True, but that’s far easier said than done.
Or at least in a fair and satisfying way.
Rather than codifying stringent clauses on what can be counted as content, why not add "let people do what they want within reason and community review’ as a rule.
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There all ready exists a this not a fluffy list it is just at mods discretion and unknown to us
With in reason is just more vague platitudes. Community flagging has already been abused it would just be worse if the community could just out right ban content
What annoys me honestly is that I see something labeled with tags I like and go to read it, only to siscover that it’s not about fluffies at all but rather these sickie-friend things. The sickie-friends act nothing like fluffies, and the topic of fluffies serves only as a vehicle to present them. Like at this point just go write love letters to Wuhan or something. One story, two, ten, or even a labeled series, would be fine; but these sickie-friend stories are presented as though they’re average offerings and not a weird autistic deviation from this already weird autistic interest. I don’t know, it just irritates the fuck out of me.
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I am inclined to agree.
I myself was curious early on, as I could see a story/saga about how these “fluffy viruses” could be used as bait/exterminator specialistic equipment against ferals, maybe with the story being shown from both the humans deploying them and clarifying what they are and how they work, and the fluffies’, with the herd gradually devolving from their usual carefree, happy frolicking to paranoia of fluffies being actually sickie-munstahs in disguise/not answering calls for help from lost ‘splorin’ babbehs for fear of running into a hidden virus mimicking a foal’s voice.
I honestly would have settled for a more scientific experiment-esque narrative, with fluffies being introduced to test them in a controlled environment.
The series started sinking (in my eyes) when:
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Such talking fluffy-killer viruses were admitted in a fluffy daycare. To add injury to insult, said virus used scissors to skin a fluffy alive.
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Despite this and many other incidents, these living viruses seemingly overshadow fluffies as pets.
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After the scissoring, the scientist/owner of the virus faced legal consequences, but after 1 day of her mother (who later got transformed into one of those viruses, I might add) actually being miffed at the virus trying to kill her pet fluffy, she went on her way as if nothing had happened.
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This is a personal one, so take it with a massive grain of salt. Too much fanservice.
I get it, BFM101’s Josef Mongola is popular.
But he is not the only goddamn abuser doctor character out there. I already heavily dislike when characters who have died, thus fulfilling their character arc, come back to life for specials/parallel universes/afterlife shenanigans, because I feel like they should be left buried. They did their part, served their role for the in-universe continuity (it was also my main gripe with Crimson’s daughter literally being a genderbent copypaste of her father without the abusive experiments backstory, which just felt like an attempt to bring Crimson back because people like him). Excessive resurrection leads to infamous cases such as WILLIAM FUCKING AFTON. (Again, this is far more personal than the previous points, it’s not meant to be hateful towards anyone, not BFM, not FluffySomething. Just A-S being a crotchety old asshat.)
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It’s nuts I’ve never even heard of this.
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I would make a joke about that fact, but I don’t want to wake the beast.
It’s not surprising, I’ve missed a few sagas myself, only to find out about them in other posts.
I’m particular about what I read but with all that I’m shocked that I’ve somehow avoided it, even through osmosis.
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I tend to give a fair shot to most works, even those I feel may not be my cup of tea (ignoring a certain robot whose works I’ve come to respect after refusing to read them for too much time).
We all appreciate all the hard work you guys put into this, but there’s something I mentioned in a DM with Oculus … If the different mods have different guidelines, it’s fully possible for a user to get the go-ahead from one mod only to be shut down by another, due to these different guidelines. So it’s a bit of a concern.
Would it not be okay to at least try my idea? Write up a list of common fluffy traits - not “essential” or “must-have” traits, mind you, but “common”. My fluffies don’t shit uncontrollably nor are they particularly fragile yet they read as fluffy just fine, so those traits clearly aren’t mandatory, but they are very commonly depicted. If anything, the super negative traits like “racist” and “eat the foals they dislike” can be in an “abuse-centric divergences” category or something so people know “oh, that’s more of an abuse works thing” and don’t get confused about fluffies being both naive cuddle-balls and baby-killing assholes.
Then just mention that “if it doesn’t have at least some of these traits it won’t read as a fluffy subspecies, much less a regular fluffy”. There’s no need for an absolute must-have or Perfect Fluffy Depiction, just “here’s some stuff fluffies usually have, try to have at least 3 of these 18 traits for your new species”.
If you mods struggle to decide on what to put, then maybe you could even open a discussion and ask what we users think are essential fluffy traits! That should make sure we have a good pool of traits, even if some of the traits commented may be “deserve to be decapitated” or “whiny babies (just like the users)”. You don’t have to figure all this stuff out alone just because you’re mods!
PS:
Yeah the bestest-sicky-friends are a weird series. I tried reading some of it, but since the viruses have names like SL-1C0-FV and insist on pronouncing the whole thing every time they talk, it was really hard to get invested. They kinda remind me of baby shows.
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I’ll admit to overusing Josef and Crimson, and I’ve been open that Scarlett is mostly a way to use Crimson past his death point. But hopefully I can do something different with her down the line
I’d be as pessimistic if Karn wasn’t a mod. But he’s holding the line incredibly well and I believe in his judgment.
This isn’t to lessen the role of the other mods.
The community is autistic, it does autistic things. Let the handlers handle it when it acts up. Officially restricting things is not necessary.
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mcgee on it again 
You keep saying that.
Mod discretion is not a master list.
The mods, like all of us, have slightly different views on what flavor of semi-retarded mutant horse-pig-gerbal thing is/is not a fluffy.
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How would it not be better to have a known standard and not just rely on a standard that can shift on a whim
@staff if this suffices for the general guideline for what fluffies are, can it be pinned in the FAQ or referenced somewhere.
Failing that I will write the most unsalted mashed potatoes entry so people’s feelings don’t get hurt.
Either way I will do my part to resolve this non-issue.
I personally think it’s an apt if slightly combative breakdown.
Your wikis are very informative as long as people are willing/able to read between the lines.
Also I’m not trying to get ahead of myself. but I’m currently brainstorming something with staff.
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Sounds like a plan, man.
Such a list already exists somewhere and we’ve held many public discussions about it as well. In fact, I’d argue any fluffy writer already puts at least 3 out of those 18 traits into any work of fiction. The problem becomes that there’s users who refuse to accept 5 or more of the traits in that list, and any work associated with one of them gets highly criticized.
I also understand your worry about the “being told okay by one mod but denied by another”, though I feel as if that’s easily resolved as we have active discussions about things of that nature in our team chat. No user would end up banned or otherwise penalized if he did something that someone else allowed, and if he did, it would be reversed.