Talk:Killed Badfic

Hey, I think it's great that someone took it upon him/herself to make the Killed Badfic list a little bit more organised. What I didn't think was so great was that all the names of badfic authors had been removed. Now, I may have been the only one that actually added the name of the badfic author next to the link to their fic, but where I'm from (academics) you're supposed to quote source with author. I understand about the desire to go for uniformity in a list, but that doesn't mean that the easiest route (no authors get mentioned with the link to their story) has to be taken.

Yes, one could argue that by clicking the link one would find out the author's name, and yes they may have changed their name in the mean time. Both are irrelevant. The first one particularly for badfic that has been removed from the internet. We credit the authors of PPC mission so we too should "credit" the authors of badfic.IndeMaat

You mentioned the big points (that most of the entries here do not list their authors and uniformity in a list is preferable). The website already treads a very dangerous line between "light hearted parody" and "trollish bashing". Already, the concept of the PPC would be loathsome if it weren't for the fact that the whole thing is meant to be light-hearted parody as opposed to harsh satire. Involving the authors themselves is crossing that line, however.

Authors should just be given the benefit of the doubt. The fact is, most badfic doesn't come from unrepentant jerks like David Gonterman or blatantly obvious parody personas such as Squirrelking, but just normal people whose only crimes are lacking perspective and experience. By crediting the authors by name on this website (in a section that is inherently negative, regardless of any claims otherwise), it's basically just setting them up as crappy authors to be shunned forever. Also, if they choose to delete their story, it's most likely because they want to spare people from their crappy story and they are perfectly in their right to do so. Keeping their name next to the blank link? "Hey, you can't escape a bad reputation!"

Honestly... this website is supposed to just be about the bad stories themselves, right? Not author bashing? Best way to not lose that perspective is to just leave the authors themselves out of it if they aren't either specifically jerks, trolls, or otherwise intentional sources of badfic.EtherealMutation 20:22, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The other thing is, you seem not to have realised that insulting the PPC is a really, really stupid thing to do on /our own wiki/. You say we tread a very dangerous line between "light hearted parody" and "trollish bashing" -- how is that statement anything but "trollish bashing" itself? If you aren't interested in the mission of the PPC, you have no real reason to be here, and if you are interested, you should avoid referring to it as "loathsome". Make your mind up. hS 21:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * EM, you seem to have misunderstood a couple of things. First, yes, the PPC (which is not simply "this website") is about the bad stories. We emphatically /avoid/ author bashing. However, linking to or naming stories without listing their authors (if known) is a bad thing. It is refusing to cite your sources. In academic circles, that will get you severely punished. We're not a university here, but you know, it's also basic politeness.


 * Dude. Okay. It seems you have a problem with how we operate. We have never 'bashed' an author. That would be contrary to the point, which is to criticse the writing, as you say. We often go to badfic authors and offer concrit. And several have actually taken it and become better authors. We can't do that if we don't know who the author is, for a start. And I'm sorry, but the tone of the above suggests that you're on the defensive, which when I recall the palaver over your stories making it onto the Unclaimed Badfic list isn't surprising. And also, it's rude. Really rude. We *know* most badficcers aren't bad evil people. Some of us used to *be* them. You have just called us 'loathsome', 'trollish' etc. This is offensive. If you don't like how we work, and it seems you don't, then leave. IndeMaat's right; they wrote their stories and put them on the internet. This means they were at least proud of them when they did it. And if we don't credit the author, it could be construed as plagiarism. It is only common courtesy to credit an author, and we try to be courteous. Trojie 21:01, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The important thing to keep in mind is that people misinterpret stuff all the time and are also skewed towards the negative. When somebody sees "Story by Soandso", the first thought that will come to mind is "Soandso is a bad author", not "this particular story by Soandso is bad". One can write as many FAQs, disclaimers, etc. as one wants, but the simple fact is that it's a wasted effort on most people and what they are going to see is that a page called "Killed Badfic" is featuring the works of Soandso. That's where it becomes rather gratuitous and unnecessary.

And yes, I did, in fact, call the concept ->potentially<- loathsome. These aren't reviews or constructive breakdowns being written here (as least not the PPC canon stories, anyway). These are stories that take other people's creations out of their original context and "kill" them for the "crimes" of being "bad fiction". The major point that comes across from the PPC stories is "your story is bad and you should feel bad". This would be bashing if it weren't for the dividing line that this is just meant as light-hearted parody, but this line is very thin and easy to cross over (not to mention a bit of a slippery slope - it's not like 4chan specifically started out the way it currently is). One way to cross over the line: mention the authors without context. Please don't take this as me bashing the website, but instead as an attempt to point out the dangerous territory it walks on and offer a way to prevent it from eventually becoming just another exercise of schadenfreude.

