Decent website, one of the better ones for writing
Gotta say, this is a really good website if you’re a minor and looking to share your writing. It’s way safer than some other options out there, and there are a lot of pros, however I’ve been finding more and more cons recently.
There is wonderful art to choose from for your books, as well as a loving community of other writers. But in recent years you’ve started to need a subscription to write at all—as opposed to needing one to publish your work without paying for “review tickets.”
Also, the moderating. This was originally a great way to keep the website safe, by moderators reviewing comments before they were published and stories (to make sure they followed the guidelines, and to give them the appropriate age range).
But.
The moderating and censoring of comments has gotten out of control. With stories, it’s still more or less acceptable, but with comments? No. If you take APT for example, the age rating for that is 6+, and ask any mod and they’ll tell you that they only let through comments appropriate for that age range.
I’ve seen some things that don’t align with that statement.
Comments regarding things like vaping have gone through, whereas ones about the LGBTQ+ community have been censored. A personal experience of mine was writing a comment regarding how in a neuroscience course of mine, they were referring to biologically male brains and biologically female brains as mens’ brains and womens’ brains, respectively. Citing that course, I wrote about how being biologically male doesn’t equal being a man, and being biologically female does not equal being a woman. I was careful about my comment, and made sure nothing I said was too mature for a six year old—adults in my life checked it and agreed with me—and yet it got deleted. Talking about biologically male or female brains is in no way too mature for a child. My own sisters, who at in kindergarten, are perfectly able to understand how some people are biologically female, but not girls, and vise versa. It’s not a “mature” topic at all, provided it is handled sensitively, and appropriate language is used.
This is just one of many examples that I and my peers have seen.
I’m very concerned that the moderators have been letting personal biases interfere with their moderating skills, making the safety of the website more questionable. When using Storybird, it’s worth noting that you may find some abused censorship in what comments go through, but that is one of my only complaints.
Anyway, this concludes my long-winded review of this one writing website. I’d still recommend it, as it’s lovely and helpful to young authors, but it’s not perfect.
There is wonderful art to choose from for your books, as well as a loving community of other writers. But in recent years you’ve started to need a subscription to write at all—as opposed to needing one to publish your work without paying for “review tickets.”
Also, the moderating. This was originally a great way to keep the website safe, by moderators reviewing comments before they were published and stories (to make sure they followed the guidelines, and to give them the appropriate age range).
But.
The moderating and censoring of comments has gotten out of control. With stories, it’s still more or less acceptable, but with comments? No. If you take APT for example, the age rating for that is 6+, and ask any mod and they’ll tell you that they only let through comments appropriate for that age range.
I’ve seen some things that don’t align with that statement.
Comments regarding things like vaping have gone through, whereas ones about the LGBTQ+ community have been censored. A personal experience of mine was writing a comment regarding how in a neuroscience course of mine, they were referring to biologically male brains and biologically female brains as mens’ brains and womens’ brains, respectively. Citing that course, I wrote about how being biologically male doesn’t equal being a man, and being biologically female does not equal being a woman. I was careful about my comment, and made sure nothing I said was too mature for a six year old—adults in my life checked it and agreed with me—and yet it got deleted. Talking about biologically male or female brains is in no way too mature for a child. My own sisters, who at in kindergarten, are perfectly able to understand how some people are biologically female, but not girls, and vise versa. It’s not a “mature” topic at all, provided it is handled sensitively, and appropriate language is used.
This is just one of many examples that I and my peers have seen.
I’m very concerned that the moderators have been letting personal biases interfere with their moderating skills, making the safety of the website more questionable. When using Storybird, it’s worth noting that you may find some abused censorship in what comments go through, but that is one of my only complaints.
Anyway, this concludes my long-winded review of this one writing website. I’d still recommend it, as it’s lovely and helpful to young authors, but it’s not perfect.
Show less
