Fanfic.me

Name:	Fanfic.me
Date(s):	September 2011-
Profit/Nonprofit:	Profit
Country based in:	USA
Focus:	Multifandom Fanfic Archive
External Links:	http://fanfic.me/
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Fanfic.me is a multifandom archive based on Wordpress software, owned by Jacky Abromitis, who apparently ran the MyFandoms.com archive for several years. They were active in ER, and possibly L Word fandoms.

The site went live in September 2011, with the tag line, "Fanfic as easy and feature rich as blogging!"

As of December 2015, it contains 11711 stories. The focus of this site appears to be role-playing games and fic.

The "fanfic.me old forum" is available, in read-only mode by archived version.

In the Works in 2007

From the article A Day At the Biggest Mall on Earth: Fanfic Archiving and You, which refers to this site as "MyFandoms.com.":

Fans like free stuff.

In that vein, then, an up-and-coming site called MyFandoms.com is intending to offer its fanfiction publishing software for free starting next month. The software is called FanFicFan and like eFiction, it provides sorting and search functions, using handy pull-down menus.

MyFandoms.com site owner Jacky Abromitis spoke with us about her site and the software they're going to make available. "If users have the skill, they can customize the page so that it looks exactly like their sites," said Abromitis.

"We have a few ad spots reserved for ourselves within the software, which is called FanFicFan and can be found at www.fanficfan.com. We have a few folks testing it out now, and we're in the process of adding two huge features -- a complete admin panel and an announcements area. Any fan fiction uploaded through fanficfan from any user, will also be uploaded to myFandoms.com. We feel this is a fabulous win-win for both us and the end user. They get to use the coolest, best fan fic software for their own purposes and on their own sites for absolutely free. We get some ad revenue when they use it, and we continue to grow myFandoms.com. Everything we do is free -- no 'premium' for-pay anything. Advertising is the revenue stream for our sites." (In the name of complete transparency, we should note that Firefox News is also an advertising-funded fannish site.)

The unfortunate choice of site design at MyFandoms -- incorporating a little star like FanLib does -- plus the use of the phrase "user-generated" in their parent site's text has led some fans to speculate a link between the two sites. According to Abromitis, this is not the case. "[W]e're completely independent of anyone/everything. We have no 'venture capital.' We're not some corporation. It's just me and our programmer, Chad Horton. We're the quintessential fans -- he's a sci fi guy -- and we look at our fandoms and say, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we could ....' and then Chad programs it for us. We are truly a site BY fans, FOR fans. ... [W]e're fans with day jobs who are hoping that other fans will see that a) we've got *great* software and b) that we're not some venture-capital conglomerate with ad budgets and stuff." While that should assuage the suspicions of many skeptics, the thought of having privately-archived stories also being uploaded to MyFandom's servers is going to be off-putting to fans still leery from LJ's "strikes" against users who had already deleted their content. Edit to add: Abromitis said, "[B]ased on input we've been getting this week, we've decided there WILL be an 'opt out' of having stories added to myFandoms." Additionally, she said, "any story deleted/edited/updated via FanFicFan **is also** deleted/edited/updated on myFandoms."

Abromitis came to fandom via ER. "During Season 7 [of the series], there was a lesbian storyline with one of the main characters. That storyline was given about 3 minutes of air time every other week, but a huge fan community emerged around it. It was the first time I ever went online looking for fan information. I didn't know what fan fiction was when I first read it -- I thought it was an un-filmed script. But I became a fan fic junkie, reading every 'Kim and Kerry' story I could find. Fan fiction filled the gaping holes left by the show, and fan fic writers filled those holes in so many creative, believable ways. They made a very frustrating experience a whole lot of fun, in addition to satisfying. I saw what the lesbian community was capable of, from a fan and fan fiction perspective. Then, I read about The L Word in a gay/lesbian magazine. A few months later, August 2004, Showtime had a float in the Carnival Parade in Provincetown, MA. I can remember vividly watching the float go by -- it was really just a billboard on wheels -- and I immediately thought of the Kim/Kerry fandom. I looked at my partner and said, 'I think this show is going to be big.' But I sat on it. Finally, in December 2004, something brought it back to my attention again. We opened up a butt-ugly fan site. It pretty much just had news article links and a forum. I wanted fan fiction, so people would send me stories. I had an index page that linked to a web page, where I was adding the stories myself. Within 3 months of the show starting, it became evident that I wouldn't be able to keep up. I had someone write the initial software so that I could have people upload the stories themselves. I wanted an auto-populating index page. That's where our fan fic software started."

