continue.

The author of this article has his main focus clearly defined. It is the so-called "controversey" around the site. This leads me to believe that he was kicked off the site and/or his stories deleted and he is using wikipedia to "get back". This 'free' online encylopedia isn't a stage to enact vengence, it's to provide UNBIASED information on the subject. True this subject points out that it has "one million stories", but it doesn't say anything positive and instead focuses on the negative. If the creator can't be unbiased he should step aside and let worthy people write about this. This would NOT be me, as fanfiction.net is one of my favorite sites. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lani12 (talk • contribs) 16:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC).

:Please sign your talk page comments with four tildes like this: ~~~~.

The creator of the article is me. As you can see, Wikipedia articles are not owned by one person. I definitely appreciate your willingness to admit that you are biased, however, do not let that deter you from helping edit this article. Keep in mind that the controversy does exist. If you really want to help, I suggest you read our NPOV policy and then start editing. The Neutrality Dispute tag has been on the article for a while, so some movement towards NPOVing would be nice. Thanks for your interest in the article. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 00:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Does this even have to be such a dispute?

So we've established that there is certainly a neutrality dispute- I will say that as it stands the article seems to be a rant more than anything else, however- I do not see a need to wipe this entire piece clean. Would it be possible to add on to this article and include other pieces of assorted knowledge to even out everything and shift the focus from the controversies to the site in general- then leave this part as is, making minor revisions to have these listed as the general complaints of FF.net users? (have written a few pieces myself I must say I've yet to meet a fan of FF.net policy) Add a section on site subculture, reviweing systems, etc.? Just a thought here Aurric 16:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a touchy issue, because part of the problem is representation of the site's controversies. You're advocating diluting the controversy section by adding more content, while others may want to cut down the controversy section to bring it in line. I think we can meet on both sides of the bridge. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 02:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not find a more neutral Wiki member to redo the article? I would, except I haven't been there in months upon months. There's no productive outcome to bickering over which parts are neutral and aren't. Start with a clean slate and a new person. Tom 13:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

  • As someone who's been active in the fanfiction community for over a year now (though I had written a bit and been into it a few years before that as well), I can verify that FFN is a VERY frequent source of controversy nowadays. To leave out the controversy would not "make it more neutral", it would actually have a more biased feel than it does now; one cannot hide the not-so-nice factors when speaking of an influential site. I'd like to point out the following lines (bolding mine), which I beleive at current do maintain a pretty neutral tone:
 :sometimes attracted controversy from authors who believe
Some critics claim that
The absence of any appeal process, warning, or feedback form has
contributed to the perception of unfairness.
(it is up for debate whether or not the deletions

were unfair, though there are many authors on the site who agree that it was). "

Note the "it is up for debate". (Although I'm sure the last line should read more like "who agree that they were", since it's deletions plural).

With all the "claims" and "there is debate"s and such, it manages to stay fairly neutral... however, it IS redundant. The same controversy of "some have claimed their stories were deleted even though they did not violate the Terms of Service" is addressed multiple times, when it would perhaps be better addressed only once. The assertion of that controversy existing is very much a fact; many HAVE claimed this (I've seen it on other forums I visit that are dedicated to fanfiction)... so many that it would be foolish to not include it in the entry at all. However, once is enough, I think, in reference to the "people have claimed that their stories were deleted without violating the TOS" thing, although the mods DO seem slow to respond to problems and complaints (and sometimes do not list what their response is until they publicly announce a new feature to help combat it, such as the PM system they recently added to make responding to reviews more conveinient), so perhaps that could be a seperate controversy listed, which would merely be alluded to in the subsection on the deletion controversy.

