So, those Fimfiction rule changes, then...

...I think they're pretty reasonable.

These rule changes.

Yes, it's true to point out (as some have done) that taken entirely literally the rules are completely unworkable, since "no illegal content" without specifying a jurisdiction is pointless and since plenty of immoral things throughout history have been legal (the opposite also applies). Also since we're all posting – or at least downloading and reading – unauthorised fanfiction using someone else's IP.

I slogged through the entire comments section as it stood at time of writing (238 comments) and much of it was what you'd expect an active site post comments section to be – including certain people doing their level best to bait knighty and the other site staff by being as jerkish as they could manage. I thought the moderators handled it well and gave confidence in their qualifications to be moderators.

However, I did get a small reward after reading through that lot: this comment by Emtu. I would absolutely love for Fimfiction to have a foalcon tag so I can block it. As long-time readers know, I detest foalcon. It's one of the extremely few types of ponyfic I will never knowingly read, and it's something that would provoke an instant DNF if it appeared unannounced in a story I was reading.

I've made no secret of the fact that if I were the owner of Fimfiction and not knighty, I would not have allowed foalcon at all. (Though I grant that defining it precisely is non-trivial.) But knighty clearly doesn't feel that way, so I either have to find ways to live with it or leave Fimfiction – which is too high a price given all the good it's done me. A blockable tag would seem a good way forward.

Going back to a more general point, I'm not the only one who uses MLP in general as an escape. For Celestia's sake, I see more than enough political flamewarring elsewhere in my daily life. So I take care to stay away from the groups that are strongly political in nature, and from participating in comments threads (whether on stories or on blogs) that have gone the same way.

But as for those rule changes? As someone said in the comments, there's the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And if Fimfiction operates in the spirit of these new rules, I think that will be a good thing all round.