Downvotes and Fimfiction · 9:09pm Sep 8th, 2022
This is more a query to people who follow me and read my stories frequently, but something I've been curious about for a while. I don't visit fimfiction too frequently, I come here to post my works so that other people can enjoy them and read the odd message I get through the site mail system. However on a recent upload I got some extremely nasty comments and overall I'm just curious about the general state and acceptance of fetish writing on this site.
Fimfiction is the best site going for uploading works, it has a lot of great tools and makes putting stories out there a breeze. However it has a lot of negative aspects, I get the general feeling NSFW/fetish writing is shunned here. Despite the fact you mark a story NSFW (hiding it from non-logged in users who specifically have to turn the ability to see those stories on) you're not allowed to upload images as covers that contain any sort of NSFW content in the eyes of the moderators.
A trend I have noticed is how my uploads garner more and more negative upvotes now compared to when I started 4-5 years ago. I am not a numbers guy, I never have been, but I can't ignore these sorts of things either. I purposefully try to post stories at odd times to get it off the front page as quickly as possible, because ironically, for a site dedicated to writing, many users downvote stories obviously without reading them, as a number of these votes come in maybe in the first 5 minutes of it sitting there. They've clearly seen the cover and maybe read a little but not the whole thing. I don't think I can really believe my writing style has degraded either, unless people in the comments below tell me otherwise. I've adapted this over the years to mirror formats commonly found around in books and tried my best to improve. Commissions are always happy with the quality and content of the writing.
I guess I am just wondering if more frequent users to this site can let me know why these days, mean (and not in a good way, not critique, just 'You suck and your writing is bad') comments and more and more downvotes seem to be common?
Thanks.
I usually just lurk, but I'm as confused as you. If it's a story with fetish content or similar that I know I don't like, I just don't read it. I usually don't even use the downvote button unless a story tries to sell itself as something less extreme as a mirage to sneak past the Cover Crew. (I.E. Lies or lies of omission about story contents readers should know about)
I haven't noticed much, if any degradation in your own writing, and it's not like the subject matter is particularly different than what you used to write, so I'll just chalk it up to the demographics here on FimFic maybe shifting as excitement about MLP in general is steadily winding down? That's my best guess anyway. More "extreme" people might be leaving- the type of people that might enjoy a fetish fic like your library consists of. Don't know.
imo just keep doing what you're doing. People with legitimate quality concerns will speak up in an effort to help.
From my experience, Fimfiction is a profoundly insular space, even more so than other online furry communities like FurAffinity. It is a community which relies upon a vast swathe of in-jokes and memes and a sense of humor which I can only think to describe as inane. Consequently, anyone who strays beyond that sense of normality, any outsiders attempting to join in and make headway in the community, are going to be facing an uphill battle.
Porn can be popular here, but usually only that of a distinctly vanilla flavor. Every time I look at the warning tags on a porn or fetish story I just see a litany of terms--vaginal, anal, oral, cunnilingus, blowjob, boobjob, cream pie, etcetera--which could be summed up by saying "sex" by itself. Hyper is the only size kink that gets commonly accepted, but even then usually only on the low end of the spectrum of indulgence. Fat and inflation have an even steeper curve working against them. I suspect this is because of the brony fandom's inherent roots in 4chan, instilling the idea that these things are too cringy to be accepted, too "furry"--I'm sure most users here would staunchly deny the above assertion that Fimfiction is a "furry" community.
I think the existence of a downvote option in of itself, though, is the core of the problem. The purpose of downvoting ostensibly is to indicate that something is of poor quality, but trusting people on the internet to use such a feature responsibly is foolhardy. It only serves to encourage the behavior of being negative and mean-spirited toward others on the basis of outward appearance. I would go so far as to say that I think it is a system inherently antithetical to the ideals espoused by the very show which brought users to this site in the first place.
Ultimately, you just have to do what you can. Write the content that you enjoy because you enjoy it, don't worry about what other people may think of it (commissioners notwithstanding), that's secondary to your own satisfaction. Negativity is unavoidable, you just have to build an audience of people who enjoy what you put out.
Fimfiction is probably always going to be cancerous, though that's not much worse than FurAffinity and the like, and at least this is the rare site specifically dedicated to writing.
People are like this everywhere unfortunately, I can't count the number of times I've seen artists get "wtf is this shit" comments or even harassed from people who couldn't have found their art without going out of their way looking for "weird" stuff to shit on, even stuff like sfw furry art on non-furry sites gets this treatment. The old "don't like don't read" thing has been mocked but it feels like maybe there was at least some truth to it when it comes to like types of content you don't like. I know this journal was from a little while back so I hope people here have gotten better about that.