FanFiction.Net

FanFiction.Net (often abbreviated as FF.Net or FFN) is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was founded on October 15, 1998 by Los Angeles computer programmer Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics to be written were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As of 2005, FanFiction.Net is the largest and most popular fan fiction website in the world. It has nearly 1.3 million users, and hosts stories in over 30 languages.

The site is split into eight main categories: Anime/Manga, Books, Cartoons, Miscellaneous, Games, Comics, Movies, and TV Shows. Users who complete the free registration process can submit their fan fiction, maintain a user profile, review other stories, 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

The site was created in late 1998 by student Xing Li as a repository for fan-created stories that revolved around characters from popular literature, television, or 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 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 has been moved down. At that time, one-third of the registrants self-identified as 18 or younger, and 80% of all registrants were female.

Site structure

Writers may upload their stories to the site and assign them a category and a rating (such as K, K+, T, and M). The ratings are no longer done on the MPAA system and a list of explanations for the rating system currently employed is available from the dropdown rating menu in each of the individual archives on the official FFN website.

There is no screening or editorial board, but readers are able to leave reviews of the stories. While reviews can be made by those without accounts on FFN it is an option for all writers on the site to not allow "unsigned reviews," meaning reviews made by those who are not signed into a FFN account.

Evolution

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, and Archie Comics.

Ratings

Until April 21, 2002, fanfiction.net in addition to fiction stories based on existing characters included 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'.

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, a measure which proved to be largely ineffective.

While some protested at 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). Much NC-17 material was moved to a site under the name of Adultfanfiction.net, a similar site which was created to serve those adults who write R and NC-17 rated fan fiction. The NC-17 ban prompted many authors to abandon the site completely for other sites that allowed R and NC-17 stories. Despite this ban, a large amount of fan fiction with pornographic content can still be found, particularly in the M and T ratings. Anyone can report this material, even if they do not have an account on fanfiction.net. Story titles and summaries have to be rated G.

Songfic ban

In 2005, FanFiction.net banned songfics from being posted on the site 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 02 2008, there are currently 49,500+ stories containing the word "song" in either title or summary. An additional 37,200+ 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 adressed with regard to possible copyright/rule violations.

Since the search function of FanFiction.net does not search for words of three letters or less, or quotes, the words "song fic" and "song-fic" are not searched for accurately.

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. Original fiction was initially hosted on FanFiction.net but eventually moved to the newly created FictionPress.com due to the fact that one site could not hold both archives and run efficiently.

Globalization

Previously, 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 would give other areas of the world a significant boost in server speed on the website.

Prior to the reorganisations of 2002, FanFiction.Net contained approximately 20% of English-language fanfiction.

This site has a range of many genres in both poetry and prose, from action to spiritual. It also has over half a million writers/readers, and is home to over 900,000 original works.

In 2007, all three web links were combined under one world-wide link. In an announcement on the home page, it was stated that the site will go global in 2007.

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 on 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, and the quality of the work is dependent entirely upon the individual writer.

There had also been criticism towards the management of reviews; up until recently, 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 they see as fit. They also went on to state that banning some flamers would be violating the rights of many.

Spam and flaming can be prevented through use of the block feature which prevents private messages, signed-reviews, and use of personal forums from registered users. An option to disable anonymous reviews exists as well. Recently a new feature was added which enabled the user to toggle swearing in reviews and forums on and off. This was going to be implemented for stories as well for the lower ratings but, due to reactions from users, the attempt was abandoned.

As of 2003, there was no way to separate fanfiction by non-sexual, heterosexual or homosexual content in searches on FanFiction.Net.