Anyway, regardless, there's no reason to keep the names on this page. It's pointless information if they choose to keep their story up with their names attached to it (all one has to do is click the link) and if they choose to delete it (which is perfectly within their right to do so; they're entirely free of charge to begin with, so they're not robbing you of anything to stop offering it), it becomes a form of author bashing to leave their credit up. A blank link is a completely out of context reference and all one has to go by is whatever gets copied into the PPC story (which will never be anything good and certainly not given a neutral point of view, either) and the assurance that what used to be there was bad, bad, BAD. That makes it a disservice to the authors.

Also, fanfiction in general is such a nebulous grey area in legality that worrying about "plagiarism" is rather pointless (not to mention that the nature of the PPC stories sort of precludes "plagiarism" of the stories being drawn from in the first place... unless there really are people trying to steal credit to the stories they're condemning). If anything, it's really more just luck and the fact that most professional websites will abide by the requests of publishers to take down stories unconditionally that prevents a high profile case from resulting in a ruling about its legality (which, most likely, would not choose to favor the side of fanfiction because it's a several billion dollar industry versus a rather small subsection of amateur writers). But that's irrelevant.EtherealMutation 23:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and another flaw to the "academic citation of sources" angle: MLA style dictates that you have to give not just the original author, but a clear reference to the source of the work in question (can't just write "Newspaper Article by Soandso". You have to also include the newspaper date, issue, and page that it appears on in a clear, direct way). Obviously, if they decide to delete the story, what are you referencing to with that blank link? Nothing. Just whatever was copied into the PPC story (which may or may not be an actual excerpt).EtherealMutation 23:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No, in fact, it is not "pointless information". You may have noticed that this is a Wiki. It is a reference guide. That means it is there to collect the information in one place. If we are saying that information need not be included if you can find it at the other end of a link, why do we have any pages? Agent bios contain information given in their missions. Would they be classed as "pointless information"? No. And neither is naming the authors of the stories PPC'd. And, incidentally, your statement that the excerpts in PPC missions "may or may not be an actual excerpt" is insulting and thoroughly unnecessary. You may wish to reconsider your apparent decision to associate with the PPC. hS 23:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * EtherealMutation, a quick question: why in the name of Eru, Aslan and Mithros are you here? You don't seem to really like what we do, you object to the way we run our wiki, and despite the fact that you've expressed interest in writing a mission, you've ignored polite suggestions that you follow standard procedure and ask permission to write in the PPC canon. Trojie 01:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't bypass anything. Have I published anything yet?  No.  I asked on the forums for the procedure for writing for it (since the page "Permission" is tucked away in a little corner... actually, what this website could use is a "So you want to write for the PPC?" FAQ with a link on the front page that explains everything).  Anyway, the rest of your question is explained below (your question was edited in just as I was about to post this).

Every encyclopedic reference (even the original Wikipedia... especially the original Wikipedia) has limits. For example, a film entry on the regular Wikipedia won't have a full list of credits. They'll usually have the actors, directors, producers, and writers (maybe references to other personnel if it won an academy award in some field), but not a full list. Why don't they include it if their aim is to provide as much information as possible.? If you ask Wikipedia, they'll tell you that it's because each film page references the Internet Movie Database. Wikipedia aims to offer an informative summary with lists of references for further research, not to be the end all, be all source of all information. A starting point for the vital information so one can have at least an entry level knowledge of the topic in question.

But to be more direct in terms of this website: if one wants to include the author's name, why not also include their publication date, last update date, and chapter and word counts? Along with that, one should also include their full review pages (both positive and negative, as opposed to the "selected reviews" I've seen on some pages)? Hell, let's copy the full text, reformat it for this website, and not bother with any links period. Of course, the problem with that is that it holds its own messy ethical implications (placing somebody else's text on a webpage that anybody can edit and thus alter to fit whatever usage while bypassing their control of its distribution... yeah...), but if it's necessary to be entirely self-sufficient, so be it. Probably also include a full script for every one of the fictional canons represented on this page... actually, this website needs a full dictionary as well. Need to gather as much information as possible. More pages, more lists, more stuff!

