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edenfallingTo whom it may concern:
In an addendum to my previous abuse report on the Critics United forum group (http://www.fanfiction.net/forum/Critics-United/78623/), I would like to point out that MrGoodyTwoShoes (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2107552/) and Gaaras1Girl (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1821929/) mysteriously removed their reviews from my story -- perhaps in an attempt to hide evidence of their group's dogpiling intimidation technique.
Meanwhile, yet ANOTHER member, this one by the name of Runic Healer (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1501327/), has left a review in a continuing attempt to intimidate me into deleting a story that is not in violation of the site's allowed content rules. I will reproduce our conversation below:
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 03:05:41 -0700
From: Runic Healer ( http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1501327/ )
-------------------
'You' or 2nd-person POV stories are not allowed according to the site's rules and guidelines.
To make this compliant, I suggest changing to either first person or third.
Reported
-Critics United
---------------
---------------
To which I responded:
As I have said to MrGoodyTwoShoes and Gaaras1Girl (whose reviews, I note, have mysteriously vanished; are you attempting to hide evidence of your group's bullying tactics?), the rule disallows INTERACTIVE content. The use of second person that is forbidden is a highly specific use wherein the "you" addressed by the narrative is the READER, who acts as an insert character interacting (hence, "interactive") with the named characters in the rest of the story. But that is not the only use of second person, which has a long history in the literary tradition. I refer you to Wikipedia, which in its article on second person narrative includes the following paragraph:
"Although not the most common narrative technique in literary fiction, second-person narration has constituted a favoured form of various literary works within, notably, the modern and post-modern tradition. In addition to a significant number of consistent (or nearly consistent) second-person novels and short-stories by, for example, Michel Butor, Marguerite Duras, Carlos Fuentes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the technique of narrative second-person address has been widely employed in shorter or longer intermittent chapters or passages of narratives by William Faulkner, Günter Grass, Italo Calvino, Nuruddin Farah, Jan Kjærstad and many others."
If you would like to argue that traditional literary novels are somehow interactive in the sense that is forbidden by the rules of this site, I would be highly interested in hearing your justification for such a claim.
The "you" addressed in my story is not the reader; it is a canon character named Dave Strider. His name is clearly given both within the summary and within the text of the story. Additionally, my story is a oneshot and is in no way soliciting reader participation in directing the content of future chapters, because there will never be any such future chapters; the story is complete as it stands.
I have reported your group to fanfiction-dot-net's administration for abusive and bullying behavior as well as persistent misinterpretation of the rules. Even if the administration does not contact you, I would advise you to find a better, more productive use for your time than bullying writers who have not, in fact, broken any rules.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Culmer
---------------
---------------
I would further like to point out evidence that the group is now ACTIVELY TARGETING the Homestuck (http://www.fanfiction.net/comic/Homestuck/) fandom for harassment, as seen in the following exchange on a topic thread (http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/78623/29562573/59/Stories-in-Violation-CU-Members-Only) in their forum:
MrGoodyTwoShoes
Story: Just The Two Of Us Author: TheGoldenPrince Fandom: Homestuck - "you" based story. Author refuses to change unless they are given an "official reason why "you" fics are not allowed" along with "I will take my stories down and change them only if you manage to get down every other story written in 2nd person view and can prove it to me. Otherwise these are staying."
Sounds likes a challenge ;)
Deleted - chance of repost high
Reply Today 12:36PM . Edited Today 2:43PM #2,948
Atraxeus
Tried to review 'Just the Two of Us' and as soon as I went to submit it, it said that the story is no longer in the archives and therefore unable to be reviewed. Figure this might be a person that would repost?
Reply Today 1:00PM #2,949
MrGoodyTwoShoes
I wouldn't be shocked if they're going to do that and are just waiting for the heat to die off.
The Homestuck section itself is chopped full of violators so feel free to wade into the section as well Ryu if you're looking to help out.
Reply Today 1:13PM #2,950
("Today" in the above posts is Thursday, October 18, 2012.)
