where I live on the Internet
In the middle of moving all my crap from Livejournal to Dreamwidth, I was also watching a clash of cultures between feminist bloggers and Ohnotheydidnt (ONTD for short) which in case you didn't know is a huge celebrity gossip community on Livejournal. You can read all about what happened in 43+ pages worth of comments at ONTD, but beware: the culture there is pretty flippantly rude (that's why I love it, though). But basically:
ONTD's posts are mostly copy-pastes/re-blogs of outside content. The community's policy is that every post requires a link back to the source, but doesn't specify or enforce a format for links.
A small feminist blog at Fempop.com ran an article by a freelance writer. An ONTD member re-posted that article wholesale at ONTD, and per policy, included a link to the original at the bottom of the re-post. However, the text face for the link only read "xxx" (an ONTD-specific convention), and neither the original writer nor Fempop were explicitly named in the re-post.
The re-post got just over 200 comments from ONTD members, which is kind of small for ONTD. The original post at Fempop got 0 comments. Then Jezebel, a very big feminist blog, linked to the re-post and credited ONTD, but did not link to the original article at Fempop.
The original writer saw the post at Jezebel and contacted the Fempop editor-in-chief. One or both of them contacted Jezebel and the ONTD member who had re-posted the article to ask that they explicitly name the writer. Jezebel complied. The Fempop EIC also reached out to an ONTD mod via Twitter. But before the ONTD mod could address the issue, the ONTD member deleted the re-post. The ONTD mod declared the matter done and refused to reprimand the member (as requested by the Fempop EIC).
The Fempop EIC decided that wasn't good enough and posted screencaps and commentary on their website, accusing intellectual property theft, plagiarism and cover-ups, and linked themselves on Reddit and Tumblr. Another ONTD member then re-posted that post -- see above 43+ comment pages -- and also made sure to use proper MLA-style citation. *snort* Cue lots of counter-accusations that all the Fempop EIC really cares about is getting hits, and she should feel lucky now because this controversy has given them way more attention than they ever had previously and oh, waitaminit you guys, that was probably why she kicked up this fuss in the first place! And so on.
*
Legally and morally, I guess a lot of us would be inclined to side with the original writer and Fempop. But practically? I don't know.
Back in the day, I used to get upset about people doing the same kind of copy-pasting/re-posting with my stuff. I started out in a fandom where story headers explicitly included either permission to archive (i.e. re-post) or instructions about getting permission. I rarely permitted archiving: I didn't want multiple copies of my stories floating around in places I didn't know about, in case I ever wanted to (a) edit them, or (b) disappear from the Internet. I preferred to be in control and able to monitor all of my stuff in as few places as possible. So at first, it bothered me whenever I found out that one of my LJ posts had been re-posted somewhere. Even if the re-poster credited me and/or linked back to me, something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
The last time I publicly voiced concerns about this was 2006, I think. Wise people told me then that this was just the direction the Internet was going -- re-posting was also happening on tons of other blogs and also on Youtube, for starters. Then at some point in the intervening years, Tumblr started up. The entire basis of that site is to make it dead easy to re-post content. It's hugely popular, especially as a fannish tool, and I go there a lot to right-click-save pretty pictures or admire animated GIFs.
There's one LJ post of mine floating around Tumblr now which -- I've just checked -- has been re-blogged or liked over 24,000 times. I know people are also re-posting it on LJ, because I get the pingback notifications and occasional comments.
And you know what? I think that's awesome. It's 2011, and the way I use the Internet has definitely changed. This is the culture in the places where I hang out now, and I guess my mind has adapted. Instead of being upset about re-posting, I find it flattering. That one post has lived thousands of lives over again; those old words have reached so many more people instead of hiding on LJ. Of course, I have to admit I would like it less if I weren't being properly credited or linked in these various re-posts...but I also have to admit there are probably lots of places where I'm not being credited or linked. And I can only shrug and let it go.
I do sympathize with Fempop, because they're a small site and they want to make money for having lots of page hits and readers, and the writer wants to get paid for the use of her words. And of course many more bloggers than them face the same issues (including people in my RL who are trying to make money from blogging).