But anyway, to offer a more direct question to be answered: This website primarily concerns itself with the PPC and its canon, right? Does the PPC directly involve itself with any of these authors? Usually not in any way that is vital to the purpose of the website. Honestly... what does listing, say, "Princess Moony" (author of... oh, wait, nothing that can be directly referenced and thus might have never existed) do for the website in terms of informing people about the PPC? Does "Princess Moony" make an appearance in the story? Hold a place in the PPC canon? Doesn't seem like it. Thus, it doesn't fit and its only real purpose seems to be to say "this person wrote a story in the past and we're not letting it go". The necessary information is the story that is being used by the PPC for the spinoff, with a link to its original context for further research (if available). That's where the story relevancy to the PPC begins and ends. If somebody wants to research it further from there, the option is available, but to offer irrelevant information in an inherently negative context like that adds nothing doesn't do anything for the PPC itself.

As for the "insulting and thoroughly unnecessary" comment... I'm not the one that brought up the academic standpoint. The whole reason behind the MLA is to give clear, exact references to the locations of such publications in their original context specifically because of the possibility of plagiarism or modifying the text to fit the purposes of whatever point is being made (which can, in fact, include just copying sections of it in a different context). If one were to hand in a paper to a professor that listed a reference to something that no longer exists ("take my word for it, there used to be a website that gave me this frequency chart used in the Vietnam war, but it got deleted"), it would result in a grade reduction (provided the professor is lenient enough not to just fail the paper for potential plagiarism and/or misleading use/origin of the text). There's no such thing as either infallibility or a universal honor system that prevents the misuse of other people's works.

Also, to be fairly direct, I don't like this whole "make it personal" angle that is being taken towards me. I'm trying to help the website through objective observations here. Why else would I spend two cumulative hours pruning the incredibly messy lists (which included having to gather quite a bit of information and even fix two of the links... sure is fun doing searches in >300,000 entry categories) if not to help? It's not like I'm getting paid to be here. Thus, so, too, do I mention objective observations about potentially negative interpretations and reactions to the website. I like the website enough to not want it to devolve into yet another unfriendly, blindly satirical website (which I am not saying it already is... just that this is a possible path it could take if enough small changes in a particular direction happen and something that needs to be guarded against).

It's sort of ironic that a website that has a secondary goal of helping writers to improve through constructive criticism is acting like it's completely immune to, well, constructive criticism. There's no such thing as infallibility and there's no such thing as perfection, something that the website implies through its very extensive FAQ but needs to practice. Or, at the very least, offer an objective, complete refutation of the points being made instead of questioning my integrity, choosing particular interpretations of my statements to make labored points, and demanding I leave. Let's be mature here. EtherealMutation 02:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * EM, the issue as I see it is nothing to do with your ideas in and of themselves. Please understand that you haven't been around very long and that you arrived at a bad time, what with the major spam episode on the Board. Frankly, I think we're all feeling less than comfortable with someone we don't know well coming in and making sweeping changes without consulting the rest of us. I don't personally doubt that you mean well, or that your ideas have merit, but it's unreasonable to think that you can simply appear in our midst, flags waving and trumpets blaring, and expect us all to fall in behind you. It doesn't work that way. We would all feel a lot better if you'd just be patient with your ideas and go through the process of integrating with us, like everyone else. Neshomeh 04:54, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

EM, a lot of your points have merit, and I'm sure we all appreciate that you were only trying to help, but if the PPC was going to start on this "slippery downward slope", I am quite of the opinion that it would have already done so. It has been going for over five years now, and generally in that amount of time there would have already been a substantial downwards turn if there was going to be. Part of our aims are to help each other become better writers, and we do take pains to make sure we aren't unfair to anyone. Why else would we put disclaimers in our missions, stating very clearly that the fics we spork are emphatically not our property, but the property of the person who actually wrote them?

Are you suggesting that anyone who wrote a PPC mission around a story that has been taken down should remove all such missions, just in case people think it is their own work? The very fact that we include links to the story would suggest that we are offering people a chance to take a look at the full text of it, which in turn would suggest that we don't own the story if we need to send people elsewhere to look at it.

And what about the PPCers who have sporked their own work? What do they do when they retire?

I apologise for throwing so many questions at you, but Neshomeh, hS and Trojie have quite carefully laid out the situation, and you don't seem to want to listen to what they have to say. All they've been doing is pointing out PPC policy, and they've all been here for years now, so they do know what they're talking about. Not to mention their very calm and reasonable debate, politely answering your questions. And, I have to admit, they're right. You do seem to be expecting everyone to follow your way of thinking, but the point is that we don't have any leaders. The PPC is a community without any official leadership- anyone can suggest an idea, but it has to be approved by enough people if we're going to carry it out, and your points just don't seem to be attracting much approval.--Cassie5squared 07:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to apologize for asking questions. Anyway, if somebody wants to remove their credit from a story, the solution lies in Alan Smithee. To summarize, in the film industry (or, more specifically, the Directors Guild of America), they used Alan Smithee as a pseudonym for directors (and, occasionally, other personnel) that no longer wanted to be associated with the project (at least until 2000, when An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn pretty much tarnished the name beyond usability). The DGA had a strict guideline for its use since movies involve a large amount of money and reputation is important within the industry. The production had to have creative control wrestled away from it (the director can't just decide that their vision, itself, was flawed in retrospect). However, since there isn't any money involved in fanfiction and there isn't any particular set of universal guidelines (it's not like the film industry, which is inherently collaborative with studios spending a lot of money towards a director and the need for a director that can produce a worthwhile product), an author should have the option to remove their credit if they so desire.

