Subject: I guess it's always a matter of judgement.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-12-06 02:50:00 UTC
If something is clearly written only to fulfil a request on... what are they called? "kinkmemes"? Those things. If they're written only for that, I'd say they should be left alone, but in the case of your example, I'd call them fair game. Just my opinion, of course; I don't know about anyone else.
http://community.livejournal.com/redwall_ficmeme/profile
I didn't want to call it a "kink meme" and scare off the younger or more conservative fans (this series has a lot of them) but it operates the same way and you can request any rating or type of fic. I thought I should show it here since it's not got any watchers yet. Maybe me being a well-known badfic sporker is putting people off, I don't know ... *sigh*
No offense meant, but this sounds like a Redwall-specific Fanfiction.net run by writers and rather worse, seeing as we're not allowed to touch or criticize anything but goodness knows that some of the challenges will likely be dreadful, seeing as all kinks are protected. It opens up a new batch of stories, though, so thanks for the link.
Trojie did put something in her Slash-Sporking Guide saying stuff from requests or fic memes was a bad idea to spork:
"Basically, if someone has been challenged to or asked to produce something specific, I consider it out of bounds. If it's locked, and therefore technically out of the public eye, then I consider it out of bounds. I would also advise caution when sporking anonymously-posted fics - you never know who they could have been produced by, and if you are active in the fandom you're sporking, you may find out you've just horrifically offended one of your friends or readers by sporking something they wrote."
Also, given that practically every fandom has one of these and theirs aren't invariably overrun with trash which Must Be Sporked, I don't see why it's a bad idea to have one in this fandom.
Trojie's opinion is her own, but I certainly think it's a good policy to adopt for the PPC in general. Parody and 'crackfics' also tend to be treated lightly, given that they're not intended to be serious, or are, indeed, requested. Does anyone think we should make it general (ie, official) policy, or just let it be and keep it as a Good But Not Essential-To-Follow Piece Of Advice?
Something that's written for a specific request is made for the requester, not really fandom in general, so I think it is rude to then go and spork it. And parodies are made to mock anyway, so even if they're bad ones they've already done their best attempt at mockmockmockery without us getting involved.
I'd agree with making it policy not to spork requestfics or parodies.
Did you see the one of "Left 2 die 4eva"?: http://vgdivision.livejournal.com/1505.html
Or the ones like My Immortal where it's quite hard to tell whether they're actually parodies? If they are parodies, the author might be quite pleased to see them sporked if the mission treats them as if they were genuine.
What about when they write something based on a prompt, but not to actually give it to the prompter and then post it someplace eminently public like ff.net.
I see a lot of notes along these lines "I got this idea based on a prompt (or challenge) I saw somewhere." Not that they were fulfilling a specific request for a specific person.
What is the opinion on those?
If something is clearly written only to fulfil a request on... what are they called? "kinkmemes"? Those things. If they're written only for that, I'd say they should be left alone, but in the case of your example, I'd call them fair game. Just my opinion, of course; I don't know about anyone else.
I would not spork something if someone particularly asked me to, but (as I have stated before) I don't see any difference between this and ff.net, because it looks like everything is encouraged, even if it is animal porn.
It doesn't seem like you've run across this type of thing before. What Laburnum's made is a writing community that has few barriers on the subjects that can be written or requested. There are a lot of similar communities out there, whether on LJ or elsewhere.
That does not mean every ficwriting community is just like fanfiction.net.
Don't automatically assume that there wll be floods of badfic everywhere; I know at least one of our Boarders has been a mod for a slashfic comm, and I've heard no reports of being overwhelmed with badfic.
Give these things a chance to get off the ground before you jump up and wave the "BADFIC ALERT" flag, eh?
Go right ahead... I'm just not seeing how this is any different. But you're probably right... if I was had more information on LJ in general, I'd probably shuddup.
This is hardly a new idea: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KinkMeme
And I'm doing "better" by those standards than most of the others, given that I'm actively encouraging things other than porn. Besides, since nobody's written ANYTHING on it yet, it's not fair to say it's going to be bad, particularly since people can, you know, not fill in the prompts which suck?
That's kind of the point of a fic meme, and this is hardly the weirdest one out there. (You should see the Disney one.)
Instead? I have no suggestions, unless someone feels like making an awards system for Redwall rather like the mithril ones... that would be cool.
I believe the Disney one... ugh.