I can't help but think, though, that the focus should be more on how influential the site is; as mentioned, it has over a million stories archived, making it indisputably the largest fanfiction archive in the world at the moment. It's also, though this is not I believe stated in the draft I just looked at, the largest multilingual and multi-fandom archive for fanfiction online. They host stories in - let me just check here - 35 languages (feel free to double-check my number, there. I reached it via counting the number of language options you can search for fiction under, on the "search" page). Those languages range from everything from the widely-spoken European/Americas' languages (French, English, German, Italian, Spanish), to widely-spoken Asian languages such as Chinese, Arabic and Farsi, to less widely-spoken tongues like Romanian and Filipino, and even dead or obscure languages like Latin and Esperanto (yep. They've got a section for Esperanto!). I do not recall this fact being mentioned in the article, and the fact that it is the largest multi-fandom archive (to the best of my knowledge, it houses more listed fandoms than any other archive in addition to having the most stories hosted) should be emphasized more, as it is the combination of that and the number of languages available that has made it as influential as it is today. Runa27 --63.21.80.3 19:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Moving the logo inside the infobox has caused problems with the infobox's grey background and the logo's white background. I'll take a whack at it myself since I'm not exactly ignorant in image formats, but if someone who does this regularly can do it, it would be appreciated. I think setting white as the alpha should work. We might want to convert to PNG in the process. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 21:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Major cleanup needed

This article violates several Wikipedia standards. The first and foremost is WP:WEASEL. Second is WP:CITE. Who are the critics? The defenders? Alos, why are there no external links regarding controversies? Someone must have posted a complaint page about them; I mean, I know RestricedSection.org is a public response to the NC-17 controversy. But since FF.net is so large, there has to be more documentation on the responses. - Hbdragon88 22:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's possible the original author thought that by including too many rants, it would decrease the neutrality of the page. Since you asked and it should be fairly easy to find given the number of people who I've seen complain about it on various forums, though, I'll Google it for you, so you have some links (ooh, and please ntoe the RestrictedSection.org bit. Also, there's AdultFanfiction.net, though I'm not sure when they were founded or whether it was a response to the NC-17 ban).

Googling: "fanfiction.net"+"complain" got me, amongst the top three listings, [this off Alexa|http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=&url=http://www.fanfiction.net].

A sampling:

Sure, the admin are delete and power happy
In the almost 3 years I've been there, they've proven to be unreliable, unresponsive, irresponsible to its users/visitors. And those are the nicest things I have to say.

There's also [this thread.|http://boards.disneysites.com/archive/index.php/t-14496.html].

A sampling of the OP:

and for a scene that was not NC-17 at all. last time I checked they still allowed R. Nothing was grahpic/descriptive or anything and they still suspended me.

[A petition to bring back CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) stories|http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/CYOA/signatures], which are banned on FFN.

[A petition to re-allow NC-17 stories.|http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/NC17/signatures].

[A petition to re-allow songfic|http://www.petitiononline.com/asdfglk/petition.html]. (Apparently they don't realize that the owner of the site could get sued for allowing it. But still, you wanted complaints... this puppy's got over 70 signatures)

[Another petition to re-allow songfic. Has over 90 signatures.|http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/songfics]

This does not quite compare, though, to the Google results for "fanfiction.net sucks" (ha! I knew I'd get a lot of results from ranting authors if I included "sucks" in the search criteria):

Some complaints from author/readers on the Shoujoai.com forums about story(ies) being deleted without warning and "not even [being told] what [they] did wrong" - [Here|http://www.shoujoai.com/forum/topic_show.pl?tid=5821#fp].

A complaint on a Pokemon forum about a story being removed without real explanation, and without any apparent rhyme or reason [here|http://pokeforum.7thsea.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36&sid=6c52d24c217a6281cf2271da64bfa51d].

Now, [this guy|http://medaverse.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1006] did have an old script-format fic (thus he was violating the current TOS when he had the story deleted) but he DOES complain about having a posting ban every time you get a story deleted for TOS violation, about the ban on script fic, and about the NC-17 ban as well, so since you were only wanting to have sources of complaints, this I would say still fits. This came up on the first Google results page for "fanfiction.net sucks".

[Several complaints about it on this page|http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/12-002255-2/], ranging from banning MSTs and NC-17, to what the authors claim are unfair deletions.

Does this at all help, or not?

The critics tend to be people who have had stories removed from the site, though Cassandra Claire's the only "famous" one (and hers was for plagiarism, apparently, and already listed in the article last I looked so... yeah).

