alyse | (no subject)

I prepared an entry on this this morning, and semagic lost it ::sigh:: Note to everyone using it - you know it says you can save drafts? It lied ::g::

Has anyone read Fandomination.net's weeding guidelines for stories? Part of me thinks that it's an interesting concept but I can't see how on earth it's going to work in practice. Basically, Fandomination.net is intending to operate a quality control policy on the fics that are archived there which, as it is an open submission archive, will involve nominated 'weeders' going through posted stories and ensuring that they meet these criteria. Now this is not a rant about Fandomination.net or a go at their policies, just a musing about this type of effort generally.

I looked at the criteria they have and found myself nodding knowledgeably, but then caught myself and wondered whether it was a good idea at all. The problem, as I see it, is that any determination of 'quality' is necessarily subjective, and just because the subjective criteria or measures of quality drawn together by the Fandomination.net staff tallies with my particular fanfiction prejudices does not mean that it's the only valid interpretation out there, or that applying them across the board is a good thing.

It doesn't help, of course, that the terms of service, these very weeding guidelines and much of the administrative information across the site is riddled with typos, confused homonyms and poor grammar. (Okay - so that's a little bit of a dig, but I for one would take their efforts in quality control more seriously if someone had actually beta'd the site never mind the stories.)

The problem, to my mind, is that the weeding guidelines are made even more subjective as the caveat 'unless it's good' has been added to so many of the 'badfic' indicators. For example, mpreg is not allowed to be archived, because so much mpreg is very badly written. Well, I'd agree with that - in fact the only mpreg fic I came across in the Stargate fandom had me running screaming from Area52 three years ago and not coming back for two. I loathe that whole series with a passion, with its travesty of a Weepy!Maternal Daniel and Asshole!Only Wants Baby When It's Gone! Jack, but others love it. Maybe it's just their kink, and if it's your kink does quality come into it at all?

However, it's allowed if it's 'good'. But what constitutes a 'good' mpreg fic? Is there such a beast? I have my doubts, but then I remember there was some Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon mpreg fic which, while I wouldn't seek out or even read again, didn't leave me wanting to put my boot through my monitor and then gouge my eyes out. And if there is, how would a weeder spot it if they're coming to the whole process with the ingrained response of 'all mpreg is badfic'?

Same goes for songfics. I think a lot of people on my friends list know my response to songfic. A lot of it is painfully bad. But again, the caveat of 'unless it's good' is applied. Now, I've read good songfic, strangely enough. One of the best I've read was an Angel songfic, and I wish I could remember where it was but I didn't bookmark it because I'm not really into Angel fic and just stumbled across it by accident. But it worked, the lyrics woven into the story were a powerful addition to it, driving home the basic despair. I've even written songfic once - Blue Moon in the New Pros fandom and, strangely enough for someone who twitches as badly as I go when those dreaded words are mentioned, I think it's one of the stories I'm happiest with.

However, whenever a fic lands in my inbox and is marked songfic I still find my finger hovering over the delete button before I've even started reading it, and I'm considerably less likely to give the author the benefit of the doubt than I am for a genre I like (hurt/comfort, angst, relationship). That's human nature.

So, if I decided to archive Blue Moon on Fandomination.net, in my ever ongoing pimpage of New Pros as a fandom ::g::, will it be given the benefit of the doubt, or will it be summarily removed because it is that dreaded beastie? In short, will human nature kick in again?

What I also find interesting, in addition to all of these 'this genre is riddled with badfic so stories will only be accepted if they meet this vague definition of 'good'', is the genres that are missing, and again I can see my own prejudices reflected back to me.

BDSM - it isn't one of my kinks, but it's a kink I can kind of get behind, if that makes sense. But there are probably as many bad BDSM stories out there as there are bad songfics, so why isn't this included in the list of indicators of badfic with an 'only if it's good' caveat? It's not mentioned at all and yet, to my mind, even if I'm willing to suspend disbelief more because of the kink factor (remembering that it's not a particular kink of mine, although it interests me as a genre), there are an awful lot of BDSM stories that suffer from poor characterisation or explanation of how the parties involved ended up in this type of relationship, or why they feel the need for pain/to cause pain in a sexual sense.

Hurt comfort - bloody brilliant when it's done well (Pough, Poss), painfully bad when it's not (DawnC's Suicidium somes to mind, which started off promisingly enough then descended into 'how many ways can we hurt Danny today?'). Angst... good angst comes from genuine situations and genuine fears and emotions, not manufactured conflict (someone should have told M&M that). Again, not a sausage, unless they're covered by the whole 'badfic' category, with veers into 'poor characterisation' and other sundry assorted no nos.

So, while I look at the weeding policies, and even as I'm nodding, there's part of me that is sitting there wondering if the whole process is going to be inexorably flawed from the start, whether good intentions are going to come to naught while people descend into wrangling about what's 'good' versus what's not. Of course, at the end of the day it's their server, paid for by them and those who've chosen to support them (including me), and they have the right to impose whatever quality controls they like. It's just that another part of me, the one Cole categorises as 'bleeding heart liberal' ::g::, wonders whether there shouldn't be room in the sandbox for everyone, since no one is forced to read anything.

And then I remember why I avoided Fanfiction.net like the plague (put off simply because of the sheer amount of dreck on there), and wonder if at least an attempt at quality control isn't a good thing, even if it fails.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's the very old debate about what makes a story good, and is everything subjective?

