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F(uu)MA | Guide to OT | CLOW | Resources | Contacts
Released: February 16, 2001
Last Updated: March 3, 2002
(rewrite concerned with admin change)
About This Document
Welcome to the CLAMP Fanfiction Mailing List, one of the best places to read and post CLAMP-based fanfiction on the Net! Thanks for joining us in our insanity. This document is a guide to the established rules and customs of the list. It's called the F(uu)MA, for "Frequently Made Announcements," because it was created to spare the admin and other long-time list members from constantly having to point the finger at people who are breaking these simple rules. (Why are there two "u"s in the title? Because you and you <indicates new list members> are supposed to read it.) Don't be afraid - most of these rules and guidelines are fairly straightforward, and I'll try to explain them as painlessly as possible. So if you've just joined the list, please take a few minutes to read this document, and then bookmark it for future reference. If you DON'T READ THIS, you won't know what kind of things are likely get you into trouble. ^_^
Because you chose to subscribe to this mailing list, I assume that you have a basic familiarity with who CLAMP are, what they do, what anime and manga in general are, and what fanfiction is all about. If for any reason you don't know these things, you have two choices: lurk silently on the list, be very confused for a while, and hope to eventually figure things out, or visit some of the sites listed on the Resources page.
This document is divided into the following sections:
- About This Document (you are here)
- General List Info (about the CFFML, subscribing and unsubscribing, etc.)
- List Rules (what should and shouldn't be posted to the list)
- Posting Guidelines (suggestions for how to be a good ML citizen and how to make your fics as friendly to readers as possible)
- Guide to OT (what is off topic for the list - separate page)
- Resources (fanfiction and CLAMP resources)
Some of the information is taken from the original CLAMP Fanfiction Mailing List page and from the welcome mailing that you should have received upon subscribing to the list. The rest is either generally accepted Net politeness or posting recommendations from the admin as a fellow reader and writer of CLAMP fics. I'll try to make as clear as possible what are actual list Rules and what are merely guidelines.
Please send any comments or questions that should be added to this post to Beth Winter at cffml@extenuation.net, not to the list itself. Thank you!
The CLAMP Fanfiction Mailing List was founded by Tin Mandigma, and is currently being administered by Beth Winter (cffml@extenuation.net). It exists to provide a forum for CLAMP fans to post and discuss fanfiction relating to any of CLAMP's manga or anime works. Due to at-times mature subject matter, including fanfics that depict sexual situations of various persuasions, this list is recommended for readers who are 17 or older. The admin asks that underage list members consider themselves to be here on their own recognizance - please read responsibly and respect the adult-only labels.
The list is run through YahooGroups, which is probably the largest mailing list service in existence at present. To change your mail options, go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/ and log in with your email address and your YahooGroups password. (If you joined when YahooGroups was eGroups, you may need to get a Yahoo ID to log in.) On your "My Groups" page, you can switch between receiving individual mails from the list or a digest version, where all the mails come in one large message that you get only once a day. You can also unsubscribe from the list on that page or from the main CFFML page, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cffml. From the main page, you can also access various other features of the list, including a file upload site, a shared links page, a calender and database function, and a poll function. (Please don't go crazy with the polls, though - remember to stay on-topic.)
Archiving - The CLAMP Fanfiction Archive, currently run by Kerianne, gathers all the fics that have been posted to this list. If you don't want your piece archived - for instance, if it's a work-in-progress and still needs editing - please be sure to label it appropriately. (See the section below on labeling fics.) All archivists and web site maintainers aside from the official archive must get explicit permission from an author before archiving or posting any of her fics.
In addition to the CLAMP Fanfiction Archive, YahooGroups automatically makes all posts to the list available in a publicly accessible archive. As far as the admin knows, we have no power to control or alter whatever is stored in that archive. Aside from receiving individual messages and digest versions, you can also set your account to "no messages/web read only" and follow the list via the archive, which is available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cffml/messages/.
These are the official Rules of the list, as laid down by its creator, Tin-sama. Break them at your peril. For most of these Rules, there's some leeway: you'll get a couple of polite reminders or pokes, either from other list members or from the admin. However, persistant or particularly obnoxious flouting of these Rules will sooner or later earn you a Warning, which may be public or private, depending on what the admin feels is appropriate at the time. Following that Warning, the next infraction will generally result in your temporary banishment from the list, while the third infraction means permanent eviction. (The exception to this is plagiarism, which, if proven, will result in your immediate removal from the list.)
