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Yup. Velk got it right. Though Mystic did say it was mostly because it was put in the time the rules weren't so... narrow.

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they think they're pre-reading a book, not a fanfic.

I couldn't agree with you more!

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Either that, or palms are being greased. Heavily.
Then again, getting stuff submitted to the elitist collective of EQD is like owning a 7-Eleven in real life. But that's my opinion. Take it as you will.

I hate them because their pre-readers flat-out insulted me. If this how they act, then it's hardly a surprise few fics get past them.

They're just a bunch of <insert a string of expletives here>.

Seth... Yeah, pretty much just Seth

Fox News like coverage of everything EQG.

Basically: Telling the fandom to be quiet after the first trailer, then posting that crappy "why we need equestria girls" article. Then trying to post an ad-populum argument to convince the fanbase that it was good (yeah, because if a lot of people say they like it on a poll and stuff, it's good right? *coughtwilightandtheirglittervampirescough*) And then they post a "review" that's essentially a giant advertisement, then they try to save face with another asinine article to explain away their lack of critical review on the review, and then they won't stop bringing up EQG in some form or another (until recently... for now) like it's the 2nd coming of the flying spaghetti monster or something, and then when they finally do get a "critical review..."

... it's the most softcore thing they can find. Of a guy who's only reviewing THE LAST 15 MINUTES.

Honestly, I never cared about their fanfics. That's what this site is for. Besides, trying to find any sort of fanfiction over there is almost like trying to find a particular kind of mod for Skyrim on Steam Workshop: It's a complete clusterfuck. Good luck trying to find any sort of fic with a certain pairing (granted, it's hard here too since If I look for Fluttershy/spike I'll often get a lot of rarispike that happens to star fluttershy. But at least here sorting is actually POSSIBLE.)

I find most of the posters, especially Sethiso and his Trixie obsession, very annoying. Most of the music is dub-step or techno, which doesn't appeal to me. Artwork at first is great, but then you get tired of the same artists and nobody new. There are usually these daily posts with somepony doing something cute, which wastes space and shatters your hope for some good news. The only point to Equestria Daily is the occasional analytical videos they post and news about the next season.

I seem to not like EQD because the followers follow easily. Like, for example, they showed the title for episode 13 and they put a Derpy picture and everyone assumed that is what they refer to despite it being clear that there is no synopsis. Plus, some of the people aren't the brightest of the bunch..

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Plus, some of the people aren't the brightest of the bunch..

That's everywhere, man.

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1) They have silly rules like "No foul shipping!" but there's nothing wrong with it and shipping is just for fun.
2) Seth! All he does is be a huge Trixie fanboy , like quite often he's posting a picture of Trixie to a song and talks about how cool she is but nothing about the piece of music.
3.) They always spotlight already known artist, while new comers get left out when it comes to song posting.
4.) They hate porn but keep the gore!
5.) Tarawhy's video of Twilight on the bed was removed because Seth said and complained that "Its porn" but gets her other dark,creepy,and gorey videos (like the one where Twilight gets cut in half).
6.) THEY DON'T FACT CHECK STUFF!

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You earn my approval.

Nice little off-my-chest group, haha. I'll bite.

I hate EQD because they seem to be all about elitism. The website started as a place to make whatever fun stuff was posted on /co/ available days after the thread had died, and also to give the new fandom a place to call their own outside of 4chan. It was hightly relevant at a time when ponies where still mostly an imageboard phenomenon. At the time, the amount of content the fandom generated was also small enough to be managed by a single blog. This isn't the case anymore.

The truth is that EQD can't keep up. It's litterally impossible. For a few years now, they've focused on the big names within the fandom. They have their own, highly subjective standards, and content is picked based on those. Now, it's their site, and they can post whatever they enjoy. The problem is that it's not just some guy's site, it's the original pony blog. A lot of people still see it as the main source for fan content, and as such will get drawn into this circle where a minority of "fandom superstars" are placed on a pedestral while the rest of the fandom is supposed to stand in awe.

If you look at most fandoms, their blogs do not cover fan made content at all. They stick to official news, and fan content is posted in places where user can share it themselves, such as deviantart. We already have sites like fimfiction or derpibooru, as well as multiple pony subreddits where content can be shared. I'm not saying EQD needs to dissapear, but I think it would do the fandom a service if they were to stick to official news, and offer links to other websites where user can find the fan content that they want, based on their own tastes. The way things are now, it creates an unjustified "elite", who really only managed to impress the kids picking content for a blog.