As for how this affects currently existing PPC stories... just change their credit to Alan Smithee (or a different pseudonym that may or may not be an anagram, if so desired). Could even make it a character within the canon itself (every time an author disavows their work, Alan Smithee swoops in to keep it going). As for what happens if a PPC agent retires... I assume most people that have written for a long time will have at least some level of respect, but if they want to remove their credit, they should have the option. However, since they needed permission in order to write for the PPC in the first place, their stories and characters are technically owned by the collective PPC and should be treated as such (and if they chose to use their real name as part of the PPC canon, they should have thought about the implications of that beforehand).

The exception, as far as I can see, is when the author is somebody that should be avoided (as opposed to just a particular story or two). This distinction should be very hard to earn and involve quite a bit of effort on their part (either as a undeniable jerk or a troll, not just being deluded and socially awkward). A textbook example would be David Gonterman, who not only wrote some of the most offensive stories without specifically trolling, but also acted like a total unrepentant jerk everywhere he went and never made any attempt to improve whatsoever (which is sort of sad because he's drawn hundreds upon hundreds of pages of stuff and it still all looks mostly the same after 11 years). A more tame example would be the author of My Immortal, who is either a jerk (a vast majority of the author's notes not pointing out the horrible puns are very rude comments made towards the community of "flamers"... as in, nearly everybody), a troll, or a parody of one of those two. On that topic, blatant parody writers (which may or may not constitute trolling depending on how much outrage they are trying to provoke from their writings) are probably worthy of an article as well, but if they choose to delete their works and there isn't any particular reason they should be avoided themselves, then they should get the Alan Smithee treatment as well (it's highly unlikely they'll willfully delete anything since they almost always create parody personas as well and are specifically looking for negative reactions).

Anyway, I'm not asking for radical changes. At the moment, a very small number of the entries on this list credit their author and if nothing else, the blank link "credits" should be given the Alan Smithee treatment (if not just have author credits entirely deleted for list uniformity and to prevent potential out of context author bashing). Whether or not any of the specific PPC stories should be modified (most of them offer at least a semi-respectful context in mentioning author names from what I've seen, but Alan Smithee should probably be applied to deleted stories within the PPC stories as well) is an entirely different issue at the moment and should be treated as such for the purpose of this discussion. EtherealMutation 23:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I keep thinking of Georges Melier. He was a film pionier, but out of frustration burned most of the negatives of his films. Should he no longer be credited with the films he has made, eventhough they do not exist anymore (there are some copies here and there, but the originals have been lost)?

I have a few other objections as well. First, not all badfic authors that delete their stories do that because they don't want to be reminded of them anymore. CassBogg deleted hers because FFnet didn't respond to a case of copyright enfringment she had brought to their attention. I don't think she has tried to post her story elsewhere -- she had not been an active author in six years -- but I don't think she no longer wishes to be associated with her story. Her problem was with FFnet.

Secondly, most authors use pseudonyms already. It seems rather silly to replace one pseudonym with another. Particularly since most authors that have written embarassing Suefic in the past will have changed their own penname regardless of whether or not they are mentioned here as a Suethor, simply because they wish to wipe out any association with their former Suewriting self.

Thirdly, like you said, Alan Smithee was used as a pseudonym for directors who had lost creative control of their work, not merely those that were dissatisfied with it. We don't take away people's creative control (though people have accussed me of that in reviews). You further claim that authors delete their work because of dissatisfaction with it. For those two reasons the Alan Smithee example seems out of place.

