FanFiction.Net

FanFiction.Net

Screenshot of homepage on May 27, 2011
URL	FanFiction.net
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Fanfiction archive
Registration	Optional
Owner	Xing Li
Created by	Xing Li
Launched	October 15, 1998
Alexa rank	1413 (as of December 2011)
Current status	Live

FanFiction.Net (often abbreviated as FF.Net or FFN) 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. As of 2010, 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, Books, Cartoons, Miscellaneous, Games, Comics, Movies, Plays/Musicals, and TV Shows. 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.

Creation

In 1998 Xing Li, a software designer in Los Angeles, 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.

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

Most Popular Sections

As of January 22, 2012, 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	Books	573,937
2	Naruto	Anime/Manga	294,711
3	Twilight	Books	195,110
4	Inuyasha	Anime/Manga	102,712
5	Kingdom Hearts	Games	64,887
6	Bleach	Anime/Manga	62,429
7	Glee	TV Shows	59,280
8	Yu-Gi-Oh	Anime/Manga	58,638
9	Supernatural	TV Shows	57,276
10	Hetalia - Axis Powers	Anime/Manga	51,090
11	Pokémon	Games	47,330
12	Lord of the Rings	Books	45,998
13	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	TV Shows	43,535
14	Gundam Wing/AC	Anime/Manga	40,987
15	Fullmetal Alchemist	Anime/Manga	39,010
16	Digimon	Anime/Manga	36,612
17	Final Fantasy VII	Games	36,263
18	Dragon Ball Z	Anime/Manga	36,028
19	Sailor Moon	Anime/Manga	35,362
20	Doctor Who	TV Shows	34,088

Disallowed fanfiction and bans

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 copyrighted or trademarked 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.

NC-17 ratings

On September 12, 2002, FanFiction.Net banned material that was rated NC-17. 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 blogs, archives which allowed or specifically catered to writers and readers of adult fan fiction material, or journals (particularly LiveJournals). 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 songfics 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 91,230 stories containing the word "song" in either title or summary. An additional 54,175 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 Europe 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 1 million websites in terms of hits.

Criticism

Quality control 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 hyperlinks, 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 offer 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.

External links

• Official website (Mobile)
• FictionPress.com (Mobile)
• AdultFanFiction.net
• Google Books: Career Building Through Fan Fiction
• Filtered Fanfiction: Extra FF.net search options (In progress)