Special Edition: TWM Content Poll

[thisweekmod]

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! ♥

Comments

[graveexcitement]

I haven't read a whole lot of the relevant discussions, but it seems to me that a lot of the differing opinions appear to be based on people's different ideas of what social media should be like? As in... well, if I post something publicly (on Twitter, Tumblr, DW, Mastodon, etc.), I do so knowing that potentially anyone could wind up reading it (though realistically only a few people actually will.) But I guess some people post things expecting that only their followers/subscribers will look at it and talk about it, and they feel their privacy has been invaded if a whole lot of people from outside their circle start looking at it and commenting on it?

So in general I think that if someone has posted meta on a site that has good privacy controls, like Dreamwidth or Mastodon, and they've posted it *publicly*, I think that means it's fine to link without asking. Because those two sites have great privacy controls for if you only want your access list/followers to be able to see a certain post. So if you're posting it public, that means you should be okay with it being publicly discussed; if you're not okay with that, maybe make it access-locked instead?

I'm less certain about Tumblr and Twitter, because you can't privacy lock a given post, you can only privacy lock your entire tumblr/twitter. And also for Tumblr, the commenting tools are horrible -- replies get lost easily, but reblogs necessarily also spread the original post. At least on Twitter you can reply to a post and your reply won't be as easily lost, & there's threaded reply chains. But Twitter also has one of Tumblr's problems of making it very easy to dogpile on people for the crime of having Bad(TM) Opinions.

So I guess I am more uncertain about Tumblr/Twitter because of the bad privacy options on those sites. So maybe asking permission first for those would make sense? But my underlying ethos is still "if you're posting something online, *publicly,* you should Be Aware it is in fact *public* and may become the subject of public discussion." (Side note: This is part of why I like DW and Mastodon a lot! Better privacy controls! Yay!)

(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? Because those were/are some of the more flagrant issues on Twitter/Tumblr/etc -- retweeting/reblogging ignorant people, Terrible Takes, and so forth, so that people can dunk on them and whatnot. Those were situations where lack of privacy controls led to a post being spread like wildfire with the OP having no way out except to delete their blog. That shit sucked, but... we're not doing that? So I don't see as much of an issue with linking without permission.)

[cimorene]

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.)

[graveexcitement]

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...)

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

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.

[thisweekmod]

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...

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

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.

[cimorene]

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.

[cimorene]

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?!

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

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

[nineveh_uk]

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

[morgandawn]

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"

[batwrangler]

The internet was far more restricted in reach and scope back in the LJ days. It was possible to have unlocked discussions that were functionally private. Major news media weren’t mining social media for click bait. What we chose to leave public then isn’t what many of us are choosing to leave public now. Many of us are torn by the desire to not burn down our past by obliterating our older online presence but without the time or emotional spoons to go back and try to sequester stuff that we would not post in “public” now. Since moving completely to DW, I’ve personally stuck with keeping most of my posts access-list only which makes connecting with new people harder, but I don’t have the personal bandwidth to leave my online home open to all comers.

[copracat]

That seems like a good reason to consider older posts differently to current posts, and older platforms differently to newer platforms.

[batwrangler]

Yes, exactly. And, to assume the very best intentions, when people trying to preserve orphan or threatened works (such as Tumblrs lost in the purge) insist that their right to “archive” trumps the OP’s copyright, you end up in court and have bad actors with deep pockets using a so-called “right to be forgotten” to squash dissent.

[graveexcitement]

ahhhh, this makes sense. i was never really on LJ; my formative experiences were on twitter/tumblr, where there is very little expectation of privacy. i mean, people can say "don't reblog," and people sometimes listen, but... well. (plus in general when i was young, people were pushing the "NOTHING you do on the internet is ACTUALLY PRIVATE" thing pretty hard.) thanks for the insight!

[kore]

Yeah, this absolutely. The reason I spoke up about that post was that it had been made 13 years ago and there was only a fanlore page for it last year. That seemed....hinky.

[copracat]

Tumblr users might be more used to having their posts linked. Isn't is commonly accepted on Tumblr that linking (that is "reblogging") is okay and in fact, the nature of the site? The important thing being clear credit to the OP which is not an issue on a link newsletter? I am not an expert however!

[graveexcitement]

yeah, i think that's worth considering too? it does go hand in hand -- the nature of the site is to reblog, but there's also no useful privacy controls whatsoever so no one has control over whether a post is seen by Just Their Followers or by Half The Entire Site.

which like you said, is the nature of tumblr, so i dunno. maybe that means more people there go in Expecting that their posts are in the public sphere, like i do? which would make linking without permission more okay.

but if some people were considering their own blog more of a slightly more private sphere, just without the option to actually make specific posts private, that's a little more of an issue. (i mean, i saw quite a few posts labelled Don't Reblog, as a desperate attempt to make sure the post didn't get spread around, but people didn't always listen. that said, those were more often venting or personal posts rather than meta, i think.)

[batwrangler]

Speaking for myself, what LJ was in the old days was a privately moderated forum. It was having a salon or house party over which you set the rules of discourse. It was one step more accessible than a printed zine and a couple steps less universal than a usenet group (I guess reddit is the usenet of today?) plus arguably more permanent than fan email lists (which may or may not have had web archives).

[graveexcitement]

that makes sense! i can see how it would be considered more private by default than i had been thinking.

[batwrangler]

There was also not generally a drive to get followers as followers: you paid for the bandwidth you used, you weren’t generating revenue from page views. Too much attention - even positive attention - could make your site fall over (and possibly bankrupt you), like being mentioned on slashdot (aka slashdotting) or having Neil Gaiman link to a thing of yours.

[graveexcitement]

huh, that's very different from the "accrue followers until you hit Critical Mass" general goal of tumblr/twitter! but of course, twitter/tumblr only pay for your bandwidth because they want to profit off of you... hmm.

[batwrangler]

Another thing to keep in mind was how we accessed the internet: via telephone modems and landlines and WE PAID BY THE MINUTE for the phone use (as well as not being able to use the phone for other phone calls, unless you got a dedicated phone line) in addition to paying access fees (and hosting, if you wanted a website). And domain-registration alone was hundreds of dollars per domain name per year.

And you had to have an actual computer. I spent my first several years on the internet only having computer access at work (when I was in school, we didn't have personal computers at all. My college barely even had a computer center when I was there and we were still using public pay phones in the lobbies of the dorms for all our phone calls).

[elf]

On the one hand, on Tumblr, people know they have no control over who sees their stuff; reblogs can go anywhere.

On the other, they get notified when people like or reblog their original post. They know when something's gone viral because all of a sudden they've got 300 notifications since they checked last. And they can just look at the post on their own blog, and see the responses - they don't have to hunt down other people's blogs to see how people have reacted, and they can respond directly to the replies.

The tensions we're going to see with Tumblr users is when they discover their post has been linked to by someone who's blocked them, whether that's a specific ban, or no anon comments, or non-access comments are screened.

[thisweekmod]

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?

No, it's not, and even if I link to something rant-y, it's only because I think it's interesting and worth sharing. I'm not making a value judgement on anything-- but I can see how people might think otherwise, if they don't know me/don't know the newsletter/aren't sure about what's going on.