Am I overthinking it? Probably. Do I visit EQD? Very rarely. Should you take this rant seriously? Well, I actually do believe what I said, but in the end, I know the fandom won't change and I just enjoy complaining, haha.

Also, I can't stand Trixie, and still don't understand why people love her so much.

I mean, I can't say I hate the site as a whole, but the very fact that a group like this exists on a site like this one speaks volumes. EQD has always been a bunch of literature nazis.

They post drawfriend updates daily with 50+ artworks of varying styles, yet getting a fan fic approved there literally takes an act of God or some ungodly amount of sucking up/having connections with the staff. It's obnoxious and hilarious at the same time. I've seen friends get things rejected because they, 'use ellipses too often' or 'are too blunt with emotion' and other extremely vague crap, and I myself have gotten vague crap in response as well.

Like, no. There's writing critique and then there's writing style. EQD has a niche idea of what writing should look like, and they reject everything else.

5925255 When an email response goes out, all the PRs get copied on it, so I can see the replies you got. I don't see anything vague, aside from a need for general editing, but we can't be proofreaders. Yes, you got one of the "blunt emotional cues" things too, but it goes on to explain what that means and what kinds of things do work. And that wasn't the only issue. Saying someone was rejected because they used too many ellipses is disingenuous, because that would never be the only reason. You're free to ask for clarification if you don't understand what the response is saying or want more detail, provided you do so in a civil manner.

It's now a place where you almost literally have to FEAR your own opinion(s).
If they don't *align enough* with Sethisto's own views, then you get a faceful of ''veiled threats'' and quickly get banned if you DARE do anything to defend yourself on any front.

Get beaten down.
Smile.
Be happy for it or disappear... unless you're part of their ''inner circle of friends''. As long as you're a Mod or a good enough friend to a Mod or to Sethisto(often both going hand-in-hand, nepotism all the way)... Then, you got all the leeway in the world to bully and be a dick to other visitors on 'their' website.

I hate them because as far as I can see, they are a bunch of assholes and way too strict...at least we have FIMfic... sure, the rules have gotten a lot stricter over the years...but as long as average joes like me can get their story approved without having to be 100% perfect, then that's fine...

All of the abovementioned favouritism, elitism, graft, inconsistency, double standards, capricious application of their own rules, and arrogance have all been mentioned several times already.

On top of that is my, somewhat less mentioned reason. One that maybe didn't affect you at all. But it affected me.

2012 was almost a 'golden age' for horse. The second season was running, and new fans were being drawn in all over. EQD was still a fairly major 'hub' of horse related activity, and as such was seeing an increasing amount of traffic.
Things were looking rosy.
At that time anyone could post on EQD threads. All you had to do was type your post, and then either fill in your name or leave it blank to be 'anonymous'.
There were options for various third party log-ins via the likes of wordpress or googledocs and a few others if you wanted to maintain a persona, but they were options.

Midway through 2012, that changed.
The options now became a requirement. You could no longer post on EQD without also being a member of a third party site, effectively excluding anyone who did not wish to involve a third party in their horse posting, or maintain yet another set of credentials.

The move to identifiable users was not itself a problem. But the involvement of unescessary third parties was.
Even more confusing is that the change didn't seem to be prompted by anything. I don't recall any great commotion or disruption from 'rogue' posters being awful. Just one day fine, the next "you do not have permission to add content to this page".
Even though it wasn't explicitly directed at me, I was effectively banned as the only way to participate was to join another website I didn't (and still don't) want to join.

The only thing I have been able to think of is to add another log onto the pyre of shame which is EQD: LAZINESS
What do you do when you want identifiable users, but don't want to maintain log in credentials and user databases?
You farm it out to someone who already has that ability.

Aside from being the undisputed biggest asskisser of all MLP websites on the Internet? No reason at all.

They break their own rules. Incest art has been allowed a pass despite it (rightfully) not being allowed in stories and their art standards generally following the same rules. They ended up getting squicky vibes.

Oh, I'm not going to go into their story standards. Their customer service, so to speak, could really use some work.

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"I'm not going to get into their story standards."

Oh, pick me. I'll do it.

By this point I'm thoroughly convinced you'd have better luck writing a New York Times bestseller than getting a story feature on EQD. Through both my own experience and friends', I've seen them reach to absurd lengths to decline a story for submission.

