Mod Post: On the subject of all those "Can you please send me a copy of..." requests

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

I've received quite a few emails and PMs about this issue and have been thinking of how to come up with a solution. Obviously, there are different opinions on whether it is wrong for people to share stories if they themselves didn't write them, and I'm not going to discuss the question here. I want things to be simple and clear for and in this community.

So this is what I've come up with (and I'm going to spare you my thoughts leading to these):

1) For the sake of this community, i.e. quick answers to (mostly fic) searches, I'm not going to friends-lock the entries, have posts mod-approved before posting, or disable anonymous comments.

2) If you are an author and don't want stories you've flocked or taken down for whatever reasons shared as documents, please tell me and I'll try to make sure that nobody asks for your stories in entries in this comm.

If people post a request wanting your stories as documents, I'll delete the entry. If they do it again after being told not do, I'll ban them.

However, I would appreciate it if I or my co-mods were the only people in this comm chastising people for unwanted entries. It's what we're here for, let us do it. Feel more than free to send us a PM telling us about an entry if you think we're not quick enough, or for that matter, send the person posting that request about your stories a PM asking them to stop it, but the comments in this comm should remain neutral and friendly, and I'm not sure that jumping newbies for (at least in their eyes) legitimate requests is the way to go here.

3) If you are a reader and are continually disappointed by all the comments to posts, i.e. it's not 20 new stories in the comments, but just 20 requests to send a copy via email, I suggest clicking only on those posts that have been edited with something like "Tons of recs in the comments". That's the only way of not wasting time on entries that are of no interest to you and the main reason why we have the "Please edit your post with the result of your search" rule in the first place.

******
As always, if this doesn't please you, or you have better ideas of how to deal with any of this, feel free to leave a comment or send me a PM or an email at seanmegansean at livejournal dot com.

Thank you for your attention, and have a good day :D

Comments

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm gonna find that cool hat *snerk* that Aretha Franklin wore to the Inauguration, and make us mod hat icons.

Thanks for the post. MUCH appreciated. Will PM you later. ♥

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

♥

[camjakefan.livejournal.com]

I wanted to know if this would effect people if they're searching for lost work and authors not flocked work and the only way to get it is if it can be emailed to them. If it is flocked or taken down I respect an author's wish.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

No, we're just saying that if it's a fic that can't be found for whatever reason, take the request for someone to send it to you to a PM. If it's flocked, and the author requests it not be shared, we will honor that request. What we don't want is a fic request that has a hundred people commenting, "Oooh, me too, send it to me!" It bogs down the request.

seanmegansean will correct me if I'm wrong here. ;-)

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't effect them. If the fic you want is no longer on the net, but people can email it to you (and others), that's very much fine by me. It's when that fic's author contacts me or I know for certain they wouldn't appreciate their fic being distributed, that's when it's not okay anymore to ask for that fic here. The operative word being 'here'. Obviously, I can't do anything about what you do in other comms, in your own journal, or in PMs. Just not here. I will put that into the rules on the user info asap.

;D

[sgibneva.livejournal.com]

hi, i do not write the STORIES but i really love to reads them, not everyone is so tallanted to write ... but i still love this community...!!!!!!!

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you still love this comm. I wouldn't have it otherwise :D

[eva213.livejournal.com]

"What we don't want is a fic request that has a hundred people commenting, "Oooh, me too, send it to me!" "

Why? People will have their PM boxes full of requests. Isn´t this community here exactly for this? If the authors didn´t flock their fics and it´s OK with them to share or left LJ long time ago for unknown reason? Why wouldn´t be people allowed to ask HERE for their fics?

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Because if someone is going to post that they're willing to email the fic to someone, they should be willing to offer an email address where others can request it, or state that you can PM them with your email address to send it to. Thereby taking the traffic off the comm. When we go through and tag and add entries to the memories, it can be a pain searching through a post looking to see if the fic has been found, if there's a link, or what have you. It's being considerate to others that come to the site, and also heading off potential wank.

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

If the authors didn´t flock their fics and it´s OK with them to share or left LJ long time ago for unknown reason? Why wouldn´t be people allowed to ask HERE for their fics? No reason whatsoever. I don't mind a hundred requests in the comments to a post as long as the original poster edits their entiryt to say that they found/got what they were looking for.

That issue is only a collateral really of the original problem of how to deal with stories which have been taken down on the authors explicit request.

[court1429.livejournal.com]

I agree that it works better for the person who's offering to email a copy of a fic around to say: "Please email at xxx@xxx.com if you want me to send you a copy so as not to clog this request."