I do have myself some pretty strong standards concerning fics, and sometimes I am tempted to talk like *this* and *that* makes a good fic or a bad fic, but with thoughts, it's a very dangerous ground. I think maybe the problem with such an archive is that the standards they want are shown as what *is* good fic. I think this attitude is a bit annoying, and I am not sure I would go to such an archive for that reason. I mean, saying that for you those are good fics and you just want to put that kind of story up would be less twitchy I think.. it's like a rec list. Do you blame someone for writing a rec list based on his/her strict standards? You read the rec if you have the same tastes as the writer and you don't if you don't agree. I think it could be interesting to form a community of people that have written detailed recs, and link them all together. The person could write briefly on their rec page the basic standards of what makes for him/her a good story. This way, people would know the thing right away and it could be an interesting way of finding good fics (God knows the best fic I have read were found on rec list on individual's pages.)

Anyways, wanted to say too I like your rants, very articulated and to the point. =)

Well, like I said it is their server and they are perfectly entitled to impose whatever quality criteria they like, however it's also an open and automatic cgi and javascript based archive which means that anyone can come along, register as a member and upload their stories. Anyone at all. So isn't imposing quality criteria a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?

I could understand if they were running a traditional archive, where the archivist handpicked stories from various fandoms which met their definition of 'quality' but to let any Tom, Dick or Harriet upload what they like, and then have 'weeders' come along and remove stuff afterwards seems to me a completely ineffective way of ensuring quality, and because there will have to be a number of weeders (as the archive grows) you will have many different definitions of 'quality'. And, as I said, the guidelines for weeders I think are rather vague and not particularly helpful.

I just think the whole exercise is doomed to fail from the start, personally. And it's likely to cause a lot of upset too. It's one thing not to be invited to have your stories included in an archive. It's another thing entirely for someone to come along, decide that what you've already uploaded isn't good enough and remove it. It's akin to public humiliation apart from anything else and I strongly suspect that those people most likely to get caught up in this are going to be largely young.

Ah well. Me musing about it isn't going to change anyone's mind is it? ::g::

I agree with you, it's a very odd system. It's like they want good stories, but still want *plenty* of stories. That's really doomed to fail. Although, I can't say the effort isn't interesting. I really would like a place where we can find good stories with standards. I think something like that should be done. Maybe just for one fandom so it's easier, like SG-1. God knows how much this fandom needs some lanterns to find good fics :P The concept of archiving and recs on a same site is interesting. I am new in the fandom so of course am full of ideas and projects and I dunno if it will last, but anyways, am throwing the idea ;)

It's like they want good stories, but still want *plenty* of stories. That's really doomed to fail.

Yep. In fact they want plenty of stories, they want the authors to be able to upload the stories themselves with no 'archivist' per se to act as any quality control before the act and they still only want 'good stories'. As far as I can tell, it's an either or situation. I honestly don't think they can impose any quality criteria beyond 'do not upload stories that have not been spell checked or beta read' which might act as a lower quality denominator of sorts. But I think it is doomed to fail, although part of me - actually a lot of me - wishes that it could and would work.

There definitely seems to be a growing trend for internet archives to stamp down on which stories are accepted.

I can understand why archives want more control over what they accept (improves their rep and gives them an excuse not to host crap fic) and I can also understand that the owners of the archives have personal preference (as evidenced by the NC17 debacle on the other large fanfic archive). What annoys me is when they promote themselves as an open archive when obviously they are not. Why not just put a huge disclaimer saying they reserve the right to refuse stories? All this analysing and explaining down to the Nth degree is asking for trouble - at the end of the day it's their archive and they will only post what they agree with. Justifying 'weeding' is daft - one person's weed is another person's Orchid :)

It would kind of be nice to know that there are archives out there that have certain standards of writing and storytelling (contradiction moment coming up :)). But that would shut out the 'bad' (according to the archivist) fic. And bad writer doesn't just mean a person with bad taste or a 'I don't care about my writing' attitude. It could also mean a new writer - we are after all enthusiastic amateurs *vbg* And I know I would be gutted if I submitted something and it got chucked out. I must admit I can see why people set up archives for their own stuff...

Why not just put a huge disclaimer saying they reserve the right to refuse stories? All this analysing and explaining down to the Nth degree is asking for trouble - at the end of the day it's their archive and they will only post what they agree with. Justifying 'weeding' is daft - one person's weed is another person's Orchid

I suspect it's because they're an automatic archive. Anyone can come along and upload stories to their server. The only way they can clamp down on what stays there is by removing something once it has been uploaded - something I think is doomed to failure and will lead to acrimony. As I said to

lerefuge above and as you've mentioned, it's one thing not to be asked if you want your fic archived on an archive that cherry picks stories and only hosts 'the best'; it's another thing entirely to have your stories removed from a public archive for not meeting these rather vague 'quality' indicators. And as the archive grows, and there are different weeders, the definition of what is 'quality' is bound to vary.

I think, to be frank, it would have been better for them to have taken a hard line and stuck to it; no mpreg, no songfic, no author insertion (although Mary Sues are more difficult - what one person sees as an obvious Mary Sue another sees as just an OFC). As it is, these vague 'unless it's good' caveats don't help, IMHO.

And those weeding criteria aren't exactly easy to find either. I got the link from their forums. How many people will venture into there unless they are insatiably curious (me ::g::) or simply have a problem with using the system?

Like I said - I think the whole thing is doomed to failure, and probably a lot of acrimony too unfortunately. I don't think it is possible to have an open archive like that and have quality criteria. I, personally, think the two are pretty much mutually exclusive. I mean, how many of the 'bad' writers (i.e the ones you and I would run screaming from ::g::) will actually look objectively at their work and think 'this isn't good enough'? If they thought that they probably wouldn't be posting it in the first place... I would hope :)

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