(here from beckerbell) - I got an account on ff.net mid-2000, pre-NC-17 or RPF ban. I wasn't new to fandom or fic; it was just another place to post fic, and seemed interesting enough keep an eye on. For a while it was my main fic-posting place, bridging the gap between mailing lists and lj. Eventually I switched over to lj as my primary fandom access point, but I still upload occasional stories to ff.net even now.
While I know why it has the Pit reputation, and it's not entirely undeserved, it's also misleading; it really depends on the fandom and the authors. There always have been and still are some fantastic authors posting there (it helps if you're a gen fan; most of the good authors remaining on ff.net that I know of are genners, as we don't care so much about the NC-17 ban.) Many of them post on lj & such as well, but not all. And for some fandoms, ff.net is the main fic archive online - especially small fandoms that peaked in the early-2000s mid-years between Geocities Waning and the Rise of LJ. And sure, the percentage of young, inexperienced fans is higher, and the standards for grammar & spelling lower than on the average lj comm; and a lot of the stories are crap. But the diamonds are still worth it.
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Date: 2010-04-15 02:01 am (UTC)While I know why it has the Pit reputation, and it's not entirely undeserved, it's also misleading; it really depends on the fandom and the authors. There always have been and still are some fantastic authors posting there (it helps if you're a gen fan; most of the good authors remaining on ff.net that I know of are genners, as we don't care so much about the NC-17 ban.) Many of them post on lj & such as well, but not all. And for some fandoms, ff.net is the main fic archive online - especially small fandoms that peaked in the early-2000s mid-years between Geocities Waning and the Rise of LJ. And sure, the percentage of young, inexperienced fans is higher, and the standards for grammar & spelling lower than on the average lj comm; and a lot of the stories are crap. But the diamonds are still worth it.