Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores

Forum · Message Board
Name:	Los Malos Fics y Sus autores. Or "Malosfics". Or "El Antro".
Date(s):	2008 - Present (Inactive since 2016)
Moderated:	yes
Moderators/List Maintainers:	Rochy, Esfinge, Shady Linak, Sidetek, Atenea, K.Monroe
Founder(s):	Rochy, Esfinge
Type:	criticism and review
Fandom:	Panfandom
Scope:	badfics
URL:	Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores forum
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Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores (Badfics and Their Authors in English) is a forum in the Spanish-Speaking fandom whose objective was, according to the FAQ of the forum, the cleansing of the fandom. Forum users looked for fics that were poorly written, with grammar, syntax, characterization, and other problems in order to write a story report and send it to the author. This was intended for the author to edit the story and improve it, or delete it, or move it to another site (eg personal blog, forum, etc.). Some users actively searched for badfics to comment on the forum and others only brought them if they came across them by chance, or camouflaged as a story with an interesting premise.

Forum Procedure

The first step is to assess the seriousness of the things that are wrong with the story. In the FAQ it specifies that if it's just some misspellings but the rest is fine, it can be fixed just by leaving a review to the writer to let them know. Other details to be evaluated are: ambiguity of the text, understanding of the ideas behind each scene, the behavior of the characters and their reasons, quality of grammar and syntax, semantics, quality of narration, and quality of plot. If there are problems with most points, the story is brought to the forum.

A new topic should be opened and in it, the issues that make the story worthy of analysis should be introduced in the first message. The link to the fanfic in question and to the author's profile is a requirement of the rules. Afterwards, the other members of the forum comment on the errors that caught their attention the most or that they consider to be the most serious. The one who brings a badfic to the forum must ensure that the story receives the most complete criticism possible (that is, commenting on the majority of errors contained in the text) and is responsible for sending the Review to the author within two days.

The forum had a few slang words like antro, that refers to the forum; víboras (vipers), which were the active members of the forum who analyze the badfics and write their reviews. Or galleta (cookie) which was the final review sent to the author with a link to the Malosfics forum thread where their story was being criticized.

The authors' responses varied. Often their reaction was to delete the story or all of their stories. Other times, the authors and the members of the forum engaged in flamewars. There were also times when authors accepted criticism and promised to improve.

Once the author replied, the topic was closed and archived.

Controversy

The fandom has mixed opinions about the work of Malosfics members. Although many people think that it is good to help authors improve, most of the time their analysis were done in a mocking, arrogant and cruel way. On many occasions they were banned from archives for harassment or spam, such was the case of Fanfic Es and Amor Yaoi. Marfil, the founder of both fanfic sites, disabled the anonymous comment option after a group of Los Malos Fanfics used this as a tool for harassment and circumvent their previous ban. Users of the forum were banned due to their reviews not being constructive criticism but mere flames with the intention of humiliating authors.

The topic of Los Malos Fanfics being the heroes or the villains of fandom was a recurrent topic among many other forums, fanfic sites and archives, and blogs.

Examples of people criticizing Los Malos Fanfics procedures (translated from Spanish):

Today, out of sheer idleness and laziness to go outside in the middle of the rain, I was browsing the web in search of pages that recced Naruto fic (I wanted to read about it). Among so many options that were displayed on Google, I ended up falling into several forums that are basically dedicated to destroying fanfictions and their different authors. And watch out, I say tear apart because I can't find another way to call what they do. This comment will probably end up buying me an unnecessary unnecessary drama, but I honestly felt outraged at the number of barbarities that these people can do hiding behind the noble task —note the irony— of keeping the fandom clean.[...]

[...]So is it worth commenting? Yes. Is it worth criticizing? Of course yes! I think we all like to receive messages that give us advice on how to improve, how to write better stories, and how to grow as writers. But all this must be done within a framework of respect for the writer and their readers. Fanfics are free, it costs nothing to read them and we lose nothing by sitting down and waiting for a writer to mature little by little. But all this takes time, practice and effort. If from the beginning we destroy them, ruin their inspiration and harass them to leave the world of fanfiction, it seems to me that the fandom loses, the readers lose and we all lose.

What do all of you think?

First of all, I don't know who exactly gives them the authority to speak the way they do. That is not criticism, that is what they hide behind, that is plain and simple 'cyber-bullying', how they are used to call it. Of course, you can tell someone to take one more look at the spelling issue. Good. Maybe point something incoherent. Also good. But from there to criticizing if something is childish, the plot is boring or whatever, there is a huge step. That is at the discretion of the author, whoever reads it chooses to do it also by their own criteria. Criticizing that a character is OoC doesn't seem like it to me either. Come on! Does one act in exactly the same way every second of the day? I don't think so. We see bits and pieces of what a character is like at a given minute, that can give us an idea of ​​his personality, but it doesn't tell us how he would react in a different situation, or on a different stage. A criticism, also destructive, based on this argument seems totally out of place.[...]

I think there is absolutely nothing positive in that place. Nothing. Not even the spelling corrections.

I am in favor of constructive criticism, of course. But to be critical in the first place you have to know how to treat people and in those parts they totally lack of it. There are many people who kindly send you a private message or tell you in their review that you can correct something or that you have a spelling error. Nobody creates an assembly to take you to the stake for writing badly.[...]

More embarrassing it seems to me that they enter to judge if a plot is interesting or not and that they criticize you for the choice of an argument.

Examples of people defending Los Malos Fanfics (translated from Spanish):

1. The comments that they send are nothing more than constructive criticism, that the plot goes too fast, that they have several misspellings, and that their characters become very idealized, or that the course of the plot is very strange. In short, they leave comments telling them the small mistakes, along with the link of the post in the forum, where they explain their mistakes so that the authors can rectify them.

2. The comments never are threats of "Delete it or we report it" or "Your fic will be deleted". Rather, they tell you, "Hey, look, this is what's wrong with that, and that is what's wrong with this, that this belongs to another category,... etc." But I have not seen any offensive comments, what does happen is that some authors decide to delete their fics because they don't want to fix those bugs commented on in constructive criticism, in which users speak very politely.

Solution: We were wrong. We have judged a book by its cover, and I think that is something that is very wrong. Here I leave my opinion, what I have deduced and that I will continue investigating. You think what you want to think. Even if you want to connect, connect and talk! You will see that they are nice people, and that they speak well, that even if they make a mistake, Of course, we are human! But, judge them, but judge them well, you can keep the previous message, or you can keep this, or even do your own investigation. Me from here, I apologize to the page for misjudging it.

Futher Reading/Meta

• Los «críticos» que han perdido la capacidad de disfrutar, ^{Archived version} by Nea Poulain at Divagaciones de una Poulain (Juny 2013)

• La historia de Los Malos Fics, ^{Archived version} by Mac at M de venganza (September 2008)

• La historia de Los Malos Fics y Sus autores (two parts), ^{Archived version} by Lunita at The Dark Side of The Moon (June-July 2007)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores, ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores. Segunda parte., ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores. Tercera parte., ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores. Cuarta parte., ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores. Quinta parte., ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Una historia en Los Malos Fics y Sus Autores. Última parte., ^{Archived version} by Candy002 at Blacky`s Psycho Asylum (May 2008)

• Los Buenos Fics y sus Autores