Anybody who would like to repost this is more than welcome, provided they link back here.  These are serious site issues that need addressing (to be noted: the rating of TBBC is technically a private matter between myself and a moderator (you are welcome to object to it too if you want), but the manner in which it was done is not and needs addressing by the site just as much as the other issues I have raised).  The first blog post, which provides more of a general background, can be found here: http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/1013221

*Edit 1 @ 12.15 GMT April 3rd 2015: So far, there has been no response to this, or even acknowledgement, from the moderators or site administration even though I have linked the moderators to this post in so far as I was able.  I am assuming that this is because they are offline rather than because they are choosing to ignore this, though between the time of posting (c. 2.00 GMT) and now (12.15 GMT), I would have expected any moderators from North America to have been online.

*Edit 2 @ 23.40 GMT April 3rd 2015: Two site moderators have been in contact now on and off for a few hours and have assured me that all concerns raised in these two blog posts and in the reports section have been read, that they agree TBBC was incorrectly rated and that this will be reversed, and that they are drafting a response to all the points raised.  I'd also like to add that they're both very approachable and sensible.

This is a continuation and elaboration of my previous blog post.  It is going to be long.  Elements of it have already come up, but I have tried to go into greater detail where I can.

Since it’s been forwarded to admin, I assume that it’s being treated as a complaint about the site set up and the way it is run, most specifically with regards to how it is moderated and the current limitation of the help channels.  The fact that there is no proper avenue to make such a complaint is indicative of the seriousness of this and actually prevents people from raising it as an issue (something that I will address below).  I think that by law every social networking site is required to have a functioning support and help policy (I will be checking this; however, the fact that every social networking site DOES have one would suggest that this is the case).  The functionality of the support and help system on this website is currently questionable, for reasons given below.  If it is a legal requirement, this is a serious shortcoming on the part of the site.  Consequently, as is my habit for anything that has the potential to get into either reporting (though it already is) or legal waters, I’ve been taking screen shots of all posts I’ve made on this subject so far so that there is an impartial record.  You are already aware of the previous blog post (which was posted before I had a response to the report), which elaborates on one or two details and also contains comments from other site users that I would specifically like to raise to the awareness of admin for discussion.

I would also like to request some way of knowing that a moderator different to the one who first responded to the initial report (and whose behaviour triggered this complaint) is the one that I am currently conversing with, and also that an indication that the initial moderator of the report is also aware that I am issuing a complaint about his or her moderation, which I believe to be inadequate for reasons already given.  I believe that this currently is the case, but if it is possible to make this clear, it would be nice.  Further to this, I would appreciate an explanation from that moderator as to their conduct so that it is possible to determine whether or not this is a failing on their part or a failing in moderation regulations and site policy.  I believe in fairness and transparency even if I believe I have not necessarily received it myself.

To elaborate on previous concerns about the set-up of the help system on the site, a couple of friends and I have been scouring the site.  As of now, to the best of our combined knowledge, these are currently the avenues we can explore if we feel that we have problems on AFF, but not all of them can be used.  In fact, there seems to be no level between contacting AFFHelper and mods, and waiting for replies that could far too long to come, if they do at all, and basically getting legal involvement, which I feel is a ridiculous leap.  (There may also be comparisons to other sites to indicate possible ways to improve.)

