The !salt Rules Discussion Thread

Hello Boobies, Webmaster here (yes, my "can post as myself" kingdom is expanding).

As you might have heard, now that we can have sidebars (and now that our user base is growing), it's time to start discussing both which "official categories" every board should have, and also get more specific about rules and stuff.

I wanted to begin with !salt because... well, it's The Most Dangerous board we have. From great salt comes great responsibility, and so (without calling anyone out, because this is not what we're here for and also, no one knows who you are anyway), I wanted to start proposing and discussing guidelines.

More inside!

published: about 4 years ago

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The !salt Rules Discussion Thread

Hello Boobies, Webmaster here (yes, my "can post as myself" kingdom is expanding).

More inside!

So, here's some things that we had discussed in the past:

Unless someone is a reasonably-known figure, avoid discussing people by name and putting their posts/tweets on blasts. This is the one board where screenshotting (with blocked out names) rather than embedding is preferable. If you're using a tweet to illustrate a generic situation/behavior rather than discussing a specific person, use your best judgement.
When a post is discussing a situation that happened within the community, you have two options:
- Let enough time pass that other community-members won't feel "vagued" about, and then discuss the behavior more generally.

Explicitly acknowledge what happened, and word your comment carefully, with the full expectation that the person might see it and react. While it might not be in the spirit of !salt, the Situation/Behavior/Impact framework above can be useful to discuss the topic in terms of the impact the discussion had on you, as opposed to associating ill intent to the person doing the behavior.

Speaking of point 2, and acknowledging things that happen within the community, part of what prompted Finally Doing This was someone reaching out to me about this thread explicitly linking to a fanfic being described as "mediocre".

The Anonymous Anon felt that, while discussing mediocre fics is time-tested tradition and something we have all done, explicitly linking to the story and putting it on blast in a public forum (even a semi-public one like Boba) creates an environment where people fear their fanfic might be the next one to be publicly lambasted. And, of course, there's always the possibility that OP themselves might with time end up stumbling upon the thread.

Because of this, I'd also like to propose a rule about not discussing specific instances of fanworks. Of course, before setting this in stone (though nothing ever is), I'd like to crowdsource better heuristic and guidelines for it: are there situation/cases where you feel a public discussion is warranted? What should the guidelines on discussing a specific work be like?

🤔 if the fanwork is part of larger issue (i.e. plagiarism, actually harassing a person via fanworks) i can see no problem with talking about it. I think in the op's case it was less about the fic and more about the authors actions.

But that kind of brings to question, would a list of "badfic i enjoyed" be okay on boba? Would that be treated differently than a thread of cult classics that were so bad that people enjoyed?

OP
I think that might be very dependent on what the original intent of the fic was (and what the reaction of the author at having people calling it a bad fic also was, in case it's already acknowledged as such). I mean, some fics are known for being bad, and written to be so.
Talking about My Immortal as badfic isn't out of line. Talking about The Room as a B-Movie (or any other mainstream work as such) isn't out of line.
1. So the idea is that, unless a fic is self labeled as bad/troll fic maybe err on not calling it that?
  1. OP
    I think this is definitely one of those cases where there's a difference between a "NEVER DO THIS rule" vs a "please think about what you're doing and try to be nice guideline". !salt will ruffle some feathers sometimes, and we as a community can signal when something went too far without having
    to point to a specific rule. "Not everything should be written in stone" is what I'm saying. There's stuff we can agree should not be done because it really sets the bad tone, and there's stuff we might be personally uncomfortable with we can grin and bear most of the time.
    I welcome people opinions on this, for real, because it's easy for me to overindex on what I like/don't like in public discussion. Generally, I want to try and model good behavior more than I want to forbid bad behavior, if that makes sense.
    1. Makes sense, be more celebrate what you like than berate the shit you dislike

The chilling effect of hater threads on posting fanwork for fear you might be heavily criticized next is definitely something that should be avoided. But at the same time I wonder... I’ve seen a lot of threads here and there about people feeling bad when they post stuff that gets ignored.

