1042213

I am aware that popularity does not mean its good but still, over 2500 thumbs up kinda speaks for itself. No story that is poorly written or incomprehensible would garner that much attention.

I envy your optimism, but you've made a severe overestimation of the quality standards possessed by the average Internet reader. Please bear in mind that humanity is a race that bought over 70 million copies of Fifty Shades of Grey and gave it the record for being the fastest-selling book of all time.

In any case, if My Little Glados has indeed been edited, its author is free to resubmit if they so choose (although to be perfectly honest, I can safely bet it won't get a very welcoming reception if it's still in this group when they do so). Regarding the subjectivity of our story selections, I'll illustrate our perspective using the metaphor of an employer conducting a job interview: there may be a candidate applying for the position we want to fill that is immensely qualified and has precisely the skills we need, but if he shows up to his interview in a stained t-shirt, ripped jeans, and sandals, we're likely to take that as a plainly obvious indication of his character.

In the same vein, a story in the ficbox may have a great plot and/or characters, and if it does we'll certainly let the author know. However, a significant number of grammatical and editing errors in a submission is, just like those ratty clothes on the interviewee, a sign of a lack of dedication on the author's part, which can be worrying to us when we're looking to maintain an image of reasonably objective quality.

If you find our story selection uninteresting, I hope you took advantage of the survey we posted a few weeks ago in order to gauge the interests of our audience. If not, I'm not sure how we can justify changing our entire method of operation for the sake of catering to the whims of one reader.

1041175

I apologize that I could expect you to make a simple inference; at any rate, the conclusion is this:
If prereaders are trying so damn hard to be unbiased, then why would they tell the other prereaders how bad a story is before they have a chance to read it themselves? This creates bias.

Your "mistake" was sending the email to the author, and thankfully it exposed something that I'm sure you'll love to deny as being common.

I'm noticing that every single defence of EqD prereaders (not only on this thread) that I've ever seen has been from the prereaders themselves.

No idea what I'm talking about? Let's be clear. I mean bias, or possibly prejudice, depending on your viewpoint.

As in: 2. a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
and
1. An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2. Any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.
respectively. Are we all clear now, ladies and gentlemen?

This group should really be renamed "I hate Equestria Daily's Prereaders", because you are the people everyone has the problem with.

1042319

This group should really be renamed "I hate Equestria Daily's Prereaders", because you are the people everyone has the problem with.

Kindly leave those of us who hate the music parts of EQD out of your generalizations.

1042319
Yeah, you're right, we all suck.

(And oh man, people hating the ones that can prevent their content from being posted? Whoooaaaa!)

1042319 This being a fanfiction site, you would think that most of the hate on an anti-EqD group would naturally gravitate towards prereaders.

I'm not gonna list my opinions on why I think the fanfiction portion of EqD is terrible. I'm gonna be on a panel in two-and-a-half weeks. I'm gonna save it until then. At least that way I can remain civil and collected rather than going off on a rant in here.

1041875 I'm not really tech savvy! Genuine apologies, Alex!

1042089 Yeah, and I do not hold it against you guys, actually. To put it in simple terms, I 'matured', over the course of being exposed to the brony fandom. At the time, however, I didn't even know why you rejected it. After reading Ezn's, and taking the creative writing class at my school, I know what I did wrong. Perhaps one day, I'll go back and fix all those errors to be up to par with EqD's standards. I already did so with chapter 1, after all.

1041945 Yeah, that one really threw me off. He's allowed to have his favorites, but MMC is objectively a badly written story, even by cartoon standards. And he also said this was his FAVORITE EPISODE of anything ever. So, in his eyes, 'Magical Mystery Cure' is a better episode than 'Harley's Day Off' from 'Batman: TAS' and 'The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang' from 'Doctor Who'.

1045147
That's what we like to hear: not that we were right and the angry author was wrong, but that a rejected author took a good, hard look at their story, realized that there were portions of it that could use improvement, and expressed willingness to work on them before resubmitting. It shows a great deal of maturity and proactive thinking.

Uh, guys? Anyone followed up on my request?

1042647

I realize that. Thing is, I consume a lot of art; music, images, videos, fiction, and in all sorts of styles and mediums. And while I've seen EqD complaints from authors many times, I've not seen a single complaint about them anywhere else. I'm sure they exist, but not in anywhere near the quantity these do.

And on that panel?
Give 'em hell, mate. Give 'em hell.

1042381
No no no! You're clearly all wonderful, intelligent, professional, and open-minded. Clearly I am an uneducated simpleton, and I now see the error of my bigoted ways!

If only we could all step up to the ranks of the Straw Man act! Oh, if only such class, such magnificent grace was within our grasp! If only we could all be so intelligent as to slaughter our foes by making simplified and exaggerated assumptions to strike down with a single blow!

