204 replies to this topic

[Catwho]

Let me introduce you to a nice little tool of the Internets called "Whois?"

http://www.networkso.../fanfiction.net

Fanfiction.net and Fictionpress.net have not changed legal ownership of their domains, although their LLC may have been bought out without a name change. However, Fictionpress is still shown as being owned by Xing Li, the original creator of FF.net

http://www.corporati...c/46493317.aspx

[Sakura Blossoms]

I'm still undecided on the new 'search by review' function. On the one hand it encourages only searching for and reading 'high review' stories, on the other hand it brings up some fics in certain fandoms that were buried in obscurity that you may never have read, because it either hasn't been updated in years or is 'complete'.

*goes back to scrolling through some of the much larger fandoms, and brain breaks at the sometimes 3000+ reviews for one story alone*

[KnS]

I'm still undecided on the new 'search by review' function. On the one hand it encourages only searching for and reading 'high review' stories, on the other hand it brings up some fics in certain fandoms that were buried in obscurity that you may never have read, because it either hasn't been updated in years or is 'complete'.

I'm undecided about it too. From a writer's perspective it does feel kind of popularity contest-ish, but from a reader's perspective I suppose it is a useful tool that can either be used or not. It's also useful in getting a sense of fandom trending. I'm curious about heavily reviewed fics because they're often not (IMO) very well written or unique, so I like to try to figure out why (besides pairing preferences) they're popular.

What I found interesting is that when I sorted the Naruto catalog by reviews, it wasn't until page 3 that I got to a fic clearly marked as NS (way to go, Desaix!) At a glance, it appears that the top stories are NH or SS, with an occasional genfic or yaoi here and there. The most reviewed NH fic has more than 11,000 reviews. o__O No wonder the other sub-fandoms think they're on the winning side. :\

There are some very good NS stories out there, but NS fans are not good reviewers. I guess I don't get why they don't want to support NS fics by, you know, consistently reviewing what they read. But I digress.

[Onionhead Attacks]

There's a few things/features that I don't understand about ff.net taking away in the past.

Before, in the selection bar you were able to sort the stories from (A-Z), (Z-A), Publish Date, and Update Date only. I admit the A-Z thing was silly, but if they had made it so that you could click on a particular letter then that would be awesome! Because there were times where I remembered there was a I story I wanted to look up but I only remembered what letter it started out with and absolutely nothing else. Sure it'd take some time, but at least I could go through the list with that letter and hope that either the summary or the author's name would jump out at me.

Another thing that I liked but wished that they hadn't taken away was the Jump Page feature. I don't know about you people, but for me there are times where I like to start backwards in the list, somewhere in the middle, or even some random page number. Now that they have taken away the page jump feature it makes my random browsing all the more difficult :/

I'm still undecided on the new 'search by review' function. On the one hand it encourages only searching for and reading 'high review' stories, on the other hand it brings up some fics in certain fandoms that were buried in obscurity that you may never have read, because it either hasn't been updated in years or is 'complete'.

*goes back to scrolling through some of the much larger fandoms, and brain breaks at the sometimes 3000+ reviews for one story alone*

Not only do they have the review option, they also have the Favorites and Follows option too! I admit, I like having the favorites and follows more private even though it would help in gaining recognition for a story. A story may have much more favorites and follows than reviews. However, at the same time it's also a bit unfair. I mean, it's rather pitiful and embarrassing to go through a list to see some old (new ones don't count since they haven't been around quite as long) stories with a piddly 1 or 2 favorites and/or follows. I cringe every time I see one of those. As if it wasn't embarrassing enough that they had added it to the filters, now it's even an option to sort by!

It seriously feels a lot more like a popularity contest now and that is definitely not the focus of the site! It's to be able to find little gems or treasures without having those little stats present. I mean reviews are feedback and less people bother reviewing than those putting a story on favorite or alerts list so it's kind of expected for the numbers to vary and isn't a definite source of determining popularity, though so far it's all we have to go by and it's still brain boggling how some stories have such high numbers of reviews when the story is only mediocre at best. All I have to say is that they better not put out a stars option anytime soon! Some older stories will get unfairly marked as 0 stars if they haven't been reviewed in a while or new stories that got like 1 review total and is a flame and got a 1 or 0 star to unfairly represent them.



