004. January 26, 2019

[thisweekmod]

I'm sure you all know this already, but: Always check the comments on a thing! A discussion post is just the starting point-- comments are the continuation and often end up even more interesting than the original post.

And speaking of comments: you are totally welcome to leave any kind of comment here. A response to a link, an idea for a new link, a tip or question about the newsletter-- anything goes.

Onto the issue!

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thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

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Newer Stuff

cfiesler posted How does new canon impact fanfiction production?: "In looking at the relationship between two of the questions - how often respondents write fanfiction and when they are most likely to write fanfiction - we see that people who write fanfiction more often are less impacted by new canon, and people who write less frequently are more likely to be inspired by new canon."

fairestcat posted On Fandom and the "culture of selling": "Does joining someone's Patreon or tipping them on Ko-Fi or purchasing a fanwork from them change that relationship? Probably. But not as much as some old-school fans seem to think."

quiltingsarah (Reddit) posted The olden days of fanfiction-share your memories: "The first sort of fanfic I read was in a magazine that had a story in installments I got at a Doctor Who convention in the early 1980's. it was a Star Trek/Who xo, never did read the end of it because I only found the first 2. So I'd go to cons, pick up the occasional zine."

quinfirefrorefiddle posted Fandom History- A Quick Rundown: "There are certain events, trends, or facts in fandom that were important enough, or in some cases just weird enough, that I'm always kind of surprised when I meet a fan who hasn't heard of them. Totally unfair, of course, I learn about fandom history I've never heard of before all the time."

Rhodanum (Pillowfort) posted THE PREQUEL TRILOGY IN THE 2000s -- A WOMAN-RUN STAR WARS FANDOM: "One thing that gets lost when discussing the history of Star Wars is how heavily female-dominated the fandom for the Prequel Trilogy was, particularly in the 2000s. Fan-site after fan-site, fan-shrine after fan-shrine, the userbases of which were overwhelmingly girls and women."

Steven T. Wright for Ars Technica posted “The Linux of social media”—How LiveJournal pioneered (then lost) blogging: "Growing up on the Web at the dawn of the social media age (circa 2007), it felt like all the connectivity-obsessed sites forming the burgeoning core of the new Internet were haunted by a faded spectre called LiveJournal. As a teen, I never actually knew anyone who had one, but I heard whispers and rumors about drama on the service all the time."

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Flashback - be back soon.

Link taken down! I'll put a new one up later today. In consideration of the link owner, I have also screened comments that a) had the link or a related one, b) a Google-able quote, c) link owner's name.

Comments

[batwrangler]

DW: where it is not only safe to read the comments, it is generally delightful!

[saxonvoter]

I love this, and it's so true.

[brithistorian]

<3

Re: complaining about complaining

[thisweekmod]

Sure, that's understandable. What about just linking to the Fanlore page itself?

Re: complaining about complaining

[oldtoadwoman]

"thirteen years ago"

That makes it even better. I want to believe the very kids she was complaining about are the ones rolling their eyes at "kids these days".

Re: complaining about complaining

[sylvaine]

I saw someone the other day complaining about kids these days playing Fortnite, and how "back in my day we played Minecraft!" with complete seriousness... Kids these days start "kids these day"-ing younger and younger! :P

[yvannairie]

Ouch oof that post from 2006, because I had an experience exactly like that just two years ago. Ten years later and the badness of net-based fandoms where nothing is good enough and everything is up for consumption (and then tearing to pieces because it wasn't Good Enough) is going strong and possibly getting even worse as all of internet slowly becomes a place where nuance goes to die.

[sharpiefan]

Thank you for posting this stuff. Haven't got much else to say right now, but thanks. :D

[thisweekmod]

It's a link from Fanlore-- I'll update the post with the Fanlore page link as well for more context.

[stellar_dust]

The post is also available on their DW. I don't know if it's worth doing the work to track down DW mirrors of old posts by people who now use DW as their primary platform; and/or whether anything linked from fanlore is automatically the canonical version of the post ...

btw, I love that you're including blasts from the past, it really puts things in perspective!

[kore]

I thought there wasn't a policy about linking from Fanlore/older posts yet? Because the person you are quoting from Fanlore doesn't have a links policy on their page that I can see. Is the policy going to be that stuff on Fanlore can be linked without asking permission?

[muccamukk]

They did ask for input on the last rules post, and got none.

[novembermond]

aaaah the article about LJ is so good! "russified corpse" omg, haha. Now I feel so nostalgic, but also so glad I'm off that site.

[doranwen]

Same. I keep debating whether I should actually *delete* the old posts - I have a LOT of them - and I don't have a paid account so trying to edit them all to private only even is a pain… I imported everything to DW and locked all of those to private, so I have it preserved at least.

[novembermond]

I backed up on dw and then deleted my lj as I didn't trust the russian servers. maybe paranoid, but *shrug*

[doranwen]

I thought of that - but I still have a few friends on LJ that I go look at their LJs once in a blue moon, and I've found having an LJ account handy in getting access to old posts from people who *didn't* delete their LJs. At least one or two I've gotten to add me as a friend so I could access locked fic and stuff. (I'm still creating epubs of every LJ fic I find, just in case - and so I can read them offline.)

Suggestion box

[ironymaiden]

https://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/3279819.html

[saxonvoter]

Only found this newsletter recently and it has already become one of my favourite things on DW.

suggestion box

[sylvaine]

I posted some questions about the DW culture for linking to different fanworks and there's been a few interesting responses - if you feel that this is interesting to the wider audience, I would appreciate a link in the next newsletter, as I would love to get a wider range of perspectives!

Re: suggestion box

[thisweekmod]

I was going to ask you later today if I could link that post!! :D

Re: suggestion box

[sylvaine]

Excellent :D

Re: suggestion box

[kore]

I put in my two cents because OF COURSE I DID, not so much to be all Me Me Me, but I did want to put what I was thinking in a little bit of context.

Looking back I'm really happy people stayed calm and open to suggestions. I am WORKING on that myself.