And you know, the hate boner for fiction is one thing, but what's truly grating is that fanfiction is gatekeeped by these absurd standards while artwork of all sorts of styles and skill levels gets crammed into posts like it's going out of style, swept up by bots like Seth's Trixie account on DA. It's blatant favoritism and it's ugly.

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Speaking now as someone older and wiser, I recognize a lot of the issues my story had at the initial time of submission, all those years ago. I also recognize that everyone still has room to improve, including myself.

That said, I tried again for kicks years upon years later, after layers upon layers of thorough reviewing from multiple reputable editors and still got rejected, so my opinions haven't really changed. This time, I'm not speaking from the perspective of some halfbaked writer who doesn't even get his stuff peer reviewed first when I say EQD takes elitism to a new level.

But hey, clearly I just need to draw something instead.

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Your newer stuff is probably in better shape, but peer review doesn't necessarily mean quality review. I can't count the number of stories I've seen that list 5 or more proofreaders, yet are still full of obvious spelling mistakes and basic grammatical errors. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unqualified proofreaders out there offering their services, but if you need their help, then you're not in a good position to judge how skilled they are, since you don't know if what they're telling you is right.

To your point about perspective in your reply to Ice Star, that's a similar situation. I've gotten that same response from many authors. I tell them the perspective jumps around, and they reply that there is no perspective, because it's an omniscient narration. The problem is that they may think they've written it in an omniscient voice, but they haven't. That's a deceptively hard narrative voice to use, and many don't get it right, coming up with something that's far closer to limited voice. I find understanding how perspective works to be one of the biggest speed bumps in becoming a good writer, and I've done several blogs and convention writing panels about it. It's not unusual for many writing topics for there to be a gap between intent and execution.

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Well, either way, the prereaders of EQD remain the only people I've ever heard that level of criticism from so far, even as I begin to enter the professional world of writing. But I'll be sure to keep an eye out for others.

I suspect a lot, like me, just recognize that the pursuit of perfection in anything can be toxic, let alone subjective. Art is meant to be enjoyed and understood, and it doesn't need to be perfect for that to come across.

Oh well, if nothing else, kudos to you for keeping a calm and level composure in the midst of targeted anger. I can see why you'd make a good prereader, if things don't bother you easily.

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I think there's also an issue of perception, and the fault may well lie on both sides there.

One part of that is that fiction has a completely different set of logistics to it than anything else EqD posts. It only takes a few seconds to glance at a piece of art, and even if you don't like it, you can probably tell whether the artist is at least skilled. It's easy to scan down a whole Drawfriend post in a couple of minutes, so it's very unlikely someone would get angry that they've wasted their time looking over art that we recommended as good. Fiction takes a lot more of a time investment from its audience, so we're more selective about what we post. How it's presented factors in as well. If each art submission got its own post instead of lots of them being collated in a Drawfriend, then we couldn't post near as much as we do, and we'd have to have a much higher threshold of what makes it. Both of those conspire to make fanfiction pretty restrictive. Over the years, we've posted about 15% of the stories that get submitted, but we do try to provide some help to authors by giving feedback. Thank you for the vote of confidence on being a good potential pre-reader, by the way—I've been one since 2012.

The other part is that a story doesn't have to be perfect. The more advanced a writing topic it is, the more lenient we have to be about what we can expect a fandom of largely amateur writers to be able to do. Say I find one misspelled word per thousand words, and the story is otherwise flawless. I'm still going to point those spelling errors out to the author, because once they know about it, it's something I have to imagine they'd want to change. Why would you deliberately keep a misspelled word in a story, after all? (Discounting times it's supposed to be misspelled, of course, like imitating a child's note to Santa, for example.) It may well look to the author like I'm saying, "Fix all these spelling errors or else," when in fact I'd be willing to approve the story as is (in which case I normally tell the author so). I'm noting those spelling errors as a courtesy, since I think their artistic integrity would make them want to fix those anyway.

The short version is: I don't require perfection. It just depends on a combination of how serious and widespread the problems are, but I'll always give some feedback on how I think the story can be improved, even if it's just something for the author to keep in mind for their next project. I'm pretty sure all the pre-readers still active do the same.

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My story is already printed and published so, I have no plans of editing it any further. If EqD doesn't want it, it won't be there. That doesn't really bother me though. I resubmitted it on a whim, and even now, as I throw shade on a years old thread, it's largely tongue in cheek because I just don't have reason to care, personally. I've gotten to a point in my writing where I have self-esteem in it, and that's a point of pride for me. Still things to improve on, but advanced enough to be considered in the realm of professional.

