Site Updates? · 4:14am Apr 2nd, 2013
Right, having just come from the couple of posts regarding changes to the website, I elected not to express my opinions regarding them in the comments section. Why? Because the comments section for those blog posts consists 90% of arguments, swearing, and general idiocy. Some people have reacted to it maturely, this is true, but not as many as you'd hope.
Now, I'm hardly a FimFic veteran, having been here a little over a month. But I have somehow managed to get 18 users of the site to elect to follow me in that time, so if you want to hear my opinions on the site changes in a dignified way, read this. Chances are not many people will read this, seeing as my last blog post is at a staggering 5 views and one comment, but the main reason for this rant is that it benefits me in the fact I'm expressing my opinions on the changes to the site, and anyone who wants to hear what I've got to say is already following me.
Firstly, the big news. Knighty is retiring. As I said above, I haven't been here long. But from what I've seen so far, he's done a marvelous job of setting up and coding this site, allowing those of us who enjoy FiM and want a simple interface with which to share our fictions an epic place to do just this. Despite my being fairly new here, I am addicted just to being on this website. Sincerely Knighty, thank you for setting this place up. You will be missed.
Second is the Gold Accounts. Now no specific details have been released regarding benefits of Gold Accounts thus far, but its hard to ignore the golden name tags on comment name tags. Apparently this is just sort of a beta test period for April fools, making us think we'd been granted Gold status, which made me chuckle a bit when I found out why my name tag had changed. As for what Gold Accounts entail, and if you have to pay for them, again, no info. If you do have to pay to get gold, I doubt I'll bother. I'm hardly well known on the site, and there would have to be a pretty darn good reason to get gold for me to bother paying for it.
Third is the site updates. They will now be less frequent. Once again, I haven't been here long, so I haven't seen the site grow. However, I think this is a good thing. More time between updates mean more thought and testing can be put into the updates, meaning we'll have less reason to complain when time for those updates comes around.
And finally, the really big news. As of tommorow (well, today for me, seeing as its past midnight where I am), any stories including humans, be it human in Equestria, humanized versions of MLP characters, or fics about the upcoming Equestria Girls show are not allowed to be posted. I sincerely hope that this is just another April fools joke. But on the off chance that it isn't, here's my opinion: Bad move. This site is meant to be a dedicated site for stories that revolve around the MLP universe. As long as the writer can integrate humans into that story in a way that doesn't come off as ridiculous, I don't see any issues. Sure, there is a colossal amount of terrible human related stories on this site, but no more terrible stories than you can find in every other genre. Poultron claims the reason for this change is because "Humanized fics tend to cause nothing but issues, both for the users and the moderation team", but I just don't see any truth to this. If he could provide a solid example of this, I may be more persuaded, but as of right now, I think its a really bad call. Of course, Poultron has been put in charge of the website by Knighty himself, and I don't see any reason why we should question that. But as a way to kick off an ownership, I honestly think this is only going to hurt the website and its fanbase.
These are strictly my opinions. Feel free to comment below expressing your opinions, but please be mature about it. Any comments that are rude will be deleted.
Sorry for the big wall of text. Even if nobody reads this, it feels good to get all that off my chest.
I agree with that being a bad decision. Me not being that big of a fan of HiE fics I still see the problems with this decision. For one he is now blocking an entire literature category for the fandom and second he is putting HUGE limitations on the site. If your going to ban a story genre ban the troll fics and NOT one of the most written story categories in the entire fandom. If this is not a April Fools joke then this is in my opinion a decision that is forcing your views upon someone, aka Tyranny.
-Rezz