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Ah it has been a while but my schedule has cleared up somewhat. So let us get back to business.

I was not aware that the works of fiction featured on the website that you support were placed there for some purpose other then entertainment. I suppose that must be the case as something that is boring can not possibly be the best of the best when the intended purpose is entertainment. Actually if you are not choosing fiction for the purpose of entertainment that would explain quite a lot.

See here is the thing the worth of something is solely based on a standard that varies from person to person. Since I find the work that you allow to get through to be boring it is worthless to me. However I also understand that opinion is personal and so I am merely noting that one man's trash can be another man's entertainment. But if you wish to take it as an insult I can do nothing to stop you.

Ah this is the heart of the matter. The determent to the community. There are three main points that make up the bulk of my judgment.

First is inconsistency. Enforcing a set of such inconsistent rules breeds confusion. Without a clear and consistent reasoning content creators can be put off or misdirected thereby retarding their progress in their craft.

Second the group knowingly supports the website. You help it run and you are responsible in part for any harm that comes from that. That is the general you of course. This is no sort of thing that can be argued out of due to societal pressures threat of harm or something of the sort. Unlike the responsibility that citizens have for the actions of their governments (and they do have some) you are volunteers. You lend your support by completely free choice and can leave without hardship at any time.

Finally raging. The group of you treat people so shamefully and then go so far as to try and justify it. Even those that are not directly responsible for some particular case make excuses for the wretched behavior of their compatriots. Now I can not say what the results of such belittling language will have but I am aware that such things can have repercussions of serious harm depending on the individual. Not everyone has thick skin and I have seen drastic fallout from such things.

Now just that in itself is bad enough but the real kicker is that none of it is necessary. You are volunteers there is no excuse. If dealing with a bunch of bad writing and angry authors means you can no longer control yourself then stop. You are not feeding your starving children or something like that. You are purposely choosing to visit that behavior on others.

Drawfriends are good, though, I'll give them that. Still, there's reddit.

470231

Right. Major dissonance in your, er, argument, at a fundamental level that I juuuust can't let go. Check this out.

>I was not aware that the works of fiction featured on the website that you support were placed there for some purpose other then entertainment.
>for some purpose other then entertainment.
>ENTERTAINMENT

K, get that above? That's all you, right? Cool, now see below for a similar distilling.

> You help it run and you are responsible in part for any harm that comes from that.
> responsible in part for any harm that comes from that.
>HARM

Mmk, see, we have ENTERTAINMENT and HARM being applied to and derived from the same thing here. This is what children do.
Frankly, if you're dealing with people who suffer "repercussions of serious harm" from pony-anything, then you should probably just suck it up till you get outta grade school.

PS: Learning to deal with constructive criticism is really important for real life.

470231

>I was not aware that the works of fiction featured on the website that you support were placed there for some purpose other then entertainment.

I don't believe you're representing my position an accurate manner, so I'll say this: We pass stories with high probability of entertainment value, all stories intrinsically have a certain probability to connect with readers through the generally accepted definition of good story-telling. To say that most stories are boring and safe would necessarily categorize your assessment as correct from your subjective viewpoint, but to say that we do not publish the "best of the best" within the bulk pool of submissions received would be incorrect. Further clarification: if stories with reasonably decent story-telling fall under the purview of your definition of "boring" then most stories published to EqD would be boring to you, but this does not suggest that we refuse interesting stories. I would also consider selective perception.

>Enforcing a set of such inconsistent rules breeds confusion.

Rules are very cut and dry, at least within the last eight months or so when Seth stopped manning the e-mails. Before then, I agree, rules to be posted were incredibly inconsistent with no clear definition to them. I would like you to specify what you mean here. Do you perhaps mean like the individual on the front page of this group who has an issue with his Left 4 Derpy story that was rejected so long ago that we don't even have records of it? I can't account for that, not only was it before my time, but before the rules were solidified.

>You help it run and you are responsible in part for any harm that comes from that.

I would say this is pretty much flat-out wrong. Pre-readers as a group operate under their own independent jurisdiction and by no way tacitly endorse the decisions and opinions of the other staffs. Imagine us as owning a time-slot on a television network, attempting to provide entertainment for those who watch the channel.

>Finally raging. The group of you treat people so shamefully and then go so far as to try and justify it.

Further clarification needed—text is too ambiguous as to what "group" is being referred to, and who exactly rages. Verbs are also ambiguous in which object they possess. Although I would note that you're referring to me in the second person, almost if I somehow am personally responsible for whatever alleged events took place.

Here's the thing about EqD: It's just a horribly run website. They break their own rules CONSTANTLY. What happened with Seth's 'No Cupcakes' policy? Oh, Bronies React is okay since it features tons of 'famous bronies'. And Seth will eat up ANYTHING with Trixie, no matter how much ass the content sucks.

A personal gripe of mine: Why do they have to make an article on EVERY little thing that is remotely related to ponies?

As for fanfics, how come they have an absolute zero tolerance for clop and grimdark, but they allow Fallout: Equestria because it's a famous story? Speaking of that, what the Hell is up with Project: Horizons? The pretty much outright say in the description, "We usually have all the Fallout shit in a single post, but this is longer than Fallout: Equestria so it gets it's own post."
What kinda mindfuck logic is that!?

This isn't the first time Seth broke the rules. I don't know if this is true, but last year when he saw the 'Better Living Through Science and Ponies' Portal crossover, he didn't even read the whole thing or consult the other pre-readers. He just saw and slapped it on the front page without giving it a second thought.

Oh, and the pre-readers can say all they want, but the fact that they prefer originality over quality is clear as day.