Likewise, it's refreshing to have mature conversations about things evolve from situations that could have turned into something ugly. This is the second time that's happened to me this week.

Yeah, I understand the logic behind why artworks are given priority over other media forms, but the sheer volume of artworks you guys included in comparison to fanfiction looked immensely snobby from an outside perspective. It was like 5-10 fanfiction pieces per 50 artworks or so on drawfriends (at least during the fandom's prime). If you didn't want to lower the bar for fanfiction, I feel like raising it for artwork a bit might have had the same effect. But that's just my two cents.

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I’ve honestly considered seeing what it would be like to get original fiction rejections vs. fandom related ones. At least if you submit to a publisher in the US, you kinda have a minimum expectation of the type of person that would be working with you. For EqD, they’re staffed by volunteers who don’t seem to realize that they are working with a community of mostly amateur writers and hobbyists from varying backgrounds with different language capabilities. Even if they rejected the amount of stories that they consistently do, the way that the communication process works is where most ire rightly originates. Though, ire may be too strong of a word.

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I know for a fact that I've read books off a shelf in a bookstore that read in ways I bet EQD would have issue with. They are highest tier for professional expectations, but that level of criticism is not a universal standard even in the professional world. As you mentioned, in a fandom where no one is getting paid to do anything—be it write or proofread, it feels out of place and a lot of people I think get stepped on needlessly.

I love seeing this thread rear its ugly head every few years, it's like cicadas hatching.

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I know for a fact that I've read books off a shelf in a bookstore that read in ways I bet EQD would have issue with. They are highest tier for professional expectations, but that level of criticism is not a universal standard even in the professional world.

I've done things that fly in both big-name/bestseller/you get the idea published authors do and are acceptable variations of style in university-level English courses, but considered a cause of red ink for prereaders. That's the level of crippling standardization I expect from political administrations, not pony fanfiction sites. Still, yeah, what you said. The vast majority of pro fiction that I read (even many classics) would get rejected by the bizarre rubric stories are held to.

As you mentioned, in a fandom where no one is getting paid to do anything—be it write or proofread, it feels out of place and a lot of people I think get stepped on needlessly.

It honestly kinda bugs me how much work would actually be needed from a properly active staff on any site like Fimfic, EqD, AO3, or what-have-you and yet the idea of compensating people for doing real work is just... not really discussed. Strip the fanfic element aside and the communication, administrative, and editing duties that need to be done by such small teams are more than just what volunteers who simply love pony can really handle in some ways. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but having that kind of setup would no doubt foster way better communication and improve standards for both accepted and rejected stories.

I would never be able to do even a bit of the volunteer work done by the admins and still be a full-time student and writer on here. Plus, the Advil bill just wouldn't be worth it with some of the inevitable shenanigans on any fan site.

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I guess that's one of my bigger problems too (and something that goes beyond just EQD but writing as a creative medium overall), the fact that individual style gets celebrated consistently when it comes to artwork, but nearly everything in writing gets treated as black and white, correct or incorrect.

I understand that strokes and shading are inherently harder to categorize and critique on a standardized scale compared to a literal dictionary of words and literary rules, but especially over the past few years, I find myself stumbling across a lot of disclaimers for swaths of literary rules that talk about how an author's style can vary the usage of a rule. This is on any number of reference sites for English writing, though I can't think of specific names off the top of my head.

And you're absolutely right in education. We're shown a whole array of different kinds of writing in school, much if it completely detached from typical writing conventions, but then once you're in the professional world (or posting horse fiction for certain websites ) conformity to the established literary rules is suddenly so much more important.

I suppose this all links back to how quickly the mind is able to process visual artwork compared to writing. Because writing takes much longer to go through, the push for subjective perfection is far higher. I, myself, think that as long as your work follows the basic conventions and is consistent in following whatever other rules it sets for itself, it should be considered fully valid. Past a certain skill and consistency level, I don't feel writing needs to be picked apart for this or that. If everyone you come across is able to read, understand, and somehow relate with what you've read, what exactly is so beneficial about picking it apart? You've already achieved the most important thing artwork can achieve.

Most people disagree with me, and that's fine. I just know I'm not even thirty and I'm dead sick of chasing perfection and needing to write within a framework for certain professional or psuedo-professional entities to even give my work the time of day.

