FanFiction.Net
Encyclopedia
FanFiction.Net is an automated
fan fiction
archive site. It was founded in late 1998 by Los Angeles
computer programmer
Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics (commonly used shortening of "fan fiction") to be posted were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. , FanFiction.Net is the largest and most popular fan fiction website in the world. It has nearly 2.2 million users and hosts stories in over 30 languages.
The site is split into nine main categories: Anime
/Manga
, Book
s, Cartoons, Miscellaneous, Games, Comics
, Movie
s, Plays
/Musicals
, and TV Show
s. As of March 27, 2009, a new feature was added to the site - the Crossover categories. Users who complete the free registration process can submit their fan fiction, maintain a user profile
, review
other stories, apply for a beta reader
position, contact each other via email or private messages, and maintain a list of favorite stories and authors. There are also centralized communities and forums
.
, created FanFiction.net. The site was created as a repository for fan-created stories that revolved around characters from popular literature, television, comics, or real-world celebrities. Unlike other fan fiction sites, FanFiction.Net allowed stories about any characters rather than revolve around a specific set of characters, such as those from Naruto
, Harry Potter
or Kingdom Hearts
. Registration was open to all people who claimed to be over 18, and by 2002 over 118,000 people were registered. (The age limit has since been moved down to 13.) At that time, one-third of the registrants self-identified as 18 or younger, and 80% were female.
FanFiction.net does not operate a screening or editorial board. Many users leave short reviews after reading stories. Most reviews are positive reviews. While reviews can be left by those without accounts, it is an option for all writers on the site to disallow "anonymous reviews," meaning reviews made by those who are not signed into an account.
The stories are based on television series, films, video games, and music groups. Stories are about recent works and older works. By 2001 almost 100,000 stories were posted on the website. Steven Savage, a programmer who operated a column on FanFiction.net, described it as "the adult version of when kids play at being TV characters" and that the content posted on the website serves as examples for "when people really care about something." A. S. Berman of USA Today
said in 2001 that FanFiction.net "reads like the 21st century successor to the poetry slams of the Beat Generation
." It is the most popular erotic website for women.
In October 2008, the site underwent a major redesign of its admin/user area. Changes to how users check hits and reviews, post chapters, etc. were made. User opinions on the changes have been split.
Since the site's founding, several professional authors and producers have asked that stories based on their copyright
ed or trademark
ed works be removed, including Anne Rice
, P. N. Elrod
, Archie Comics
, Dennis L. McKiernan, Irene Radford, J.R. Ward, Laurell K. Hamilton, Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, Raymond Feist, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, and Terry Goodkind
.
In addition, stories based on real-life celebrities were disallowed around 2003. Fan fiction based on professional wrestling, however, is still allowed.
. Stories categorized as NC-17, or advertised as potentially such, were removed. Since then, the site has relied on its users to report stories that are inappropriately rated.
Prior to the new policy, the site would use a pop-up to prompt readers to say whether they were over 17 or not.
While some protested the NC-17 ban and others edited their work to be suitable for an M rating, most simply moved their work to personal sites, fan fiction mailing lists, online blog
s, archives which allowed or specifically catered to writers and readers of adult fan fiction material, or journals (particularly LiveJournal
s). Some NC-17 material was moved to AdultFanFiction.net, a similar site which was created to serve the adults who write R and NC-17 rated fan fiction, and many fandom-specific sites accepting all ratings emerged. The NC-17 ban also prompted many authors to abandon the site completely for other sites that allowed such stories.
Story titles and summaries must be rated K.
s from being posted, due to potential legal action from copyright holders of lyrics. Public domain
lyrics, such as those to "Amazing Grace
," or lyrics written by the author of the fan fiction are not directly addressed.
Despite this, as of July 8, 2011, there are currently 87,258 stories containing the word "song" in either title or summary. An additional 56,898 can be found by searching the word "songfic." While some of these fics contain parodies of songs, many contain the original, unedited lyrics to songs, and have not been addressed with regard to possible copyright/rule violations.
and Asia
. These were supposed to give other areas of the world a significant boost in server speed on the website.
In 2007, all three web links were combined under one worldwide link. In an announcement on the home page, it was stated that the site would go global that year.
Prior to the reorganizations of 2002, FanFiction.Net contained approximately 20% of English-language fanfiction.