If there’s kind of an attitude of “People here feel free to actually give criticism when they feel like it” then maybe silence won’t be interpreted as hated as much... Probably the balance between those things isn’t worth it though

Background context: I loved sporking stuff back in the day and if someone sporked my fic or left hater comments about specifically the writing quality/structure/etc of the fic I’d take it well, but I recognize my experiences are not a monolith and people have very different attitudes to criticism.
As the environment of fandom changes to become more hostile overall, it makes sense that people feel more sensitive to criticism...
1. OP
  Thanks for the context! I think that the environment we're in makes a lot of difference. It's important, in my opinion, to acknowledge that we live in times where bad-faith criticism and harassment are the status quo, and that this space is also born as a direct escape from that.
  It's true that criticism is important, and there definitely has to be space for that. I think, however, if we want that criticism we should make explicit boundaries on how it should be given. There's a difference between tearing down and giving an opinion.
  1. Yeah for sure although it is highly subjective for the person receiving the criticism. I worry a lot about creating an unbalanced space, because in my experience of places that encourage “good vibes only!” it can lead to the absence being felt more keenly and the increase of backhandedness
    1. +1
2. I think sporking is a tradition best left in the past, but I think it would be a pity if we couldn't be salty over popular fics by name.
  1. Question! What would be considered "popular" like... "does it have a wiki article?" A la HPMoR (in which case a douche could make one for the fic which uh... 😬) kudos/bookmarks/comments isn't a good marker either
  2. OP
    One thing to consider: there's going to be a time when people will be able to make their own spaces on BobaBoard, and when the website will be bigger, and at that point the impact of someone making a board where that is ok will be much different, and our guidelines might need to be rediscussed.
    In general, as the website is small, I believe the impact of single threads and boards on the community's culture is much larger. Counter-intuitevely, maybe, this brings me to think it's better to be more cautious now and widen up our rules later.
    Eventually if one board among 1000s is a toxic cesspool (within limits) that has a much different impact than if one among 30 had that feeling, especially since right now they're all under a central (though very lax) administration.
OP
Can you elaborate a bit more?
1. So it seems a lot of the time that people are interpreting their posts getting ignored as [Everyone hated that] and IMO this is in part because of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, dont say anything” being reversed to “If you don’t say anything, you don’t have anything nice to say”
  But if it’s a culture where if people have something not-nice to say, they say it, by that logic the absence of a mean comment can also be implying that nobody has anything bad to say either.
  Although of course maybe its worse for nobody to have anything to say at all, good or bad...
  1. OP
    I think that is more true as a general consideration than as a !salt rule specifically. From what I've witnessed on BB it seems to me (who, I acknowledge, can have a skewed view) that people have usually felt free to disagree when needed.
  2. the overall attitude i've been approaching bobaboard with is: instead of a 'if you don't have anything nice to say...' philosophy, a 'if you can't say it nicely...' one, and i think that approach would probably work as one of the site's 'official guidelines'
    1. TBH I've seen a lot of my squicks on boba but its simple enough for me to mute / hide it so I don't have to engage in content that I'm not comfy with. Same if convos get too deep for me I can just nope and mute
      1. I’m looking forward to word/subthread/comment muting because often the stuff I can’t stand appears in the comments section only and it’s like stepping directly on a landmine
    2. OP
      This rings true with what I want the culture to be, and I agree it would be generally a good guideline to make explicit.
    3. "people have opinions; conflict is inevitable sooner or later; fight fair."
      
      I appreciate when I can find/make spaces where I don't have to bend over backwards to think about every possible interpretation of what I've said and where some healthy conflict is expected - I think it's harder the more open the space gets but I think that's also a norm that can be set early to a certain extent.