I've read back your other comments as well, and you seem to think the Killed Badfic list is a public criminal records list. Perhaps it is that. And your objection to it is that people can't get off it even though they have shown good behavior (such as deleting the badfic and becoming a better author). Well, if I can draw out the public criminal record comparison any further: people who commit a crime in RL and are sent to prison will also no be able to remove their name from the newspaper articles from the past once they are discharged from prison. No amount of good behaviour is going to get their named removed. They will be popping up in digital archieves for ever. Now, you can argue about it whether that is a good or a bad thing in case of real crimes as oppesed to crimes against fiction. The fact is that neither public mention is meant as bashing the person / author mentioned; both are merely stating a fact: this person committed that crime; this author wrote that badfic. It is not our responsibility that if people see here that author Soandso wrote one badfic that they are going to think that author Soandso is incapable of writing goodfic. It's not our responsibility if author Soandso gets less readers because of that. (Less readers is probably the only thing that will happen to them. No one is going to refuse them a job if they are on this list. I don't even think this list will result in them getting more flames).

It's not like we're immune to constructive criticism, it's just that I -- I'll speak for my self here -- don't agree with you. I agree that you've offered constructive criticism, although you went a few times overboard in your examples, but that doesn't mean that if I don't agree with the content aswell that I am immune to concrit. What I am getting is the feeling that you can't let go. You keep coming back with new arguments why we should not quote author names on the Killed Badfic list. At least they are new arguments. I'm interested to see what arguments you will come up with next time, but I doubt you have anything that will make me change my mind. You see, I don't think I am doing anything wrong by quoting the author's name next to the fic title and link. And I don't think I am quoting useless information. So far that has been the brunt of your argumentation.IndeMaat 08:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for the late reply. Wikia seems to be having problems with their servers.

Anyway, the Alan Smithee example is meant as a comparison to a real life model that has proven successful. I didn't say that it's exactly the standard that should be used. I already explained the differences in full and how they relate to fanfiction.

If somebody chooses to take down their work for reasons not relating to quality, they are perfectly within their right to do so. I've seen plenty of cases where the creator of something chooses to take it down for any number of reasons not related to quality. For example, I remember when the custom Guitar Hero community was pretty much crippled by Guitar Hero Explorer being pulled from distribution. Even though the reasoning was both flimsy and selfish (they hated that people weren't bothering to read the instructions or FAQs and kept asking the same questions) and it was a huge disservice to the community, the Score Hero forums still facilitated this because it was within their every right to take this entirely free software that they were offering and block distribution of it. Basically, what it boils down to is that if somebody that has full creative control over their work and is not selling it for money chooses to cease distribution of it, they are within their right to do so.

One can't assume immediately that either the person is using a proper pseudonym or that they are going to want to give it up to try to distance themselves from their work. There's no universal standard for authorship or conduct that they can be held to, so making the assumption that everybody (or even a large enough percentage to make those that don't irrelevant) is going to follow that standard isn't really safe.

There are quite a few problems with the comparison of this list to criminal records. First, due to the subjective nature of fiction in general, there's no way that anybody can objectively consider anything "bad". It's certainly a far cry from, say, killing somebody in terms of both objectivity and legality.

Second, newspaper police reports aren't allowed to imply guilt until after the person has gone through the legal system. Innocent until proven guilty, after all. If a newspaper did say "Soandso was arrested last night for brutally murdering his wife" and the person turned out to be innocent, they can sue for libel. Quite a few newspapers have been successfully sued for a lot of money due to this (and no editor ever wants to have to issue a retraction). Instead, what the newspaper is supposed to say is "Police arrested Soandso as a suspect to the murder of his wife". This is objective because it states that the police did arrest Soandso at such and such time due to possibility of involvement with the murder of his wife.

Third, the newspaper industry, just like academics and the legal system, is based around objective verifiability. The earlier example is something that can be proven because there are both professionally prepared police reports and professional witnesses with the police officers involved. One can't objectively prove that a deleted story belonged to the author without, at the very least, the server logs that contain the information about the client's identity along with proof that, at such and such time, they uploaded the unaltered text to the server. Not only is this information protected under the privacy laws, but since presumably all fanfiction websites are commercial entities that don't keep several records of everything, doesn't keep its records public, and isn't subject to Internal Affairs (not to mention that computer data is ridiculously easy to modify), the information they give out wouldn't be considered solid evidence in the slightest.

Anyway, once again ignoring the questioning of my integrity (seriously, it doesn't do any credit to the argument), it would really help if you could explain why you feel the names need to stay. While you accuse me of making up new arguments, all I've brought up are supporting arguments that clarify the original points and are all compatible with each other. Your arguments are all supporting arguments without a base argument. The base argument certainly can't be the academic standpoint first mentioned because that was quickly abandoned after I brought up both the technical workings and the spirit of the MLA. I'd rather not extrapolate on what the reasoning is, so please, explain in full why the names should stay in an objective manner (preferably without any mention directly relating to me). EtherealMutation 01:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)