Site Update » Rule clarity issues · 12:09am Nov 6th, 2015
As it has been pointed out there are some clarity issues with some of our new rules and a few problems created, we have made some clarification changes, here for your convenience:
General Conduct
General
• Posting of anyone’s personal information other than your own without permission is prohibited. This includes name, street address, email address, IM screennames, etc.
• Posting your own personal information is not recommended and done at your own risk, and we cannot help you with any problems this might result in.
• You may not expose a link between two profiles on or off Fimfiction, that the profile owners did not already document. If both profiles are on Fimfiction, a report should be filed on one of the users in question if the user is violating our secondary account rules.
General Conduct
Registration and account security
• Multiple people sharing the same computer, mobile or other internet-capable device or internet connection may be subject to increased scrutiny of their behavior if the activity between the two overlap.
Stories
Don't post (content)
• The same story twice. This does not include variants of the same story where the two versions differ on a rating tag, such as a Teen version and a Mature version.
• Stories you have deleted and are now resubmitting. Please contact a moderator to have your original deleted story recovered.
Please see the rules page for our full rules, these are only the changes.
Ninja knighty edit: I've fixed a couple of major issues with the gdoc importer which should mean it doesn't drop paragraphs anymore. Feel free to test and let us know if you still get problems.
Coolio, Mr. Julio
Whew ^^
The rules have been enforced. They're watching us.
Weird. It's almost like the mods have the community's best interests in mind, or something.
Does this mean that if a Moderator delete a story or account in error, it's possible to get those stories back?
Got you RES tagged now for all my stalking needs.
(Good changes, man)
3523452
They don't delete them, in my experience, they just set them as unpublished.
3523446 Impossible!!!
3523482
We pretty much only delete stories that have no actual content in them, they're spammy gibberish or similar.
3523498
If it's completely rewritten we consider those different stories.
Curious when the new tags will be implemented.
3523513
I was going to work on adding the categories which is a slightly more complex task and is being done first, but this rules issue came up and ate up a lot of my time today. It might still get done in a few hours, or it might get moved to tomorrow.
Following that, I hope to add an initial batch of tags within a few days, there are a few remaining things we have to figure out first, though.
3523519
Thanks
So this isn't new? Because the rule update is the first time that I've seen it, and I've got some serious misgivings about what this rule is designed to accomplish.
What site-abusive behavior are you trying to prevent with it? Because I would argue that there are countless legitimate use cases for being able to share unpublished stories. Just off the top of my head, I've shared unpublished stories in order to:
* collate contest entries which the entrants wished to share with each other, to facilitate choosing a Reader's Choice award
* collect and post "bonus material" for a story of mine which would have disrupted the reading experience if added within the story itself
* demonstrate how FIMFiction's word-counting algorithm and textual parsing work
I don't want to feel like a scofflaw for putting the site to positive, community-building use whose functionality can't be duplicated within the published-story rules.
3523586 Yeah, this particular rule kind of bothers me too, because I occasionally use unpublished view passwords to share "teaser" chapters of new stories I haven't submitted yet with my followers. I find it's a good way to gauge/generate interest in a new story
and keep people from killing me for not updating such and such story for a bit.3523519
A friend of mine gives access to unpublished stories and chapters as a Patreon reward.
Is she likely to get banned for this?
3523598
3523607
It's fine if the people in question are helping with the writing process, such as acting as additional prereaders, or commenting on an incomplete idea.
I spent some serious time on that reddit post, and I'm glad I wasn't simply overreacting. It's nice to see other people were either in the dark or just as upset as I was. Thank you for being a great, responsive team.
Really hoping Knighty can get the GDocs importer fixed, too.
I might suggest in the future always using Site Blog posts like this one for even minor rule changes. They affect every user of the site, and having a proper place to discuss the changes would be welcomed.
3523613
Well, my Patreon is now offering people the chance to 'act as additional prereaders'.
Totally legit.
Concerning not posting the same story twice: What about where a story is retold from a different POV? While there may be some duplication of scenes between the two versions, they would be from a completely different POV, as well as containing scenes that are not in the other version at all.
I need to know this because I am writing a story told from first person POV, but would like to do a companion story which is the same events but told from the POV of other characters. I thought it would be a fun project to do and I've seen it done before on this site.
3523659 That's almost certainly going to be fine. I think the idea is just that you make edits to a story in place instead of posting edited versions as new stories.
Fine I'll tell my other personality he can't like things anymore.
Would remakeing a story be different
3523613
What about an idea like this? Yes, I know perfectly well it won't ever be published, but still-- your thoughts?
…That may be the fastest response I've ever seen from this site. Not an unwelcome thing.