The impetus to create the central site is similar though not identical to the idea behind the Archive Of Our Own project. Abromitis said, "Once we noticed there was no one 'Fan Central' type of site, the desire to be that site drove us to acquiring and customizing a 'social networking' program that allowed us to plug in all our proprietary tools, like fan fiction, fan art, fan photos, fan videos. The software gave us a framework to start with -- it provided the communication tools. The rest [of the idea to make it a fansite] was ours."

Details

Watersword uncovered several details about the site, including that they’re going to be featured in the New York Web 2.0 Expo's Startup Showcase on October 12, 2011.

The lack of a Terms of Service or other detailed information about Fanfic.me's origins and goals fueled much of the early discussion. On October 4, the site added TOS, About, Privacy, and Founders pages (renamed to 'Fanfic team' on October 10).

On October 6, 2011, the site switched into "maintenance" mode, hiding everything but a splash page that said:

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Fanfic.me is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance.

Please try back in 3 days

Thank you for your understanding.

On October 10, 2011, the site was accessible once more with a new design and links to forums (with 1411 registered users but no posts), Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts.

On October 11, 2011, Fanfic.me affiliate Fansitepress.com switched into "maintenance" mode, hiding everything but a splash page that said:

Sorry for the inconvenience.

This site is currently unavailable.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sometime in November 2011, the site came back with only a splash page saying:

WordPress + Fanfic Plugin powered by Fanfic.me

We are in private beta.

The site is now online. In December 2015, it contains 11711 stories.

Fannish Concerns, Technical

Details that caught the attention of some fans:

• The owning corporation is named "Fandom Entertainment," apparently a tiny company run by Jacky and perhaps some friends/assistants.
• The site had no TOS when it opened; it later copied MyFandoms.com's TOS

Terms of Service

The TOS contains a number of potential problems, including:

• RPF may be banned based on what appears to be a TOS attached to Fan Fic Fan , a piece of software Fandom Entertainment distributes; RPF is not mentioned in the TOS for Fanfic.me
• governing jurisdiction not named
• provision for any portion's invalidity
• updates to TOS announced in any way?
• statute of limitations?
• no warrant of service/implied warrant of merchantability
• claims it doesn't promote or engage in censorship != safe harbor provision of DMCA (?)
• no statement copyright does not transfer to FE, Inc., upon uploading
• no authorization for the site to make copies for backup purposes, etc.
• no provision for retention of records
• no provisions for account statuses (see elf: forbidden to post fiction, but permitted to comment & rate)
• site both uses gravatars & prohibits nudity in photographs. Gravatar policy is in itself vague, referring to "harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, or otherwise objectionable" material.
• content policy is unclear; "obscene, lewd, violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable subject matter" is not defined, and the TOS is ambiguous about whether or not this subject matter is only forbidden in image format or in texts as well. An NC-17 slash RPF fic was removed and referred to as "offensive material"
• options for unsubscribing are unclear; instructions in the TOS refer to a non-existing page

Privacy Policy

Concerns about Fanfic.me's stated privacy policy include:

• Privacy policy appears to permit Fanfic.me "to rent, trade, lease, or sell the personal information provided voluntarily and involuntarily by their users to third parties"
• Wording is often vague or unclear (e.g. on the properties of clear gifs), and not well adapted to the presumably fannish audience Fanfic.me is aimed at ("You will provide us information about yourself, your firm or company, and your practices when you register to be a member of Fanfic.me, register for certain services, or register for email newsletters and alerts")
• Security of information transmissions section provides no actual information
• Conditions under which personal information may be disclosed are vague (e.g. "under circumstances to protect the safety of users of the Site, us, or third parties")

Software Used

Fanfic.me appears to powered by a Wordpress install that includes a plugin developed by Fandom Entertainment CTO Chad Horton. Several aspects of the way this Wordpress plugin is used or advertised have been called notable:

• While registration on Fanfic.me is free, Fandom Entertainment appears to have plans for monetizing the plugin they developed via Fansitepress.com, which offers to host Wordpress installs referred to as 'fanfic blogs'. The features that are being advertised as unique to Fansitepress.com-hosted subdomains are actually standard free Wordpress features.
• As of October 11, Fansitepress.com contains no ownership or copyright information and no terms of service.
• Fansitepress.com offers free and 'premium' hosting of 'fanfic blogs'. Free users of a Fansitepress.com-hosted site can post up to 250 'stories' and will see advertising appear inside stories.
• The Features page is unclear about precisely when free users will be required to begin paying:

If your still starts going viral and your community start growing, we’ll need you to kick in towards the costs a bit. No worries… it’ll be super cheap, and you’ll get to use the coolest, easiest fanfic software anywhere!

• The costs of 'premium' hosting have been called exorbitant: $20 per year for a domain name, $25 per additional 250 stories hosted on the site, $15 per year for a custom CSS, and $40 per year in order to make the advertising inside stories disappear.
• Fansitepress.com refuses to share the code of its Wordpress plugin because "It took a ton of time plus years of feedback from writers and readers to develop it". The claim that the plugin took years to develop may be doubtful, since it was first posted to Wordpress.org in February 2011 and appears to add very little functionality to a standard free Wordpress install.
• On Fanfic.me, Jacky appears to blame the shortcomings of Fandom Entertainment's older Fan Fic Fan software and the Fandom Entertainment websites powered by it on the open source platform used to develop Fan Fic Fan. She fails to note that the Wordpress install that powers Fanfic.me, and to which Fandom Entertainment appears to have added little extra functionality, is also open source.

Marketing Tactics

• Aggressive search engine optimization: Constant repetition of terms "fanfic", "fan fiction", "fan site" and similar on various websites, Twitter, and YouTube (expand)

from the February 17, 2012 issue of "Entertainment Weekly" article "Just Do It" (about fanfic and shipping) by Jeff Jensen

• Marketing through showcase sites and SEO related to new or unreleased media: When Fanfic.me's new design went online on October 10, 2011, its main page contained blurbs for several TV series and films that had either just been released or were about to be released. (Grimm, premiere on October 28; Once Upon a Time, premiere on October 23; American Horror Story, premiere on October 25; Terra Nova, premiere on September 26; RA.One, release on October 26; Real Steel, release on October 7.) Fanfic.me did not contain any actual fanworks based on these TV series and films, but was the top result for Google searches on these titles and "fanfic". On October 15, separate Fansitepress.com-hosted sites for American Horror Story and Terra Nova contained several short blog post that were all tagged or categorized "fanfiction", although the posts had nothing to do with fanfic. Nearly all of the blog posts were reviews from other sites or standard advertising blurbs for the two series, repeated verbatim, sometimes without attribution. All posts on the American Horror Story site were made fspadmin, who is also an admin on Fanfic.me's forums, and all posts on the Terra Nova site were made by terranova, identified as Jacky Abromitis in the site's own forum. Neither site contains a TOS, privacy statement, or copyright information, and neither identifies itself as being owned by Fandom Entertainment.