While the admin will make every attempt to be fair, this is a reasonably enlightened dictatorship, not a court of law. If the admin or the list owner feels that somebody has deliberately and gratuitously offended against these Rules, due process may be cut short. In the end, the list owner's word is the sole governing principle.
1. This list is for the posting of CLAMP-based fanfiction and fanfiction-related discussion ONLY. Anything else is off-topic and should be avoided. Off-topic subjects include (but are not limited to) series discussion, speculation, and analysis; posts about manga artists and voice actors; sale or auction announcements for any sort of merchandise; virus warnings, petitions, and other sorts of spam; and personal chatter. It's okay to include an off-topic comment in a primarily on-topic post, but if the thread becomes more off-topic than on-, it's time to take it to private email. (If you have any doubts as to whether or not a post is off-topic, please check out the CFFML's guide to OT.)
So what's on-topic? Fanfiction is always good. Fanfiction (in the more general sense used on the Net) can be prose, poetry, scripts, vidfics, or songs. The only requirement for fics on this list is that they have something to do with some work or works by CLAMP - crossovers are fine, for instance, as long as the CLAMP characters play a more significant role than just faces in a crowd scene. See "Posting Guidelines" below for more information about posting your fic.
Comments and criticisms of posted fics are good too. Most authors crave comments on their work. Whether it's a brief post saying "I liked it!" or a detailed analysis of the piece, C&Cs are always welcome on the list. However, be sure to check the author's post for her wishes regarding comments. Some authors prefer to have critiques sent to them privately, while others only welcome comments on certain aspects of their work. Please try to respect the author's requests.
Other happy additions to the list include fic challenges (in which one person throws out an idea for other people to write about), recommendations or reviews of off-list works, discussion about the craft of writing fanfics in general and issues with CLAMP fics in particular, and announcements of fanfic contests. Some people like to post personal introductions, either when they join the list or before posting their first fic. Plugs for your web site are fine too, as long as the site is CLAMP-fic-related in some way and the plugging isn't too overdone. It's also acceptable to post update notices about the current state of your fic projects and to announce fics posted to your site rather than sent to the list. Another type of message asks for help in writing a fic, either calling for beta-readers or requesting background information about a particular series. While these last posts are most certainly on-topic, replies to them should be sent to the author by private mail.
For anything else, just use common sense. Ask yourself, "Has it got something to do with fanfics? Is it more about fanfic-related stuff than about, say, the Cardcaptors dub or what I'm doing in school this semester? And is it really of interest to more than one or two other people on the list?" Take a moment to think before you post. You'll do fine. ^_^
Finally, if an off-topic debate does break out, please consider carefully before you add to it. Naturally everyone wants to voice their opinion in such threads, but doing so just makes the noise level worse and encourages more argument. If you really have to have your say, but don't want to feed the fires or have your post picked apart, please include a [FINAL] or [OWARI] tag in the subject line. This indicates that the post is your last word on the subject. Nobody should reply to a post with a [FINAL] tag in the header. At the same time, once you post your [FINAL] word, that's it - you've removed yourself from that conversation and can no longer comment on it in any way. (You can't have your cake and eat it too.)
The admin will do her very best to allow for as much discussion as possible within what can be considered as on-topic. However, she makes no guarantees of consistency. Depending on her perception of the list's overall mood, the amount of recent noise, and the annoyance factor of any given post, marginal threads may be allowed to continue for a while or may be abruptly cut off with a [KILL] tag. Please read through all current posts before adding your comments, especially if an argument has become contentious or long-running, to see whether or not the admin has already killed the thread. Continuing a dead thread will at the very least get you <growled> at; if it's a particularly flagrant continuation, you may get a Warning.
2. Flaming is not allowed on this list. To flame someone is to post a nasty, blistering attack on her, assaulting her taste, personality, morals, appearance, preference in fanfic, or other personal attributes. Flaming is different from criticism: criticism points out something that could be improved - for instance, mistakes in a fanfic or behavior that upsets someone or breaks the list's rules - and then provides courteous suggestions for improvement. Disagreement is not a flame. Politely stating that some some aspect of a posted fic doesn't work for you is not a flame. Telling someone that she must be a moron and a bottom-feeding loser with no life because she enjoys "Syaoran-in-bondage" fics is a flame. The CFFML likes to maintain a cheerful, friendly, welcoming atmosphere. Even if you are pyrokinetic by nature, please restrain yourself on this list. Any member who posts a flame or returns a flamer's flame on the list will be Warned on the first infraction.