Maybe in a hundred years my way of thinking will be more norm. I suppose I can hope.

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Oh, sorry for the late reply. Finals happened. I should have clarified when I was referring to "style" I wasn't exactly referring to prose style, but what are often the basic strokes of writing or features in different genres. EQD would be right to reject writers if they can't nail prose whatsoever or convey a unique voice and the other more subjective trimmings of creativity. However, the fact that they will take the (metaphorical) red pen to people who were taught variations in punctuation or formatting. I forget whether it was a comment somewhere on Fimfiction or in a discord server, but it was describing EqD as how (If I'm remembering right) 'all the stories read the same [...] like On Writing is the rubric' or something to that effect.

And that bugs the hell out of me, not just because Stephen King is probably one of the worst places to learn writing from, but the idea of constraining all writing submissions to the standardization of a particularly dull one's personal tips and tricks about style/pacing/characterization that has poisoned the well of creative writing for years is going to be horrible for any writing-centered submission group. Even for someone who likes King and King-like writing, this would be like if you had to come up with the means to assess the talent of a large pool of actors, and instead of coming up with flexible standards that could accommodate a broad field like acting, you just used Danny DeVito as the end-all standard of measurement, discarding any of the hypothetical actors that were too unlike DeVito. That doesn't mean that the person was a bad actor (or in this case, writer) but that because they failed to measure up to a metric that is treated as though it is equal to being a passable amateur writer (in this case, how you get treated by the vast majority of EqD staff and their systems and standards), the resulting conclusion is hard to shake, especially for someone just starting out who doesn't realize how nonsensical the standards are.

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To be blunt, another part of the problem is exactly what you're both doing in this discussion: assuming something, then running with what a bad idea it is, when the original assumption was wrong in the first place. I don't know what kind of "standardized approach to writing" you think it is we're espousing. There's certainly no codified set of standards for what we're looking for, and as there have been many different pre-readers, there have also been many different sets of what pre-readers look for in a story. Still, this is all vague. What's "non-standard"? There are some rules we all do believe in, like :show, don't tell," though we can also recognize when that rule can stand to be broken. Can you find professional published fiction that breaks it, and not in a way that the author deliberately flouted the rule? Sure. Centuries ago, that was the standard way. I have a lovely discussion from Cold in Gardez about why it was done that way then, why it's better not to, and why those authors are still considered classics today in spite of it, but it was a private communication, and I wouldn't presume to have his (or the other parties') permission to post it publicly. Besides, it's no stretch to say that professional authors aren't necessarily good ones. There was a HALO novel that made the rounds about 5 years ago because of how ridiculously poorly written it was. Some editor thought it was fine. Heck, I've read Terry Brooks for years, but I still laugh at how he can't get out of his sentence construction rut and feels an average reader can't possibly interpret how his characters feel unless he beats you over the head with it. If you have any specific ones of these "standards" you're talking about, I can address that, but as a nebulous concept, it's more for hiding behind than actually talking about. Like here's a specific one. I've seen plenty of people in the past claim their story was rejected for no other reason than they used dashes wrong. That simply wouldn't happen, but whenever I've told an author they need to use them right, I'm not telling them there's a single, standard system they have to use. There are different conventions for what kind of dash to use, how to space them, etc., making half a dozen combinations that are all fine, as long as the author is consistent. That's pretty flexible.

Getting back a bit to the last time I posted in here about why our fiction standards are higher than for other art forms, we used to get 20 story submissions a day and only had posting slots for 2. So we set our standards such that 10-15% of stories could pass them, out of necessity. We don't get that many submissions anymore, but most of us felt like if we lowered our standards, it'd be disrespectful to stories we'd rejected before but could pass now, and some even felt like we would have to go back through the archives and reconsider a bunch of them, as that would be fair. It'd also be a ton of work, more than the current staff could handle.

In the end, I just feel like getting a story accepted is a nice little badge saying that someone who knows quite a bit about writing thought it was well done. Stories we pass may not be to your taste, but if you're honest with yourself, I think you'll realize they're all good (something a good reviewer has to be able to do, but that's another topic). Yeah, we're volunteers, but that doesn't mean we're unskilled. Many of us are professional authors and have English degrees and whatever other credentials you want to ask for. Does that make stories we reject bad? Of course not, and it also depends on who you ask. If you find a story you think is terrible, there are still upvotes on it. Someone liked it and would probably argue with you to the death about how great it is.