User blog comment:Furbearingbrick/No More Spinoffs: Desperate Struggle/@comment-7967834-20130512223138/@comment-4099220-20130512235908

You clearly have yet to read any of these pastas that we're blacklisting. Writing about the same thing tends to turn into the same story. We've been doing this a LOT longer than you have, mind you. We've seen more. And, no, most of them are not "creepy as shit", as you say. The popular ones are, all the other spinoffs aren't scary at all and, most of the time, they are horribly written (the exact reason that prompted us to put this rule into effect).

Note: You're right, BEN is an amazing story. However, there's a difference between "expanding upon" and borderline plagiarizing. And, actually, a lot of the spinoffs we see are, in fact, uncreative. True creativity doesn't necessarily stem from new ideas, true. The thing is, is that this inevitably leads to redundancy. Plus, you use a flawed example. There's a lot more room for variation in zombie and ghost stories. 28 Days Later is a shitload different than Night of the Living Dead. The Changeling is also very different from Poltergeist. True, the basis premise is the same ("zombies" and haunted houses, respectively). However, that's where the similarities end. In The Changeling, said specter isn't malicious. In Poltergeist, the spirits are generally evil in motive. In Poltergeist, a little girl gets kidnapped by a spirit. This doesn't happen at all in The Changeling.

It's all in what happens in the story that makes it creative. So two zombie or ghost stories can be vastly different. The thing is, BEN and Zelda pastas essentially are copy/pastes of each other. Most all use the same caps, the same cliches, the same plot elements. All are pretty much carbon copies of each other.

Also, we never called anyone "retarded" for writing a video game pasta. Don't put your own bullshit in our mouths. Plus, where's your proof that we wouldn't be as popular as we are now had we not allowed video game pastas in the first place? While you may be right, it's the well-written video game pastas that made the site popular, not the BEN clones. No one really wants to see those. A reason we put the rule into effect was because the overall quality of these pastas was dramatically decreasing. To be honest, as an admin, I'd probably make an exception to a BEN pasta if it was written to the same caliber of the original. The problem is, I haven't seen one of those yet.

And, no. We aren't denying the users their right to write about whatever they want. They can still do that. It's just that what they are writing may not stay on-site very long. What they don't have the right to do is write godawful stories that crossed the line from "creepy" to "copy".

I'll leave you with this; This rule's been around for a while and no one's even entertained the idea of revolting. You're certainly welcome to try, though. Power to the people.