As a corollary to the above Rule: the CFFML is open to posts that contain male and/or female homosexual themes. (Considering the nature of many of CLAMP's works, it would be nearly impossible for it to be otherwise.) While sexually explicit fics must be labeled (see below), all other labeling is at the option of the author. If you feel that you're likely to be traumatized by stumbling onto an unmarked boy- or girl-love fic, you might want to unsubscribe. Complaints about the presence of gay-themed material will find little sympathy, and anti-yaoi or -yuri flames will not be tolerated.
3. As mentioned above, all sexually explicit fanfics must be labeled in the subject line of the email. Labeling should be as follows: [Lemon] for male-female sex, [Yaoi] for male-male sex, and [Yuri] for female-female sex. If more than one type of sex is present in the fic, all the appropriate labels should be used. Any of the three labels indicates an adult-rated (NC-17 or X) story, which should only be read by list members who are of legal age to read such things in their home country. As a courtesy to readers, authors may choose to include other labels on their fanfics as well. Please see the "Posting Guidelines" below for suggestions on labeling and rating fics.
4. Do not send anything to the list as an attachment. All fanfics should be sent as plain text pasted into the body of your email message; do not enclose them as Word files or any other sort of word processing document. Also, don't send fanart, scans, software, or any other sort of computer file to the list. There's a file upload area on the YahooGroups CFFML pages, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cffml/files - you can put your files there, as long as they're fanfic-related, or you can post them on your own site and send an email to the list with your URL.
5. Plagiarism, or passing another person's work off as your own, is not acceptable on this list (or anywhere else, for that matter). Even though all fanfics are ultimately derived from someone else's original work, they still are the result of an individual's love and hard labor and an expression of her own unique creativity. While it's common to unwittingly absorb individual lines and images, even situations and themes from other writers' fanfics, willfully pirating whole portions of another's text crosses that line. Any list member who is found to have substantially stolen another author's work will be removed from the list with no warning.
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Aside from the core Rules given above, the CFFML is unmoderated, which means there's no official "policing" of posts to the list. Therefore, everything that follows hereafter is either a suggestion ("Posting Guidelines") or informational material ("Resources"). No one will throw you off the list for ignoring these recommendations or for asking questions that have already been answered by this post, but you may get complaints from the other list members or pokes from the admin, especially for breaches of netiquette. The admin strongly suggests that you read and give some consideration to the issues raised below.
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1. General Netiquette
Netiquette is the standard of polite behavior on the Internet, an almost universally accepted set of guidelines, which, if followed, will help you on your way to being a well-regarded Net-citizen. The first and most important guideline is simply to remember that there is always a person on the other side of the computer screen - in the case of a mailing list, a whole lot of people, most of whom are ultimately strangers to you. Be considerate of others - remember that you're in a public forum and that many list members are probably overwhelmed with email. No matter how cute or dangerously bishounen you are, nobody will appreciate it if you behave annoyingly.
In addition to the same common courtesy that you'd use in your offline life, here are some other good manners, more specific to email. While they may seem insignificant, to people who've been on the Net for a while they can make all the difference between an enjoyable email experience and a painfully frustrating one:
- When replying to someone else's post, quote only the material that's relevant to your reply. Don't quote an entire long message just to add a one-line comment at the end. (Especially don't quote a whole fanfic. Someone might want to hurt you.) A good rule of thumb is that the amount of quoted text should generally not exceed the amount of your reply. And never include someone else's .sig file in your reply unless you're responding to something in the .sig file itself. All this aims to avoid filling up other people's mailboxes.
- To make your reply even easier to read, try to put a line space between the quoted material and your comments. It helps the reader to distinguish who said what.
- If you want to post very short responses to a number of different fics, it's usually best to consolidate them into one message.
- When replying to an email thread that's begun to drift from its original direction, change the subject line of your reply to reflect that. For instance, if a comment about the relative lack of Rg Veda fanfiction on the list has wandered around to speculation about the existence of fics based on CLAMP's doujinshi, the new subject line might say something like: "Doujinshi-based fanfic? (was: re: Rg Veda fics)" And if a thread has migrated all the way to off-topicness, you have three choices: bring it back on-topic by turning the talk around fanfic once more, take the discussion to another list or to private email, or - sometimes hardest of all - simply don't reply.
- Keep your .sig file to a reasonable size. Pretty though it may be, anything over six lines is starting to get excessive. A full-screen ASCII portrait of Kakyou dreaming is right out.
- Don't type in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. It's the visual equivalent of shouting, and after a while it gives people a headache.