According to Hitwise
, as of August 2007 FanFiction.Net comprised 34.7% of all traffic directed to sites in the Entertainment, Books and Writing category. For the week ending August 25, 2007, the site was ranked 159 out of over in terms of hits.
is one of the many issues associated with the archive. Stories can be posted regardless of editing or proofreading, the quality of the work is dependent entirely upon the individual writer. Also, stories can be any length, from 10 words to well over 100,000 words. There is also no system in place for stories that are never completed, even several years after the last update.
There was also criticism towards the management of reviews; for a time, there was no way to delete or hide spam
or "flames" from logged-in users, nor was there any type of moderation for reviews. However, on November 28, 2007, FanFiction.Net introduced the ability to report offensive reviews to the administrators of the site. Proponents of flaming being banned entirely, however, criticize the system, describing it as "hollow and of no use at all to anyone." The site's creators stated that everyone has the right to say what they want in a review and review a story as they see fit. They also went on to state that banning some flamers would be violating individual rights.
Some users have spammed the site by posting "stories" with only spam content in it, resulting in angry reviewers. However, the site is effectively useless for many spammers, as all hyperlink
s, mentions of other websites in address form, and pictorial content are immediately filtered out of a story file upon upload to the site's servers (up to the .com/org/net/etc tag. leaving the slash extensions), leaving using awkward descriptions of URLs stretched out phonetically to describe what to type in the address bar the only possible way to "link" to an outside site.
FanFiction.net has also garnered a reputation for allowing plagiarism as the staff often no effort to prevent plagiarism of fanfiction, even when contacted by original authors, due to the lack of copyright associated with the fanfiction genre. This causes great frustration in victim members and there have been many cases in which Fanfiction.net members have plagiarized the content of fanfiction not found on the Fanfiction.net database which the Fanfiction.net staff have refused to address.
Dynamic web page
A dynamic web page is a kind of web page that has been prepared with fresh information , for each individual viewing. It is not static because it changes with the time , the user , the user interaction , the context A dynamic web page is a kind of web page that has been prepared with fresh...
fan fiction
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
archive site. It was founded in late 1998 by Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
computer programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics (commonly used shortening of "fan fiction") to be posted were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. , FanFiction.Net is the largest and most popular fan fiction website in the world. It has nearly 2.2 million users and hosts stories in over 30 languages.
The site is split into nine main categories: Anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
/Manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
, Book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, Cartoons, Miscellaneous, Games, Comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
, Movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, Plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
/Musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, and TV Show
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
s. As of March 27, 2009, a new feature was added to the site - the Crossover categories. Users who complete the free registration process can submit their fan fiction, maintain a user profile
User profile
A user profile is a collection of personal data associated to a specific user. A profile refers therefore to the explicit digital representation of a person's identity...
, review
Review
A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
other stories, apply for a beta reader
Beta reader
A beta reader is a person who reads a written work, generally fiction, with what has been described as "a critical eye, with the aim of improving grammar, spelling, characterization, and general style of a story prior to its release to the general public."The author or writer, who can be referred...
position, contact each other via email or private messages, and maintain a list of favorite stories and authors. There are also centralized communities and forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
.
Creation
In 1998 Xing Li, a software designer in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, created FanFiction.net. The site was created as a repository for fan-created stories that revolved around characters from popular literature, television, comics, or real-world celebrities. Unlike other fan fiction sites, FanFiction.Net allowed stories about any characters rather than revolve around a specific set of characters, such as those from Naruto
Naruto
is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of...
, Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
or Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney...
. Registration was open to all people who claimed to be over 18, and by 2002 over 118,000 people were registered. (The age limit has since been moved down to 13.) At that time, one-third of the registrants self-identified as 18 or younger, and 80% were female.
Site structure
Writers may upload their stories to the site and assign them a category and rating (such as K, K+, T, and M). The ratings are no longer done on the MPAA system, due to cease-and-desist demands from the MPAA in 2005. A list of explanations for the rating system currently employed is available from the drop-down rating menu in each of the individual archives on the site. The MA (18+) rating is not permitted on this site. The site does not pay money to people for posting content, and the site does not charge money for posting on the website.FanFiction.net does not operate a screening or editorial board. Many users leave short reviews after reading stories. Most reviews are positive reviews. While reviews can be left by those without accounts, it is an option for all writers on the site to disallow "anonymous reviews," meaning reviews made by those who are not signed into an account.