Sigh... I kinda miss ff.net before the purge, even if it had a bunch of issues. Now when I visit fictionpress, which was as close as I could get to a "legacy" ff.net site like experience before they decided to be current with its sister site has now also integrated all the new and useless ff.net features.

[Konoha'sCrimsonFox]

Not necessarily, Nate. The 'team' behind FFnet has always been pretty damn secretive. In all the years the site has been up, the people 'behind the scenes' who run the site have never been known. If someone else came in and took over, pushed the old team out, and began 'renovations' why in all the world would they make an 'announcement' about it? Since when has FFnet ever been fond of making announcements, that reveal much of anything besides what they want you to know. And I never said a major group like Google came in and took over. I merely gave the most recent and well-known example of a 'takeover' that I remembered. It could have been a much smaller tech group that saw monetary possibilities with acquiring FF.net.

And, I'll have to disagree with you. The way this looks is that after 50 Shades of Gray came out someone(s) saw a possible lucrative deal for themselves. There was this huge, sudden, kind of national attention/spotlight shone on this book that raced up the reader's chart practically overnight. Suddenly regular 'mainstream' people i.e. people who buy books from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Walmart etc were very interested in this book and its origins. And going back to the example I gave, a group like Google saw the opportunity to take this old website, that hasn't had any kind of truly significant updates in practically a decade, take/buy it out of the hands of the old 'behind-the-scenes' team, and start shoving new changes and features onto the site with little to no regard to the current userbase that's already there. Because the new owners really don't care about who's already there hence the Purge, being unable to block anon reviews, Twitter/Facebook/etc suddenly going up, and all the other inexplicable changes that have taken place. Many have already said that no one who is a true writer/reader/lover of literature could do what FFnet has been doing lately.

And they're absolutely right.

Because the people in charge now don't care. They don't come from a reading background. They just see $$ signs. They are pandering to the new 'mainstream' users who came looking around after the huge success of Shades of Gray. And page hits = money. Ads on every page that gets a page hit = $$

The people who have allowed FFnet to languish for so many years, didn't seem to have the means or resources to do all that's happening on the site lately. That takes some capital and a goodly amount of tech skills. I feel that whoever is now in charge came flush with both. And as I said before you will never hear them announce anything about a possible takeover if one ever happened, because you never knew from the start who was even in charge/running the site for at least the last decade to begin with.


Edit - And I now see what one of these new 'features' ffnet was pushing out today are:



Copied this from beneath a story's summary. As with most of the recent changes, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. To me how many hits/story alerts/faves has always been a private author thing, that you check in your personal Traffic Stats. Now anyone and everyone can see them. It was already hard enough for some stories that didn't have a lot of reviews but were good to get recognition. Now it seems like this new feature will make it doubly hard for stories that are good, but just haven't been fully discovered by the reading crowd, to be fairly treated by those who just read stories with a high review count. Now some stories will have to show a high review/alert/fave count as well. Once again another unfair tactic/move being pushed out by people who don't seem to fully understand how to create a cohesive/communal fanfiction environment for all users.

I truly disagree with the bold. It is an gimmick in my opinion to judge a fic, based on the reviews each story generates. It's sad the stories that received low amount of reviews are deemed to be either bad and poorly written fics. Truth is, never judge a book by its cover. If a story generates one review and has over 100,000 hits and visitors to their story, compare to a fic that has over 1000 reviews with a little as 10,000 hits and visitors. Which is better, a story that has massive amount of reviews and less hits, or the opposite? It's not about rather or not the stories are out to be a popularity contest, by showing the author's story stats to public eyes. It's to show all progress and favs from each story. Not comparing them.