Runa27 --63.21.80.3 20:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm an author on the site. I never had a story deleted for violating TOS. But I disagree with ff.net's policies. There's this one author, either Uber Spoonz or Omnipotent Otaku, who was making a petition sort of thing. Also, there's Galaxy Girl's Hey, Ocarina! which was deleted (although Galaxy Girl is still on the site and you can ask her) for being a script fic. User:User:63.192.133.72 28 February 2006

To which I ask, so what? You disagree with the policy and...? Scriptfics are not allowed. The scriptfic is deleted. The controversy is where? Is the controversy that a site can't set its own policies and should cater to conflicting user demands? I'm not quite getting why people are complaining here. Perhaps you could better articulate your disagreements with policies other than "I don't like it" and address the flip side of the argument to further why it should even be mentioned in the article beyond a site policy change? --PurplePopple 10:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The controversy is that it should have never happened. FF.net flips and changes its "policies" frequently, and almost all of these changes further restrict and hinder what writers can write on a website with the slogan "unleash your imagination and free your soul." Because of this, it's very prone to having angry users because, a genre or category you've been writing in for years could disappear overnight because it's suddenly decided to be against the rules. Oh, lookey. Seems one of my earlier rants have been featured in one of the links above.--Claude 07:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
How is that controversial? You say it's WRONG. So? Lot's of things in this world are WRONG child. Many of those WRONG things are not controversial. There's no controversy, because it isn't anything really WRONG. It's wrong to the author, but it's within the rules. Too bad. So sad. t.z0n3
Um...do you even know what controversy is? I didn't say anything about it being right or wrong. This may rock your small view, child, but it doesn't have to be WRONG to be controversial. Now, the NC-17 ban was quite loudly disputed and may have even contributed to the largest walk off the site has seen. How is this NOT controversial? What's that...? You don't know? Exactly. Too bad. So sad.--Claude 03:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

What's bad and good about the site in my eyes

it's great exept for some of the athors that accused me of hacking someone's profile. I mean, i can't hack!

PopiethePopester 01:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC) User:PopiethePopester

Wow; why did they think you were a hacker? Were you framed? --Gravity Control Why, yes i believe i was. --PopiethePopester 14:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  • SIGH* You can't HACK a friggin PROFILE... and even if you could, it's simple password manipulation. I could probably do it with a week's worth of research, even though I only program a few languages, and I'm crappy at them. This isn't newsworthy people. t.z0n3

Additional Information

I would suggest someone email Xing and the FanFiction.Net staff about the history of the site. I have been active at the site for a long time, and I remember some things that others most certainly do not, but I don't remember the actual dates. For example, in the timeline section, I would add a few things: the dates of different revisions to the site, the period where the site experienced significant instability, the date the rating system was killed, the timeline of refinements to the site (adding/subtracting significant catagories, the loss of the message boards, history of articles, etc.)

I also think that the controversy should not be the very first section after the description of the page, as that immediately skews the article in the eyes of the reader (at least this reader).

Perhaps it is trivial, but it might be interesting to have a section devoted to specific parts of the site's history (For example, the "Author Wars"). Or, would such talk be better suited on individual wiki pages with links in this page?

Dooflegna 20:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The timeline for FanFiction.Net was created by some one who was a member of the staff for a period of time and who is a fan historian. The staff was, to my knowledge, pretty much emptied shortly after the meltdown involving Cassandra Claire. It ended up basically being just Xing about four months after that. Personally, I would put the controversies in the timeline mentioning just what they were and then sourcing say petitions and news articles related to them. That would help to maintain a neutral point of view and provide additional information that may be skewed or not skewed. --PurplePopple 10:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

"It ended up basically being just Xing about four months after that" <<<so exactly who is running the site now? If it is just Xing, then what is the 'support staff' thing? (on FF.net, there're references to a support staff crew. For example, someone in the FAQs, it says that FF.net e-mail addresses are used by the site's support staff). And there're also references to "Fanfiction.net administrators. I don't mean to pry, but maybe a little information on how the site is ran now would be nice. It's always bugged me about how there seems to be no communication between the site staff and the site users. I've been a FF.net user for ages, and i think the only one time i got a reply from the site was when i sent in a list of characters for a category that didn't yet have a character list (and the reply happened to be a one line retort telling me that i'd listed the characters wrongly since i'd put the surnames in front of the first names, as you do for Japanese names.) Yaksha 01:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Current Changes - March 22, 2006

I added a couple of bits about the language support, took out a few non-neutral or POV-ish phrasings such as "interesting" (in the description of the site's layout; whether or not it is interesting is a matter of opinion, not fact), and added or changed a lot of bits to read as "alleged" or "claimed" in order to further increase neutrality. Also tweaked wording in general in a few places, added to the NC-17 section (including links to two of the main sites that people moved their NC-17 works to), and added a few stats such as the approximate number of languages and subcategories. Thoughts, everyone? Somebody should definitely look into stats on the PM system, including when it was implemented. That thing has become very useful to a great number of the people I've talked to, and it allows people to work around the whole "can't respond to reviews in reviews or chapters" thing.