i do wonder whether live-blogging badfic without identifying features might still be okay? that thread was doing pretty well avoiding specifics (aside from the fact that there was a link)

part of me really likes that idea, but i wonder if vagueness would be enough to keep people from feeling singled out, plus the fact that if you can't link the fic or quote excerpts from it, after a while all badfic liveblogs would start sounding the same
1. paradoxically that might discourage them 😂
Call me a killjoy, but I feel like live-blogging badfic or bringing back sporking isn’t a good look? It just smells too much like old fandom’s elitist culture, and risks isolating folks who might worry their work could be next on the chopping block
1. Even without a link or name or even fandom of the fic, I know I personally would be aghast if someone live-blogged their reading of my fiction under the guise of it being bad. And I would certainly think twice about a) sharing fic here and b) sharing fic at all.
  1. I think there’s just a huge difference between making fun of mainstream media where lots of money went into it and different people worked on said thing, and poking fun at a labor of love one person worked on for free.
    1. Agreed with this. I think I have thick enough skin, especially in current social media times where every day I see some version of "people that like (description of thing I enjoy) should die" with thousands of likes. But if I saw my work posted here it'd hit different. Like... et tu, Boba?
      Lately even on the side of mainstream media I think twice about what I'm about to say, and how I say it. If there's nothing to gain from my comment I prefer to skip it. In social media you never know who your comment is going to reach 🤷
2. I completely agree. I already lived through old fandom elitist culture of blogs that curated "badfic" to make fun of in the guise of "critique", I don't care to live through it again. Its just cringe culture under a different name.

I did not know this was a thing and I have some feelings about it...

I don’t mind there being a post like this, however I do feel that linking the fic was a bit crass. Even more so when someone began liveblogging it. I feel like the liveblog could have been kept in !liveblogging told lessen the impact of “mediocrity” (is that the right word?)

I don’t mind hate reading fic, novels, and all types of stories but people do have to be aware of how they are projecting themselves when speaking about it.

I think that it’s fare to link to posts via discord. That way it puts more liability on the poster than just boba. Like, if you really want to talk trash and link something, you will also be exposed in doing so. It’s the users risk. But that’s just me.

Hm now I wonder what would happen if someone started liveblogging a fanfic in !liveblogging only to realize they absolutely hated it X number of chapters in. Would it have the same impact there as having a fic liveblogged here?
I think posting something in !salt definitely signals a certain intent coming in that !liveblogging does not, but if the end result is the same sort of posts... Well hopefully this hypothetical won't come to pass.
1. The wonder of literature is that something that won’t work for one person will work for another. If the live blog complains about dubcon, murder, odd pairings, or something ridiculous, it could be an advertisement for someone who likes that sort of thing.
  1. Liveblogs are also honest reviews on fiction. As long as it’s not completely bashing the author/creator, I think a little disappointment is fine.
2. i mean, if i’m coming into something with the expectation that it sucks and i’m trying to tell people how it sucks, i’m much more likely to highlight the worst bits/take a gleeful tone about its suckiness etc
  Whereas for if im liveblogging something that goes bad, i’m much more likely to take a...neutral framing? of my critiques if that makes any sense
  1. Similarly, I have absolutely gone ‘DNF bc i don’t like [thing]’ on liveblogs but I haven’t ever seen someone do that when like, hate reading badfic. You just keep going & keep trashing the thing, even well after the point where you’ve proven the fic isnt to your taste
  2. I think I’m the opposite, which is wild, anon—I get vindictive/uncharitable/etc. as part of the mood whiplash if I’m not expecting to hate something and then it goes south; once I’ve articulated it that way my “Intro: I hate this…” tone is the more neutral one because I know what I’m saying already

”I hate how this made me feel and I want to break down why, because [someone put so much effort into it/it’s well-liked/it came recommended] so I feel delusional for feeling bad” is the kind of mental state I actively like being able to find outside input on; ‘not the place, anon’ being the

ultimate verdict is fine. But I can see myself accidentally running afoul of a hard no-identifiable-information rule in future if the train of thought in my head is “all my friends have the same grudges I do, I want a kind of outsider reality check/perspective I can’t get—oh!” and so wanted to say.

Having this established for fics also makes me wonder about equivalent original fiction—is “I’m going to read this SCP plotline I don’t like because I want to articulate why” like ‘a random fic’ or like ‘a random book’?

And what about the line between ‘a random book’ and fic narrowing altogether in the first place (explicit cross-pollination, low-profile/indie authors, etc.)? Can I compare a novella I don’t like to the author’s fic or is one of these suddenly verboten to discourse on and if so where’s the line?

Is nonfiction just always on the table or is hate-reading a paper like sporking a fic? I think those are the big things that occur to me for just the question of whether “things I often want to share somewhere” cause further complication.