• Twitter marketing: Fandom Entertainment-owned sites seem to follow each other, often retweet each other's tweets, and recommend each other on Follow Fridays. A tweet was made about every new story posted to Fansitepress.com-hosted sites. Starting October 20, a tweet was made about every new story posted to Fanfic.me as well.

• Simulating site activity: A significant portion of early site activity on the main Fanfic.me site and new "fanfic plugin"-powered showcase sites seemed to consist of one or more Fanfic.me-affiliated users posting and commenting on self-written fics under a variety of different pseudonyms. This created the impression that the sites had an active user base. Many Fandom Entertainment-run showcase sites do not identify themselves as being owned by the company and run by the same people, and sometimes actively suggest that they are operated by different individuals while this is not the case. The following user names can be traced to Jacky Abromitis or to other members of the "fanfic team" such as Chad Horton: Ringmaster, fspadmin, terranova, Brittana Fan, gleeklub, ffslash, ffmeadmin, Fanfic.me, phxvyper, Fan Site Press, and ffme. While names such as Fanfic.me are easily recognizable as administrator accounts, others such as Brittana Fan seem to be sockpuppet accounts.

• Inflating of story and fandom statistics: Upon launching, Fanfic.me claimed to contain "over 10,000 stories". Since Fanfic.me counts each separate chapter of a fic as a new "story", it is unclear how many separate fics the site actually contains, and size comparisons with most other fic archives become difficult. The number of fandoms present on the site may also be inflated, since several of the categories counted as separate "fandoms" are actually categorizations such as "anime", "All anime", "Animation & Comics -> Comics", or "anything and everything".

• The site was blurbed/promoted in the February 17, 2012 issue of "Entertainment Weekly" article "Just Do It" by Jeff Jensen.

Automated Censorship

On October 18, 2011, a development site located at dev.fanfic.me was found to contain a planned feature that replaced all "bad words" in fics rated below R or NC-17 with the message "[censored]". Following critique of the feature, the development site was made inaccessible on the same day. On October 19, 2011, the feature went live on the main Fanfic.me site, replacing words such as "hell" and "sex" with "*****" (instead of "[censored]"). Words were replaced on all pages of the Fanfic.me site, including on Fanfic.me's "news" and "about" pages, where the word "hell" was replaced. Fics rated R or NC-17 became protected by an age verification screen containing the following text:

Enter your current age into the field provide above. Stories with a rating of R or NC-17 may contain material not suitable for children. Fanfic.me requires that all individuals wishing to read these stories confirm they are of at least 17 years of age. Fanfic.me uses the MPAA rating labeling system for all stories.

Fanfic.me will also make a best attempt to filter profane words in stories that are not rated R or NC-17 unless the individual confirms they are of at least 17 years of age.

Since there was no age verification screen preceding fics rated lower than R or NC-17, however, it was effectively impossible to confirm one's age and view the stories without the "profane words" (renamed from "bad words") being blocked.

Fannish Concerns, Social

(TBA: bits about similarities to Fanlib, problems with attempting to commercialize fanfic)

Venture Capital Search

• Fanfic.me founders attended various startup/VC events
• Video pitches in which Fanfic.me appeals to investors and discusses wanting to "take over (the) marketplace" of Fanfiction.net
• Explanation of search for "financial partner" given by Jacky Abromitis on Fanfic.me: needing to recuperate from financial losses incurred by MyFandoms, wanting CTO Chad Horton to be able to work on the site and its features full-time, wanting to be able to travel to conventions to promote Fanfic.me. Unsubstantiated suggestions that ventures like Fanfic.me have "the support of networks, studios, and creators" because Pottermore exists.
• Differences in content and tone of messages addressed to potential investors and messages addressed to fans

Responses to Critique

• Fanfic.me seemed to be following discussions of the site on DW/LJ, making changes and making links inaccessible as they were brought up in discussions, but did not respond to critiques (add links)
• Possible anonymous commenting/sockpuppeting by Fanfic.me CTO Chad Horton