Questions/advice for deciding community content and focus
This was going to be another post about tagging. But then I started writing this as a prelude to talking about tagging in communities, and, uh... it developed. *g* This is written in some ways as a reminder to myself, but if anyone finds it helpful, yay! And all usual disclaimers about this only being my opinion and personal experiences apply.
Note: in this context, relationship can be platonic or romantic.
General fandom community (e.g. community focused on a film, book, or television series)
Which of the following will be allowed or not allowed?
- General discussion: reviews, theories, meta, etc.
- Articles, etc.: news, blog posts etc. related to the fandom and/or actresses/actors
- Actor-related posts: interviews, picspams, other projects, etc.
- Fanwork: fanfiction (fpf and rpf), fanart, fanmedia (graphics and vids), fanmixes
- Promotions: links to resources (fanwikis, on- and -off-LJ resources), related challenges, related communities
- Original media: downloads, graphics and photos like promo shots, screencaps, embedded vids like trailers, scenes, etc.
- Other miscellany: humor posts, questions/requests, member introductions
Things to consider: Whether to moderate posts; whether to post round-ups if traffic starts getting too high where members can point to related posts in their own journals or post responses in comments; whether to create discussion posts, etc.
Pair/threesome+-specific community (i.e. a community that focuses on the relationship between two or more characters or actresses/actors)
One: narrow down whether the community will be all-inclusive or not. All-inclusive can mean anything related to the characters singularly as well as the characters in the context of the relationship, and if there are actors involved in the source material, it can mean actress x/actress y or actor x&actor y related content as well as interviews/articles/picspams/etc. related to said actors, in or out of the context of the relation and/or source material.
Two: narrow down what type of relationship focus there will be. For X/Y, will both romantic X/Y in addition to gen X&Y be allowed? Or will X&Y have to be building up to X/Y? How about X/Y/third+ or X&Y&other characters?
For three+ characters, what about X/Y, X&Y and Y/Z, Y&Z on top of X/Y/Z, X&Y&Z?
My thoughts: In particular for pair/threesome+ focused from small fandoms, the all-inclusive approach that welcomes character pieces in addition to relationship focused may be the best approach. For larger fandoms, there are likely communities already in existence that will focus on said characters and focusing it just on the pair will help alleviate the dreaded cross-posting syndrome.
For three+ characters, does a community exist that focuses solely on X/Y or Y/Z? Will your community be treading any new territory if you allow inclusion of these “sub”-relationships? Think about the intention of your community and what purpose it will fill. If you’re interested in advocating all possible combinations of X/Y/Z, I’d recommend all-inclusive even if communities already exist, because you will, in fact, have a different focus.
Fanwork-specific communities
One: narrow down whether the community will be all-inclusive or not. All-inclusive can mean any kind of fanwork, from fiction (including RPF) to icons to mixes to challenges to meta relating to the fanwork. Decide whether or not you will allow recs at your community, and whether there needs to be any particular formatting for posting recs if so.
Two: how can people post their fanwork? Solely to the community, as links to their livejournal, as links to off-site content?
Three: make clear and consistent policies right off the bat regarding any potential hot button topics, e.g. fanwork that features incest or underage characters. (And please, for the love of common decency, try to be nice about it in public. Unless your community has an antagonistic focus, in which case, that’s a totally different kettle of fish which I’m not going to touch.)
Four: assemble the list of clear and consistent rules/policies and a template for posting fanwork; I recommend making them very easily accessible. The more accessible these two things are the more likely your members are to use/abide by them them, in my experience.
Five: explain how you want fanwork labeled. (Many of these categories only apply to fanfiction, but some will apply to fanart, too.)
º Subject line: what, if anything, needs to be included in post subject lines. (The more the better if posts are being memory’d.)
º Author: if you want to tag or memory by author, this can be helpful.
º Ratings: if they’re required, which rating systems are allowed, and up to/down to what rating of content members can post. Should ratings have an explanation attached to them?
º Characters/pairing: do you want them to label for all characters that significantly appear? Do you want it only labeled for the pairing that the fic focuses on, or any that significantly appear?
º Disclaimer: is one required, and if so, what kind?
º Fic size indicator: labeled by category (e.g. drabble, one-shot, novella) or by wordcount, etc.?
º Spoilers: only for the most recent episodes/movies/books, or for previous ones, as well? Would you prefer that they say “spoilers: none” rather than not list it at all?
º Warnings: what needs to be warned for at your community. Keep in mind that authors sometimes post longer and more detailed warnings at their own journal, and sometimes post no warnings at their own journal.
º Summary/author’s notes: Not much to say on this, other than, if I could get away with it? I’d banish anyone from ever posting author’s notes at a community if they’re just fake-cutting. (Personal pet peeve.) But summaries are extremely useful and I’d personally recommend encouraging them.
Don’t assume all members will have the same level of knowledge regarding posting of fanwork-rather, assume that at least some of your members have never done so before, and explain everything as such. Make it easy for your members to do things the way you want. Linking to relevant bits in the LiveJournal FAQ and guides that show exactly how to do these things can be helpful.