I really think, though, that if a fic's been posted and removed for whatever reason, if someone's got it saved on her hard drive, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing it with other readers. Nobody's going to repost (and if they did, that would be a whole other issue), they're just going to enjoy the fic. It's the internet; it's fanfic. Just not that big a deal, IMO.

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

that if a fic's been posted and removed for whatever reason, if someone's got it saved on her hard drive, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing it with other readers. Nobody's going to repost (and if they did, that would be a whole other issue), they're just going to enjoy the fic. It's the internet; it's fanfic. Just not that big a deal, IMO.
Personally, I couldn't agree more. It's just that I really don't want to alienate authors here. It#s a compromise really between authors and readers imo. If the authors don't care enough to let me know they don't want their stories shared, or happen not to know about this comm, their stories can still be shared here even if they were taken down by them at some point, for whatever reason. It's just that as soon as I know from them they are against their fic being distributed here, I will step in and prevent posts asking for their fic. In this comm. What happens in other comms ... not my problem to solve.

[josieb1.livejournal.com]

I agree with the rules, and don't have a problem with them, and will admit to being guilty of the odd 'could you email it to me please' posting.

The problem is I am a new QAF fan, I only discovered the show 7 months ago, and people like me will always be intrigued by anything we can't get hold of easily, i.e. fics from authors no longer around, who have left the fandom for whatever reasons, authors who don’t have sites, or fics uploaded anymore, such as Mouse, so there will always be a demand for those fics, especially as quite a few of the older links in memories don't work anymore.

I do agree with not emailing or asking for flocked fics though, if they are flocked then the author has a site so it’s only polite to ask to join their site. If they say don't contact me I would always post a comment, if its possible, then its up to the author to decide what to do, most authors on LJ and IJ are very good so I can't see it being a problem.

Thanks for clarifying what is allowed

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

*blows you a kiss*

Thing is, a lot of older fic is readily available, either on archives, comms or the Wayback Machine. Some of us copy to our harddrives as well, so don't ever be afraid to ask.

All we want to do is avoid a 50 comment post full of 'me too!" We want those willing to share fics to offer an email addy so that you can ask them directly. If the author doesn't want it shared, or of course if it's flocked, either myself or seanmegansean will update to let the requester know.

[seanmegansean.livejournal.com]

It really is like Red said. Don't ever be afraid to ask. I remember being a newbie and wanting to get my hands on everything! :D If however you happen to ask for a fic whose author has told us sharing their stories is a total no go, then we will tell you and prevent you (or others) to look for their flocked stories here. That's all. For about 95% of 'lost' fic, there will be no changes from what it's been like so far I think :D

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Hell, I've been around for 3 years, and I still wanna get my hands on everything! lol

[court1429.livejournal.com]

And we fic lovers LOVE to refer a newbie to some wonderful fic that means a lot to us! ;))

I think the point is it's totally acceptable (except in rare instances) for a searcher to say, "I'm looking for fic XXX that was on a now-defunct site. Does anyone have a copy saved that they could send me? My email is xxx@xxx.com."

The issue with repeat requests that clog the comm is, if I've got it and just respond back with, "Sent." This doesn't leave other readers any recourse but to ask here to have it forwarded to them, too. Better for me to say, "Yes. I've got a copy and will send it to you. If anyone else wants a copy, email me at xxx@xxx.com and I'll send it on to you."

Besides, it's really depressing to go trolling back through old posts and see one with 45 comments and you get all excited thinking maybe you're going to find a brand new fic that you've overlooked all this time, and it's just a bunch of "please send to me, too" posts. ;))

[netlagd.livejournal.com]

You might want to look at my post over at coffee club IJ
though it devolved down to copyright issues, it was rather enlightening on this subject:
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/qaf_coffeeclub/163351.html

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

I thought about you and this post when the situation came up, I swear! lol The copyright stuff, imo, is bullshit, if you're taking someone else's characters and writing stories about them. If it's your work, with your own original characters, that's one thing.

An archive that I was a mod for ran into this, years ago, where a writer submitted her story to the validation queue, and didn't understand why we kept telling her we weren't gonna release her story because she tagged a copyright to it...and it was fanfiction. She had posted it at two other archives, and not one of them called her on it. On top of that, it was so OOC and Mary-Sue'd that none of us wanted to touch it...somehow I got tagged for that. After two chapters I pleaded insanity. *g*