about the outing
Hey guys, so I really don't like wank, because it tires me out, and I'm on the road right now, but under the circumstances I'll say this much.
It is pretty clear that partly_bouncy is deliberately fomenting this wank, in what is a remarkably shortsighted attempt to drive hits to her wiki. So, if you want to discourage this behavior, please don't link to her site or her lj, as otherwise you're giving her a Google boost. That's why I'm not linking any lj names etc here. The fanthropology mods have now gotten the post down, too, for which I'm very grateful to them.
About me personally, I am completely open in my public RL bio and my pro LJ about being a fanfic and slash writer; that is not a secret at all and can be easily cited from public information under my RL name without ever linking to my fannish pseud/journal. I keep my fannish pseud/url private in order to protect my fun happy space, not to hide any factual information.
I do ask (as I have every time I have posted the information) that people who know by virtue of being in fannish circles not post my RL name linked to my fan name and especially not in googleable locations. I don't care if you share the information with other fans privately, just please mention this request to them too. No one but partly_bouncy has ever not respected this wish, because, you know, most people aren't jerks.
The worst thing really about partly_bouncy's wiki is that it is useless when it is not worse than useless. It has very little actual information, much of what information it contains is bad and inaccurate, many policies are poorly designed where they are not thinly veiled excuses for abuse, and partly_bouncy has repeatedly used her administrative powers over the wiki as a tool in personal grudge matches, thereby destroying its credibility and ensuring that even if someone really wants to help preserve fannish history, they don't want to contribute to the site.
Fundamentally, partly_bouncy has made the mistake of valuing the wiki and some hypothetical future payout over the community the wiki is about. But that community is also the audience and the pool of potential contributors for the wiki. You can't build a site that is dependent on people contributing without people, and no one is going to come to the table if they feel that they are giving their time to someone who is looking to exploit them and who will deliberately hurt them or their friends or their larger community to do that. And you can't build a successful wiki without contributors no matter how many short-term hits you drive to your site by starting wanks. It is a real shame because this could have been an invaluable service to fandom and instead it's a waste of time.
Finally, if you are ever outed, don't panic. Here's what I suggest:
First, don't confirm that you have been outed accurately. The wiki is not actually a reliable source of information; they have outed people inaccurately before. If you have been outed inaccurately, don't correct it -- you're helping them get closer to your real identity if you do. Also don't try to edit the page. They will revert the changes, and even if not, the history is still there, so you aren't removing the information.
Using your real name, create an RL-name livejournal, leave it googleable, and post some things there. Make an RL-name flickr account and post some pictures. Make a facebook and/or a myspace, etc. Go around to a bunch of blogs or newspapers and leave comments using your RL and some of these RL place URLs. Scatter some stuff around, then link among the sites and get your pals to link to them in googleable places. That will raise those places higher in the search rankings and drive the outing post off the first page of your results. This is a pain, but it is actually a good practical method to protect your privacy.
And avoid linking to the fan history wiki or to particular entries, even as examples, because more hits to their overall site drives them up in google results (and also rewards the bad behavior, since more traffic means more that they can charge for ads).
This concludes the interruption from your regularly scheduled squee and fanfic routine.
PS: if you felt like it, you could drop me some commentfic or recs or pretty pictures. I'm just saying. *coughs and is not above taking advantage of the situation!*
It is pretty clear that partly_bouncy is deliberately fomenting this wank, in what is a remarkably shortsighted attempt to drive hits to her wiki. So, if you want to discourage this behavior, please don't link to her site or her lj, as otherwise you're giving her a Google boost. That's why I'm not linking any lj names etc here. The fanthropology mods have now gotten the post down, too, for which I'm very grateful to them.
About me personally, I am completely open in my public RL bio and my pro LJ about being a fanfic and slash writer; that is not a secret at all and can be easily cited from public information under my RL name without ever linking to my fannish pseud/journal. I keep my fannish pseud/url private in order to protect my fun happy space, not to hide any factual information.
I do ask (as I have every time I have posted the information) that people who know by virtue of being in fannish circles not post my RL name linked to my fan name and especially not in googleable locations. I don't care if you share the information with other fans privately, just please mention this request to them too. No one but partly_bouncy has ever not respected this wish, because, you know, most people aren't jerks.
The worst thing really about partly_bouncy's wiki is that it is useless when it is not worse than useless. It has very little actual information, much of what information it contains is bad and inaccurate, many policies are poorly designed where they are not thinly veiled excuses for abuse, and partly_bouncy has repeatedly used her administrative powers over the wiki as a tool in personal grudge matches, thereby destroying its credibility and ensuring that even if someone really wants to help preserve fannish history, they don't want to contribute to the site.
Fundamentally, partly_bouncy has made the mistake of valuing the wiki and some hypothetical future payout over the community the wiki is about. But that community is also the audience and the pool of potential contributors for the wiki. You can't build a site that is dependent on people contributing without people, and no one is going to come to the table if they feel that they are giving their time to someone who is looking to exploit them and who will deliberately hurt them or their friends or their larger community to do that. And you can't build a successful wiki without contributors no matter how many short-term hits you drive to your site by starting wanks. It is a real shame because this could have been an invaluable service to fandom and instead it's a waste of time.
Finally, if you are ever outed, don't panic. Here's what I suggest:
First, don't confirm that you have been outed accurately. The wiki is not actually a reliable source of information; they have outed people inaccurately before. If you have been outed inaccurately, don't correct it -- you're helping them get closer to your real identity if you do. Also don't try to edit the page. They will revert the changes, and even if not, the history is still there, so you aren't removing the information.
Using your real name, create an RL-name livejournal, leave it googleable, and post some things there. Make an RL-name flickr account and post some pictures. Make a facebook and/or a myspace, etc. Go around to a bunch of blogs or newspapers and leave comments using your RL and some of these RL place URLs. Scatter some stuff around, then link among the sites and get your pals to link to them in googleable places. That will raise those places higher in the search rankings and drive the outing post off the first page of your results. This is a pain, but it is actually a good practical method to protect your privacy.
And avoid linking to the fan history wiki or to particular entries, even as examples, because more hits to their overall site drives them up in google results (and also rewards the bad behavior, since more traffic means more that they can charge for ads).
This concludes the interruption from your regularly scheduled squee and fanfic routine.
PS: if you felt like it, you could drop me some commentfic or recs or pretty pictures. I'm just saying. *coughs and is not above taking advantage of the situation!*