The stories are based on television series, films, video games, and music groups. Stories are about recent works and older works. By 2001 almost 100,000 stories were posted on the website. Steven Savage, a programmer who operated a column on FanFiction.net, described it as "the adult version of when kids play at being TV characters" and that the content posted on the website serves as examples for "when people really care about something." A. S. Berman of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
said in 2001 that FanFiction.net "reads like the 21st century successor to the poetry slams of the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
." It is the most popular erotic website for women.
In October 2008, the site underwent a major redesign of its admin/user area. Changes to how users check hits and reviews, post chapters, etc. were made. User opinions on the changes have been split.
Largest sections
As of November 13, 2011, the top 20 fandoms on the site (that is, the fandoms with the most stories submitted) are:| Rank | Fandom | Category | # of stories |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... |
Books | 559,677 |
| 2 | Naruto Naruto is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of... |
Anime/Manga | 289,185 |
| 3 | Twilight | Books | 190,578 |
| 4 | Inuyasha InuYasha , also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008... |
Anime/Manga | 101,687 |
| 5 | Kingdom Hearts Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney... |
Games | 64,185 |
| 6 | Bleach Bleach (manga) is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Noriaki "Tite" Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he obtains the powers of a —a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki... |
Anime/Manga | 60,392 |
| 7 | Yu-Gi-Oh | Anime/Manga | 58,013 |
| 8 | Supernatural Supernatural (TV series) Supernatural is an American supernatural and horror television series created by Eric Kripke, which debuted on September 13, 2005 on The WB, and is now part of The CW's lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the brothers as they... |
TV Shows | 54,926 |
| 9 | Glee Glee (TV series) Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues... |
TV Shows | 51,909 |
| 10 | Pokémon Pokémon is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video... |
Games | 45,774 |
| 11 | Lord of the Rings | Books | 45,637 |
| 12 | Hetalia - Axis Powers | Anime/Manga | 45,564 |
| 13 | Buffy the Vampire Slayer | TV Shows | 43,073 |
| 14 | Gundam Wing/AC | Anime/Manga | 40,907 |
| 15 | Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Alchemist , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution... |
Anime/Manga | 38,378 |
| 16 | Digimon Digimon , short for , is a Japanese media franchise encompassing digital toys, anime, manga and video games. The franchise's eponymous creatures are monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks.-Conception and... |
Anime/Manga | 36,225 |
| 17 | Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing video game developed by Square and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. It was originally released in 1997 for the Sony PlayStation and was re-released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and in 2009... |
Games | 35,769 |
| 18 | Dragon Ball Z | Anime/Manga | 35,516 |
| 19 | Sailor Moon Sailor Moon Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself... |
Anime/Manga | 35,007 |
| 20 | Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior... |
TV Shows | 32,205 |
Copyright and trademark issues
FanFiction.Net instituted several policy changes as it grew in size and popularity. These policies frequently led to the deletion of fan fiction that was based on the copyrighted works of certain published authors or contained specifically targeted content.Since the site's founding, several professional authors and producers have asked that stories based on their copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed or trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
ed works be removed, including Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
, P. N. Elrod
P. N. Elrod
Patricia N. Elrod is an American novelist specializing in urban fantasy. She's written in the mystery, romance, paranormal, and historical genres with at least one foray into comedic fantasy. Elrod is also an editor, having worked on several collections for Ace Science Fiction, DAW, Benbella Books,...
, Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...
, Dennis L. McKiernan, Irene Radford, J.R. Ward, Laurell K. Hamilton, Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, Raymond Feist, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, and Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind is an American writer and author of the epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines, which has ties to his fantasy series, and The Omen Machine, which is a direct sequel thereof. Before his success as an author Goodkind worked...
.
In addition, stories based on real-life celebrities were disallowed around 2003. Fan fiction based on professional wrestling, however, is still allowed.
NC-17 ratings
On September 12, 2002, FanFiction.Net banned material that was rated NC-17MPAA film rating system
The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities...
. Stories categorized as NC-17, or advertised as potentially such, were removed. Since then, the site has relied on its users to report stories that are inappropriately rated.
Prior to the new policy, the site would use a pop-up to prompt readers to say whether they were over 17 or not.
While some protested the NC-17 ban and others edited their work to be suitable for an M rating, most simply moved their work to personal sites, fan fiction mailing lists, online blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, archives which allowed or specifically catered to writers and readers of adult fan fiction material, or journals (particularly LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
s). Some NC-17 material was moved to AdultFanFiction.net, a similar site which was created to serve the adults who write R and NC-17 rated fan fiction, and many fandom-specific sites accepting all ratings emerged. The NC-17 ban also prompted many authors to abandon the site completely for other sites that allowed such stories.