1. This twitter account: https://twitter.com/asianfanfics
   1. Up until January 2^nd 2013, (over two years ago), it posted updates on a regular basis about the site and what was going on, and I assume was also a platform for asking for help.  There is not a single post since that date, so I assume it is completely inactive.  Given the nature of previous updates, were it active, I would expect there to be something about the change of layout that happened last year.  I don’t remember seeing the twitter account linked on the site anywhere, which leads me to conclude that it is indeed no longer used.
   2. Consequently, this is not a viable method of communication to relay issues about the site.
   3. While I understand it’s possible that the twitter account was discontinued due to users ganging up against moderators, it might be worth reactivating the twitter account as a path of communication for site users, and also to alert users to updates and changes, or to remind them that certain features exist (like the spoiler feature).  There isn’t really anything in the way of an active site blog, and if there is, then it isn’t visible enough.  Considering the mods are effectively invisible and AFFHelper isn’t often online, a prominent blog of some kind, or an active twitter account, could make a huge difference.  It would certainly mean that people would feel they have somewhere to go to get a response, which is not the case when you turn up on AFFHelper’s page to see “last online: 2 months ago” (which happened at the end of last year).  I know there is the AFFHelper blog, but it’s very rare for there to be an update on that, too.  It’s been at least a couple of months since the last one.  That one would probably work if it was more active.  The site founder’s blog also often has important information that isn’t necessarily on the AFFHelper blog (I wasn’t aware that there were spoiler tags until I read the founder’s blog post on that today, and that’s from November last year), so perhaps certain of those posts ought to have a way to get onto the front page.
2. AFFHelper
   1. Which is specifically for technical glitches with the site and other things of like manner, and not reliably online.
   2. It would help if AFFHelper was online more.  There are ostensibly multiple people running the account, which makes it odd that it is offline for quite such long periods of time.  If this is not the case, then perhaps it would be worth looking into having more people running AFFHelper?
   3. On a positive note, the few times I have had contact with AFFHelper in the past, the account has been very helpful.
3. The site founder
   1. Considering that there is nothing on the main page that links his profile, it leads to the assumption that he would prefer not to be bothered via his site profile about various disputes on site, which is fair enough.  I am more than happy to respect that.  (Also, I have no idea how often he is online, and it’s necessary to add him as a friend before contacting him, in any case, so this is not necessarily a direct method of communication.)  I would not even have been aware that he had a profile on the site if other users hadn’t linked me to it, and considering the size of AFF, I’m pretty sure there will be many users who are completely unaware.
   2. The site founder has also made it pretty clear that he does not wish to be disturbed by users making or protesting reports on his profile with this: ‘If reporting plagiarism or asking about why your story was removed, do NOT report it to me’ and to instead go through the official channels.  He also states that he is not online daily, and it is necessary to befriend him before it is possible to message him.  This means there will not necessarily be an immediate response.  I suppose that this would have been the most appropriate place to make my complaint, but for two things: one, I had no idea where to find him until lunchtime today, and wouldn’t have known without one of my friends on here asking around and stumbling across it, which suggests that this is not intended as an official line of communication or place to make complaints (otherwise it ought to be on the front page or somewhere in the About Us/ToS/FAQ pages) and two, this blog post: http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/722931
   3. Regarding the blog post, I appreciate and understand the background of harassment of the moderators that has led to them being virtually invisible to the site users, but I am not filled with confidence that concerns about poor moderation would even be taken into consideration with ‘I will always listen to my most trusted moderators. I'm really much too involved with other work to be diving into user affairs on AFF so I have faith in their decisions. I consider blanket bans of problematic users to be used as an absolute last resort but I would much prefer that to losing a trusted moderator.’  Positive note first: it’s wonderful that the site owner does have such faith in his moderators.  It’s nice to see.  It would be great if the entire site could also have similar faith in the moderators (it’s sad to see authors lashing out unreasonably when a moderator makes a sensible decision about something).  Less positive note: if the rating of my story – and presumably some others, too – without even considering the content is considered acceptable moderator policy, then I am not able to place faith in the founder placing faith in the moderator’s decision.  Moderator in the singular as I hope this is a rogue moderator who has lapsed in etiquette rather than site policy for the moderators, in which case I am even more concerned.  Due to past experience on previous sites, I know that it is possible (while thankfully rare) for moderators to abuse their position and insist that users are being problematic when they in fact are not due to personal reasons.  I would hope that the moderators on this site are not like this and that the site founder’s faith in them is well founded, however, but even though this was appropriate to the time, it does not inspire me with confidence for anybody wishing to report concerns about a site moderator.  This quote is followed by “So please don't put me in that position and just treat them nicely regardless of whether or not you agree with their decisions.” – asking to abide by the moderators’ decisions so that he is not forced into that decision regardless of our own views.  So what are we supposed to do and where are we supposed to go if we DO have an issue with the moderators that might be legitimate?