Anywho, this is just getting out of hand, and it's nowhere near the point of the thread. I'm leaving, and you're going to say that I'm leaving because I'm wrong, but that's okay, because the only people who I care to reach are the ones who know that having the last word is not the same as winning the argument.

Chaio!

1038245
My friend, you have your evidence. Take it and run. This battle is not meant for you. Remember us in the songs of your children and your bards, and let our deeds be not in vain.

Fly, you fool!

My current beef with EQD is that as of their most recent writing on the subject, here. They're gearing up to make it so they can freely reject fics without explaining themselves, while still keeping their flawed 3 strike system, meaning they can reject fics for no reason any time, every time, without even telling the author why, and after 3 strikes - whoosh, no more. Worst of all, they made this decision based on data that they admit was unfairly stacked by the influence of non-writers.

From the blog post:

Now we arrive at the crux of our discussion. This is the part where non-authors were allowed to answer questions again, and I won't disguise my relief at seeing three quarters of you telling us to post what's good over what you want to see. Overmore, it's good that we have the majority when it comes to you guys trusting us with voting on a submission without needing to explain ourselves.

The results of that last question have been stirring some debate amongst the pre-readers. On the one hand, we're not exactly speedy when it comes to sending fics up to publish on Equestria Daily, and forming responses takes me at least an hour per story if I have to moon it because I tend to lecture. On the other hand, we lose a great deal of transparency by reviewing with our thumbs. All I'm going to say here is that we're doing our best to find a balance to adhere to between the two, but I think it's fair to warn writers now not expect in-depth feedback on their declined submissions.

I'm not sure if the policy has been put into place yet, as there still hasn't been a followup post to this, but it's a very dirty way of misinterpreting the data to justify they result they want.

1042299

(although to be perfectly honest, I can safely bet it won't get a very welcoming reception if it's still in this group when they do so)

To start off, I am appreciative of your appreciation in the later comment.

But that up there, that's also what I'm not a big fan of about the majority of you guys. You won't let old wounds heal. I remember when I submitted it a second time, I actually got an email of one of your guys saying they wouldn't want to accept my fic becuase I said some bad things about EqD in the past. And there's only one other precise problem with the above statement:

I tried taking this story out of the group, but it just won't leave.

1045688
Speaking from both personal experience and personal preference: an apology goes a long way among the pre-readers. We're only kind of like elephants when it comes to people who've gone off about us in some form or another after being rejected: we don't forget, but we're quite willing to forgive if a sincere attempt is made at making amends and returning the situation surrounding your story to one of relative neutrality. We wouldn't even ask that you go back and agree with everything or anything we deemed wrong with it, to be honest; if you disagree with our verdict and would like to challenge it at any point, we welcome any and all further discussion about it provided you're polite when you bring it up. The key thing for us is civility, and telling us that you regret responding in an impolite manner initially is a great way to restore it.

That's why it's difficult for us to return that same civility in this group sometimes: when a group whose entire existence is built around hating you or, at the very least, hating the site you volunteer for, it's a bit hard to believe the criticisms we hear are sincere in the sense I was talking about before. As an author myself, I completely understand and sympathize with how difficult it can be to hear someone tell you that your story isn't as good as you think it is, but I've never had any problems debating or even flat-out disagreeing with a critic provided I did so in a calm, rational way.

1045712 Oh, trust me, I did give a sincere apology. And then they pointed out my fic's errors.

Oh well. As I said, I'll perhaps fix it and resubmit it someday. (And I managed to delete it from the group's folder)

1045371

No no no! You're clearly all wonderful, intelligent, professional, and open-minded. Clearly I am an uneducated simpleton, and I now see the error of my bigoted ways!

Finally, you've come to your senses. Cheers.

1045570

They're gearing up to make it so they can freely reject fics without explaining themselves, while still keeping their flawed 3 strike system

I can tell you write now we're not doing this. While we are thinking about changing how we go about reviewing fics, we aren't doing it without telling authors what's wrong.

1045147

I'm not really tech savvy! Genuine apologies, Alex!

Neither am I apparently, because it's actually [page_break]. Whoops!

1045339
What was your request?

1046990

Feathered Heart. It got sent to the sun, if I got your lingo correctly.

I guess I want a little more explanation about ' touches on too much questionable material ' bit.

1042299

(although to be perfectly honest, I can safely bet it won't get a very welcoming reception if it's still in this group when they do so)

See, while I can understand, personally, why pre-readers are wary of this group, but to take it out on the story sounds... unprofessional... to me. It gives me the idea that you guys are not judging the story by itself and may be influenced by personal feelings, which is what a lot of people here are accusing you guys of.

1047146
From what it looks like, because it takes place in a universe where human men are professional prostitutes for mares, and Gilda is shipped with a human with implies beastiality.

Personally I wouldn't have permanently rejected it but I am always in the minority with stuff like this.

