My Little Fanfiction: Bureaucracy is Magic

And that, kids, is why I'm not allowed to link to:
The color version of Pinkie Talks to Ponies
The monochrome version of Lyra Visits Bon Bon in Jail
the Zalgo-font version of Hello Ponies
The ALLCAPS version of APPLEJACK CELEBRATES INTERDIMENSIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY
The illustrated version of Pie of a Catagory 19 Storm
I do believe I have a solution on the horizon though.

Comments

[Shilic]

7.8/10 too much bureaucracy

[kudzuhaiku]

**blinks**

**blinks again**

Well... that is a copious quantity of bovine excrement. Thankfully, nobody can do a damn thing if one of your prereaders just so happens to share a link on social media. Those pesky prereaders! There's no controlling them or what they do. Why, when you have a bunch of them, you don't even know which one of them did it! It's awful!

[Super Trampoline]

3688008 I might have to *gasp!* start actually utilizing prereaders!

[Khelben Arunsun]

Plum's usually friendly, but this is out of his usual character. The situation smacks the kind of implied "fine print within the fine print" that as a supporter of the EFF, I detest.

But as a supporter of this site: I don't recommend argument; I recommend petitions. Don't fight the ruling (or the enforcement), fight the rule.

[Fome]

Are you sure you were talking to a human? Going from "You may not have chapters exclusively hosted on an external site that are required for the understanding or enjoyment of the story" from "it doesn't matter what the relationship of the offsite to the on-site content is, because every story is judged in a vacuum" is bordering on Markov chain logic.

Also: TIL that advertising companies are unanimously terrified of having their image associated with illustrated stories, stories in all caps and stories with weird fonts.

If you aren't allowed to have a rule-compliant version of a story plus a link to an off-site version, but are allowed to link to off-site stories that don't have an on-site version (see the links on KitsuneRisu's sidebar), have you considered just doing the latter? If you're only allowed to publicize one version of a story, you may as well choose the better version. (But I imagine that's probably been discussed under previous posts on the issue.)

I had thought that there was also a rule against publicly posting private messages. But I can't find it on the Rules page, so I'm probably remembering something from another site.

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

So basically, the whole thing boils down to Google not getting ad money?

See, this is why I have adblock installed. It's turned off for this site, but it's a loud F@#$ you to google on any other site.

Also, would advertising the stories in a blog without linking to them be acceptable, or is that still a no-no?

[richfiles]

Solution: Win lotto, buy Fimfiction, ban ads, instead of content.
Putting 10 into Luck, and wearing so.e Charisma boosting apparel should help with that...

[Tennis Match Fan]

I have a bunch of unpublished stories available on my user page and they only reason they weren't published is because they apparently weren't related to the EG universe enough.

[Spectrumancer]

Knighty, add an "alternate chapter version" system to the site, pls?

[PresentPerfect]

I am sorry for what I have done :(

[Super Trampoline]

3688273 doompaul.neocities.org/itstoolate.jpg
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people.cis.ksu.edu/~colecoop/happening/doom/1352422727766.jpg
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40.media.tumblr.com/be144afb9c198d49d833b01a021ad35d/tumblr_mkpkw3MoEm1s5hfnpo4_1280.jpg
i1237.photobucket.com/albums/ff469/mrflubb/XST7c-nE5eItU6ZTu_tgKZ022-NNvE4oRF_JbpnbtwFSGmF4kFL6yWKCw3jQljdCZQ4t0sefB2CH67wi00nnC_C-LqWiepSsa_0y3TQEW7SyexAZkJd_EmEwkahK_zpsa3b33299.gif
But seriously, how is this your fault?

[Super Trampoline]

3688068 EFF?

[Super Trampoline]

3688115 I'm going to see if just posting them as blogs is okay, since many people with higher standards than I have posted much longer story-blogs in the past.

[Super Trampoline]

3688154 Hey, now, clearly you were just looking for prereaders to help you get them site-compliant, right?

[Tennis Match Fan]

3688683 Of course! It's open to anyone who would like to help preread!

[Khelben Arunsun]

3688671 Electronic Frontier Foundation, the guys who champion the rights of internet users.

I highly recommend their browser addons https-everywhere and Privacy Badger. One ensures the use of SSL by default, the other blocks trackers (and malicious ads/unsafe links).

[Protopony350]

3688273

What on earth do you have to be sorry for?

[FaceDeer]

3688092

Are you sure you were talking to a human? Going from "You may not have chapters exclusively hosted on an external site that are required for the understanding or enjoyment of the story" from "it doesn't matter what the relationship of the offsite to the on-site content is, because every story is judged in a vacuum" is bordering on Markov chain logic.

Indeed. And just recently RealityCheck got hounded off of Fimfiction entirely after he wrote a story that opened with six paragraphs that shared some quotes in common with another story, which is pretty far off of the "every story is judged in a vacuum" standard.

I really don't get the level of rules-lawyering going on here and how completely arbitrary it winds up being when it comes to the ultimate outcomes. My most charitable guess would be that back when the advertisement got cut off for a brief period because adverts were showing up on R-rated stories the advertisers didn't like being associated with the mods got spooked, and now they feel a need to implement lots of rules and keep tight control over things even if it doesn't really make sense. A classic superstitious pigeon outcome.

[Super Trampoline]

3690094 I don't know the exact circumstances of RC's departure, but plagiarism--if that is indeed what occurred--is a completely different issue from what is going on here.

[FaceDeer]

3690101 I don't want to rehash the debate, but IMO calling it "plagarism" was pretty bonkers - it was well attributed, and within the context of a fanfiction site it was hardly out of line. I see stories that quote liberally from various sources - mostly the show itself but not exclusively - on a very regular basis.

My point in comparing them is the capriciousness of the "ruling" and the lack of any justification for saying actual harm was being done by it. The specific details were different, I just think the underlying systemic problem behind them might be the same.

[Wise Cracker]

The proper response would have been:

Instructions unclear, writing Filly Funtasia.

But seriously, this is starting to get silly. If it's not the fandom, then it's the site. Wouldn't go so far as to say jump ship before it sinks, but I'm makin' sure I know where my lifejacket is.