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.

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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

[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.