Now I'm mean no offense or disrespect. But I also find your immature ranting to be intriguing and hilarious at the same time. There are minor changes that ff.net are making. You seemed to be rambling about how much you detest the new features and look of ff.net. Yet, it shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't effect the writing and reviewing ability granted to writers and readers. And the funny thing about it that you drag people to accept your idealism on how ff.net should be demanding ff.net to revert back to its old self is something that got me cracking up laughing.

But also, there are people out there that made stupid, idiotic remarks to purge all stories that have a sinigicant amount of English writing styles that are poorly structured, and full of grammar slip ups. These flamers have been complaining to ff.net to filter out ever poorly written story for many years. How does it feel for authors like myself whom dedicate massive amount of time to actually write and update chapters? We would feel like s*** all because of the stupid high demands that all fanfiction should be professionally top rated policy by a bunch of crybabies. I'm sick of reading reviews from stories that contain author bashing. And they decide to purge my stories, I would accept the fact that I'm violating the MA violence policy. Not to be eradicated because all my stories fail to meet the professional requirement standards all because of a ridiculous standard, demanded by some of you people.

What has ff.net has done about this? Nothing. Fanfiction.net has given writers like me the privellage to publish stories that does not meet the grammar level that most readers expect from fic, just like buying a novel from the bookstore. For that, I'm in their dept, because many of the NS writers like Wilkins75 and myself would be out of commission from contributing NS fics to ff.net.

Nevertheless I don't see any different of from your complaints to people demanding to erase all the junk written fics off the ff.net archive. Sorry to say this, what you see is what you get. So stop acting like an immature brat who can't get anything they want, and just grow up. And if you think I offended you, go ahead and delete this post or ban me from this forum. It's only going to prove I'm write.

[Sakura Blossoms]

I truly disagree with the bold. It is an gimmick in my opinion to judge a fic, based on the reviews each story generates. It's sad the stories that received low amount of reviews are deemed to be either bad and poorly written fics. Truth is, never judge a book by its cover. If a story generates one review and has over 100,000 hits and visitors to their story, compare to a fic that has over 1000 reviews with a little as 10,000 hits and visitors. Which is better, a story that has massive amount of reviews and less hits, or the opposite? It's not about rather or not the stories are out to be a popularity contest, by showing the author's story stats to public eyes. It's to show all progress and favs from each story. Not comparing them.

Now I'm mean no offense or disrespect. But I also find your immature ranting to be intriguing and hilarious at the same time. There are minor changes that ff.net are making. You seemed to be rambling about how much you detest the new features and look of ff.net. Yet, it shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't effect the writing and reviewing ability granted to writers and readers. And the funny thing about it that you drag people to accept your idealism on how ff.net should be demanding ff.net to revert back to its old self is something that got me cracking up laughing.

But also, there are people out there that made stupid, idiotic remarks to purge all stories that have a sinigicant amount of English writing styles that are poorly structured, and full of grammar slip ups. These flamers have been complaining to ff.net to filter out ever poorly written story for many years. How does it feel for authors like myself whom dedicate massive amount of time to actually write and update chapters? We would feel like s*** all because of the stupid high demands that all fanfiction should be professionally top rated policy by a bunch of crybabies. I'm sick of reading reviews from stories that contain author bashing. And they decide to purge my stories, I would accept the fact that I'm violating the MA violence policy. Not to be eradicated because all my stories fail to meet the professional requirement standards all because of a ridiculous standard, demanded by some of you people.

What has ff.net has done about this? Nothing. Fanfiction.net has given writers like me the privellage to publish stories that does not meet the grammar level that most readers expect from fic, just like buying a novel from the bookstore. For that, I'm in their dept, because many of the NS writers like Wilkins75 and myself would be out of commission from contributing NS fics to ff.net.

Nevertheless I don't see any different of from your complaints to people demanding to erase all the junk written fics off the ff.net archive. Sorry to say this, what you see is what you get. So stop acting like an immature brat who can't get anything they want, and just grow up. And if you think I offended you, go ahead and delete this post or ban me from this forum. It's only going to prove I'm write.