   4. I appreciate that the site founder has his own life and would presumably prefer not to spend all his free time trying to sort out issues and disputes with the site, which I think is completely fair enough.
4. The site moderators
   1. Literally the only way to contact a site moderator is by making a report on a story or a blog.  LITERALLY the only way.  If there is another way, it’s even more obscure than this one.  That means that if you have an issue with a site user, such as a cyberbully, or with another moderator, there is genuinely NO way to contact a moderator about it (as you cannot do so from a story’s comments).  Blocking somebody is simply not enough: I have seen one user recently who is leaving AFF because she was harassed rudely in the comments section of her story, and when she blocked the user, that person simply created another account and returned to bug her.  Unlike some other sites, there appears not to be a “report user” feature (those that don’t have it, like Figment, do at least have a “report comment” feature, which could be used by somebody being harassed or bullied to tell the moderators that this is going on), which would mean that the only way to report this person to the moderators (as AFFHelper is not often online, as already established) is to find a blog or a story and report it – under report headings such as “copyright infringement”, “plagiarism”, “explicit content and videos”.  This in no way creates a safe environment for those who are victims of harassment.  The fact that there is no way to contact the site moderators is even more shocking when this features above every comments section on the site: ‘Comments are moderated. Keep it cool. Critical is fine, but if you're rude to one another (or to us), we'll delete your stuff.’  I have never once seen or heard of a moderator moderating the comments section.  This may be because I have only been on AFF for a little over a year and have had the good fortune to have incredibly pleasant readers who haven’t caused me problems, but I refuse to believe – especially if there are only a few of them – that the moderators read through the comments on every single story and blog post on the site, which – since there is no way of reporting comments – means that comments are in fact not moderated.  As far as I can make out, there is no automatic moderator such as there is for Wattpad which will automatically report use of foul or obscene language and any words to do with death and killing or extreme violence for a moderator’s attention.  If comments are not being moderated, it is highly misleading to inform users that they are.  Furthermore, if a user is in breach of ToS by, for example, having an explicit ual picture as a DP, then there is currently no way to report this, either.  It relies on somebody knowing the mods or a mod stumbling across that person for it to be dealt with.  Since AFFHelper is for technical issues, it would be unfair to ask AFFHelper to field complaints of this nature.
   2. Having established that there are reasons other than plagiarism and dodgy ratings that may lead users to wish to contact a moderator, it is therefore inadequate that the only two ways to do so are through reporting a blog post or a story (the set-up of which looks like it automatically assumes that only those who write on this site are possible of breaching protocol in a manner which requires moderation, and not that there is the potential for any user to do so).  This would necessitate 1) an unfair, uncalled for report on somebody’s work or blog (possibly even the victim’s) that could be damaging if a moderator does not bother to look at the reason why it has been reported and acts merely on the category of the report, and 2) a false report, which ought not to be encouraged.  The fact that this is the only channel presumably discourages people from reporting things, in any case.  A “report comment” or “report user” feature would make a significant improvement, or possible an AFFModerator account (which would keep the moderators anonymous) that would allow users to find the moderators easily, or simply something on the homepage with “report to the moderators” that would give a report form for a user to fill out.  (There is actually an account that calls itself AFFModerator, but it hasn’t been active since May 2014, so I don’t know if this is genuinely a moderator or not.)
5. And from all this, even though the right channels are either not intuitive or not visible (or sometimes not there, depending on the nature of the issue you want to raise), there is nothing between these pathways of sporadic communication and legal communication, which for many issues and complaints is far too heavy handed.  I couldn’t find anywhere on the site somewhere recommended to get in contact with that’s intuitive and on the front page other than AFFHelper, which doesn’t cover everything.  There’s nothing between that and contacting the legal support for the site, and considering there may be a delayed response from AFFHelper when a quick one might be needed and wouldn’t need to involve the law, it has the potential to leave users high and dry.  Other than AFFHelper, the only two forms of contact for the site that it is easy to get hold of are [email protected] and the arbitration association, which would not be relevant to something such as my complaint here (at least I would hope they are not) or a case of bullying.
   1. Having more obvious paths of communication, or more people to man the AFFHelper account or be moderators would probably make a significant difference.  In 2013, the site founder stated that there were not many moderators.  Are all the moderators from 2013 still here?