I'm still concerned about the suddenly-strict rules of polishing a story before publishing, which should be writing advice, not a site rule, but it seems most of the problems have been addressed.
Edit: To clarify my view on this, it's like making it a site rule that your story has to be written well. It's subjective, it's detrimental to writers just starting out, and it's wide open for abuse.
3523586
I think the main reason for that rule is exactly the reason there's a publish button in the first place. As soon as you publish a story, it's plainly seen and subject to site moderation. But if people start distributing stories without publishing them, then they are more or less taking an end-run around the moderation rules.
Listen I just want to eat my cereal in peace, okay?
Just let me live, my life.
Could we just save time and call this the RealityCheck anti-drama rule as a tribute to honesty and transparency?
3523586
That one isn't new TODAY, which is what this blog post is referring to. That rule went into effect last week Monday, along with a bunch of other rule changes. The changes listed on this site-post are changes made to clarify the changes that went into effect last week, in response to user feedback.
3523694 I'm betting the main thrust of all this "don't post stories you've posted before" stuff is purely to prevent gaming of the voting system or the feature box and stuff like that. If an author posts a story and gets a ton of downthumbs it wouldn't be fair to the people who took the time to read the story and give their ratings if the author could just "reset" it all and try again without having to make significant changes to the story itself.
The revisions to these rules have fixed a lot of concerns, IMO, it generally seems quite fine to me now. The only issue I'm still a little edgy about is the stuff regarding "unpublished" work. There was recently a controversial case where a popular author wrote a controversial story and it wasn't allowed to be published, but it was read a lot anyway and IMO it was quite good. I'd hate to see stuff like that get squelched for arbitrary reasons. We'll have to see how it goes I guess.
3523651
I just link to a gdoc, personally.
This discussion is really not calming my misgivings.
3523828 3523870
If this rule is a response to a user distributing their story without it passing moderation, that makes it worse — because it will do exactly nothing to stop such sharing of unwanted content, it will just push it into a format that creates more hassles for legitimate site users.
It is still 100% within the rules to post a FIMFiction blog which contains content that would break the rules as a story (unless it is an attack on a user, or links NSFW content; those are the only content restrictions on blog posts, and that's how it should be). If you think this pushback is bad, watch authors go absolutely apesh*t if it's decreed that fiction cannot be posted in blogs.
Blogs are far MORE visible than unpublished stories, because
1) they are indexed by search engines
2) they show up in subscribers' feeds when posted
So right now, in an apparent bid to address a single incident of drama (since 3523613 merely reiterated the rule and there's no official answer to my question of what the rule is attempting to accomplish), all it's going to do is give a higher profile to future incidents of drama. Not to mention, invoking the magic words "Help me preread this!" is now an affirmative defense if you want to deliberately flaunt the rules by signal-boosting an unpublished story you have no intention of submitting. That puts the moderators in the position of playing thought police, sorting out legitimate prereading calls from false-flag prereading calls, which is just about the worst possible use of their time.
And in the meantime, all of the use cases in 3523586, 3523598, and 3523607 — none of which involve prereading — are banned as collateral damage.
Even if some of the wording needs/needed to be tweaked, I'm on board with the intention behind all of the other rule changes. But this one strikes me as both misguided and counterproductive.
3523948 That particular case is not really the motivation at all. The issue is that unpublished stories are inherently pretty hidden and it trivial to post actually illegal content in them to be linked around. That is the primary reason for this change. If we allow people to post other rule breaking content in stories, why even bother calling Fimfiction a pony site? Should we also let people post Harry Potter stories on the site right now as long as they're unpublished?
The secondary accounts rule is still not really clear, though. The wording suggests that only different types of content can be partitioned into different accounts, but what about different kind of story content?
The simplest example would be separating stories by rating, of course. It would be especially important for those writers with more or less established readership for a G-rated story if they wanted to experiment with something more risqué. Conversely, for a writer with established PG-13 and up presence it seems reasonable to desire their G-rated story to be judged as is, without their other writing being taken into account. A similar argument may be made for writing that uses settings which have very polarized opinions about them within the FimFiction readership (I won't name names, but I think everyone can think of one or two): not willing to subject their non-setting related stories to the scrutiny of belonging to the same writer who does some of the writing in these highly polarized-opinion settings seems reasonable.
To make my question short: pseudonyms are a time-honored literary tradition for the purposes of publishing written works that may negatively affect the readership' opinion about the author's other works. Are we allowed to have those on FimFiction?
Of course, I'm not talking about making a separate account for every story here: some rules against the abuse of pseudonymous writing should be in place, but having just one pen name to use with every written work of pony fiction would seem a little too rigid.
