Not sure if this warrants its own thread. However, I do want to note that this is a recurring topic on the WBO Random Thoughts thread and the WBO server itself. So lets have a space where we can discuss our thoughts on it instead of clogging up other spaces, if we all dont mind that

Some users note that there are times when fanfictions — in the context of the WBO, fan stories about Beyblade — would swarm the site. This is evident under the Latest Posts tab when there would be so many stories in a row. Some people noted how this can be overwhelming and annoying, because its now harder to search through recent posts and that it is unpleasant in general. And to further the point, some people dont even finish their previous stories. They make a new thread nearly every time, as if making ideas on the whim and then they nearly forget their older, unfinished stories

So in this essay, I am going to list out facets of this problem and talk about possible solutions users brought up. Credits to the many users Ive talked to — most of these ideas are yours and theyre the reason why Im writing this today


To be clear: I am a fanfiction writer myself. No, I do not hate fanfics. No, I am not an evil fanfic-hating person who is too old to understand the internet. I do not like gatekeeping content and ideas; I only suggest improvements. You cannot say, “Wow Sands, your opinion is invalid! Stop acting like you know the issue, because we all know you dont write fanfics!” I indeed write stories too. And these issues annoy me just as much as the next, non-writing user

This means anyone is welcome to talk in this thread, not just fanfiction writers. I also want to include the Blading community and everyone who browses the site. This is something this regards the entire WBO


The Essay’s Points

Spoiler (Click to View)

Again, Sands, could you kindly tell us the issue?

Yes. To be clear, again, the problem itself IS NOT FANFICTIONS. I believe people should have the creativity and rights to make stories, just as long as they abide by the WBO’s rules

But unfortunately, one thing people hate is how there are too many fanfictions. To be specific, they hate how people do not finish their old stories before making a new one. People are constantly making new story threads the moment they have a new idea — it’s like a machine that went rampant and is overproducing things. That is whats happening. Some people now feel like the stories are shoved in their faces

Why do people hate fanfictions?

Not everyone hates fanfictions. At best, they might just be annoyed. Thats it. No one wants you to leave the WBO because you keep writing stories. Reading fan stories is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that is perfectly valid. You may be the sweetest peach in the tree; but unfortunately, not everyone likes peaches

However, some people do hate the idea of fanfictions. And you cant stop that. Sometimes, thats because the spam they see on here rubbed them wrong. Its a natural thing with people — the moment they get the bad idea of something, they tend to generalize. Remember the really-rude fanfiction that was about a deceased Beyblade fan? That left a bad taste in so many users’ mouths

Speaking as a fanfiction writer, I do not blame them somewhat — plenty of the stories I see here could have better grammar and spelling. Some people feel like the fanfictions’ quality do not justify the spam. Maybe if the stories were written better, would people accept fanfictions?

As of late, the term “fanfiction” on the WBO is met with negative reaction. The word itself has the same reaction as the word “math” — because it sucks, its cringe, its useless, and its everywhere. People seem to regard “fanfictions” with a negative connotation because of how notorious the media paints them as. Obviously, not all fan stories are bad; but on the WBO where people like making custom Beys more than writing, the skewed interest is inevitable

Okay Sands, what are solutions you have?

At the moment, I dont have a concise idea, Ill be honest. I frankly do not care. I do not like restricting and gatekeeping ideas as long as it can help the community. As such, I cannot force anyone to listen to me; but I indeed can talk about what other people suggested:

1) Just post them on another site

Some users suggested that you can just post your fanfictions somewhere else. The WBO shouldnt be exclusively a fanfiction hub. Its really off-putting to some users that people make a new fanfiction thread for every single idea that popped into their heads. It clogs the feed and tires out some people. There are plenty of writing sites, such as Wattpad and ArchiveofOurOwn, where you can host your stories and no one will mind. Especially since those sites are, well, for writing. Youll fit right in!