IN SUM, the only visible place to report issues is AFFHelper (since nobody knows where all the others are and we’re not directed to them or they’re not intuitive or won’t cater adequately to our needs).  The trouble is, AFFHelper is 1) primarily there for technical issues and should therefore not be landed with extra concerns that are the prerogative of the moderators purely because contacting the moderators is almost impossible, and 2) AFFHelper is often not online, which means it is unlikely there will be a quick response.  The only other easily (though you have to hunt through the privacy policy) visible way to get hold of anybody on the site is through the legal team, who most definitely should not be dealing with a lot of the issues that may arise.  I feel the flaws of this arrangement need no further comment beyond perhaps this: if somebody is being bullied by another user, blocks the account, and that person (and I have seen or heard about this done on at least three occasions during my time on AFF) then comes back to harass them on a different account, or encourages their friends to harass that person, which also happens, by what medium is the innocent victim supposed to report this person?  Blocking is doing no good.  They don’t necessarily know who the site admins are.  AFFHelper isn’t online.  The moderators can only be accessed by unfairly giving a false report on somebody’s work.  Who’s left who can be reliably contacted with any degree of assurance of a timely response?  [email protected]?

Regarding moderation in general:

1. I am far from the only person who is disconcerted at how difficult it is to get hold of the moderators.  One of the readers of my previous blog post, who has been a user since 2010 (a year after the site was founded), commented this: “So this site actually has moderators? I was not aware of that.”  In fact, she was frustrated enough at the lack of visible and easily contactable moderators on the site that she at one point intended this: “I actually planned to set up an AFF forum "story" where the "author" would archive the different complaints and ideas into different "chapters" (systematic order, ofc) since I had some complaints myself. Then hopefully it would get featured so it would appear on the front page and then get noticed by senpai (site runner I mean) and actually read the ideas and complaints and then put up a real forum... I never got to do it, and now I've forgotten those complaints. But you have some, and I agree. Everything you mentioned should not be like this!”  For a user to believe that having to resort to this would be the best way to attract attention of the site administration speaks poorly of the visibility and ease of communication with site admin and mods, especially since this presumably includes sentiment from her time before 2013, when the mods appear to have withdrawn much of their presence from the site, as well as after.  Facebook, Tumblr, Wattpad, even cooking sites like Allrecipes, have more or less intuitive ways to ensure that you can quickly and easily get hold of people if you need to.  The two most recent comments on the site founder’s blog post on moderators that I linked earlier are these: ‘Where can we find the moderators on here? Is there a list or something because I need some help.’ (Dec 3^rd 2013, no reply) and ‘In the Reports section of closed Reports, it says you can appeal the blocking of a story if you want to, but there is no way to actually do that. There's also no way to contact Mods if we need help. How can I contact somebody I can actually talk to instead of just posting things on walls that I doubt will even be read. This is very frustrating.’ (January 29^th 2015, also no reply – it looks like the writer’s fear of not even having her complaint read by the right people was realised).  I understand that the site founder may have been too busy to reply or may have forgotten, but that information ought to be SOMEWHERE and it is not.  I wonder if either of those two have found their replies.  Whether or not the identities of the moderators is being keep secret for their protection, this is no excuse for it to be actively DIFFICULT to get hold of them.
   1. As an addendum to this, some of my readers who do not believe that my story ought to be rated also want to contact the moderators to complain about this, but they have no way to and they find it frustrating and unfair.
   2. Inaccessible moderators for issues for which they are really needed, such as cyber bullying, does not make for a healthy site.  Rather than problems being resolved and the perpetrators banned, the victims will leave – are leaving, even – and the perpetrators will be allowed to continue.

2)At the top of every single comments section on the site, we have this: Comments are moderated. Keep it cool. Critical is fine, but if you're rude to one another (or to us), we'll delete your stuff. Have fun and thanks for joining the conversation!

“Comments are moderated.”