Your insults amuse me. No, really. You say you "mean no offense" then you go on to call me immature and a brat. In any of my posts thus far stating the reasons why I don't like many of the changes, (and you telling me to stop and grow up is also pretty damn insulting, not to mention you are just stomping all over my right to have an opinion), have I been rude and insulting by calling people personally offensive names?

No, I haven't.

I also haven't told anyone to stop having an opinion and grow up. If someone likes all the changes on FFnet, as I've stated before that is absolutely fine. No one is trying to stop anyone from liking the changes. But trying to tell people to stop having an unfavourable opinion of the changes, and to do it in the most offensive way possible with rude, insulting words like 'immature' brat' 'get over it' 'grow up' shows that you are truly the immature one here.

I'm not going to 'ban' as you haven't done anything strong enough for a ban. I also won't 'delete' your post as there is no point in doing that. But you *are* getting an Official Warning for the bashing insults. They were crude, unnecessary, and broke the forum posting rules.

[tricksie]

1. About the sort by reviews - It's about time. Seriously. When I first came to this site, I remember being perplexed that you had the ability to review a story, were encouraged to do so and authors were encouraged to respond, but the reader couldn't use that review data to search for stories by. Why? For what good reason?

Denying readers the ability to sort by reviews just made the review count more of a PM tally and less of a review tally that might help other readers. When new readers begin at FF.net, looking at the pages and pages of a particular fandom can be absolutely daunting. And there is nothing in place to help guide new readers to a starting point.

Perhaps someone at FF.net decided that the sort by reviews didn't give the wide base of authors a fair shake. But the option didn't have to be all or nothing. They could have instituted a Top 20 listing, based on reviews, for each fandom. That way the new reader could start at the top, get familiar, then work their way through.

But there was no review, no reader assistance, and no easy way to discern which were the most popular stories unless you googled the forums. (Again, another problem with FF.net: No easy way to search for info within FF.net. Better to go outside of it and google.)

2. About FF.net, their decision makers and their decisions — From an outsider's perspective (an even before Desaix's whois search, but ty for the helpful info!), I would say that whoever is at the helm of FF.net is probably still the same. If it had been under new management, I would think they'd be much more vocal about the transition. Not just updates, but wanting to show a new face as well.

My bet is that the person/people who keep the database afloat have only taken a keener interest in their own site because of popularity 50 Shades and the focus it has brought on FF.net. To that end, they have taken some small measures to improve the site by purging stories on the recommendation of the highly unprofessional peer group Critics' Union and a smattering of surface level upgrades. These are not the changes reflect "new management" nor are they decisions that indicate an infusion of money or sudden focus on the needs of their user. (Money-wise, I can't tell whether they've upgraded their cms or not. But doing so would certainly take a cash injection.)

I think the person/people who admin the site finally got pushed into making the changes they've been meaning to get around to for a few years now. I think they got some positive feedback from 50 Shades, but also had a light shined on the fact that the site not much more than a glorified database. So the admin/s were pushed to bring it into more of web 2.0 alignment. (Don't worry ff.net, you're only about seven years late. We've kept everything warm for you.)

I mean that seriously too. I was shocked when I discovered FF.net. I couldn't believe I was at the right site. I remember doing a couple web searches thinking I'd somehow missed this big fanfiction repository. So the changes may be from something as simple as that the popularity of 50 shades has made the admins slightly embarrassed (or even beginning to feel the threats of competition) from having a site that they have done the least for, instead of the most.

[Sakura Blossoms]

1. About the sort by reviews - It's about time. Seriously. When I first came to this site, I remember being perplexed that you had the ability to review a story, were encouraged to do so and authors were encouraged to respond, but the reader couldn't use that review data to search for stories by. Why? For what good reason?

