Story Approval Team Exposed?

So recently I've submitted a dark one shot piece to this site. I asked a handful of people to preread the story, all saying that it was good, except for some minor spelling and grammatical errors here and there. They could tell what the story is and what it revolved around, and were overall happy to read the piece.

So, I wait several hours after my submission until not even an hour ago when I received an email from one of the story approval staff of the site. When I noticed that my story didn't show it's face under the "New" category, it was obvious that it failed moderation. And when I saw the email, my thoughts were exactly. Here's the copy n' paste of what the email said:

"Dear TailsTales,

Your story Swimming With The Fishies has failed moderation on FimFiction for the following reason: This story, as it has been submitted, is not considered to be related to the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic universe. As a general rule, if you can sub out a few names or vocabulary terms from your story and be unable to tell that it’s a My Little Pony fanfic, it is not considered to be related enough. If you have plans to add chapters in the future which will more closely connect this story to MLP, please be sure to have those published before resubmitting.

Please make the required changes and resubmit.

Please check the FAQ for additional information and rules, or feel free to reply to this PM if you're unsure of anything."

So, if it wasn't obvious and clear, the issue with the story was apparently it didn't include the necessary information to dictate that the story was based around the MLP universe.

Which, of course, is not true.

Here are a few snip bits of my story's paragraphs, with the highlighted words being the ones that should make the reader tell that the story was in fact an MLP universe story.

"I always remember her to be the most optimistic type around in this town, but never openly expressing it. I remember her lovely golden crisp mane, which flowed when a summer breeze like today's brushed by through the open window. I would always remember that smile she’d give me whenever I gave her a flower full of life as I came back from my exhausting job. That same smile was what got me through every day, every week, and every single year as life's hardships brought its most heavy burden upon my shoulders. Ironically, to this day, I never thought those hard times were, well, hard.

I wouldn't lie. We were definitely not up with the High Class, nor even with the Middle. We were poor, but just one of the lucky few who were nearly getting by, but not enough to get other personal things. Whenever we had the bits, they were for filling the afternoon's table with dinner. Unlike other poor folk, we had dinner every night. She always prepped them, and I'd be a headless chicken if I said she didn't do a fine job cooking. Actually, "fine" wouldn't even begin to describe the skills she had with a few ingredients and her momma's recipe book. Hell, one night when I was remarking on how well she prepared that night's dinner, I brought up how she should become the local chef around here. Told her she would definitely beat most of the chefs at Restaurant Row if she had a cook-off. But, no matter what I said to convince her to take the job, she refused. She’d always said that if it were up to momma, she would've taken the recipe book back if there was even a consideration of sharing her special recipes to the world. I shrugged, and we chuckled. We enjoyed every meal, with just us together."

"Then the day happened. I woke up that fateful morning to see her not by my bedside. It wasn't awfully peculiar, since she sometimes did that to go tend the flowers. Speaking of flowers, she was very fond of the beauty of the plants. So much so that she owned a simple, small flower boutique a few blocks away. She was the only one that worked at the place, and to be honest, it didn't matter if there were ten pairs of hooves helping her out. She was efficient when it came to selling her home-grown nature. She always picked out the right colors that the customer wanted, and always made sure it was done in top quality. Even though it only raised our overall cash-in-pocket a little, it was a nifty hobby for her. But I digress."

That should be enough description to tell the readers that the story was MLP-related. And trust me, the rest of the story has more references that describe that the character's are indeed ponies, as well as other references that tell of an actual place in the MLP universe. Such as the Gala.

In simpler terms, if you were truly reading the story, it would be obvious that it's MLP related. It shouldn't take thousands upon thousands of references in each paragraph to tell you, the reader, that it's MLP.

So that got me thinking. After I read the email through and through several times, it made me felt as if the story approvers, you know the guys were dictate whether or not your story is worthy to be on FimFiction, didn't bother to properly read the story's content through and through. It's almost as if they skimmed through it, skipping a few vital bits along the way.

Now, I can understand why if this is the case, for they receive hundreds of stories per day that they need to go through to see if they fall under the requirements or not. Everyday is a busy day for them, I understand.

But it feels very wrong and ridiculous that they would miss what could make the story on the FimFiction page. It makes me think of them as being lazy. How could they miss the most blatant pieces of information, of vital detail, that would allow my story to be publicly presented?

Anyways, that's my "rant" for tonight. This goes for a warning to future writers as a whole: that what could be your next approved story could possibly be rejected because of horseshit such as this.

G'Night everyone. Spread the message.