MrGoodyTwoShoes is clearly inciting an active and targeted campaign of bullying, intimidation, and abuse against an entire fandom, over a MISINTERPRETATION of the site's content posting rules. To prevent this attack, I would like to respectfully request that rule 5 be reworded to clarify that it applies strictly to INTERACTIVE works and is not a blanket prohibition on the use of second person as a narrative technique, and also that the administration contact Critics United and tell them to stop trying to enforce their incorrect interpretation of the rule on other members of this site.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Culmer (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/461224/Elizabeth_Culmer)
Member since 2003
---------------------------------------------
I am BEYOND pissed off about this. Not only are these people complete idiots, not only are they assholes, not only are they targeting my new beloved fandom... they have made me lose two whole days of potential creative activity, both to outrage and to the time and effort it took to calm down enough to write rational responses and abuse reports.
This is not what I want to be doing with my time! I want to be writing! (Or drawing, I guess.) These people are actively destroying my creative potential. So not only are they making existing stories vanish, they are killing new ones before they can be written.
Yeah, sure, that's a GREAT way to make a site based on the active creation of stories into a better place. Brilliant idea. I can't imagine why nobody's ever thought of it before. Round of applause, guys. Round. Of. Applause.
*headdesk*
In an addendum to my previous abuse report on the Critics United forum group (http://www.fanfiction.net/forum/Critics-United/78623/), I would like to point out that MrGoodyTwoShoes (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2107552/) and Gaaras1Girl (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1821929/) mysteriously removed their reviews from my story -- perhaps in an attempt to hide evidence of their group's dogpiling intimidation technique.
Meanwhile, yet ANOTHER member, this one by the name of Runic Healer (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1501327/), has left a review in a continuing attempt to intimidate me into deleting a story that is not in violation of the site's allowed content rules. I will reproduce our conversation below:
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 03:05:41 -0700
From: Runic Healer ( http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1501327/ )
-------------------
'You' or 2nd-person POV stories are not allowed according to the site's rules and guidelines.
To make this compliant, I suggest changing to either first person or third.
Reported
-Critics United
---------------
---------------
To which I responded:
As I have said to MrGoodyTwoShoes and Gaaras1Girl (whose reviews, I note, have mysteriously vanished; are you attempting to hide evidence of your group's bullying tactics?), the rule disallows INTERACTIVE content. The use of second person that is forbidden is a highly specific use wherein the "you" addressed by the narrative is the READER, who acts as an insert character interacting (hence, "interactive") with the named characters in the rest of the story. But that is not the only use of second person, which has a long history in the literary tradition. I refer you to Wikipedia, which in its article on second person narrative includes the following paragraph:
"Although not the most common narrative technique in literary fiction, second-person narration has constituted a favoured form of various literary works within, notably, the modern and post-modern tradition. In addition to a significant number of consistent (or nearly consistent) second-person novels and short-stories by, for example, Michel Butor, Marguerite Duras, Carlos Fuentes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the technique of narrative second-person address has been widely employed in shorter or longer intermittent chapters or passages of narratives by William Faulkner, Günter Grass, Italo Calvino, Nuruddin Farah, Jan Kjærstad and many others."
If you would like to argue that traditional literary novels are somehow interactive in the sense that is forbidden by the rules of this site, I would be highly interested in hearing your justification for such a claim.
The "you" addressed in my story is not the reader; it is a canon character named Dave Strider. His name is clearly given both within the summary and within the text of the story. Additionally, my story is a oneshot and is in no way soliciting reader participation in directing the content of future chapters, because there will never be any such future chapters; the story is complete as it stands.
I have reported your group to fanfiction-dot-net's administration for abusive and bullying behavior as well as persistent misinterpretation of the rules. Even if the administration does not contact you, I would advise you to find a better, more productive use for your time than bullying writers who have not, in fact, broken any rules.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Culmer
---------------
---------------
I would further like to point out evidence that the group is now ACTIVELY TARGETING the Homestuck (http://www.fanfiction.net/comic/Homestuck/) fandom for harassment, as seen in the following exchange on a topic thread (http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/78623/29562573/59/Stories-in-Violation-CU-Members-Only) in their forum:
MrGoodyTwoShoes
Story: Just The Two Of Us Author: TheGoldenPrince Fandom: Homestuck - "you" based story. Author refuses to change unless they are given an "official reason why "you" fics are not allowed" along with "I will take my stories down and change them only if you manage to get down every other story written in 2nd person view and can prove it to me. Otherwise these are staying."