3524001 Personally I think it's pretty clear that usage is fine.
3524025 This is very good to know, especially coming from you personally! Maybe it was just me being overly cautious about not breaking any rules
3523977
> The issue is that unpublished stories are inherently pretty hidden and it trivial to post actually illegal content in them to be linked around
If you're not already banning people for illegal content, a new rule isn't going to help.
> If we allow people to post other rule breaking content in stories, why even bother calling Fimfiction a pony site? Should we also let people post Harry Potter stories on the site right now as long as they're unpublished?
Setting aside the fact that you have explicitly discussed plans to expand FIMFiction to other fandoms ... again, the story-sharing rule does nothing to prevent this. I just clicked on my dashboard, and Undertale is in the list of Trending Groups. I've seen blogs in my feed recently about Steven Universe, physics, and mental illness. (And frankly, I have no problem with any of that, because it's all coming from MLP fanfic fans that also happen to have other interests.) A content crackdown that applies only to unpublished stories is just going to kick the ball into another, more visible, more problematic corner of your site.
Finally, if the issue is non-fandom content, make the rule about non-fandom content! "This is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction site. All accounts and account usage must be primarily related to pony fanfiction." Bam, done. Then the people wanting to use the site as an Undertale story repository know the actual reason you want them gone, and aren't wasting your server resources by saying "Hey, can you guys help me preread my unpublished Undertale story?" Which right now is still 100% legal.
3523977 Ah, so that's why. Makes sense.
Sucks that I'll have to stop leaking teasers, but I can live with it.
I'm on a smart phone and I can't read them. Is there an alternative method for reading?
3523948
I think there might have been a bit of miscommunication here. You see, the above is exactly my point. Blogs are more easily visible, and therefore more easily moderated, than unpublished stories. Pushing the problem into the open is a good thing.
3523977
Frankly, yes.
Who would be hurt by an unpublished HP story?
3524133
Server overload. Contrary to popular belief, websites do not have infinite storage.
3523977
Might as well give them a head start for when you go general fiction. :genericsmiley:
3524136
I used to have a web hosting account with infinite storage. ^.^ Surprisingly affordable; cost about $11 per month.
But aside from that quip, do you really think a few non-pony fics on a site with 90,000 stories is going to overload the server? I can't imagine there being more than a few hundred of them.
3524082
But it doesn't violate any Fimfic rules to post a full HP story in your blog.
3524063
Groups, forums within groups, blogs, and so on are all "secondary" content as far as the site is concerned. Stories are the primary motivation of the site, regardless of what individual users prefer. All rules and optimization of the site will be for stories first and foremost, secondary content subservient to that.
Published stories, groups, blogs, and so on are all rather visible. Someone doesn't need to follow someone or even join a group to see content in them (well, at least until they made private groups...). An unpublished story is very not visible. Only those with a direct link to it (and possibly a password) can even see it. Presumably also moderators can see these, but they'd have to know to look.
Published stories, if they break the rules, can be reported by anyone who sees them. Same goes for blogs, groups (again, private groups aside), and so on. This gives a lot more eyes to the moderating staff to take action against illegal content. Unpublished stories are hidden from these extra eyes.
Making it explicit that unpublished stories are not to be just used as a way to try to hide from the eyes of those who would report illegal behavior seems to be the core intent of the rule. If you don't ever plan to publish a thing, don't use fimfic to do it. Make a gdoc or something. Don't waste site resources intended for the creation, publishing, and hosting of stories on other endeavors.
Are comments which call for attacking other users and link to said person's userpage being given the same administrative response as if it were a blog doing so?
3523828
It is in fact a rule that a story must have at least minimal effort taken on spelling and grammar, etc. The thing people miss whenever they see this rule is that whenever borderline stories are passed through, they get slammed with downvotes. This rule actually protects new writers to some extent from this behavior. It's not a perfect solution, and you should note that the rule says "should", not "must", it's highly suggested, obvious no-editing-at-all gets rejected, but edge cases often pass through.
In general you should remember the rules are guidelines and if any major problems come up we can further clarify them. The intent is not to keep stories off the site, but to attempt to maintain a minimal level of readability for submitted content. In general our site rules are tuned around readers, not writers. We need writers to submit content for people to read, but we'd generally prefer to be highly usable to readers and make sure they stay, because nobody wants to publish stories on a site where nobody will read it.
There are tools such as downvotes to "sink" bad stories, but we try to give authors a chance to fix things we know generate poor vote ratios before their story is +1 -20 and nobody else is interested in looking at it.
3524156
So, are my Patreon early releases just collateral damage, or is the rule also intended to stop that as well?
3524191
Yes, and this is not new, any call to attack another user has been against the rules for a very long time now.
So wait.
Does this mean one CAN MAKE two copies of one story, being nearly identical, save for say the rating tag?