OTW: What I Love
THESE LOLCATS!! Gacked from KassRachel, and you can get your own OTW LOLCATS here. (I also really love the one about "we just wants to own the goddamned nests *g*)
So, there's a billion things I love about the OTW, first probably that we don't seem like jerks or weirdos in the media as much anymore, and when I hear people talking about fandom, they're fans and not outsiders or anthropologists; second, that we in fandom are building an infrastructure that we collectively own.
I was really moved by that comment in the scans_daily debacle that this sort of thing wouldn't have happened in guy-based fandom, because guys in fandom have sympathetic people at the top, running and hosting their fanacs: whether its Phade from amv.org, or Paul Marino at the Academy of Machinema Arts and Sciences (never mind how the game makers themselves support machinema.) We used to have this security when our Listadmins owned lists on university BBS servers and private servers (giant shout out to people like James Walkswithwind and Seah and Walter at squidge.org, but we haven't had that since the web really went commercial. And now, rather than be shunted from network to network, we can have a central location that belongs to us that won't go away. (Not to mention permanent story links not dependent on a single archivist paying the bill.)
So anyway, BECOME A MEMBER! If you can, donate for the people who can't --everything the OTW does is FREE (FREE FREE FREE FREE: FREE) FOR ALL and not ad-supported, so all those who become members are making it possible for those who can't.