1047146
From my response to Apex above:

That's why it's difficult for us to return that same civility in this group sometimes: when a group whose entire existence is built around hating you or, at the very least, hating the site you volunteer for, it's a bit hard to believe the criticisms we hear are sincere in the sense I was talking about before. As an author myself, I completely understand and sympathize with how difficult it can be to hear someone tell you that your story isn't as good as you think it is, but I've never had any problems debating or even flat-out disagreeing with a critic provided I did so in a calm, rational way.

While we do our best to maintain neutrality, we do also have the ultimate say in what goes on the site, and we're still just volunteers at the end of the day. So when we get fics submitted that are already in this group... well, personally, I'm not eager to spend my volunteered time humoring them with a review when we have empirical evidence to suggest it's inevitably not going to end well for us.

1047156

Well, at least I was right in that regard.

Thanks dude.

1047173

Just saying, if the story is not judged by its merits, and only it's merits and nothing else, they do have a point in regards to favoritism and bias, which does not give credence to claims that you guys showcase the best, or as Alex once said, cream of the crop.

1047173 With that sort of attitude you could easily auto reject any story from this group. I'm not saying the stories here are perfect by any means but with that attitude it's no wonder people don't like EQD

1038245 I probably forgot to give you this. This may help with the video you are making
Link is here

1047213
1047221
Our intent is not to engage in favoritism or auto-reject stories; if your definition of favoritism is "preferring to work with people that don't publicly declare that they hate me", then that's an awfull loose interpretation of the word. Rather, it's a matter of budgeting my time wisely. If a story is in IHED and its author then proceeds to submit it to the very site they purportedly hate, it creates a somewhat baffling scenario of what I would have great difficulty not calling blatant, self-serving hypocrisy. If an author is declaring openly by way of their stories that they despise the way we operate, expecting us to then forget all that so we can do them the favor of promoting said stories on our site is absurd.

1047359

You'd budget your time more wisely if you forget the story's likes, dislikes, author, and what group its in. The story is in front of you. You can judge that solely as it is. Why hamper yourself with what else's? If the story is good enough, it should pass. If not, it shouldn't.

You guys created a standard. If you can't be unbiased on that regard, then what's the actual point of submitting the story if you guys start judging from another standard? My story is probably the best example. It followed all the rules, yet apparently because its set in a verse where it has 'questionable materials', its completely rejected, even though said questionable materials aren't actually present. (Teen rating)

Honestly, you guys would have an easier time judging the story for its own merits, rather than over-thinking politics (which is what this is). So what if the story or author is a member here? That doesn't discount the story itself, which is what you guys are judging and presenting to the fandom. Because if so, then yes, its favoritism and bias, which is what people here are accusing you guys of doing.

And let us say that there's someone here to presented their story, and it passed. What can they hold against you? You guys can just reply...

"It was good enough to pass."

Easy peasy.

I can't speak for everyone else here, but before I stopped submitting, I didn't add a story to this group until after it was rejected for what was, in my view, bullshit reasons.

Read this http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/163150/eqd-sends-accidental-email-mocking-how-pathetic-author-is-with-rejection-notice

BTW yeah! Fu*ck minorities

1058286 Quite a few users made blogs and topics on that. I think that's how we got a 20-30 member boost this past month.

For me? Navigation on EqD sucks. Hear i can actually find what i seek and there i had to stumble along looking for good fics. I wont return there

I have an extreme distaste for EqD for a rule I find incredibly asinine. Since a protagonist of my story has prior knowledge of the MLP:FiM show, and happens to like it (AKA. he's a brony) because it is actually pivotal to the plot that this be the case, I do not even get a chance to make it to a reviewer. My story is shunned away like a leper before it is even given the opportunity to stand on it's own merits.

And to top it off, when I made an inquiry as to why this is the case; why a site based so heavily in a community that has dealt with this sort of prejudging and overcome it is now participating in a similar role of bias, the response I get is seven words: "Sorry, but no, we don't make exceptions."

Absolutely infuriating.

1039091

I'm pretty sure a lot of people joined the group because eqd is run by king-sized cunts with turbo autism and this was just a group acknowledging the fact

>actually expecting this group to change anything
>actually getting analcrusaded because your shit got knocked back by eqd

really guys? pls

1039091

There shouldn't be rules that prohibit something to be posted just because the majority is poorly written, it should be read before being blocked if it is something like that...

They are looked at, and if they aren't incredibly good on the first pass, they're rejected.

From personal experience, I have found otherwise. When I inquired about submitting my story, before submitting it because I wished to follow Equestria Daily's rules, the response I got was:

Sorry, but no, we don't make exceptions.

1251384
Well that was wrong.

1038245 Because you are a smelly english person and I fart in your general direction.

A rejection letter without a Comatosed picture of Lyra would be nice, maybe some mutual respect too, that would be good.