I've been using the sort by review feature on and off for the last day while not at work, and I've been able to find quite a few stories from many fandoms that I never knew existed before. So, my un-decidedness (is that even a word XD) is definitely moving towards the 'decided' side =3


Epic edit! =D

OMG, YES YES YES!! The voices of the people (writer's rejoice~) have been heard! FFnet finally decided to listen to our pleas!

After many many people (it wasn't just me~!) commented about the forced OPT-IN of default story/fave alerts on the fictionpress comment thread -

http://blog.fictionp...pdate/#comments

Fanfiction.net has finally removed the forced default settings, and now we don't have to tediously remove each and every one of those aggravating box checks, every single time we read a story/chapter =D

So, damn happy right now and actually pleased with FF.net's response, by actually listening to its user base for once~ X3

Edited by Sakura Blossoms, 15 July 2012 - 07:24 AM.

[Catwho]

I think the sort by reviews is actually a very old feature that was returned. I couldn't tell you when it was taken off, it was so long ago, but it once was there. I'm glad it's returned.

A story with a very large number of reviews doesn't necessary speak to the quality of the story, but its popularity over time. It means that the author got enough feedback to keep going, and kept those updates going for a long time. I've got some fanfics in the 100+ review category and I'm proud of them, but ironically the two best stories I've ever written each have less than ten reviews, because they are less popular fandoms and crack pairings.

Edit: Yep, my most highly reviewed fic lands on the "front page" of the Reviewed sort for its fandom. Huzzah!

Edited by Catwho, 17 July 2012 - 04:17 AM.

[digifruit]

I haven't really read any fics in a while, but the ability to sort by favs or reviews does pique my curiosity in exploring stories that are popular in fandoms that I've otherwise been too lazy to sort through.

A story with a very large number of reviews doesn't necessary speak to the quality of the story, but its popularity over time.

I generally tend to use the average number of reviews-per-chapter or number of total favs as a measurement of a story's popularity rather than the total number of reviews... but maybe that's just my bias as a oneshot author lol xD

Edited by digifruit, 17 July 2012 - 10:27 PM.

[Nate River]

I haven't really read any fics in a while, but the ability to sort by favs or reviews does pique my curiosity in exploring stories that are popular in fandoms that I've otherwise been too lazy to sort through.


I generally tend to use the average number of reviews-per-chapter or number of total favs as a measurement of a story's popularity rather than the total number of reviews... but maybe that's just my bias as a oneshot author lol xD

I do the same thing. A hundred reviews can be impressive, but is less so if it took 50 chapters to get there. I learned my lesson with a 500 review fic that was full or terrible cliches and grammar. When the quality of the writing didn't mesh with the review count, I checked the chapter number and saw 50. 10/1 isn't bad, but the 500 number looked less impressive next to that.

I also compare that to things like word count. If that is unusually low for a review number it's a red flag for me unless the it's a series of drabbles. Nothing quiet sets off alarm bells for me unlike abnormally low word counts.

[Nefertieh]

I think the sort by reviews is actually a very old feature that was returned. I couldn't tell you when it was taken off, it was so long ago, but it once was there. I'm glad it's returned.

Wow, somebody who's been reading fanfics longer than I have. :O The feature must have been there before 2004, which is when I first started reading fanfics.

Actually, I am worried what this will mean. Back when Deviantart had the "filter by popularity" (and not "filter by popularity mixed with some random unpopular pictures"), all of the popular pictures were getting lots and lots of favs. They weren't always the best, but always from pictures by "popular" artists who drew fanart and had a lot of followers. The newer artists had no chance.

A story with a very large number of reviews doesn't necessary speak to the quality of the story, but its popularity over time. It means that the author got enough feedback to keep going, and kept those updates going for a long time. I've got some fanfics in the 100+ review category and I'm proud of them, but ironically the two best stories I've ever written each have less than ten reviews, because they are less popular fandoms and crack pairings.

Edit: Yep, my most highly reviewed fic lands on the "front page" of the Reviewed sort for its fandom. Huzzah!