I am going to be very blunt here.  I am offended that this is even put on the site with such regularity, because I believe that this is a blatant lie.  In my time on AFF, which is a little over thirteen months, I have seen death threats, abuse, swearing, comments of an explicitly ual nature, and other forms of bullying or breach of site protocol – and not once – not ONCE – has a moderator ever stepped in to deal with it.  In fact, I’ve never heard of a moderator stepping in to deal with it, and I will be absolutely astonished if anybody on the site has.  People have left the site because of bullying that goes on in the comments.  There was one in March.  I can’t give a link because the profile is gone.  And the thing that angers me most about this is that the comments are apparently moderated when there is 1) no way for any users to actually report the content of comments or reach the moderators about it and 2) no way that the moderators are manually checking the comments of every single blog and every single story on the site.  That would be very difficult even with a large number of moderators and a system like on Wattpad where certain words automatically trigger a report to the site and any user has the ability to report a post underneath the comment.  However, as we were told back in 2013, the moderators on this site are few in number, and there is no such automated system in place ON TOP of the fact that the method of reporting these users is so convoluted that very few people will persist in trying.  In effect, there is no reporting system on this site for bullying.  On March 19^th 2015 I came across this blog post: http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/1008372  The user decided at the time that they were going to stop writing due to abuse that they had been receiving in the comments section of their stories.  I actually went to check the story in question to see if I could report the abuse, but couldn’t find a way to do so.  Just a few hours ago, a friend linked me to this, from March 20^th 2015: http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/1008675  Again, this is abuse stemming from comments.  Not just that, but a user with a name that, based on the site’s policy on mature content and according to the blog post, probably flouts site regulations, was apparently carrying this out due to the fact that the person who left had reported a story that clearly violated the site’s terms of use.  Regarding site policy from MARCH 1^ST 2015 (http://www.asianfanfics.com/page/rules), which would suggest that this was supposedly implemented before this incident, under the site’s general guidelines, 4. states this: Content depicting extreme violence, , or any form of ia is banned and may be removed or deleted.  (This was apparently what the story was reported for.) 8. says this: Violation of these terms may get you banned from the site.  Apparently this never happened.  Whether or not the story merited it, surely bullying and encouraging others to bully would do so?  All this leads me to query whether site policy is not being upheld or the moderators are being overwhelmed.  Either way, it is evident that the channels by which to contact the moderators are not enough.

If nothing else, PLEASE put in a proper system of reporting in the comments sections of blogs and stories, and ideally we’d be able to report users too.  There is genuinely nothing in place as a support system for those being harassed or bullied by commenters, or to even report rudeness, which the moderators are apparently supposed to delete.