2) Stop yourself

Among the more blunt answers I found were to, uh, simply stop. Take a hold of yourself before your Writing Demon possesses you into making a new thread. You have a cool new idea, but are you ready to make a new thread for it? Or should you focus on finishing one story first, so you dont have too much to chew on? And that youre sure you have the commitment for a new story?

Yeah. It happened to me before. Having ideas on the whim can lead you into writing a new story. The moment you want to give up is too late — youll just realize, “dang, why did I even choose to post this in the first place?” Yeah, try to stop yourself from posting new stories

3) One fanfiction thread per user



Courtesy of the mod team (I dont know if theyre still thinking about that)

So, yes, one fanfiction thread for each user. As Mana noted, you can use a writing website for all of your other stories. Theres not a lot of good reasons to host so many fanfictions on this site, anyway — even myself have trouble trying to read stories, trying to find chapters amongst the thread replies (or that my page lags when I post all chapters onto my main post). So, to prevent all the unnecessary spam, one fanfiction thread per user. Thats it

(Note that you can still make other threads in the Your Creations subforms for non-fanfictions. For example, Mana said that Im still allowed to keep my art thread there)

4) Just ban fanfictions

Yeah. Doesnt sound fun, doesnt it?

I mean, I myself do not mind it. I could have my own stories deleted, in fact. Fanfictions on this site rubbed me the wrong way the entire time — many stories’ protagonists are bland and of the same tropes; the script fanfics are rather poor; theres a large amount of bad grammar and spelling; etc. Im slowly starting to see why people cringe at the idea of fan stories. Some people argued that the WBO would benefit from this — by making the site cleaner and discourage post farming, for example

Why does this idea exist in the first place? Because fanfictions on the WBO are just that spammy and bad. Its gotten so bad that my joke fanfiction, WBO Anime!, is regarded as better than so many fanfictions on this site

Are fanfictions worth it, though?

They can be, actually. It depends who you talk to and who you read from. Ideas are powerful. Ideas influence people and give people new things to think about. If you suppress the imaginations of people, how can we have fun and learn new, insightful things? I dont like banning creativity because thats not fun for anyone. Fanfictions let people relieve stress from life and let people go on new adventures with their characters and content

Despite this, yes, sometimes it gets out of hand. Sometimes the spam is bad and thats why restrictions happen. Some people dont feel like too many fanfictions benefit the site

Conclusion

Anyway, thats it. Thats all Im going to say. My ending is that, please read again carefully if needed. I do not want words out into my mouth (or any users’ mouth, for that matter). This thread exists for productive conversation — meaning, I expect common sense. I remember seeing someone speak up about the fanfiction spam, only to get a really poor, cant-read-the-room response from a fanfiction writer

Meaning, speak on this thread if you can be literate, thank you! 

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

I have some solutions. 1 thing could be having a timer where if nothing is posted from the original poster of the thread (only for things with the FF tag) in a set amount of time, then the thread auto deletes. Another thing could be a delete thread/post button for all users.

So my take on this is pretty simple, Fanfics do need limits, the on thread policy seems fine with some tweaks, banned seems extreme because most fabrics appearing in latests posts are by the same few people, cases where 4 fabrics in a row are just one user, not the one thread rule would be pretty nice, but not allowing chapters posted in that thread would be annoying, honestly tho, I'm even guilty of this but the bland characters are pretty annoying along with terrible and weird plots

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My tablet just out correcting fanfic to fabric lol

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L.N.S Bladers Leading member 
--> Apply here <--

PFP: Picrew version of me

(my post sounds unprofessional)

Imo, I would do one Creation Thread per user, but I guess 1 fanfic thread is fine.

Yeah, I agree with you, it can be really overwhelming. And tbh, I don't like that much 9 fanfics on the "latest post" tab. But I feel like 1 fanfic thread per user (or even 1 thread on the creations forum per user) is really a good fix.

(Side note: I am, personally, only going to do one Thread on the Creations forums, since I don't see a point on having more than one.)

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Rank 0th means I'm better than 1st

(my post sounds unprofessional)

Imo, I would do one Creation Thread per user, but I guess 1 fanfic thread is fine.