- If your email software supports HTML formatting, turn it off! Many people's email programs can't read anything but plain, unadorned ASCII text; messages posted in HTML will be an nearly illegible mass of code. If your program is displaying your replies with italics, colors, variable-sized type, or other formatting, you may be posting in HTML. Check your software's preferences. (Such messages also tend to send Beth into fits of rage. Believe me, you wouldn't want to see that.)
- Finally, try to be considerate in the matter of spoilers. For those who may not know, a spoiler is the revelation of a major plot point in a book, show, or story, frequently relating to the death or dark secret of a character. Because not everyone might be up-to-date in a given series, it's considered courteous to warn readers when there's a possible spoiler in a post - not just in a fanfic, but in a question or comment as well. This can be done by: 1) avoiding spoilers in the subject line, 2) starting off your post with a warning that a spoiler is imminent, and 3) leaving a screen's worth of blank space or filler before you get to the actual spoiler. For handling spoilers in fanfic, see the suggestions on fic-labelling below.
2. Posting fics
In addition to the general Netiquette given above, here are some formatting issues that are peculiar to fanfics:
- Because most people don't write fics in their email program, "special characters" are a common problem. Many word processing programs have an auto-format feature that turns ordinary quotation marks into "smart quotes" (quotation marks that curl inward), double-hyphens into "em-dashes", three periods into ellipses, and so forth. These special characters generally don't translate between computer platforms - if you've never had to slog your way through a fic where all the quotation marks, apostrophes, and ellipses have mysteriously turned into garble, you're very lucky. There are two ways to avoid this problem: either write your fics in a plain text editor (such as SimpleText or BBEdit for the Mac, or Notepad for Windows), or find the auto-format feature of your word processor and turn it off. (If you've turned it off after you've started writing, you'll need to use your program's find-and-replace function to fix the already-formatted characters.)
- Clearly indicated paragraphs help to make fanfics far more readable - especially since they're usually so much longer than the average email. Some word processing programs will automagically indent the first line of a paragraph for you. Unfortunately, this doesn't come through in email either. Even worse, certain programs will turn your nicely tabbed indents into auto-indents (*growl* Word....) if you don't turn the feature off. Try to make sure that your paragraphs are either indented with spaces or actual tabs, or leave a blank line between them, as in this document. (You don't need to do both.)
- Some people's email programs can't process extremely long messages. Huge fics - and in some cases, even huge chapters - might be better received if they're broken into smaller chunks under 25 KB. Be sure to number the parts clearly, so that people can find and read them in the proper order. (See below for more suggestions on numbering fics.)
- It's probably a good idea to send your own fics and your comments on other people's fics to the list as separate posts. (While the admin is all for keeping the amount of noise on the list to reasonable levels by consolidating short fic comments into one post, adding your own fic to that mix will make the archivist's job that much harder.)
Opinions differ widely on how much labeling is preferable and what kinds of things should be labeled. Some writers and readers like minimal labeling, preferring to let the story stand on its own as much as possible. Others like extensive labels and warnings, to ensure that people can read exactly and only what they want to. Ultimately, the choice belongs to the author and should be governed by her taste and what information she feels she needs to communicate. The following section simply points out some of the more common options for labeling and other informational matter typically found on fics.
The subject line is the first thing most people see, so it's an excellent place for labels. However, many email programs allow only a smallish amount of space for viewing subject lines, so if your subject line is too long, all of it might not be visible. It's therefore probably a good idea to limit your subject line labels to only the most essential things: Some likely candidates include:
- [Fic] - This should probably be your first label. While it may seem unnecessary, considering that this is primarily a fic-posting-list, putting this label first lets readers distinguish between actual fics and more general discussions or C&Cs. (And the list's fic archivist will love you for it.)
- [Series] - This is fairly obvious: it's the acronym for the series (singular or plural in the case of crossovers) that your fic is based on: ie, MKR, TB, X/CCD. Unless not knowing the series is essential to some surprise effect of your story, you should include this label, since most readers select which fics to read based on what series they're most interested in. If your story is a crossover, the multiple series tags should make it clear enough, but you may also wish to add a [Crossover] label.
- [Lemon], [Yaoi], [Yuri] - Adult-rated fics must have the appropriate label in their subject line. This is the only absolutely required label. Optionally, you may want to label any non-adult fic with homosexual themes as [shounen ai] or [shoujo ai], as appropriate. This is not required, however - although it is suggested that you include some notice of shounen or shoujo ai content, either in your subject line or at the top of the fic, as a courtesy to readers who would really rather not see one or the other (or both). You may prefer to substitute a pairing for the more general warning: for instance, "TxY" or "S&S," as long as the pairing is clear in context. (S&S could be "Sakura & Syaoran" or "Subaru & Seishirou," for instance, depending on the fic's series label.)
