cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!
Anybody else starting to get tired of the feature box, and it's sex infestation? · 12:06am Jan 6th, 2019
Warning: Ranty rant is ranty.
For the rest of you not caring to hear me whine, here's a picture of Vinyl Scratch in her full, immaculate glory that's been going around Derpybooru lately.
You're all most welcome.
Now, on to the venting...
I mean... the three bottom slots being reserved for old stories is strange enough instead of 'Trending Updated' or something, being their own thing...
But mainly? I'm getting really~ tired of the choice between no Mature stories, or a deluge of incest, porn and incest porn. Heck, as I write this, 4/10 stories of what's supposed to be the best of the best the fandom has produced right now... is outright porn.
And I think we all know that's a pretty tame day. 
Don't even get me started on the child-porn who thankfully seem to be in a bit of a lull right now. Oops, sorry, I meant the 'foal-con.' Like anybody actually buys that two-faced, bull-shit, post-truth crap. 
I mean, at least now there's a 'non-con' tag you can avoid now, and to the mods credit they seem to take enforcing that one pretty seriously... but I can't be the only one starting to feel an real itch for some proper black and white listing tools, right?
*Deep breath.*
I'm sorry, I just... I'm no prude, or anything, but lately I've seen SO many old friends and promising authors just quietly pick up their stuff and leave, while the...
Well, to be blunt, hard-core cartoon horse porn the detractors of the Brony fandom's been pointing at since day one as why we're all perverts, deviants and scum been coming faster then ever before. And I can't help but feel those two? That's... almost certainly no coincidence.
*Deeper breath.*
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
If any of you actually did? Thanks for reading.
I remember when it was actually rare. I think part of the problem is that not enough new good stuff gets posted and what does isn't oneshot like most of the feature clop seems to be (I don't see much in the updated section)
Credit where it is due: Brought on in part by reading MrNumbers blog on the tangentially related subject of there being less and less female writers around here, and why that's worrysome.
Link.
Recommended. Bit long even by my metrics, but some excellent, well-argued points.
And after reading that, I looked at the Featured Box, and... Yeah, needed to vent.
I just finished to read and I have to agree with your rant.I came here not long ago and I had read somewhere that the feature box is where I could find the best story,news or updated but all I can see is Porn,porn,something interesting,porn,porn....and meanwhile,I have the impression to miss the really good stories.
So yeah...I’m a little frustrated and approve your rant.
PS:I love the picture...
4991797
Yeah. There seems to be some weighing towards stuff with that 'Complete' tag. With those stories getting a few extra points to boost them along to more visibility.
A noble thought in a way, but with some... unfortunate side-effects with the current lack of filters.
4991800
Thanks.
Was actually debating if I should post this or not, but I felt it needed both to be said...
And truth be told, it's been building for a while. So it was either now, semi-controlled, or later full of swears and insults in the heat of the moment of fury, you know?
Yeah. I really wish we could set a setting saying, "Don't show me anything with these tags" that we could turn on and off. I've had the mature filter block the filth for the last 6 months because of all the filth. Mature stories that aren't porn, sorry, not going to spot you.
Deviant art has the same problem, where you either allow everything or forbid it all. (Blood, violence and porn is controlled by the same filter, which is also the only filter.)
Edited to be a bit more clear.
My other pet peeve for the site has to be how useless search for in-progress tag has become... because of how many dead fics fill up the search results. Like, if the author hasn't even logged into the site in a year, please have a script mark it as abandoned. If the author hasn't updated the story in a year, auto-tag it as being on hiatus, or at least nag the author to change the tag to hiatus or dead.
Actually 8 out of 10 right now have the sex tag.
I work very hard to put out quality content. The effort is made, at least. I have mature-rated stories, but surprisingly, a lot of them are sex-free. Which is odd and confounds people.
This is an issue that I am sometimes bothered about, which motivates me to do stories that are rated E. I mean, in the time it takes for me to complain, get worked up, and write out a rant, I could have a good start on a story. But it is nice to see somebody else who feels the same way I do.
I am tired. Been writing all day. My brain hurts.
4991817
I've been keeping it on myself since I don't want to miss that next Project Starlight, or The First Law Of Magic...
But, yeah, it's been... trying lately, to keep that little button turned to 'on.'
4991823
Counted only the outright [Porn] ones last night, but I don't doubt it.
4991852
I don't actually mind the porn, as such. Not directly.
If you need to imagine somebody nice and warm in your bed to make it through one more night in a world that can be frightfully cold and lonely at time, you can pick way freakier and less nice 'girls' then, say, Fluttershy. And if you need some text to help you picture that? There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In theory, I honestly don't even mind the 'foal-con' as long as I don't have to see it. Because I'm strongly anti-censorship, and although the fandom hasn't produced it's 'Lolita' and I doubt it ever will, the mere possibility that it could happen makes me not want any blanket bans.
...To be blunt but frank, I'm just tired of looking down in the ten-slot goblet of what's meant to be the cream of the cream of the entire fan-dom's writing efforts, and seeing all those other fluids atop it, you know?
Both of my stories have been featured. You do see some good stuff in there that isn’t porn or random comedy from time to time, but you’re not wrong on a fundamental level. At its core, the feature box is just a glorified popular box, with authors/stories that have the largest followings, or stories of the most popular genres usually occupying most slots. The other issue is how there’s only three slots allotted for on-going stories, so lesser known long stories have almost zero chance of getting featured because the only three slots allotted for long stories are always occupied by long stories with at least several hundred upvotes. There really should be a separate featured box specifically for long stories. While we’re at it, why not genre specific featured boxes? Have one for SoL; have one for Comedy; have one for Random; have one for Romance. So on and so forth?
Sorry to go off on a tangent there but yes I agree there should be a way to filter out porn and still see m rated stories that aren’t shameless smut, and the feature box is fundamentally flawed because like I said it’s basically a glorified popular box. In addition, authors want their stories to be seen, and when only two kinds of stories are predominantly sitting in the featured box it creates this snowball effect of more and more authors setting aside stories they want to write in favor of stories that are more likely to make the featured box. Sad, but that’s how it is and it would take some sweeping changes both to the site and how people think to really see a significant improvement. The latter can’t really be done, but we can at least suggest ideas for the former.
When my blog finally went live, six out of seven of the new slots was porn. One of them was mine, obviously, and it's the only one I'd consider as having
1) Any story outside the sex
2) An author who cares about consent and its portrayal
3) An awareness of misogyny
I don't mind porn and sex, I really don't. I think the reason they're a problem is because we have a seriously problematic attitude and approach to it.
I don't think the amount of M rated content in the feature box would be such a problem if it didn't treat the characters purely as 'may I take your order' drive thru windows.
4992136
4992212
Not much to add myself to both those comments, just thought I'd say out-laud I think those are some excellent points both of you made.
4992136
I like these ideas.
4992018
Ack. I used the wrong terminology in my post. What I meant is that I've blocked mature content for the last 6 months. (I was messed up because you turn the toggle "off" to turn the mature filter on)
4992426
Still, got what you meant. That's the important bit.
Well, there's a reason that I don't visit the homepage but archive crawl instead. Then again, I have so many stories to read (and an increasing volume of Worm fanfics on SV and SB as well) that I technically should be banned from the computer entirely, so I'm not missing much either way. I've got "mature" enabled (since there are about six stories I know of that happen to have that rating that aren't smut, so I'll read them), but there ARE times...