-Runa27 63.21.30.121 22:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the use of "alleged" or "claimed" in certain case, such as "A few have criticized FanFiction.Net for allegedly deleting stories without notice." The deletion are not alleged, they are real. As I understand, FF.net has reserved the right to delete fanfictions that violate the terms of use without prior notice. In this case, what is "claimed" by disgruntled users, is the fact that the removals were abusive.

-Dow, 4 April

It may well have happened, but to support a neutral point of view, "alleged" and "claimed" are words that need to be kept. t.z0n3

Dow, you wrote The deletion are not alleged, they are real.
To which I say - unverifiable! That's why it's "alleged". They're gone from the site, so there's not even direct proof they were there.
As I understand, FF.net has reserved the right to delete fanfictions that violate the terms of use without prior notice. In this case, what is "claimed" by disgruntled users, is the fact that the removals were abusive.
No, what's is claimed by most of the "disgruntled" users is more along the lines of a.) a certain ban being silly or unfair, or b.) their work not violating the TOS, but still being removed for non-existant TOS violations. Again - the first is opinion, the latter is technically unverifiable since they have been completely deleted and are no longer acknowledged as having existed on the FanFiction.net archive. However, what is verifiable is that people have claimed that their stories were deleted, often also alleging that the stories in question did not violate the TOS, and further alleging that therefore, the staff does not even look at the abuse reports before deleting a story. Again, there's no irrefutable proof for either side, but there are an awful lot of complaints and claims. The article should reflect that; no more, no less. Runa27 08:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Archie Comics

How come Archie comics isn't on the list of authors who sent a cease and desist letter? 199.126.166.178 00:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Citations sticker

Just reading the article, I think that there are plenty of citation stickers throughout the page. I don't see a need for the sticker anymore. t.z0n3

Some of the citations are hard to cite. I know a number of them from having been on staff. If citations needed to be given, the staff member names could probably be found from the mailing list and from the Internet archive. --PurplePopple 02:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Decorative Characters

I was looking at an older version of this article, and it said that decorative characters were banned from Fanfiction.net. I've never heard that term used before, and the Fanfiction.net policy never mentioned it. So, could someone please tell me what a Decorative Character is?

In English, at least, that appears to include *** (a common chapter divider), for one. Runa27 08:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Self-insertion

The Mary Sue page says Fanfiction.net has a ban on self-insertions, yet I've never actually heard of this ban and this page has nothing on it that I've skimmed. Could someone clarify?--Claude 03:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no ban. Real-person fic is disallowed, however. --141.225.150.199 01:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Google and MSN Search

Does anyone know why the FanFiction.Net site cannot be found on Google or MSN Search? 68.117.18.6 05:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you entered it wrong, because entering it as either FanFiction.net or fanfiction.net brings up the following result in Google:
FanFiction.Net
A resource for writing, reviewing and reading fanfiction stories.
www.fanfiction.net/
Google can show you the following information for this URL:
  • Find web pages that are similar to FanFiction.net
  • Find web pages that link to FanFiction.net
  • Find web pages from the site FanFiction.net
  • Find web pages that contain the term "FanFiction.net"
Maybe the problem was on your end? Runa27 08:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I am also having troubles getting on the site. Punk18

New Cassandra Claire summary

A new summary of the "Cassiegate" scandal has been written up on journalfen. Unlike the other sources, this is viewable by the public and cites many other sources that also are viewable by the public. Definitely has a point-of-view, but it's a good starting point for sources. --141.225.150.199 02:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

New Look

The site has a new look. They got rid of the lightbulb logo altogether. Can someone get a picture of this? Starfox Pilot 17:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Rampant Weasel Words and NPOV

I realize some of you are far more familiar with the website featured in the article than you are with Wikipedia. Here we have a strict policy of removing any biased or unsourced information. We strive to maintain a neutral point of view. Here are a few quick notes:

  • Subjective (and some objective) statements must be sourced
  • Starting a sentence with Some people say or Many have commented that or anything like that is not allowed. See Wikipedia:Weasel words
  • Links must be from reliable sources
    • No blogs
    • No personal websites
    • No petitions
  • Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. We don't need to see what's currently the "best" story or the "most popular" section.
  • Name-dropping is very frowned upon. Really, the only person who should be specified here is the creator/owner, no matter how successful their story has become.