Yeah, I agree with you, it can be really overwhelming. And tbh, I don't like that much 9 fanfics on the "latest post" tab. But I feel like 1 fanfic thread per user (or even 1 thread on the creations forum per user) is really a good fix.

(Side note: I am, personally, only going to do one Thread on the Creations forums, since I don't see a point on having more than one.)

heheh yeah i wonder who would do such a thing

yeah i also think the one thread per user thing is a good fix it allows peeps to not spam and only be able to do one thread (on creation forums) so no spam and no overclogging of the WBO

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

I've got a few ideas, but they would all require some amount of webcoding be done to the site, and idk how difficult that would be to implement.

A: Make fanfiction threads locked/restricted so that only the creator can post in them, and have a seperate, universal "fanfiction discussion" thread for discussing ANY fanfictions on the site.

B: Overhaul the "Latest Posts" tab and allow us to whitelist/blacklist specific subforums. For example, if you want to see the latest posts on the site but nothing related to fanfictions, you'd blacklist whatever subforum the fanfictions are posted in. Alternatively, if you only wanted to see the latest posts in regards to beyblade news/product threads, you would whitelist those and blacklist everything else.

I personally feel that one (or both) of these suggestions could work, although again, I have no idea how difficult they would be to implement.

I agree with this Sands, people spamming Fanfictions and not even finishing them has been an issue, though, kinda think banning Fanfictions is a bit too far. I think the most logical thing to do in this case is to limit people to only one fanfiction thread, with this method we could get fewer Fanfiction threads around, I love writing and love sharing it with WBO (since most of my fanfics have to do with Beyblade) but I'll have to agree with you on this one, it's annoying for someone to start a fanfiction and not even finish them.

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The One Piece is the friends we made a long the way.

Im glad to see that this thread has been met with some agreement (even the agreement from the people who are known for spamming fanfics). Its awesome to see that we can agree to try to be better despite all this

Im really digging the coding implementation idea. Though, I can only hope since coding is definitely hard and we might not get that at the moment

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

Would spamming fanfics be considered by starting fanfictions and not finishing them or just making fanfictions that you work on, I'm curious

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The One Piece is the friends we made a long the way.

Would spamming fanfics be considered by starting fanfictions and not finishing them or just making fanfictions that you work on, I'm curious

i think its consistently starting fanfics within a 1 month time frame and not finishing it

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heheh, definitely not something i would do, heh

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

Would spamming fanfics be considered by starting fanfictions and not finishing them or just making fanfictions that you work on, I'm curious

both

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"I think that past your great disasters, their victory stirs below your skin." // (Use Code: CINDER on BeysandBricks for 8% off!)

Spoiler (Click to View)

✮ Player & Organizer for the Los Angeles County Beyblade community.
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i agree i also made fanfics and cacelled all of them due to personal reasons so i do feel I am part of the problem

i agree i also made fanfics and cacelled all of them due to personal reasons so i do feel I am part of the problem

welcome to my world...

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

I always try finishing my fanfictions and I've never quit one of them but I'm thinking about making one thread for my fanfictions, any thoughts?

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The One Piece is the friends we made a long the way.

I always try finishing my fanfictions and I've never quit one of them but I'm thinking about making one thread for my fanfictions, any thoughts?

hmm i think so idk

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

So... why don't we consider this as an unofficial rule? (The one thread per user one) I mean if all writers keep on making fics every day/week, the spam will increase and maybe the staff will end up deleting the "your creations" subforum.

People could do 1 thread called "[insert username] fanfics" and then post everything (related to the fics) there. Or maybe just change the thread name when one fic ends and other starts. Sth like that would be nice.

People can even name it "[insert username] Creations thread" and post everything related to the "your creations" sub forum there.

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Rank 0th means I'm better than 1st

People could do 1 thread called "[insert username] fanfics" and then post everything (related to the fics) there. Or maybe just change the thread name when one fic ends and other starts. Sth like that would be nice.

