Comments | hmpf: Something that's been confusing me about 'recent' changes in fandom:

hmpf

Something that's been confusing me about 'recent' changes in fandom:

May 22, 2007 18:13

fandom seems to have moved to livejournal almost completely, even for those things that aren't necessarily best served by LJ. In fact, very little except the pure socialising part of fandom - which is, of course, an important part, no contest about that! - is *really* best served by LJ. Forums are better suited for discussion, since they allow ( Read more... )

archives vs. lj, keeping stuff accessible, changes in fandom, do we need a 'slow fandom' movement?, lj, fandom, fandom meta, forums vs. lj, meta, lj meta

Comments 57

bistokids May 22 2007, 18:25:52 UTC

I can only speak for myself, obviously, and my experience is limited pretty much to two fandoms. As far as discussion goes, forums are generally ideal, but as we've found in relation to the end of LoM, when feelings run high on a particular issue, it can be the wisest course of action to take the discussion over to LJ rather than fanning the flames and risking splitting a forum. I know this has come up within the Harry Potter fandom too, so I imagine there are other examples. In this respect, LJ and forums can complement each other nicely ( ... )

Withdrawing to LJ hmpf May 23 2007, 23:55:22 UTC

>it can be the wisest course of action to take the discussion over to LJ

Well, we could have withdrawn to a nice, small and private forum, as well. ;-)

(I'm actually a member of a group that did just that, i.e. withdrew to a small, private forum after a huge influx of newbies with an attendant extreme change in fannish 'style' in an older fandom, about five years ago.)

As for archiving - I think you're plenty good enough to archive your stuff *now*! ;-) But then, we don't have an archive yet in LOM fandom... but we're working on that, honest. ;-) And when we're done, we'll be pestering you until you submit your stuff. Mwahahahahaaa!

pat_t May 22 2007, 20:41:17 UTC

oh my. well, I only speak from the HL fandom, but this is a subject I have brought up multiple times. On yahoo group lists and in LJ. *But* on the other side.

Usually it starts with someone grumbing that people are posting on LJ and not on lists. Okaaaay. So lets take a look. How many times are the lurkers posting? Hmmmm. None! The groups are dying because people are sitting on their butts waiting for someone to entertain them. The lists only work if they are interactive .

If you look at some of the lists - they have hundreds of people as members. But only a handful - and I do mean a handful post. You don't know how many times I have tried to start a discussion on a list only to be met by dead - earth shattering *SILENCE ( ... )

Preaching to the choir ;-) hmpf May 22 2007, 21:10:18 UTC

I still post my fic to lists (it's just not very noticeable, because I only finish a story every other year or so - less often, even.) Though, to be honest, even back in 1998/1999 I wasn't a particularly active list participant; I've always found the forum format more useful for sustained discussion. And my place for fannish discussion of choice is still forums - I racked up a post count of over 1000 in less than a year at The Railway Arms recently, and I'm also a mod at a German sf forum, where I have something like 1500 posts. So, not exactly inactive in those older modes of fannish interaction ( ... )

pat_t May 22 2007, 21:19:06 UTC

Re: Preaching to the choir ;-) ithildyn May 23 2007, 20:00:56 UTC

I still maintain my own archive on my website, and I used to archive faithfully at some fandom specific archives before they went defunct.

Thread 9

amonitrate May 23 2007, 00:58:01 UTC

THough I enjoy LJ fandom, having come rather late to the active participation in fandom (after ten years as lurker) I do agree with some of your points. Especially the notion of the archive. TO compromise, I've set up an index post to my own writings, and put that on my LJ userpage. I guess that is akin to having a personal webpage, which has also been part of fandom for awhile, so that isn't so different than the old days.

I personally hate the format of conversations on email listservs and have always found it confusing, both in "real time" and when playing catch-up, so LJ seemed far superior to that. That said, even having never actively experienced the forum format, I do have to say I agree with your point about conversations being more public and getting bumped to the top.

Reply (oh, I suck at subject lines *g*) hmpf May 24 2007, 00:08:13 UTC

>THough I enjoy LJ fandom, having come rather late to the active participation in fandom (after ten years as lurker) I do agree with some of your points. Especially the notion of the archive. TO compromise, I've set up an index post to my own writings, and put that on my LJ userpage. I guess that is akin to having a personal webpage, which has also been part of fandom for awhile, so that isn't so different than the old days ( ... )

6beforelunch May 23 2007, 20:03:54 UTC

(via metafandom) Just speaking for myself here ( ... )

I understand the popularity of LJ, too - hmpf May 24 2007, 00:23:31 UTC

hey, I've been here for five years. I wouldn't be here anymore if I didn't enjoy it. ;-) I just think there are areas of fandom that would be better served if people didn't centre their fannish lives *exclusively* on LJ, that's all. There's nothing that says we shouldn't keep our social interaction here ( ... )

Topic vs. interaction hmpf May 24 2007, 04:07:20 UTC

>I guess I'm very 'topic focused' and less 'social interaction focused' in my fannish life

Heh. I just followed the link to the discussion in sophia_helix's LJ given to me by lim below, and cereta makes exactly that point there in the comments. Neat. :-) (That whole discussion seems to be utterly fascinating, really.)

chicafrom3 May 23 2007, 21:04:56 UTC

(Here via metafandomI can only speak for myself, obviously, but as someone who posts fic exclusively to LJ, I guess my word counts for something ( ... )

Accessibility... hmpf May 23 2007, 21:59:34 UTC

>I don't see how keeping my fic on LJ makes it that much less accessible than posting it to a forum or archive ( ... )

Re: Accessibility... chicafrom3 May 24 2007, 00:23:26 UTC

don't know the right communities for the fandoms they're interested in,

I'd put money on there being a comparable number of people who don't know the archives for the fandoms they're interested in. I should know, I'm one of them; I've gotten into new fandoms, checked Google to see if there was a fandom-specific archive, failed, and floundered helplessly.

And then gone to LJ, typed in the fandom of my choice into "Interests", and found communities dedicated to it. As far as I know, there isn't a Black Donnellys-specific archive around, and the FFN pickings are laughable to say the least; donnellysfic, on the other hand, was easy for me to find, it remains easy to navigate, I can sort through it by the characters I want, the pairings I want, the ratings I want, or the authors I want, and when I post my fic there I can be reasonably confident that a good chunk of the fandom is going to be offered the choice of reading it ( ... )

Re: Accessibility... hmpf May 24 2007, 00:41:50 UTC

Maybe it is a generational thing. I dunno. I just really like stuff nice and central, collected in one place. That place *can* be an LJ community, too - it's not the concept of communities-as-archives that I object to, but rather the fact that few communities really seem to be run dedicatedly *as archives*, i.e. with useful tags and memories and little or no clutter, etc. Although you may run into problems with the concept of communities-as-archives in big fandoms with big fic outputs, because (correct me if I'm wrong) the tags feature only allows you to go back 100 entries for each tag, which means that in a popular category, anything older than the last 100 fics will become inaccessible. But even that can be conquered by using the memories features, so, again - yes, I think communities *could* serve as a decent replacement for archives. If they were actually used properly as such.

Thread 6