The whole site is just a shitty place ran by shitty people. If they occasionally break their own rules, then why have them in the first place?

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In such cases, Equestria Daily pretty much runs on the following rule of thumb: "Do what gets Seth the least amount of hatemail or spam." From what I can tell, almost the entire pre-reader staff wants to take down Cupcakes (and some want to take down everything Fo:E related), but the aftermath of such an action would result in so much negativity in Seth's inbox that he won't do it. Likewise, if people keep spamming him with something like the Brony Reacts video, he'll post it to get people to stop emailing him.

523191 Huh, so in a few ways, (not many, mind you) Seth is the victim here.

I like the website!

Not unconditionally, and I've always distrusted smaller, fan-run (by a single fandom—AO3 gets to be an exception) sorta organizations for no reason other than they are smaller and fan-run. (This is silly and definitely not the case, but I have this irrational, romantic notion that the facelessness of large corporations makes them more objective and responsive to consumers.)

However, I like having something to point to and brag about to people in other fandoms. "See?! We have standards! There are gatekeepers and everything! And, listen, even if dialogue punctuation errors were subjective, I'm pulling my punches, anyway. There are people out there who won't just tear your grammar apart, but will flat out reject you for your boring and insipid prose!"

Most fandoms are pretty damn hugboxy, and I attribute a large part of the healthy reviewer culture to EqD. The first few times someone criticises you (no matter how constructive or gentle) it can be pretty hard, and rejection is always hard. Still, learning to deal with all this stuff is a vital skill and makes everyone much more mature as writers. <3

I'll be honest, and say that my hatred of EqD comes from its 90% rejection of my multi-story sequel to Cupcakes. It began as an alternate ending, which was posted on EqD before the No Cupcakes rule was implemented. Due to the exposure on EqD, I was bombarded with views and near-universal praise.

By the time I had got around to doing the sequels that would become known as The Cupcake Chronicles, the no cupcakes rule had been implemented, and all submissions afterward were rejected.

Same goes for Letters From A Disgruntled Student, which has a 95% upvote rating here on FiMFiction, yet was rejected for being too OOC. I quote the pre-reader "While hilarious, this fic is just too OOC to be approved." The good deal of the comedy comes from the intentional OOC.

And yes, then Seth goes and breaks the Cupcakes rule just because some popular bronies made a reaction video.

539607 >my hatred of EqD comes from it's 90% rejection
"it's" means "it is" or "it has". "its" is possessive.

313244

They did actually let a brony in equestria fic through, before.

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Well yes, hence I said "Even then, some have been posted if they are exceptional "

539557 You're in the wrong neighbourhood for that kinda talk!

540223

That's not really the point. If a rule says "We don't take X" then the site should not take X. If the site allows X to go on through because, "Hey, this X was good!"

That is indeed an act of hypocrisy, it also frustrates people who have sent in those kinds of fics. Be they better or not.

A flip floppy rule is not a rule, it's a guideline, one that will change under any "This that and the other" crap reason. Then as some have stated here, they advertise the .mov videos, videos which are far more graphic than any of the fics they claim to allow.

Then we come down to the proof readers, I've heard mixed things about them, but generally it all comes down to "They don't see to share a rule based taste". By that I mean, so long as they like it themselves, they'll let it through, even if it is pretty bad on a technical standpoint.

Now, I myself gave up on EQD since all their fics pretty much relate back here, but these instances are somewhat hypocritical.

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"I know that "I Hate Equestria Daily" is not accurate since this is about merely "disliking" the site, and it's meant as a place for civil discussion rather than anti-site flaming."

NO U

I like that they give exposure to some artists, but their limits are problematic...

There are so -many- good fics out there that don't need 2.5k worth of words to get their point across, but they languish in the corner because bigger fics own the place.

As a whole, it just seems far to generalized. No one who truly sets themselves apart gets the recognition that they are worthy of. Many completely go completely unacknowledged. Not to say that fanfiction writing is a path to rising professionalism, but you get what I mean.

There also just seems to be a lack of real intuitiveness. No real innovation. This site is different, at least in some ways.

That might sound pretty funny coming from someone who's ridiculously active, though I still mean it.

Well, be glad, because it'll be gone in 21 minutes, 41 seconds.

referencing this thread I started as a collective of testimonies. though I was already aware of these things beforehand.

http://bronysquare.com/forum/thread/95/so-apparently-eqd-has-fallen-to-faggotry/page_3/#post961

the reasons I hold contempt for EQD is as follows:
1. the blatant favouritism of specific artists and writers and musicians and the over-glorification of their constant meh and samey quality work.
2. a lack of active interest in new talent, nor the encouragement of new talent as clearly their attitude with that means more work for them.
3. they have a monopoly of the mainstream brony fandom only because they were the first news feed website to exist after the mass 4chan exodus.
4. sethisto is quite frankly a douche.

I . . . don't hate EQD.

No, honestly. I just don't think their Editor's Omnibus has particularly good writing advice.

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Several pre-readers also often suggest another guide, Ezn's Guide, written by Ezn. It's not perfect, but it covers much more than the Omnibus does.

610697 Aha! Yes, come to think of it, I do recognize that one, and I think it's got some definite advantages. The Editor's Omnibus is handy for editing according to house style, and also contains some valuable tips for not behaving like a flankhole if your fic is rejected or returned for edits. Ezn's guide has more of what I would consider writing advice. I also remember reading the guide on how to disembowel ponies, and found it very amusing, despite my being a squeamish person with a delicate conscience who would rather brush ponies than make them into pinatas.