thisweekmeta | Special Edition: TWM Content Poll

Hello all! After the most recent kerfuffle, I thought I would take this opportunity to ask what folks felt would be the best practices for the newsletter regarding certain sites and types of links.

I have made a Content Poll-- it's not long, and if you don't like any of the options you can totally post a comment here instead. It asks about etiquette regarding Dreamwidth/LiveJournal communities, Fanlore pages, Fanlore-found links, and what to do when an Original Poster is not available for contact.

All these questions assume the post being linked is not locked or private, and that the entity doing the linking is a newsletter.

Edit: Some further context for why linking and linking permissions is so hotly debated in fandom (Fanlore).

My own answers are currently along the lines of: community posts are probably fine to link because they were posted widely to begin with; Fanlore pages made through explicit permission of OP is best, but for certain historical meta it's okay to link anyway; linking to Fanlore to provide further context is fine; no way to ask for permission means no link; if the OP has completely disappeared from fandom and/or online, it's fine to link their stuff.

But I want to know what you think! :)

The comments here are open, and I encourage you all to discuss your thoughts with me and with each other. We've had some really good discussions in the last few days, and I'm interested in seeing what you all think about these specific linking situations.

If you can think of anything else that might be missing from either the poll or the editorial guidelines, please let me know.

Thank you! ♥

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Also, like... it's not like the point of this comm is to link to *Bad* (TM) stuff, or to link to stuff just to ridicule it?

This is a worthwhile point even though historically meta debates have led to controversies without anyone having posted something just to mock it - all that's required is reading someone's meta post via the newsletter and making your own post disagreeing and linking back which then appears in the next newsletter issue.

But this meta-debate scenario is not really the same thing as the kind of dogpiling scenarios engendered by Fandom Wank or - what was that ancient Mary Sue mocking community on LJ?, and doesn't provide the same sort of inherent motive to attack, I would think.

(In the metafandom troubles, wasn't the issue more people who were annoyed by influx of disagreeing comments even if those comments were made with basic attempts at civility? And I mean, I can sympathize with that, to a degree.)

these are good points! i hadn't really thought of those. (i was too young to ever really be on LJ/read the old newsletters, which now that i think about it is context i should've put in my original comment? this is what i get for posting at 6am...)

My issue with... one of those communities, don't remember which- was that they liked to give "content warnings" for posts... Without ever talking to the OP about them- they'd let you know they were linking, not mention they were adding a content warning, and never respond if you asked them what the content warning was about. I got a warning for ableism, I think it was, on one post, and I don't think I ever figured out what the hell they thought was ableist- it wasn't a post of disability particularly. But bam, according to them I was ableist now, and everyone coming to my blog through that link was expecting me to be, and it really skewed the discussion.

This sort of thing might be my one sticking point, haha. I'm not going to warn for content on links. I'm sorry if that upsets people*, but I don't want to do it for precisely the reasons in this comment.

* it hasn't so far, but just so we're all clear going forward...

I'm fine with a content warning *as long as the person being linked to has agreed to it*. Thus my permissions being written the way they are. I could even live with a "linkee chose not to allow warnings for this post." But that was just a mess.

I'm sure that in most cases it wouldn't be necessary and if you found a post that was fandom relevant and also glaringly upsetting or potentially triggering in some way you'd probably consider what to do at least.

I can't shed any light on the source but wow... that is a truly bizarre problem to have had. And there was a warning for ableism without any info associated that would make clear what it was about?!

They rarely elaborated on content warnings. And often enough the warnings were obvious- various kinds of disturbing content, etc.

IIRC that was metafandom. I was never personally affected, but I certainly saw the phenomenon in action.

Having had a few of my posts linked to by newsletters (meta or just fandom) in the past, yes that is what happened. You would get an influx of new comments, sometimes when you were unable to handle it.

This also gets into "my vs community spaces". Until blogs, all spaces were shared (usenet, mailing lists, forums). Websites offered little interaction (unless you had a guestbook). Blogs were personally owned, so if you were linked in a newsletter and people came to your blog and disagreed with (not attack or mock, just offering a different opinions) it felt like an attack. And if it was an actual attack, it felt even worse.

The problem is that we tend to forget that the platforms we use shape how we interact with each other and how we react to one another. It took me a while to understand why I was so angry at someone coming into my blog!!!!! to make a counter-comment on my public post.

But spaces are now more public and shared/co-owned (twitter and tumblr). Facebook still has the feel of a "this is my place"

Special Edition: TWM Content Poll

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