Dearest Members,

I have been chewing this option for quite a long time and decided to submit this idea first to all Moderators and then to you all because of a very funny episode that involved directly myself and one of my stories.

How much safe do you all feel to let your stories visible (and "grabbable", excuse the neologism -) by anyone? Honestly, anyone with an internet connection and a good use of google could find your story here, read it, copy and paste it and post it somewhere on an unknown forum and you'll never find out!

We have been all witnesses to some cases of plagiarism in the past, especially on ewfn.

What would be your opinion on the matter?

Please, join the poll and leave your comments: your voice counts to us and we want to do what we all as a community feel it is the best for us.

Cheers

:bye:

I did this on Tainted Reality because back when we were still on EWFN someone had posted a story they had read on another Elijah forum and posted as their own work, and even recieved awards for it. Then when I got back to A&F I see stories on there that someone on EWFN wrote, and I don't think it was the same person posting it on the other site. JB, Fab, and Knivey have chose to do this on fangirl also.

It is a shame that it must come down to this, but I honestly do think it would be a good idea. No one likes to see their stories posted elsewhere by some complete and random stranger.

Anyway, so my vote is all for going to a 'Members Only' place.

I haven't voted yet, because this question is not easy as it seems.
I'm gathering my pros and cons, and this is what I got so far:

Pro's of a Members Only Forum:

In a "closed" forum, members feel safer and more protected. Ninque Elen pointed out that it does not prevent plagiarism, because it just takes five minutes to copy and paste from the forum page to a new Word document, but I think that, closing the forum could at least decrease this phenomenon.
Plagiarism does not mean to me just "copy" every single word of a story, but also to steal an idea that could be particulartly original.
I am not so paranoid to believe the world is full of people ready to snag our work, but I am not even so naive to think this could never happen.

Con's of a Members Only Forum:

Not all the lurkers reading stories do it every day, or find it necessary for their survival. Closing the access to lurkers could decrease the frequentation to the forum.
I do not check out many Fanfic Forums, but I happened to take a look at some once in a while; I must confess that it is a bit annoying to be shut away; I don't feel like registering to every given forum, so, I just give up, and forget about it.

But, think about it:
lurkers cannot post their opinions; as to say, decisions we make, even now, tend to take into consideration just our members, because it's them who show interest in our work. What do they bring to us?

(Sorry, lurkers out there, I don't mean to be offensive, believe me!)

If I were not a registered member, but happened to check this site every day, and suddenly, could not do it anymore, I would simply register.
We could run the risk to "open the gates" to a flow of new incomers, but honestly, I don't think so. And anyway, we have rules and everyone is meant to respect them. Ten members or five hundred, it is just a matter of not to break any rule.

On the other hand, I wanted (and here, "I" means me, Mena, blame my personal paranoia) the Members List to be Password Protected. Why? Because it leads to our pictures, Live Journals, and MSN identities. It is true, it is our choice to share this information, but again, it has not much to do with fiction:
every bored Internet user could surf through it and take a look at it, and I don't know if this pleases me.

That section has been shielded, and it is enough to me. Stories are slightly different, because I think that it's more logical that they can be shared.

Ok, I gave my two cents.
This is why I haven't expressed my opinion through a vote, yet. I need to think about it. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

Cheers,

Mena

Members Only is a brilliant idea. So you can guess what I'll be voting for.

Louise.
xx
:love:

I think that would be a good idea. I've see this plagiarism thing happening many times and it could be good to do something to make it less frequent.
Regarding the lurkers, if they really want to keep reading the stories that we have here and such, they'll become members, which would help the community grow for a while.

I've been fortunate enough to never have to experience with plagiarism.

But i agree with Mena, on both sides of her post.

I don't really know, so i'm going to think about it and then vote.

:love:

I don't think making it a members only site will stop plagurism. It's a risk we all take, even though it is very annoying, and upsetting, but stopping lurkers is a good idea, because you might get some comments back. Shrugs.

What a very interesting thing to consider... I'll be honest, I hadn't even realized this was happening. I'm a very sheltered being, I guess. I tend to stay here where I'm "comfortable" and not visit many other forum sites. :blush:

I feel that if it's come to the point that the question must be asked, then it is probably for a necessary reason. Therefore, I believe it should become members-only.

A further update on the subject.

We are keeping the poll open for some other time.
I thank all the people who joined and expressed their mind so far, but on a total of around 400 members only 22 votes are yet few to take a definitive decision.

We count on getting more opinions and preferences before we go ahead with the change, that so far seems to be univoque.

Thanks for your attention.
:love:

I agree with Mena, I couldn't have expressed my feelings better. I mean, it's not such a big deal to register if you visit a site frequently, is it? So I'm pro members only.

I think it's a good idea, but not if it's done like for example at the A&F board, where there is for unregistered users no trace as to what they would find in the FF section.

The information threads etc. should stay online, such things as archives etc. to tease ppl more and give them a hint to what they can expect. ;)

Okay, I'm extremely new in this, but as a member AND a writer, I think I should let you all know what I think about this. I never considered the idea of having one of my stories plagiarised (sp?). It could happen to me a thousand times and unless I stumble with the particular story I would never know. If a member only forum for fan fiction gives us writers at least a slight certainty that what probably took us months of work (not to mention research in some special cases) won't be stolen, then I'm up for it. I hope my opinion helps this matter in any way. :yes:

I'd say it's a good idea. The only problem with that it is that it might encourage more people to join just to read the stories (or perhaps steal them). So that might pile up on usernames that are never used...still, at least you'd have an email address to warn other sites with in case someone steals.

Go for it!