3. Even if we cannot know who the moderators are, I feel that it would be beneficial to know the site policy on moderation and how many moderators there actually are.  Would it be worth recruiting more?  So many people have joined the site since 2013 that I am sure there are more than enough people to look among for a new crop or additions to the current group.
   1. Having more moderators would allow for things like moderating the comments, which is supposed to be in place but in practice appears not to be.
   2. If we know that there are, say, only two moderators for the entire site, people will be much more willing to be patient waiting for the moderators to respond to things.  If there are, say, fifty, then I think it’s fair to demand what they’re doing when there’s a two-day delay to a report, non-existent reply to another, no way to contact them about things like cyber-bullying issues, and why there isn’t some way of policing the comments on the site.
   3. I’m quite serious about wanting to know what the site policy on moderation is.  I wouldn’t be able to tell you what the exact powers of the mods on this site are because I can’t find it written anywhere.  I do know, however, that on figment, the mods there (limited to the forums) can see things that the users have hidden, lock discussions, and delete them.  And I’m not even on figment.  It looks like the mods here may be able to ban users.  I know that they can change ratings on fics.  Apparently they can’t undo trigger warnings.  And that’s literally all I know.  I can’t find anywhere to supplement that information.  How many times a week are they supposed to come online?  Given the time lapse of two days between the report on TBBC and the response, and then again a lapse of two days between my response and the next moderator response, this suggests that not a single moderator was online between those times, or that the moderators online were ignoring the reports.  More than a couple of moderators ought to be able to manage a daily presence even of only a few minutes unless there are exceptional circumstances.  On Wattpad, the mods there – who are all volunteers, I might add – manage to keep up an almost 24hr presence.  The only other conclusion I can come to is that there are not enough moderators to ensure a daily presence on the site, or that the moderators are so swamped with reports that it take them a long time to get round to them all, which is fair enough… but why not recruit more if that’s the case?  I mentioned this in my first blog post, but my co-author and I were concerned when it took the best part of two days for a moderator to respond to her story being plagiarised, despite multiple reports being filed.  Plagiarism is supposedly taken seriously by the site according to the FAQs.  The slowness of the response doesn’t suggest that, though I suppose it’s understandable if there are not enough moderators.
   4. If we have a disagreement with a moderator and wish it to be referred to another moderator, how can we 1) be sure that this will happen and 2) that we will actually be given a fair hearing?  I have no way of knowing if the moderator watching the report now is actually the same moderator as the one who initially responded to the report.  I’m just taking it on trust.
   5. Regarding the site policy on moderation, I have a particular concern regarding the report made on TBBC.  Whichever way I see it, whether or not the moderator’s rating was correct (which I dispute), the moderator’s actions do not reflect a high standard of moderating.  Either this is due to the site’s policy and training of moderators (I would like to believe that this is not the case), or the moderator is not upholding the site’s policy and training of moderators, in which case the moderator has to answer to this.  I, personally, would not trust that moderator to deal with the issue if I was being bullied, as they have demonstrated a rushed job with a clear lack of attention to the details.  A moderator or an administrator who will respond to an unsubstantiated report is like a teacher who will without question give a child detention because another child comes running up saying “hey, Johnny’s not in detention, can you put him in detention, please?”  So far, I have had absolutely no indication that the report and my appeal is being looked at fairly – or at all – by another moderator (in fairness, they do appear to be focussing on site issues, which is definitely more important).  Readers have already expressed disagreement over TBBC’s rating, but those who have actually looked at the report for themselves have expressed disapproval at the mods actions (a reply to a blog comment I replied to is this: ‘not only do they not do what they're supposed to, but they can't be reached! LOL that mod in question pulled one of the most blatant rush jobs I've ever seen by an admin’ and ‘that certainly was a horrible job of moderating! Anyone could've done what that mod did. I seriously question whether that mod put any effort into looking into that report... and from what I saw, there wasn't any!’).  A responsible moderator, as I have stressed before, would have investigated the report even with evidence given to ensure that the evidence was true.
   6. If this is in fact a result of site policy, and Asianfanfics thinks that it is acceptable for a moderator to wield substantial power without given reasons, and, furthermore, without addressing the perpetrator to tell them that they have crossed a line, I would urge Asianfanfics to review its moderation policy.  A child given a detention will be told the reason by its teacher.  A child grounded by its mother will be told the reason for the punishment.  A footballer/soccer player given a red card will be told the reason by the referee.  A criminal sentenced to jail will be told why by the judge in court.  Even if the reason is wrong, a reason is GIVEN.  Why, then, are authors not told when they have done something and what they have done, and why are they left to find out through their readers demanding to know where their stories have gone?  Here is another comment from my first blog post on this topic: ‘I don't know how many times I've read people's blogs complaining about not knowing why their stories have been banned. Some even didn't know they were reported in the first place, not knowing about the "reports" link on their profile toolbar until someone pointed it out for them. It's a terrible decision on AFF's part not to have reports be notified.’ I find the lack of reason highly suspect, and I refuse to stay on a website with a policy with a system that allows for gross misuse of moderator powers and does not hold them to account for it at all, and furthermore, gives no easy way to report this.
   7. According to the site founder’s blog post for 2013, the moderators have made it through ‘strict requirements’ to obtain their powers and positions.  I have so far seen little evidence of this.  In another reply to a comment I received, another user states this: ‘I get the impression … that they're being rather rash with decisions, ill-informed and too quick to act, kind of suggesting they're not completely interested in resolving problems properly but just giving into requests’.  This does not suggest upholding strict requirements, and yet this is the image that we are receiving of the moderators on the site.  I sincerely hope that this is not representative of all the site moderators and just of the one I encountered initially.
   8. If we cannot put faith in the site moderators, it is going to be hard for them to facilitate smooth running of the site.