Story titles and summaries must be rated K.
CYOA (Choose-Your-Own-Adventure)/Insert-You fics
These have been banned for many years, since around 2004 or 2005. The site systematically deleted all fanfiction that had the potential of inserting the reader into a fanfiction, for various speculated reasons. One of the popular explanations may be child porn, due to the number of FF.Net users who are under 18 and the oft-suggestive situations the CYOA fics posed. Parents could easily sue FF.Net for "corrupting a minor" in allowing anyone to put themselves into a story that may have romantic or even sexual undertones.Songfics
In 2005, FanFiction.net banned songficSongfic
A songfic, also known as a song fic or a song-fic, is a work of fiction interspersed with the lyrics of a relevant song. The term is a portmanteau of "song" and "fiction"; as such, one might also see the genre referred to as "songfiction". Songfics are a genre of artwork related to fanfiction in...
s from being posted, due to potential legal action from copyright holders of lyrics. Public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
lyrics, such as those to "Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton , published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God,...
," or lyrics written by the author of the fan fiction are not directly addressed.
Despite this, as of July 8, 2011, there are currently 87,258 stories containing the word "song" in either title or summary. An additional 56,898 can be found by searching the word "songfic." While some of these fics contain parodies of songs, many contain the original, unedited lyrics to songs, and have not been addressed with regard to possible copyright/rule violations.
Lists
Until April 21, 2002, in addition to fiction stories based on existing characters, the site had a section devoted to lists, generally humor-related, along the lines of "20 Ways to Dump Your Girlfriend," or "50 Ways to Annoy Your Teachers." This section was deleted, but there are still a number of lists in existence throughout the site.FictionPress
FanFiction.net has a sister site, FictionPress.com, which contains over 1,000,000 original stories, poems, and plays. The site has a similar format and similar rules to FanFiction.net.Globalization
At first, FanFiction.net's server was accessible mainly only in the west and worked poorly, if at all, in other parts of the world. In late 2006, announcements were made of special web links designed for EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. These were supposed to give other areas of the world a significant boost in server speed on the website.
In 2007, all three web links were combined under one worldwide link. In an announcement on the home page, it was stated that the site would go global that year.
Prior to the reorganizations of 2002, FanFiction.Net contained approximately 20% of English-language fanfiction.
According to Hitwise
Hitwise
Experian Hitwise is a global online competitive intelligence service which collects data directly from ISP networks to aid website managers in analysing trends in visitor behavior and to measure website market share. The Hitwise product is a commercial platform whereby customers pay Hitwise a...
, as of August 2007 FanFiction.Net comprised 34.7% of all traffic directed to sites in the Entertainment, Books and Writing category. For the week ending August 25, 2007, the site was ranked 159 out of over in terms of hits.
Criticism
Quality controlQuality control
Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...
is one of the many issues associated with the archive. Stories can be posted regardless of editing or proofreading, the quality of the work is dependent entirely upon the individual writer. Also, stories can be any length, from 10 words to well over 100,000 words. There is also no system in place for stories that are never completed, even several years after the last update.
There was also criticism towards the management of reviews; for a time, there was no way to delete or hide spam
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
or "flames" from logged-in users, nor was there any type of moderation for reviews. However, on November 28, 2007, FanFiction.Net introduced the ability to report offensive reviews to the administrators of the site. Proponents of flaming being banned entirely, however, criticize the system, describing it as "hollow and of no use at all to anyone." The site's creators stated that everyone has the right to say what they want in a review and review a story as they see fit. They also went on to state that banning some flamers would be violating individual rights.
Some users have spammed the site by posting "stories" with only spam content in it, resulting in angry reviewers. However, the site is effectively useless for many spammers, as all hyperlink
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
s, mentions of other websites in address form, and pictorial content are immediately filtered out of a story file upon upload to the site's servers (up to the .com/org/net/etc tag. leaving the slash extensions), leaving using awkward descriptions of URLs stretched out phonetically to describe what to type in the address bar the only possible way to "link" to an outside site.
FanFiction.net has also garnered a reputation for allowing plagiarism as the staff often no effort to prevent plagiarism of fanfiction, even when contacted by original authors, due to the lack of copyright associated with the fanfiction genre. This causes great frustration in victim members and there have been many cases in which Fanfiction.net members have plagiarized the content of fanfiction not found on the Fanfiction.net database which the Fanfiction.net staff have refused to address.