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Old 2012-09-23, 21:53   Link #1
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Fanfic Rule Exception on Fan Creations Subforum

Earlier today I put up a thread that was titled "Man of Steel, Girls of Frilly Dresses" on the Fan Creations subforum.

It was a short, comedic fanfic.

Unfortunately, a Moderator fused it into my Madoka Magica: PPPL fanfic.

I'm familiar with the Fan Creations subforum rules stated here, but given the heavy emphasis it places on actual image-based artwork (sketches, digital artwork, scribbles, fan arts, etc...) and given the major format differences between lengthy fanfics and pieces of image-based artwork, I never imagined that fanfics would actually be treated like this.

It makes sense for an artist's image-based artwork to all be localized within one thread, because people are accustomed to artwork being presented in a gallery format.

But fanfics are consistently kept separate from each other, because any other approach only risks reader confusion. Imagine a big, long thread where you suddenly go from reading one lengthy work and then start reading a completely unrelated different fanfic. The confusion it can create is obvious, and is very much unlike a generalized image thread where you showcase several different image-based pieces of artwork.

This is particularly exacerbated when a short comedic fanfic about Superman liking magical girls is now lobbed right into a highly complex, very long, ongoing VN route-based fanfic in Madoka Magica: Pure Pink Pretty Lovers.

PPPL can be tricky enough to follow as it is - It doesn't need the Man of Steel punching a hole into it.

So my request and proposal is that a fanfic exception be made to the Fan Creations rules stated here. In other words, I'm proposing that Anime Suki members be allowed to post separate fanfics on separate threads on the Fan Creations subforum.

As is, my Superman/magical girl fanfic is now lost in the ocean of PPPL, and PPPL readers might think I've updated only to read some comedic Superman short story and wonder what the hell is going on.

(It also should be noted that while artwork tends to be promoted on the basis of who the artist is, fanfics are promoted moreso on the basis of each fanfic's specific concept and premise - This being another reason why a policy that might be fine for image-based fan art just doesn't work well for fanfics)

Last edited by Triple_R; 2012-09-23 at 22:04.
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Old 2012-09-23, 22:15   Link #2
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Join Date: Dec 2003
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Well, I can see your point, but I can also understand the point of the rule as originally-written: you don't want some established fanfic writer to come to our Forum and "post-dump" all their different fanfics into a bunch of different threads (causing the forum flood the original rule writer was worried about). Plus, if we make fanfics an exception to this rule, then what's the line of what should be in a new thread and what shouldn't? What if someone writes two different but related fanfics set in the same universe? Does that justify a new thread? Is someone allowed to make a new thread for each chapter (and isn't that too much attention-hogging)? What if someone's more of a short story writer and all their works are set in different universes, thus allowing them multiple threads, where another writer only focuses on one story -- are they at an advantage? And that aside, doesn't this cause the amount of fanfictions to overwhelm the other forms of fan creations that are limited to one thread (causing them to be lost or bumped to later pages)? Doesn't this then open the door for other kinds of creators to argue that their works should be allowed to be organized by "series" and not all just lumped by creator?

So... I don't know the answer, but I understand why whatever staff did the merge thought it made sense. But it is at least true that, if merged and thus creating an "artist thread", you probably should at least be allowed to edit the thread title to be more generic. Anyway, will allow other staff to have more input, as I can sort of see the points on both sides.

(Normally I would also say that you should try discussing the situation with the mod in question first before creating a public thread about your specific situation... but perhaps it isn't clear what mod was involved in the first place. You could still use Report Post to send a message about this, though...)
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