IN SUM: various users at various points have expressed concern at the difficulty of getting hold of moderators on this site, and moderators cannot be found in areas where one might be led to believe they are (e.g. in the comments).  There is also no adequate system for reporting cyber-bullying on this site, which is an issue, as two cases within days of each other just in this past fortnight ought to indicate.  Some users are even unaware of the existence of moderators on this site.  Slow responses from the moderators suggest either that there are too few of them or that they are not doing their job properly.  My personal experience of the moderators on this site so far leads me to question whether the behaviour indicated is indicative solely of one moderator (in which case, this incident needs moderating) or of the moderator group as a whole (in which case the site’s moderation policy probably needs looking into, as the system allows for misuse of moderator powers).

I am trying to discover if there are any legal requirements for a site to have a properly functioning system of support and reporting.  It would be nice to have confirmation from admin personally (I appreciate it coming from a moderator, and I would like to thank that moderator for keeping me in the loop, but passing something on to admin is vastly different to admin actually looking at and doing something about it) that all this has been seen and taken on board, and I look forward to hearing what is going to be done to address these concerns.

On a much happier note, because I hate being negative about things at the entire time, I would like to commend the moderator here:   This is exemplary.  I would also like to say that for the most part I do enjoy being on this site, and that the site features since the overhaul a few months ago work fantastically, and the part of the community that I have fallen in with is absolutely lovely.  I would like to stay on this site: I like being here.  I want it to run well and function well and be a friendly place.  I wouldn't even be bringing all this up if I didn't want that.  I'd just leave.  But if the serious problems aren't addressed in some way, then I probably will leave.

Also, I would urge the moderators to also look into the appeal I have requested following the rating of my story as this appears not to have happened yet.

1. Here is what I have found on the site’s guidelines about what counts as mature content.
   1. This is from the FAQs (http://www.asianfanfics.com/page/faq#restricted1): ‘Mature content is any content containing ual or extremely violent situations’ ‘Examples of adult content include having lewd or provocative images, crude or indecent language, or anything ual in nature. As a general rule, anything above kissing and hugging should most likely be marked Rated M.’
   2. This is from the content guidelines (http://www.asianfanfics.com/page/content_guidelines): ‘Adult-themed content includes frequent explicit language, , ual acts, violence to oneself or another, and/or illicit subject matter.’
   3. This is what it says when you go to rate your story ‘M’: ‘Mature content is any content containing ual or extremely violent situations’
2. From a and c (c being the one that most site users will see), I take it that the violence referred to in b is graphic violence, otherwise, as mentioned in my previous blog post, ‘horror’ would be a rated M tag and almost all fantasy, adventure, action, spy, mafia, gangs and other fics would be rated M.  In fact, so would any high school au in which one of the characters punched another.  I’m unsure if the frequent applies to the entire list or just the explicit language, but the violent situations in TBBC are not in sufficient quantity to be classified as ‘frequent’.
3. In terms of writing any scene that contains violence, there is a dramatic difference between ‘she cut his arm’ or even ‘she cut his arm open’ and ‘she dragged a serrated knife across his arm, the blood bubbling out behind the blade as he screamed and the tang of iron filled the air’.  The net result of them both is the same: somebody’s arm got cut.  The last is graphic.  The first is not.  If the former of ‘she cut his arm’ is considered enough for a story to merit an M rating, then I guess TBBC can stay where it is with that M rating, and the mods and site users are going to have their work cut out for them transferring a vast number of unrated stories into the rated M section.  The latter style, if all violence in the book is written with that amount of detail, I would expect the story to be rated M.  The thing is, any violence in TBBC follows the line of the first much more than the second.  This is as graphic as it gets (it should be noted that the character has PTSD and is relatively close to a panic attack (the assassin has trapped her arm)):

Eyes blurring with tears of fright, Semi tried to tug her arm free.  When it didn’t work, she started thrashing about, trying to dislodge the man.  He paused with the tip of the blade against her skin.