But one of the hurdles to deal with in this culture of re-posting is that a lot of potential readers, rather than following links to the original creators of content, simply prefer to stay and react where they're already hanging out. They prefer this even when re-posters make it easy for them to get to the original source. This is for two reasons, I think: (1) readers are kind of lazy, and/or (2) they'd just rather talk to themselves.
For all the thousands of re-blogs on that LJ post of mine, I've probably only seen a fraction of a percent in terms of direct feedback (people who went to the trouble of following the links back to the post and commenting there). But people are regularly adding their own reactions and GIFs on their Tumblr re-blogs, or commenting to their friends' re-posts on LJ. And I think that even if this ONTD/Fempop re-post had included all the correct names or even a blinking arrow saying "Go comment there!", it still wouldn't have translated to lots more hits at Fempop. The fun of ONTD is its commenting culture. People don't necessarily want to find the author. Instead, they'd rather talk to each other about what the author produced.
I think disengaging from content creators is natural. When I read a book or watch something, I talk to someone else about it, not the writers or the producers. This is primarily because the latter are harder to get access to (but hey, they got my money most of the time). It wasn't until I got into fandom that I could talk directly to fanfic authors, artists and vidders, and was encouraged to do so because feedback is how fan creators get "paid".
But even now, I find it more fulfilling as a consumer to write recommendations and chat in private with other readers about what they thought of a fic or a picture or a vid, and I'm not so great at leaving thoughtful feedback. I want the creator to feel appreciated for their work, yes, but I'm also really interested in expressing my reactions without their involvement -- especially because, I suppose, there's pressure to be positive rather than negative when dealing directly with a fan creator. I want to speak my own thoughts and hear others' thoughts (which, obviously, are simply a way to measure and validate my reactions!) without any of us having to bow to that pressure. And aside from feedback for creative work, I think we see that inclination with meta too: someone makes a post, and often other people simply link it or branch off into secondary discussions in their own journals without bothering to comment on the original. It happens all the time. Me! I want to talk now!
Of course, when the mechanism of complete re-posting enters the picture, it can be read as such a blatant dismissal of the creator: the content, and my reaction to it and your reaction to it, are all that matters, and who cares if the creator even knows about it, much less if they participate?
So with this attitude now so pervasive, how can we make sure creators feel properly appreciated, whether with revenue or kudos? Can we hold readers responsible for remembering there's a person at the starting point of what they're talking about, and thus they ought to try their best to establish a direct connection as well? Or is it up to re-posters to do something more to close that gap, even if they're simply following the particular conventions of their corners of the Internet -- and if so, what would that "something more" look like? Or it's just a combination of both, right, with perhaps a dash of responsibility thrown to the creator to actively monitor what happens to their work? With regular vanity searches or trackback code or...?
As I said, I dunno. Sorry, y'all, that was a lot of tl;dr with no conclusion!
*
Anyway. Speaking of all this, I've been resisting the godawful movement by big corporate websites to link up all of your various accounts at places. It goes without saying that I don't want my Facebook linked to my LJ or DW accounts. But I'm also not sure I want to link any of those to the accounts I use for non-fannish blogging, because (a) I'm afraid of inadvertently pseud-failing somewhere, and (b) I don't need my family and random people I went to high school with finding out ANY of my online business.
For instance, I signed up with Disqus just so I could comment on Fempop, and it tried to make me choose between linking it to Google, Facebook, OpenID, Twitter, and Tumblr. NIGHTMARE!
As of last night, this is how I live on the Internet:
RL
1. RL email address
2. RL Facebook which also has a lot of fannish folk under their RL names friended
3. RL Google-plus
Fannish
4. Fannish email address
5. Fannish LJ
6. Fannish DW
7. Fannish Google-plus
Middle ground?
8. Twitter which is pseudonymous but registered with RL email address
9. Tumblr which is pseudonymous and WAS registered with fannish email address, but hopefully I've now correctly switched it to my RL email address (long story involving my S/O). This main Tumblr also has a linked sub-Tumblr which I created because I thought I could use it for fannish things, but now I'm too paranoid to try.
