My two cents on FanLib.com

[astridv]

(I gotta get to work but this meta has been scratching at the inside of my head, wanting out.)

[edit: removed the direkt link to fanlib.com; no need to up their google ranking] The FanLib discussion has finally hit metafandom; tomorrow it should be all over LJ.

My first reaction when I read about it on fanthropology last week was: knee-jerk unease and skepticism. Now

Comments

Re: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

[anonymous]

It's a troll. The posts from staff on their forums are unfailingly polite, regardless of whether the poster is criticising something they've done, and correctly spelt and capitalised.

Why would anyone post there? Well, to my mind, it's a competitor to fanfiction.net. And when's the last time anyone saw any moderation going on round there? The most popular forum by far is run by a twat who thinks it's clever to post personal abuse as reviews (he claims to have left over 5,000 so far), and that it's funny to suggest an author goes out and kills themself, provided he only picks stories which aren't very well written. The Misc subsections are so full of original fic that you can barely find a fic which should be there. There's no help/support section any more, so no way to request new sections for new movies/shows etc. Even blatant cut-and-paste plagiarism isn't removed, and nor is the sort of RPF which is far more likely to bring about lawsuits than anything fanlib is doing. And nobody dares leave a review which so much as says you're spelling the name of a canon character wrong any more, because they know full well they're setting themself up for abusive reviews and PMs with no report mechanism. That flamer I mentioned? Has a sockpuppet account, so you can't delete his copy/pasted random abuse, and can't report him (no fics to report, no way to report members, no way to report reviews, no way to report forums even if they do break every rule there is). In my fandoms, people are deserting for fanlib in droves.

lj? I write in a couple of small, old fandoms. I might as well leave my fanfic under the bed. I'd never get any casual readers there either.

Give me a well-run, not-for-profit fanfic site owned by people who care, and I'll post there, every time. Fanfiction.net used to be that, but it isn't now. Give me the choice between an abandoned flamer's paradise and a well-run site with commercial backing but which costs me nothing to use, and I'm going for the commercial one.

Re: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

[astridv]

It's a troll. The posts from staff on their forums are unfailingly polite, regardless of whether the poster is criticising something they've done, and correctly spelt and capitalised.

I've gone back and forth but I think it's the real thing.

Btw, could you sign your posts here? As soon as I get more than one anonmymouse, it easily gets confusing...

Re: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

[telesilla]

Judging by his response in my LJ linking me to the FAQ and saying that I should read it and consider the dialog open, I'm guessing it's real.

Re: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

[astridv]

Yeah, I saw that thread. Way to open a dialog. I don't know about you but that comment put me in a real trusting, mellow mood.

(note to self: self, pleaseplease remember to sleep a night on any post you write when being upset. Better to do the damage control before posting.)

Re: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

[telesilla]

So far the best comment has been annlarimer's reply: "You sound completely professional and your posts inspire my confidence."

I'm taking him at his word and posting a question by question look at the FAQ. I doubt I'll get anything like an answer, but it was a way to put off writing fic for another night.