Very true. In some of the smaller fandoms with a older fans, where all of the stories have good grammar and so forth, reviews are a good indication of quality. For the larger fandoms with younger fans (like Inuyasha and Naruto), not so much.

Edited by Nefertieh, 20 July 2012 - 09:44 AM.

[tricksie]

I think the "search by update" will always be the most consistent search filter. Because it allows the user the greatest control, parsing newest content in the specific field of their choice.

This is what makes ff.net and DA a little different. Sure you could search DA's newest content in the specific folders, but it's not readily encouraged, and generally the way we receive art, we don't mind seeing out-of-interest subjects. So I think most people leave the DA setting at general updates, only changing the timeline (24 hours, last three days, etc.). Not so with FF.net. Users are encouraged to search by topic, and in reading materials we are a lot less tolerant of out-of-interest subjects. Simply because it takes longer to read and process whether we like it or not. (With visual art that decision is made within milliseconds, not minutes.)

So on FF.net, it's more cumbersome to search simply with no filter except the most recently updated. Again, on ff.net you are encouraged to narrow your search field. On DA your not. (You can, but you're not encouraged to.) Both sites cater their subject matter to their audiences appropriately in that respect. Narrow search for text/wide search for art.

In fact, DA's inability to pinpoint your search (like finding an NS field among the Naruto search) is why fanfic hasn't caught on as much there as it should have (site which allows M content, personal pages and supports art and text). It is up to the Groups to filter those fields, and users are encouraged to find subject matter through them. So readers and writers have a harder time finding and promoting what they like. It's there, but it's not as clean and straight forward as FF.net. (I personally think this is because DA wants to keep their focus on the visual arts, not text. But I wouldn't be surprised if they ever launched a sister readers/writers site.)

Anyway, back to FF.net, I've been monitoring how I used the new feature, and after a few times of the "Most Reviewed" filter I clicked back to the "Recent Updates." The "Most Reviewed" is mostly static and is only interesting as a point of entry to the genre/ship. Recurring users will quickly switch to the "Recent Updates" field as their primary filter.... Which brings us back to where we started before!

So why have it, if it's only used a few times until the novelty has worn off? The "Most Reviewed" is a ridiculously important search field in that it's where new users start, and from there they latch onto the community their interested in and become active users on the site. The benefits for authors and readers are limited. But FF.net on the whole is the one who gains the most from this search field. I would bet that if they monitored it they would see a dramatic uptick in new users channeling through these pages within the given genres.

But they won't. Because usability is a concept they just can't grasp at FF.net. No matter the amount of content, it's just a database that expands to fit like an accordian file. The approach of their search is good, and there are minimal tools available for readers (ability to change text size, etc.), but for writers — for FF.net's content producers — there are no perks.

No personal pages (ie. journals/blogs); no acceptance of any other content (story-related art or non-ff text) and no way to upgrade to that level (like a paid membership on DA); no encouragement to improve writing through links to editing tips or columns from other writers; no merchandise stating your affiliation with the community; no governing board or ombudsman representing writers; no links to encourage publishing or "the next step" in your writing (not all ff is hindered by copyright issues, such as Jane Austen works).

And worst of all is that they've stripped out the external links from the author's bio page. I don't know why more authors aren't outraged about this!

So...I let FF.net enjoy the pageviews and ad revenue as a result of my posting my story with them, but they won't do me this simple favor of letting me post my pagelink so that the people may get extra story notes if they want them? They do so little for authors already...but now, they're taking away the meagre perks we had?! wth!

There is no justification for this site-stinginess other than the fact that the admin/s are not interested dealing with possible nuisance links. So they shut it down for everyone. And this is where FF.net falls short. They don't care about forming a community or furthering individual authors. They don't care about what's good for their members. They just want to host a repository. Nothing more. It's just their good fortune that a community has just sprung up around them.