10. Disqus which links 8 and 9 but so far nothing else (I hope!)
11. AIM chat program which is so mixed up with different people I can't even talk about it
Wow, looking at everything listed together, now I'm pretty sure the only conclusion is: I'm doomed. :(
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comments at its original location at http://hesychasm.dreamwidth.org/245603.html. Please comment there or here.
ONTD's posts are mostly copy-pastes/re-blogs of outside content. The community's policy is that every post requires a link back to the source, but doesn't specify or enforce a format for links.
A small feminist blog at Fempop.com ran an article by a freelance writer. An ONTD member re-posted that article wholesale at ONTD, and per policy, included a link to the original at the bottom of the re-post. However, the text face for the link only read "xxx" (an ONTD-specific convention), and neither the original writer nor Fempop were explicitly named in the re-post.
The re-post got just over 200 comments from ONTD members, which is kind of small for ONTD. The original post at Fempop got 0 comments. Then Jezebel, a very big feminist blog, linked to the re-post and credited ONTD, but did not link to the original article at Fempop.
The original writer saw the post at Jezebel and contacted the Fempop editor-in-chief. One or both of them contacted Jezebel and the ONTD member who had re-posted the article to ask that they explicitly name the writer. Jezebel complied. The Fempop EIC also reached out to an ONTD mod via Twitter. But before the ONTD mod could address the issue, the ONTD member deleted the re-post. The ONTD mod declared the matter done and refused to reprimand the member (as requested by the Fempop EIC).
The Fempop EIC decided that wasn't good enough and posted screencaps and commentary on their website, accusing intellectual property theft, plagiarism and cover-ups, and linked themselves on Reddit and Tumblr. Another ONTD member then re-posted that post -- see above 43+ comment pages -- and also made sure to use proper MLA-style citation. *snort* Cue lots of counter-accusations that all the Fempop EIC really cares about is getting hits, and she should feel lucky now because this controversy has given them way more attention than they ever had previously and oh, waitaminit you guys, that was probably why she kicked up this fuss in the first place! And so on.
*
Legally and morally, I guess a lot of us would be inclined to side with the original writer and Fempop. But practically? I don't know.
Back in the day, I used to get upset about people doing the same kind of copy-pasting/re-posting with my stuff. I started out in a fandom where story headers explicitly included either permission to archive (i.e. re-post) or instructions about getting permission. I rarely permitted archiving: I didn't want multiple copies of my stories floating around in places I didn't know about, in case I ever wanted to (a) edit them, or (b) disappear from the Internet. I preferred to be in control and able to monitor all of my stuff in as few places as possible. So at first, it bothered me whenever I found out that one of my LJ posts had been re-posted somewhere. Even if the re-poster credited me and/or linked back to me, something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
The last time I publicly voiced concerns about this was 2006, I think. Wise people told me then that this was just the direction the Internet was going -- re-posting was also happening on tons of other blogs and also on Youtube, for starters. Then at some point in the intervening years, Tumblr started up. The entire basis of that site is to make it dead easy to re-post content. It's hugely popular, especially as a fannish tool, and I go there a lot to right-click-save pretty pictures or admire animated GIFs.
There's one LJ post of mine floating around Tumblr now which -- I've just checked -- has been re-blogged or liked over 24,000 times. I know people are also re-posting it on LJ, because I get the pingback notifications and occasional comments.
And you know what? I think that's awesome. It's 2011, and the way I use the Internet has definitely changed. This is the culture in the places where I hang out now, and I guess my mind has adapted. Instead of being upset about re-posting, I find it flattering. That one post has lived thousands of lives over again; those old words have reached so many more people instead of hiding on LJ. Of course, I have to admit I would like it less if I weren't being properly credited or linked in these various re-posts...but I also have to admit there are probably lots of places where I'm not being credited or linked. And I can only shrug and let it go.
I do sympathize with Fempop, because they're a small site and they want to make money for having lots of page hits and readers, and the writer wants to get paid for the use of her words. And of course many more bloggers than them face the same issues (including people in my RL who are trying to make money from blogging).
But one of the hurdles to deal with in this culture of re-posting is that a lot of potential readers, rather than following links to the original creators of content, simply prefer to stay and react where they're already hanging out. They prefer this even when re-posters make it easy for them to get to the original source. This is for two reasons, I think: (1) readers are kind of lazy, and/or (2) they'd just rather talk to themselves.
