A little disappointed in Metafandom...

[gaudinight]

Of course when Hth’s rant about the entitlement of SGA’s McShep fans hit the airwaves, I wanted to see the original post which prompted the rant.  I thought it was interesting that Metafandom linked to Hth’s post when the rant was based on an unsourced original post.

Metafandom is great so I’m not being critical of it as a whole. But occasionally

Comments

[cathexys]

But that still presupposes that the post *was* heavily dependent on the post she references, which I contend it wasn't. In fact, just skimming the first 20 or so comments, most did not even reference the post but rather responded to Hth's actual point which took off from but was not limited to this one specific instance of unnamed rage.

In fact, the entire rant would have been utterly ludicrous unless that one instance had not been part of a larger trend which Hth tried to depict. As far as I'm concerned she pretty much *did* (1) insofar as the post that got the rant started wasn't central.

You think it was as did the people who later made it a focus of their responses, but again, reading the post again and reading initial comments, I'm still surprised how this could not be read as anything but a general rant with a metonymic example of one...which does not make that one the center of the post.

OK, let me try to show you why I don't think the post was about the unnamed post in question: out of 12 paragraphs only one (shorter one) actually deals with the post in question. Moreover, she prefaces her summary of it with d even though I've been frothing at the mouth for an hour now, I'm not trying to put her in particular on the spot for Fandom Crimes writ large, which is the reason I'm not naming her or being super-specific; I suppose she'd recognize herself, and maybe some other people would, too, but mainly I'm hoping it's anonymous enough to let me vent without putting her in an embarrassing position.

I still haven't read the post, and I don't really have to. It cold have been a mild "I hate all non-McSheppers and hate every story that isn't McShep" or whatever...she was ranting about a perceived hostility and rhetorically framed her rant by referencing one recent incident.

[gaudinight]

I think we see things differently. I saw lots of people responding specifically to her characterization of the original post. And huge number of the comments were discussing whether or not there was a group of "McShep Assholes" in SGA fandom and who they were. People were giving the original post as an example of the terrible behavior of McShep fans. It wasn't tangential. She gave this as an example. If it isn't example then what is?

If the OP turns out NOT to have been one of THOSE McShep terrible fans, then what?

Are there really terrible McShep fans or are they ALL being taken out of context? It's fine to rant about nebulous McShep fans but if you have to actually name them, then suddenly the terrible McShep fans aren't so many. Or are they?

Here is a quick smattering of comments which specifically reference Hth's charaterization of the OP:

Amothea--Yeah that statement would have upset me too if I saw it.

30toseoul-- Damn. I'm glad I haven't seen the post that you're talking about. That kind of massive selfish entitlement drives me insane.

anatsuno--How can anyone be bothered by the mere existence of another pairin?

janedavit--Anyway. That would have pissed me off, too. Sheesh. Suck it up and scroll.

merrish--Just know that for every one person who feels that way, there are ten others out there actively practicing "the more the merrier".

mecurtin--I believe (in a blurry there's-not-enough-caffeine-in-my-bloodstream-yet way) that I saw that post, too. I think you may have misinterpreted it. (or we may be thinking of two different posts, because I don't recall anything about unsubscribing from the noticeboard)

liviapenn--Oh, man, this would have made the top of my head blow off, too.

lilyayl--I'm still slightly in shock that someone actually said that/behaved that way.

cinead--Unsubscribing from the messageboard because of X/Y pairing?

autiger23--...obviously there are some HUGE assholes in the world, of which this person is OBVIOUSLY one. WTF? What a totally asshat.

harriet_spy--I imagine this poster didn't realize that her post would be seen and reacted to by people who don't share her point of view on J/R and Z/Q. Which doesn't excuse it by any stretch of the imagination (hello, it's fucking LiveJournal), but makes it less...actively malicious. (After all, if it had only been heard by people who share her views, no one would have been hurt.)

elran--If I'd read that [McShep fangirl or not] I'd still be pretty fucking pissed.

angiepen--Oh, good grief. :/ This isn't even my fandom and I'm eyerolling at the attitude. If that's any kind of an accurate report of what was said, then it's that person you're sort of quoting who should feel ashamed, seriously.

This thread has a long discussion about who these McShep fans are and suggesting that the behavior of the OP is typical of that group of McShep. http://hth-the-first.livejournal.com/46403.html?thread=701507&format=light#
t701507

Finally liviapenn says 'From my perspective, Hth's rant was anything but nebulous. She gave specific examples of a very specific type of behavior performed by a specific type of fan."

I think it actually matters in the context of the discussion if OP was a specific type of fan or not and if her behavior showed fannish entitlement.

If it turns out that she's just fine and not part of the problem...What does that mean exactly? That she didn't say what she said? That it didn't mean what Hth thought? What are the implications of that?

If the OP's post wasn't example of terrible McShep entitlement what is? Does it even exist? Is it just jealousy?

It ended up being a discussion where people were basing their arguments on something they hadn't read.

I think of Metafandom as being one of the more serious places on LJ. So giving airtime to something that wasn't sourced was a surprise to me. I count on Metafandom to identify meaningful discussion. To me the whole a discussion predicated on something unsourced is like reading gossip...which has it's place, but I was hoping that it wasn't Metafandom.

And reading the OP is actually important to understanding what was going on here. It does matter.

So yeah, I don't think linking it showed the best judgment.

[gaudinight]

In general I do find Metafandom wonderful too. Just not in this case. I'm not angsting about it, I just think it was a mistake for that post to be linked.

The mods do chose what goes in and what doesn't. The mods do make judgments. That's why I read Metafandom so I don't have to go looking for interesting discussions.

You can say there are no rules and it's all for fun and deflect the critique as if the judgment of the mods doesn't matter... you can say the readers decide.... But the mods' judgments do matter and have impact on the wider discussion. The mods privilege some discussions as interesting and not others.

[gaudinight]

:) Right. I'm not saying my opinion/judgment is more or less valid than yours. I think we're cool here. I wasn't sharing this viewpoint because I expect you to change your rules, at all. Or that you are terrible people. I think you are great to do this. It was just a critique about this particular link. You don't owe me anything. If fact, you don't even really owe me an explanation so I appreciate the fact that you are discussing it with me. And I'm not angsting or going delete my LJ in a fit of pique. I don't feel oppressed or entitled.

_________________________

For me this is the crux of the matter: Rules aside (because you don't have rules), in practice, in my experience, the posts that end up on Metafandom link back when it makes sense and don't when it doesn't matter. I like them because I feel like I understand the discussions because by clicking on the link, I have what I need to understand what's going on.

As it turns out, this is not because the mods intended it. It's just because mostly people when people post meta they link to things needed for context and don't link when it's not necessary.

So to me, it /seemed/ like you intended to select posts that had this characteristic. I accept that you didn't intend it and have no rule or standard about it. To me it just seemed like there was judgment involved when it was just random and not intentional. The fact that Metafandom mostly links to posts which provide necessary minimum context is a happy accident. And I drew an erroneous conclusion from my experience.

So my complaint was based on my own happy experiences, on what Metafandom is to me, how I experience it... not how others experience it.

That said, I personally think that interesting meta by definition (my personal definition) has to be based on something I as a reader have reasonable access to. Meta based on an unsourced OP is boring, to me. And I'm surprised that it's interesting to others as Meta. I totally get why it's interesting as a trainwreck. But as Meta, not so much.