To make very clear exactly which fics are sexually graphic and which merely include homosexual relationships, please reserve the adult labels for adult-rated fics only. So a fic about Tomoyo and Sakura acknowledging shy feelings for each other would be shoujo ai, while one that features Nova blasting all off Hikaru's clothes and then lasciviously seducing her would tend to be yuri. Of course, such things aren't always so cut-and-dried - there's a sliding scale of intimacy and sexuality, and sometimes it can be hard to tell where to draw the line. When in doubt, you might want to consider this "parts" rule as a general guideline: if you're describing unclothed "parts" in a sexual situation, it's an adult-rated fic. Nudity alone is usually not enough, unless the parts in question are lovingly detailed, and neither is offscreen or otherwise concealed sexuality. Kamui and Subaru can roll around beneath the covers all they like, until one (or hopefully both) is lost in a shimmering, expansive infinity, his whole being broken up into butterfly-winged storms of perfect bliss, but if the covers come off or if the reader's allowed to perceive concrete physical details of what's going beneath them, you have passed beyond the "R" rating and entered [Yaoi]-land. (Some authors use the [Lime] label to indicate that the story skirts the edges of adult territory but don't quite fall in.) And if you don't know what I mean by "parts"...um, should you really be writing these kinds of fics?
- Title and part number - With multi-part fics especially, it helps readers and archivists immensely if you have a consistent title on your fic from the very beginning. Of course, it's not always possible - sometimes inspiration strikes three or four chapters into the story - but it's preferable. At least try to have a working title; stories called "untitled fic" or "darkfic" are difficult for readers to keep track of. It's also a good idea to note the part or chapter number of each installment, along with the total number of parts, if known: for instance, "Kentarou's Day Out 1/3". If you don't know how many parts your fic will have, use a "?" instead: "Kentarou's Day Out 1/?" (It turned out to be a very long day. ^^) And of course, a single-part story can be marked either 1/1 or [one-shot].
- [No Archive] - As mentioned in the General List Info section above, all fics posted to this list will be archived in the CLAMP Fanfiction Archive. If you don't want your fic archived, be sure to put this label on it, preferably near the front of the subject line so it doesn't get cut off. (Please note that this has no effect on the YahooGroups automatic list archive.)
Other optional subject line labels include classification labels such as [Dark], [WAFF], [Humor], [Angst], etc. Alternatively, if you like to put information at the beginning of your story, you might choose to list these descriptors there instead, as keywords. If your fic is a response to a challenge posted to the list, a [Challenge] label might be useful. Use a [Revised] or [Repost] label if you're posting an updated version of your story. Some people also label their fics with a [Spoiler] warning, but realistically almost every fic contains some sort of spoiler. It's more helpful for readers to have a sense of what the spoilers are for, and so you may want to put the spoiler warnings at the top of your story, where you have a little more room. Speaking of which....
Most authors put some kind of informational notes at the top of their story. It's not necessary - some people prefer to leave the openings of their stories uncluttered and spare - but can be helpful to readers. There's a wide variety of things that you can lead off your story with, some of which could equally well be put in an author's note at the end of the story. However, a few recommended options include:
- Context for the story - If your fic is an alternate universe story, which is what most fics end up being, you can let readers know where it branches off from the standard continuity. (Some people also describe where their inspiration for the story came from, although that can usually go at the end of the fic.) In addition, you can give the readers some hint of what themes the fic will deal with or what aspects of the series you plan to focus on. This background can (and probably should) also contain:
- Spoiler warnings - As mentioned above under netiquette, a "spoiler" is a major, frequently traumatic plot point, and providing a warning about any spoilers is a very large courtesy for readers, who frequently haven't read or seen the entire series. It may seem obvious, but we'll say it anyway: don't put a spoiler in your spoiler warning! Saying "This story contains spoilers for the death of character Z" defeats the whole purpose of the warning. Instead, list specific episodes or books that your story includes spoilers for: for example, X12, or the whole first season of CCS. (If you don't remember exactly when the events in question happened, just give the last book or episode that you personally have seen.) And if you're giving a magazine issue, consider including the year - for instance, the December 2000 Asuka - bearing in mind that people may very well be reading your archived fic far in the future, when specific issues will probably have been forgotten. Because of that, you may instead want to give the tankoubon those events will eventually appear in - in the example above, X16.