For all the thousands of re-blogs on that LJ post of mine, I've probably only seen a fraction of a percent in terms of direct feedback (people who went to the trouble of following the links back to the post and commenting there). But people are regularly adding their own reactions and GIFs on their Tumblr re-blogs, or commenting to their friends' re-posts on LJ. And I think that even if this ONTD/Fempop re-post had included all the correct names or even a blinking arrow saying "Go comment there!", it still wouldn't have translated to lots more hits at Fempop. The fun of ONTD is its commenting culture. People don't necessarily want to find the author. Instead, they'd rather talk to each other about what the author produced.
I think disengaging from content creators is natural. When I read a book or watch something, I talk to someone else about it, not the writers or the producers. This is primarily because the latter are harder to get access to (but hey, they got my money most of the time). It wasn't until I got into fandom that I could talk directly to fanfic authors, artists and vidders, and was encouraged to do so because feedback is how fan creators get "paid".
But even now, I find it more fulfilling as a consumer to write recommendations and chat in private with other readers about what they thought of a fic or a picture or a vid, and I'm not so great at leaving thoughtful feedback. I want the creator to feel appreciated for their work, yes, but I'm also really interested in expressing my reactions without their involvement -- especially because, I suppose, there's pressure to be positive rather than negative when dealing directly with a fan creator. I want to speak my own thoughts and hear others' thoughts (which, obviously, are simply a way to measure and validate my reactions!) without any of us having to bow to that pressure. And aside from feedback for creative work, I think we see that inclination with meta too: someone makes a post, and often other people simply link it or branch off into secondary discussions in their own journals without bothering to comment on the original. It happens all the time. Me! I want to talk now!
Of course, when the mechanism of complete re-posting enters the picture, it can be read as such a blatant dismissal of the creator: the content, and my reaction to it and your reaction to it, are all that matters, and who cares if the creator even knows about it, much less if they participate?
So with this attitude now so pervasive, how can we make sure creators feel properly appreciated, whether with revenue or kudos? Can we hold readers responsible for remembering there's a person at the starting point of what they're talking about, and thus they ought to try their best to establish a direct connection as well? Or is it up to re-posters to do something more to close that gap, even if they're simply following the particular conventions of their corners of the Internet -- and if so, what would that "something more" look like? Or it's just a combination of both, right, with perhaps a dash of responsibility thrown to the creator to actively monitor what happens to their work? With regular vanity searches or trackback code or...?
As I said, I dunno. Sorry, y'all, that was a lot of tl;dr with no conclusion!
*
Anyway. Speaking of all this, I've been resisting the godawful movement by big corporate websites to link up all of your various accounts at places. It goes without saying that I don't want my Facebook linked to my LJ or DW accounts. But I'm also not sure I want to link any of those to the accounts I use for non-fannish blogging, because (a) I'm afraid of inadvertently pseud-failing somewhere, and (b) I don't need my family and random people I went to high school with finding out ANY of my online business.
For instance, I signed up with Disqus just so I could comment on Fempop, and it tried to make me choose between linking it to Google, Facebook, OpenID, Twitter, and Tumblr. NIGHTMARE!
As of last night, this is how I live on the Internet:
RL
1. RL email address
2. RL Facebook which also has a lot of fannish folk under their RL names friended
3. RL Google-plus
Fannish
4. Fannish email address
5. Fannish LJ
6. Fannish DW
7. Fannish Google-plus
Middle ground?
8. Twitter which is pseudonymous but registered with RL email address
9. Tumblr which is pseudonymous and WAS registered with fannish email address, but hopefully I've now correctly switched it to my RL email address (long story involving my S/O). This main Tumblr also has a linked sub-Tumblr which I created because I thought I could use it for fannish things, but now I'm too paranoid to try.
10. Disqus which links 8 and 9 but so far nothing else (I hope!)
11. AIM chat program which is so mixed up with different people I can't even talk about it
Wow, looking at everything listed together, now I'm pretty sure the only conclusion is: I'm doomed. :(
This post has
comments at its original location at http://hesychasm.dreamwidth.org/245603.html. Please comment there or here.