[kirabook]

One thing I really really wish they would add is some tags. Tags could be so useful and important. And if something is tagged with a specific thing, a way to filter said tag out. *Coughcough*

The only problem I would see is old fics being left in the dust, but over on mangaupdates.com, they added a tag feature recently -not too recently- to all their manga and it was the community that went around and tagged everything. Now, that might seem a bit disastrous, but it actually worked out really well. The same thing could have worked for FF, be as we all see, their moderation team is no where near effective enough to resolve issues if there are any -like a flamer tagging something negative onto a story-

But, a solution would be to have a specific set of tags that users can use for each fic. The author has complete control of removal and addition and the author's tags are permanent. They can choose to lock their tagging or allow the community to tag their story for them.

So you may be asking why should the community have any say in what the tags are on a story should be, whether the author can remove them or not, and that is simply because of old stories and inactive users. I mean, I guess it's not the authors fault, but man, it grates my nerves to see the cover images not match the story. *as in, a yu-gi-oh image on a Naruto story* I guess that's just a personal pet peeve on mine. It would annoy me for an old story not to have tags simply because the author has abandoned their story.

But also, if the story author is inactive, how will others find it? While they may be old and completed and the authors long gone, the stories are still good. They deserved to be tagged too. I figured maybe they could have an automatic feature that would tag the stories automatically. *Not sure how that would go, not well I assume*

Excuse my rambling btw, but you know... I'd really like some tags.

[Codus N]

Really? Are you going to start complaining at us now for not liking another pointless change? If you don't have a issue with it, or like it then don't jump on anyone else for not liking it. We've had more than enough of that in this thread already.

I'm saying that your complaint is pointless. If you can still login with just your email address, then why the hell are you complaining?? it's not like they're forcing you to login with FB or Twitter (which would be horrible). To be honest, it sounds like you're just ranting for the sake of ranting here.

Ditto. And not only are you complaining, but you missed the point. It isn't about ease-of-use in logging in. It's about giving users who want to keep their anonymity the ability to link their fanfiction preferences to everyone in their rl sphere through facebook, twitter, etc. It's a useless improvement.

Are you replying to me??

[Nefertieh]

Very informative there, Triskie. xD I usually filter by "published date" and scan over the number of reviews for fandoms as big as Naruto.

The external links were removed from the authors' pages because of a virus scare. I guess they never found a way to fix it.

I've seen more changes to ff.net in the past few months than I have had in a long time. I think the major change before that was the addition of a separate crossover section. Some changes were good, some just made me think "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[Catwho]

Wow, somebody who's been reading fanfics longer than I have. :O The feature must have been there before 2004, which is when I first started reading fanfics.

I think I was there around the founding of FF.net in 1998... that was my freshman year in college. x_x Geh, I feel old. Prior to that, we got our fics off the rec.arts.anime.creative BBS system, which had a totally different culture than FF.net and emphasized quality over quantity. If I remember right, posts there are screened by editors before getting posted, and short updates are greatly discouraged. FF.net filled a void by allowing folks to sort by series and writers to post their stuff without mod intervention.

Edit: Checked, my current pen name was established in March 2001. I think that was when I was first brave enough to post a fic. Before that I just read stuff.

Edited by Catwho, 21 July 2012 - 04:05 PM.

[Nick Soapdish]

I'm saying that your complaint is pointless. If you can still login with just your email address, then why the hell are you complaining?? it's not like they're forcing you to login with FB or Twitter (which would be horrible). To be honest, it sounds like you're just ranting for the sake of ranting here.

Some people use the same email address for their fanfiction account as they do for FB and Twitter. This can link those accounts and if they log in, they'll run the risk of logging into all three and having FB and Twitter "know" what they're doing on FF.net. Depending on how they have their accounts set up, it might even announce it on their wall. Ever see those FB accounts where the user has (probably inadvertently) been posting status updates of the websites that they visit?

[Codus N]

True. But thankfully, that hasn't happened.

[Nefertieh]

Social media is kind of annoying in that aspect. I guess the best way to be safe is to ensure you have a separate email account for Facebook/ Twitter only.