Sounds likes a challenge ;)
Deleted - chance of repost high
Reply Today 12:36PM . Edited Today 2:43PM #2,948
Atraxeus
Tried to review 'Just the Two of Us' and as soon as I went to submit it, it said that the story is no longer in the archives and therefore unable to be reviewed. Figure this might be a person that would repost?
Reply Today 1:00PM #2,949
MrGoodyTwoShoes
I wouldn't be shocked if they're going to do that and are just waiting for the heat to die off.
The Homestuck section itself is chopped full of violators so feel free to wade into the section as well Ryu if you're looking to help out.
Reply Today 1:13PM #2,950
("Today" in the above posts is Thursday, October 18, 2012.)
MrGoodyTwoShoes is clearly inciting an active and targeted campaign of bullying, intimidation, and abuse against an entire fandom, over a MISINTERPRETATION of the site's content posting rules. To prevent this attack, I would like to respectfully request that rule 5 be reworded to clarify that it applies strictly to INTERACTIVE works and is not a blanket prohibition on the use of second person as a narrative technique, and also that the administration contact Critics United and tell them to stop trying to enforce their incorrect interpretation of the rule on other members of this site.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Culmer (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/461224/Elizabeth_Culmer)
Member since 2003
---------------------------------------------
I am BEYOND pissed off about this. Not only are these people complete idiots, not only are they assholes, not only are they targeting my new beloved fandom... they have made me lose two whole days of potential creative activity, both to outrage and to the time and effort it took to calm down enough to write rational responses and abuse reports.
This is not what I want to be doing with my time! I want to be writing! (Or drawing, I guess.) These people are actively destroying my creative potential. So not only are they making existing stories vanish, they are killing new ones before they can be written.
Yeah, sure, that's a GREAT way to make a site based on the active creation of stories into a better place. Brilliant idea. I can't imagine why nobody's ever thought of it before. Round of applause, guys. Round. Of. Applause.
*headdesk*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-19 01:14 pm (UTC)Tangentially, there is little that makes me lose respect for self-proclaimed "guardians of quality" than the inability to use idiom correctly. If you don't know what the actual phrase is, don't use it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-19 02:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-20 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-20 12:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-25 06:41 pm (UTC)I see nothing evil in the comments from the Critics United people.
Maybe the problem here is you and you're afraid to admit it?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-26 02:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-12 08:41 pm (UTC)After looking at the rules and doing research for a couple hours straight, I have to agree with the post above. Rule 5 says that interactive stories are not allowed, and gives examples of interactive stories. Lets look at an analogy: My boss tells me to get food, as long as it's not Mcdonalds burgers or something. I get Burger King burgers. Same basic thing, but different. Same deal with 2nd person. It is most often interactive (hence it's being included as part of the interactive story's description), but it is not ALWAYS. When it is not, it falls completely under the rules of FF as stated.
Another example, let's say it was a rule that you couldn't number your story chapters. (no chapter 1,2, 3, etc.) Let's say my 1st chapter happens to be titled 'the 1st hour'. It looks like a numbered chapter, doesn't it? But is it? A 2nd person story may seem like an interactive one, but is it? That is the question that must be asked when seeing if something abides by the rules or not. Elizabeth is correct in that she is not breaking the rules, and I hope that FF can do something about this, like maybe clarify somewhere what it means by interactive so people stop interpretating such things.
The world is not perfect, and we have enough fault finders as it is. CU is too much about getting people in trouble, and not enough about helping. They need to take a second look at their roster and kick the people who are only out to cause trouble, and remember that people respond better when you give them respect, like giving them a chance to fix an error before reporting them.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 2012-10-25 11:16 pm (UTC)I checked the Homestuck fandom. Most of the stuff there does break the rules. And I checked CU and guess what, you've got worse to worry about. I'm talking about the troll group called Eliminator. A forum full of trolls who pretend to be like CU in order to flame everyone and attack complete fandoms at the same time. I've seen members of Eliminator popping up in that fandom. Worry more about your troll infestation instead of slithing your Barbie doll's wrists because someone told you you can't do something.
But I'm sure you won't let this message show up because I'm not kissing your feet.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 2012-10-26 02:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 05:02 am (UTC)That is pretty much my opinion. But there's nothing to be done, really, since ff.net's administration is either too small to moderate their own forums, or just doesn't care about the negative atmosphere that 'gotcha!!!' groups create. *sigh*