Professions/what's up with fanfic.net?

[Rosmerta]

[I posted this a few days ago and it never showed, so pardon if it's 
a repeat...]

Re: professions. I write magazine articles that Heidi and Amber and 
Kristin maybe even Rita would have to read for work--tech stories and 
business stories. I also write essays (for love not money) and, like 
some other people on this list, I parent all day long too, but that 
pays in a different currency
 

Re: ff.net and plagiarism: I saw in the NY Times the other day that 
fanfiction.net was listed as the second "stickiest" site of the week 
[if you're into that stuff, like I have to be for work, that's a big-
deal rating]. Obviously, they're sticky because it takes a few hours 
to read a fanfic as opposed to minutes for a Salon essay or seconds 
to check a stock quote. But that rating, coupled with my very 
tangential understanding of the whole Michela/Cassie/ff.net debacle, 
raised some questions:

Who is the "they" of fanfiction.net anyhow? Who started it, who runs 
it, and [always the most important question] how do they make their 
money? 

>From my admittedly very brief visits, there seems to be something 
close to editorial anarchy reigning: stories are self-rated, anyone 
can post it seems, regardless of literary worthiness or, heck, even 
spell-check-worthiness, and (just being a Web-nebbish), their search 
engine s*cks. So when a contributor is suspected of plagiarism or 
some other heinous crime, how is that determined, addressed, etc.? Is 
one squealed upon, or do they have some sort of impartial board 
sitting in judgement? And if so, what are the criteria they're using 
to make their judgements? How often does this type of thing occur and 
(not to be cynical or anything) but why do they bother? All this is 
kind of a long-winded way of asking: what is their editorial stance 
(if any)? 

Are they the only/biggest game in town? I know from this list that 
there are other places to post HP fic, for example, but if you want 
to get read, is ff.net the place to do that? Flip side: if you don't 
get posted there or choose not to for political reasons (again, 
allusion to the recent whatever incident), are you nowhere in the ff 
world? 

~Rosmerta
who has lots of sticky sites in her house but none that have been 
rated by the NYTimes