ATTENTION: Fanfiction.net Writers & Readers

Have you guys heard about the group calling themselves the Literate Union yet?

"The LU -- The Literate Union -- is a society that helps to improve the quality of stories on FanFiction that either break the rules or are poorly written. In the case of the latter, we try to help the author, bringing their piece up to standard. Difficult cases are reported to the admins."

They're policing FFN and have been successful in having quite a few stories removed without warning. In a nutshell, their goals are to find and eliminate fic that contain:

Bad Grammar | Smut | Interactive stories | Non-chapter stories | Advertisement stories | List stories | Stories based on chats/scripts/IMs
 

To aid their noble quest, they created a bot called RedBooton which searches for key words, phrases, or grammar patterns in fic and compiles a list to be reported to the admins. Such searches include...

Stories with the inclusion of a header formatted in the following manner as being in script format even when the rest of the story is in story paragraph form.
Rating:
Pairing:
Summary:
Authors Note:
An advanced form of the program that is available to trusted members that includes a search function for typo's and grammar. This could result in 10,000+ word stories that may have a few typo's or stories that have characters that may have dialog that is grammatically incorrect as being reported.

Members also report to the forum with links. Depending upon the infraction they deem in each fic, the fics are either reported for FFN to be removed or reported to the community so either a "critique" is issued to the author or the group flat out flames/patronizes the submission.

This group has been succesful in having stories removed that violate the TOS of FFN without warning, including stories that have hundreds and even thousands of reviews and/or favorites.
 
Writers: If you have M, MA, or close stuff submitted, make sure you have a back up saved, and you may consider taking it down...
Readers: If you have M, MA, or close stuff favorited, make sure you have a back up saved.

More detailed information can be obtained at Fandom Wank's Detailed Report and Civil Initiative's Blog: The RedBootton Issue

These people disgust me. I've read through some of their forum topics, and I find that the arrogance and self-righteousness is appalling. While some of what they're doing is good (ie, plagiarism, 2-word fic/non-story removals... and that's about it), their intentions are far from humble.