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

[kore]

There's still no policy, though. If thisweekmeta is going to link to Fanlore entries without asking permission, that should be in the Finding meta on Fanlore may be one thing, but finding it on Fanlore and then directly linking to the person's DW, especially if they don't have a link policy and if the post is that old....I am personally not happy with that. The FAQ says "Suggestions, requests for further clarifications, and brainstorming about whether posts older than 5 years (or linked to on Fanlore) still need permission to link are welcome".

Linking directly to the DW of someone whose meta was found on Fanlore seems to violate the opt-in policy.

[muccamukk]

Hmmm. I can definitely see what you mean.

For me that's sort of fan history stuff, that's been out there so long that I can see not asking.

It got linked around to a million people back on LJ, it's on fanlore, cat is well and truly out of the bag and has had kittens who have had kittens. I don't especially see the harm in linking to it now. It's fan history at this point.

I'm trying to think how I would feel, but I'm not a good example on this regard.

[muccamukk]

As far as I know, fanlore's policy for linking to things is "if it's a public post and is of interest to fan history" or something in that line. It certainly doesn't ask for permission, and frankly has a pretty baffling selection of stuff (I've had some odd encounters with the site).

[kore]

Yikes, Martha's experience https://muccamukk.dreamwidth.org/1105034.html?thread=6500234#cmt6500234

[sylvaine]

The baffling selection of stuff is down to the part where users are the ones posting and filling out the articles - so it's just "oh, this particular person knew about this one thing and thought it was relevant" rather than "this is generally agreed to be more important than these other things we didn't write about". The other issue is - well. Back when I was briefly out of work I spent a bit of time updating fanlore things, and. It's a huge amount of work that I would definitely not have been able to do while working, and I only wrote maybe two or three articles! And while I was there I noticed maybe three other people MAX being active. So: there's about three people actually doing anything regularly, and a smattering of others stopping in occasionally to drop a link or write half a post. So that's a huge factor in the occasionally weird selection.

[minim_calibre]

I may've got very cranky at someone at a convention because of the linking policy. They seemed surprised that anyone would follow the Fanlore link back to the original post about something contentious, despite that having been a thing that has happened and also why I now lock down any fandom rubbernecking I happen to do (which I don't do often).

[thisweekmod]

To be clear (and a little pedantic), I did not link to her current DW, I linked to her LJ which she no longer updates. However, I do see your point (and it's easy enough to find her DW via her LJ). I've asked her here on DW about her linking policies/told her about the Fanlore page. I don't know Fanlore's linking policy, personally.

[kore]

Yeah, sorry, I mistyped! You can find the entry easily enough on her DW using the calendar function I think.

I don't know Fanlore's linking policy, personally.

Yeah I don't either, since I've never had anything to do with it.

[thisweekmod]

Okay, well I found their Citation Policy (https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanlore:Linking_Guidelines) which says:

"In general, you may quote, cite, and link public content. However, carefully consider the wishes of the content creator or the expectations of the community beforehand. For instance, link to the main page of a fan's website if she has asked, rather than directly to her story or piece of art. Likewise, if members of a community or participants in a fannish activity that you are writing about expect that you will inform content creators when you link to them, then you should do so. Examples:

Links to content hosted on the Wayback Machine
Author and artist personal websites
Public LiveJournal communities
Public mailing lists at Yahoo groups
Public blog and journal entries
Fan fiction archives"

So, hm.

[kore]

I guess the problem I have (again, not knowing much about Fanlore) is not knowing whether or not the person linked to directly had anything to do with the Fanlore entry, or knew anything about it at all. Maybe I'm just making a big fuss and everyone would be OK with a link to the Fanlore entry.

[thisweekmod]

It's a good discussion to have! I was hoping someone would weigh on Fanlore links (which is why I asked about them the other day). Personally (and obviously) I think if it has a Fanlore page it's okay to link, especially if it's older and being presented in a historical kind of way, but perhaps I will merely link to the Fanlore page itself. Or not! I'm interested in seeing what other people think. :)

[kore]

I think if it has a Fanlore page it's okay to link, especially if it's older and being presented in a historical kind of way, but perhaps I will merely link to the Fanlore page itself. Or not!

Maybe put up a separate post with a question about Fanlore? Or spotlight it somehow, because yeah, I completely missed the parenthetical statement about it (and missed anything other than that if it was in a different entry).

[thisweekmod]

If you would've locked it nowadays, then that's good enough for me. I removed the link/Fanlore link and I'll stick something else in later. :)

[muccamukk]

I was not being considerate enough earlier, thank you for listening to kore. Since you've decided to do this, do you also want to screen the comment thread that discusses and links to it?

[thisweekmod]

Yup, sure will! I thought about just doing individual comments, but the parent comment mentions her username, so I'd better just do the whole thing.

Edit: I don't know how to screen a thread. fml. I've screened any comment that directly mentions her, a Google-able part of her post, or the link/Fanlore.

[muccamukk]

*kicks settings*

I guess it's freezing where you get the whole thread at once. Screening seems to pick ticky box each comment.

[kore]

Yes, thanks for listening and being so open to criticism about your baby/project! I'm trying to listen more ("Talk less. Smile more," LOL) and not knee-jerk react myself.

[kore]

The problem I have with just screening the comments is that now a lot of the explanation is gone, so people coming in late don't have the full context. I see a lot of "if something is public it's linkable" in the comments to the poll post, and while I generally share that, I did speak up because of the particular details of this situation. But it's good to leave out the identifying details. I think batwrangler's doing a really good job in those comments of explaining the general context of LJ 10+ years ago, though.

[muccamukk]

Kore was a lot more thoughtful and considerate than I was, and I'm glad she said something.

It's too easy for me to talk theory, and not think about hurting someone, and I need to get better at that.

*offers kitten*

[kore]

Argle, I meant LJ! Not DW.