People can even name it "[insert username] Creations thread" and post everything related to the "your creations" sub forum there.

hmmm yes that would be a good idea...

we can post all of our fanfics there and change the name if we are changing fanfics! i like that idea

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

So... why don't we consider this as an unofficial rule? (The one thread per user one) I mean if all writers keep on making fics every day/week, the spam will increase and maybe the staff will end up deleting the "your creations" subforum.

Mana mentioned that the subforum wont be deleted at the moment. There are some users who actually want Your Creations gone, but I dont think the mods are seriously considering that at the moment — we have that as hope, for now

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

So... why don't we consider this as an unofficial rule? (The one thread per user one) I mean if all writers keep on making fics every day/week, the spam will increase and maybe the staff will end up deleting the "your creations" subforum.

Mana mentioned that the subforum wont be deleted at the moment. There are some users who actually want Your Creations gone, but I dont thin the mods are seriously considering that at the moment — we have that as hope, for now

yeah but i dont really think the Your Creations forum should be gone yk like just put a limit on it 👌 perhaps 1 Your Creations every 1/2 months? idk
a bit much for fanfics if you ask me

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

Mana mentioned that the subforum wont be deleted at the moment. There are some users who actually want Your Creations gone, but I dont thin the mods are seriously considering that at the moment — we have that as hope, for now

yeah but i dont really think the Your Creations forum should be gone yk like just put a limit on it 👌 perhaps 1 Your Creations every 1/2 months? idk
a bit much for fanfics if you ask me

1 to 2 months won't be enough in the long run, we just need to stick to the 1 Fanfic Thread rule on our own as a precaution to avoid spam, starting preferably today. I don't have problems with someone having more than 1 Creation thread (for example, one thread for Fanfics and another for art) but 4 or 5 Fanfic threads is pretty overkill.

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I'll definitely put something here soon.
Probably.
Maybe?
Naaaaah.

yeah but i dont really think the Your Creations forum should be gone yk like just put a limit on it 👌 perhaps 1 Your Creations every 1/2 months? idk
a bit much for fanfics if you ask me

1 to 2 months won't be enough in the long run, we just need to stick to the 1 Fanfic Thread rule on our own as a precaution to avoid spam, starting preferably today. I don't have problems with someone having more than 1 Creation thread (for example, one thread for Fanfics and another for art) but 4 or 5 Fanfic threads is pretty overkill.

not even thats enough?!

🤘

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"If you fail to prepare, your prepared to fail." - Mark Spitz

I agree with your ideas, the best one seems to be to close the discussion after some downtime.

.
I don't know if this is considered a necropost because idk if this is a ever green thread, but you might have necroposted. (Necropost: The act of post in a thread that has been dead for 3 months and isn't an evergreen thread).
.
At least new people get to read this and be more aware of what happened in the past and how this affects the WBO in general. Some might find this useful (I'm not writing names)

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Rank 0th means I'm better than 1st

What seals the deal with the necroposting question is if whether the reply has substance/good contributions or not. In this case, I cant say much because I havent been on the forums much. Who knows? Maybe the spam died down during my inactivity and this thread doesnt matter anymore

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

What seals the deal with the necroposting question is if whether the reply has substance/good contributions or not. In this case, I cant say much because I havent been on the forums much. Who knows? Maybe the spam died down during my inactivity and this thread doesnt matter anymore

.
(I re wrote this 3 times thinking if it was worth replying or just leaving at that for the sake of the thread.)
.
Even with 1 year here, necroposting is still a fairly new concept to me •–•"
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The spam did came to "an end" thanks to this thread I think, either that or the timing was just uncanny for this thread's creation.
One person was doing it by december/january but chilled down. Some make a fanfic thread and don't finish it but they don't make it at a rate that can be considered spam.
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Even if the spam is dead, this thread can be used to make it remain dead by awareness of the issue. So it still has value (at least in my opinion).

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Rank 0th means I'm better than 1st