Mmmm, S'mores
My silly high at finding myself in a reference work has been replaced by a silly high of being an actual part of a major bit of fandom wank.
EDIT TO ADD: Clicking on the Fan History Wiki link below will generate ad revenue for that site and for its owner. You might want to read the whole post before you chose to click or not.
slwatsonleft me a tipoff about the controversy surrounding the Fan History Wiki after surfing from link to link and finding
slwatson's own first hand account in a reply to this I've learned following:
While most of the pages are bot generated there are some that have apparently received Laura's personal attention and according to reports in the links above the entries she has authored were not only not objectively written, but she baned those who dared to correct her work and make the entries more objective. So much for the idea of a democratic and fair sharing of knowledge inherent in a Wiki.
slwatson mentioned plans to market the site in her remarks at that last link. Which, in itself, isn't automatically something evil. More power to her if she can make a hobby pay, as long as it's done legally and ethically.
Yeah, well, about that last. When she has been able to learn them she has posted the real names behind the nom de plumes of various fanfic authors. Even when she has been asked not to because the person is an author of material that their families or employers would not be pleased with.
Remember the person earlier this year who got fired from her teaching job when she was outed as writing erotica on the side? Not part of this wank but a concrete example of why outing people is Not A Good Thing.
You know me, I have to make sure I have all the facts so I kept digging and found a recently posted apology and a promise to reorganize the site administration. Sounds good but interestingly enough the very first reply to this was by
slwatson and was posted several hours before she posted the warning here. She, and a couple of the other posters point to statements in the apology that they say they can document as untrue.
It's long past time to get out the marshmallows, I think. Don't you love the cheerful crackle of a nice hot fire?
I know none of the people I've linked to or who are quoted so I'm a slightly bemused outsider trying to make sense of some of the posts that assume that everyone reading knows exactly what is going on. I tend to believe that the people up in arms know what they are talking about but again, I'm an outsider and there may be things I don't know.
What is crystal clear, however, is that getting actively involved with that site would be akin to wandering across the field at an archery competition. I'm not going to add the link to my bio or in any other way connect myself further with it.
I did come across several comments questioning why something like this would be a good thing. I'd love an easily searchable site that provided all of an author's pen names, lists of story links, and accounts of fandom history. Who wrote the first documented slash story? (I know it was a Trek) Is she still active? Who won the masquerade at Comicon (with pics)? How about a list of conventions both current and past with information on attending the current ones and notes on what happened at past ones?
Right now you have to trust your Google-Fu and hope you get a lucky hit to research much of anything fandom related and a site that did for fandom what Wikipedia has done for other areas of interest would be great.
Maybe someday it will happen without it turning into Wankapedia.
Oops! My marshmallow just flamed! Time to blow it out and make some s'mores.
EDIT TO ADD: Clicking on the Fan History Wiki link below will generate ad revenue for that site and for its owner. You might want to read the whole post before you chose to click or not.
slwatsonleft me a tipoff about the controversy surrounding the Fan History Wiki after surfing from link to link and finding
slwatson's own first hand account in a reply to this I've learned following:
While most of the pages are bot generated there are some that have apparently received Laura's personal attention and according to reports in the links above the entries she has authored were not only not objectively written, but she baned those who dared to correct her work and make the entries more objective. So much for the idea of a democratic and fair sharing of knowledge inherent in a Wiki.
slwatson mentioned plans to market the site in her remarks at that last link. Which, in itself, isn't automatically something evil. More power to her if she can make a hobby pay, as long as it's done legally and ethically.
Yeah, well, about that last. When she has been able to learn them she has posted the real names behind the nom de plumes of various fanfic authors. Even when she has been asked not to because the person is an author of material that their families or employers would not be pleased with.
Remember the person earlier this year who got fired from her teaching job when she was outed as writing erotica on the side? Not part of this wank but a concrete example of why outing people is Not A Good Thing.
You know me, I have to make sure I have all the facts so I kept digging and found a recently posted apology and a promise to reorganize the site administration. Sounds good but interestingly enough the very first reply to this was by
slwatson and was posted several hours before she posted the warning here. She, and a couple of the other posters point to statements in the apology that they say they can document as untrue.
It's long past time to get out the marshmallows, I think. Don't you love the cheerful crackle of a nice hot fire?
I know none of the people I've linked to or who are quoted so I'm a slightly bemused outsider trying to make sense of some of the posts that assume that everyone reading knows exactly what is going on. I tend to believe that the people up in arms know what they are talking about but again, I'm an outsider and there may be things I don't know.
What is crystal clear, however, is that getting actively involved with that site would be akin to wandering across the field at an archery competition. I'm not going to add the link to my bio or in any other way connect myself further with it.
I did come across several comments questioning why something like this would be a good thing. I'd love an easily searchable site that provided all of an author's pen names, lists of story links, and accounts of fandom history. Who wrote the first documented slash story? (I know it was a Trek) Is she still active? Who won the masquerade at Comicon (with pics)? How about a list of conventions both current and past with information on attending the current ones and notes on what happened at past ones?
Right now you have to trust your Google-Fu and hope you get a lucky hit to research much of anything fandom related and a site that did for fandom what Wikipedia has done for other areas of interest would be great.
Maybe someday it will happen without it turning into Wankapedia.
Oops! My marshmallow just flamed! Time to blow it out and make some s'mores.