- Keywords and pairings - The "Dark," "WAFF," "Humor," "Angst," etc tags mentioned in the subject line section can usually just as well go here, along with any featured pairings. Here are some definitions of commonly used keywords:
- Angst - heavy drama, generally involving some emotional torture of the characters
- Dark - even heavier than angst - more often than not some or all of the main characters die, and the ending is unrelievedly tragic
- Deathfic - a fic where the main purpose is to portray the death of a particular character and other characters' responses to it
- Romance - introduces or advances a romantic relationship between one or more characters
- WAFF - "Warm and fuzzy feelings"; usually a romantic fic that leaves one feeling a shamelessly happy glow
- PWP - "Plot? What plot?"; an adult fic featuring sex for the sole purpose of sex
- Humor - any kind of funny stuff
- Songfic - a fic where the author's prose is interspersed with lyrics of an appropriate song
- Vidfic - a fic that attempts to create a "music video" effect by alternating lyrics with descriptions of appropriate images or character actions
- Filk - a rewording of the song itself, so that it's either being sung by a character or tells part of the story of the manga or anime
- Poem - should be obvious enough ^^
- Ratings - Unlike the adult tags, ratings are purely optional. Their main function is to provide some indication of how mature a fic's subject matter is, but in practice applying a rating is pretty much subjective and open to interpretation, since there isn't any sort of fanfic advisory board to set a standard. As a general rule, though, the usual ratings (based on the U.S. movie rating system) go something like this:
- G - General audience: suitable for readers of all ages [usually contains only the most cartoonish violence and no bad language or sexual references]
- PG - Parental guidance: not for very young children [may contain mild violence and bad language]
- PG-13 - Parental guidance for 13 and under: not for most readers 13 and under [may contain substantial violence, sexual innuendo, and bad language]
- R - Restricted: not for most readers 17 and under [may contain graphic violence, sexual situations, extreme language, and disturbing subject matter]
- NC-17 - no one under 18 should read [contains very graphic violence, explicit sex, extremely disturbing situations; distinguished from X-rated material by having more to it than pure titillation]
- X - no one under 18 should read [usually because of almost unadulterated and graphic sexual content]
(Let's be realistic - it's almost one hundred percent certain that no parent really supervises the reading of fanfic on the Net. Hence these ratings are largely useless except to give readers some sense of a fic's flavor, and to allow those who either seek out or avoid adult-rated fics to find what they're looking for.)
- Archive blurb - A one- or two-line description of your story is very helpful for the fic archivist. Of course, trying to describe your story without spoiling it is an art in and of itself. ^^
- Disclaimer - This is a brief note acknowledging the original creators of the series and characters - on this list, generally CLAMP. A disclaimer really only needs to be a couple of lines long; it's meant to show respect for the artists and to reaffirm their copyright in the face of your well-meaning but at-best quasi-legal infringement.
- Contact info - Be sure to put your name or pen name somewhere on your story, preferably near the title! Because it's possible for your fic text to get separated from the email header, you should probably include your email address too, either with your name or in your .sig file. (This is the reason why it's also a good idea to put the fic title and part number in the body of the email, as well as in the subject line.)
- Previous parts - If your fic is a multi-part story and it's been a long time since you've posted a chapter, it'll help new readers greatly if you provide a link to the earlier parts of your fic. If you don't have a web site of your own, you can point them to the relevant pages at the CLAMP Fanfiction Archive or at the CFFML archive at YahooGroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cffml/messages/ ).
- Glossary - If you choose to include words and phrases in Japanese (or another language), it's a good idea to offer translations, either at the beginning of the fic or at its end.
If you've been a good newbie and your head is currently spinning from reading all the way down here, you have the admin and list owner's sincerest thanks for being a responsible denizen. *g* Don't feel daunted - we don't bite (much), and we really hope you'll enjoy being a part of the list. Do refer back to this F(uu)MA if you have any questions - chances are the answers you need are already here. If not, feel free to email the admin.
Always remember to exercise common sense and discretion when posting and/or reading fics. Respect your fellow listmates and yourself, and everyone will be happy. ^^
Have fun!
Beth Winter, cffml@extenuation.net
Original author: N-chan, firecat@gti.net
F(uu)MA written with help from Shi-chan, silver_phoenix@usa.net
F(uu)MA | Guide to OT | CLOW | Resources | Contacts
