Okay so a thing about "unwritten rules" that people keep sharing is that people don't actually agree on these rules "everyone" allegedly agrees on.
So new folks get told they're doing it wrong because some ill - defined "we" have definitely decided on XYZ, but no one actually decided that. It's just somebody's opinion.
I can't speak for the whole fediverse, but on the wandering shop, our rules are written down. They're on the about page.
And self promotion is explicitly allowed.
@Didi @priyachandwriter but seriously though, I think there's an aspect of this that is essentially - people feeling like they need a reason to dislike things?
Which I get, but paradoxically, honoring our own preferences instead of trying to justify them with objective reasoning actually makes more room for coexistence and the possibility that we are wrong.
@Annalee @Didi @priyachandwriter Yes: “Honoring our own preferences instead of trying to justify them with objective reasoning actually makes more room for coexistence and the possibility that we are wrong.”
It’s like my oft-repeated observation that there are 17 different kinds of novel and every reader is capable of enjoying at most 13 of them. (Numbers arbitrary.) I’ve never been able to finish DUNE, but I also believe that it’s one of the most important SF novels of the 20th century.
@pnh @Didi @priyachandwriter yeah, weird "writing rules" are definitely an example of this, and even moreso because there's really isn't a canonical list.
There is writing that just doesn't work on a technical level, and work that is gross from a social perspective, but as you note there's also work that's just not for everyone. And that's actually most work, and it's fine, and we can just go ahead and not like things without needing them to be objectively bad.
Annalee
Priya Chand
Didi Chanoch (they/them)
naila moreira
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Dan LK