I'm working on the cleanup whenever I can, and I'll be sure to keep an eye on this article. If you have any questions, feel free to hit up my talk page, or to leave a comment here. Thanks, and happy editing. --Wafulz 22:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

First - either you've done well, or I fail to see where there very many "best stories".
Second - actually, I think it's notable that the HP section is the most active; that actually surprised me, I would have expected Lord of the Rings to be just as high or more after those movies came out. It's only one line, and it's obviously researched, so I say leave that bit, albeit perhaps migrating it to a "Trivia" section might be more appropriate.
Third - sentences starting with "many have commented that", etc., ARE allowed, they are simply frowned upon, which is technically different from being "not allowed". This is why you should NOT copy-paste these kinds of things, folks. Wikipedia:Weasel words claims only to be a style guide, not a policy. Also, in cases where there are a LOT of citable sources of complaints, it's worth noting that there are "many" that complain. This is precisely why so-called "weasel words" are merely frowned upon, not completely banned.
Much as I l's loath to admit it, Cassandra Claire's apparently just notable enough to mention here, seeing as the controversy she stirred up was one of the biggest the site ever had, and connects to other events in the site's history. Just thought I'd note that.
I agree on the petitions, but most of the fan fiction community communicates on blogs and the like - so that is where the bulk of complaints are listed. So long as there's more than one person complaining of something and it's linked, I don't think it's that much of a problem. It's not like that many people outside of the fan fiction community have tried the site, after all. The only time I even saw a review in print (in the New York Times) for it it was only for the fiction published on the site, not the site itself or any of its issues. I do not know of any mainstream print publications bothering to cover issues with the usability of the site beyond the quality of fiction available for reading. Why? Because fan fiction is a very geeky hobby, even today. The NYT and so on don't bother to cover geeky stuff unless it's sufficintly interesting to outsiders or earth-shaking, and whether or not FanFiction.net sucks is hardly earth-shaking stuff. :P Plus, it would probably be time-consuming to investigate it, and very few papers and magazines would probably want to fund that kind of research for an article on such a niche hobby's largest website.
Also, the rule is not "no blogs"; the guideline for citation is generally "only notable blogs" and/or the same applying to entries. I believe Cassandra Claire has a blog of some sort, and that thus, if she addresses the FanFiction.net kerfluffle on there, it would be within the guidelines, IMO.
Now, a big problem right now is that a lot of the sources are dead links or require membership priveleges to view them. THAT needs to be dealt with for sure. Runa27 08:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The "no blogs" thing was a bit harsh, I admit. I should've been a little more clear. I saw a few livejournal/Yahoo! group links though, which don't strike me as reliable at all.
The biggest problem here is verifiability- how are we supposed to get information on this website that isn't from personal weblogs? I'm personally still questioning the notability of the website to begin with, since WP:WEB doesn't list being the "largest and most popular" as criteria for inclusion. Really, that (currently unverified) statment is the only statement that's keeping me back from starting an AfD.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I see, this website has neither:
  1. Non-trivial independent media coverage
  2. An independent award
  3. Distribution by a site/publisher/broadcaster that is already notable
I understand that it's a geeky thing, but there are much geekier topics that get plenty of coverage from some reliable online source of media. Basically, the way I'm looking at it is this: If the rest of the world doesn't think it's notable enough to be mentioned, then why does it deserve a spot in an encyclopedia? Right now I'm really trying to find some verifiable, reliable sources and all I've managed to come up with is this.
In addition to notability- if we can't find sources for many of the subjective statements (like criticisms), then we'll end up taking a lot of it out. If we could find it documented on the website itself, then we could keep it. --Wafulz 16:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The Pit of Voles

Most of the more 'hardcore' fanfic fans refer to the site solely as 'The Pit of Voles' or as 'The Pit'. Who started this name, and shouldn't it be mentioned in the article? Firefly99 16:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

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