The Middle Distance

Yeah, it was beyond rude. Freedom of speech isn't the real issue here--ethics are. If they'd warned users in advance that this change was coming, and given them a chance to remove the stories themselves, or edit them, and save their reviews it would have been an entirely different matter. And to this day, I still hear all the time about people getting stories removed because someone complained about them breaking some rule or other...when they didn't. They just deleted first and asked questions never, which means anybody with a grudge can do that to you for the hell of it.

I remember when ff.net was a pretty good place to look for stories, especially in smaller fandoms--it was a good home for the Silmarillion fandom for a long time, for example. I think it still functions that way OK. But if you've got something like HP or LOTR (since the movies anyway), fuhgeddiboutit.