“Shh,” he told her, caressing the side of her face.  Yelping with terror, Semi gave a violent flinch and tried to squirm away.  “It won’t hurt for long.”

“Get off me!  Get off me!” she shrieked, flailing blindly.

He let out a soft, breathless chuckle, and pain flared through her arm as the knife bit into it.  With a desperate lunge, Semi’s hand came into contact with one of the candles of the circle at the same time, and without any kind of thought she swiped at him with it.

There was a solid thwack and this time he cursed at a normal volume as he reeled off her, the knife dropping from his grasp.  Ignoring the sting of spattering wax droplets and following the momentum of her arm, Semi rolled over and scrambled to her feet before bolting from the room, unable to see where she was going due to the tears.

I have already stated before that violence is the only part of the story that I would consider might need rating.

I would also like to point out, as I did before in my previous blog post, that genre does in some way act as “rating” for a story, or at least prepares you for the kind of content you are likely to meet – and preparing you for the kind of content you are about to meet is what M ratings and trigger warnings do too – in the same way that most people will react different to seeing somebody in their underwear than they will to seeing that same person in a bikini.  Usually, the same amount of skin is showing; it’s just that the context is different.

Something with a tag of psychological is naturally going to be much denser on mind games,  psychology and perhaps mental health than something that is not tagged psychological – the tag allows for more of it than you would have elsewhere.  Fantasy, action (gangs, spies, military), sci-fi, horror – to name just a few genres – have an expectation that there will be something in the way of action or violence.  A scene that you might find in a spy story, such as James getting beaten up at the beginning of the Cherub series (about child spies), is more ‘acceptable’ due to the genre of the story (that is not to say that extreme violence would not be considered extreme, but just that genre provides expectations on content) than the same scene would be in a story about a coffee shop, or a town baker trying to make a name for himself with his bread.  The context defines the approach to the content.  Just from a quick glance at my bookshelf and a short stint in an editorial position, I wish to point out the following stories that fall into the above genres (usually fantasy) that are considered appropriate for teen fiction, and, in some cases, middle school fiction.  All contain violence to some degree.

The Cry of the Icemark, (fantasy) middle schoolers and young teens

The Percy Jackson series, middle schoolers (officially)

Harry Potter

The entire Redwall series, suitable from about the age of six up – every single story involves at least one major fight of some kind

Eragon (YA)

The first book of the Cherub series, The Recruit (spy)

Stormbreaker (spy)

Were they on this site, not a single one would be rated M.  The Percy Jackson series in particular has lots of straight ‘violence’ (no qualifiers on the violence).  In terms of graphic violence, only The Recruit comes close to it (parts of The Cry of the Icemark might come close too), and it would still not be rated M if it was on this site as it does not hit the ‘extreme’ side of violence.  Considering that TBBC is definitely less violent than the Cherub series, I will be unhappy to accept an M rating for the story unless Percy Jackson would be rated M, and unless a moderator is able to go through the entire story and pinpoint exact chapters and quotes which would rate the story M as classified as per the regulations of this site of explicit ual content and extreme violence, I would like to be able to remove the ‘M’ status of the story, or for a moderator to do that for me.  The thing is, at the moment, unless one of the moderators works in publishing or in the film industry, I trust my judgement on that more than the mod’s judgement at the moment, and since the original moderator clearly did not give a properly reasoned response (the likelihood of the moderator even looking at TBBC before changing its rating has already been discussed in a previous post), I challenge its validity.

Also, if AFF is going to have a much stricter policy on violence ratings than the media industry in pretty much the entirety of the world, it would be nice to know the reasoning behind this.

Thank you.

P.S. Concerning rating stories in general, this is something that has only recently come to my attention, but I think that it is a glitch in the site that needs fixing.  The ual "rated M" tags (, , , and twincest) will not actually take you into the rated M section of the site, but into the regular section of the site.  Furthermore, there are actually stories you can read, with these rated M tags, in the regular section of the site.  What's going on here?