Some general thoughts on niches and narrowing focus:
I think for any sort of community, it’s all about considering what sort of niche your community is filling or creating. For instance, when evaluating what kind of content we wanted to allow at dlm_fanfiction, we decided to allow all types of fanwork except for icons, because all the other active DLM communities out there had lots of icon posts. We wanted to fill a specific niche in which we encouraged fanfiction, fanart like manips and drawings, fanmixes, recs and meta relating to the universe/characters/pairings-and that meant not allowing any icons right off the bat, because the icon traffic would have flooded out all these things.
Deciding the focus of the community can be challenging, especially when one is unsure how many will join and what sort of content will be posted, but I think it’s best to do it right away.
For instance, if you’re making a community and, really, you’re doing it because you want to read fic about X/Y and you’re hoping that making a general community will produce some of that, you should be prepared to mod a community that may only have one X/Y fic out of every ten posts. Or maybe no X/Y fic at all (woe!). To you it might be the most obvious thing in the world about what sort of content belongs in your community, but believe you me, it will not be so immediately apparent to every random fan that stumbles across it and joins. (And, yes, I’m absolutely speaking from experience, here. *g*)
There’s nothing wrong with stating up front: “This community is created mainly for Y content, but we aren’t opposed to a little bit of X content, as well.” Also keep in mind what kind of content you want to encourage. There may be stuff that people think about posting to the community and don’t because they aren’t 100% sure it would be appropriate. Being a mod and posting a certain type of content, like a picspam for instance, and then tacking on at the end “anyone else seen any good promo shots they’d like to share?” can go a long way towards showing members what type of content you want to encourage. Running challenges etc. are also a good way of drumming up interest, too, especially if there are shiny things such as rewards involved. *g*
Community content, like many things in life, is all about what gets the most attention. The most active posters in the community will dictate its content, so encouraging people to be active to certain areas will, in turn, dictate content make-up. And particularly in the world of the ever-changing flist, what pops up the most often on members’ flists is what they will associate with your community. And that association, in turn, may make a member think, “oh, I have something similar to all these posts I’ve been seeing over there-I’ll go post it at that community.” It’s a whole self-perpetuating cycle.
Over time, the content focus may change, and changing policies and rules to reflect that is necessary. It’s a balance between remembering it’s your (and your co-mods’) community, but that you’re also relying on the members to make it rich. That’s one reason it’s important to be clear right away about what you don’t want-if you aren’t, you may end up modding a community that is completely different from what you created it for the first place.
Edit: And the post that this was a prelude to (examples of tagging systems in certain types of fannish communities) is now up here.
Note: in this context, relationship can be platonic or romantic.
General fandom community (e.g. community focused on a film, book, or television series)
Which of the following will be allowed or not allowed?
- General discussion: reviews, theories, meta, etc.
- Articles, etc.: news, blog posts etc. related to the fandom and/or actresses/actors
- Actor-related posts: interviews, picspams, other projects, etc.
- Fanwork: fanfiction (fpf and rpf), fanart, fanmedia (graphics and vids), fanmixes
- Promotions: links to resources (fanwikis, on- and -off-LJ resources), related challenges, related communities
- Original media: downloads, graphics and photos like promo shots, screencaps, embedded vids like trailers, scenes, etc.
- Other miscellany: humor posts, questions/requests, member introductions
Things to consider: Whether to moderate posts; whether to post round-ups if traffic starts getting too high where members can point to related posts in their own journals or post responses in comments; whether to create discussion posts, etc.
Pair/threesome+-specific community (i.e. a community that focuses on the relationship between two or more characters or actresses/actors)
One: narrow down whether the community will be all-inclusive or not. All-inclusive can mean anything related to the characters singularly as well as the characters in the context of the relationship, and if there are actors involved in the source material, it can mean actress x/actress y or actor x&actor y related content as well as interviews/articles/picspams/etc. related to said actors, in or out of the context of the relation and/or source material.
Two: narrow down what type of relationship focus there will be. For X/Y, will both romantic X/Y in addition to gen X&Y be allowed? Or will X&Y have to be building up to X/Y? How about X/Y/third+ or X&Y&other characters?
For three+ characters, what about X/Y, X&Y and Y/Z, Y&Z on top of X/Y/Z, X&Y&Z?
My thoughts: In particular for pair/threesome+ focused from small fandoms, the all-inclusive approach that welcomes character pieces in addition to relationship focused may be the best approach. For larger fandoms, there are likely communities already in existence that will focus on said characters and focusing it just on the pair will help alleviate the dreaded cross-posting syndrome.
For three+ characters, does a community exist that focuses solely on X/Y or Y/Z? Will your community be treading any new territory if you allow inclusion of these “sub”-relationships? Think about the intention of your community and what purpose it will fill. If you’re interested in advocating all possible combinations of X/Y/Z, I’d recommend all-inclusive even if communities already exist, because you will, in fact, have a different focus.
Fanwork-specific communities
One: narrow down whether the community will be all-inclusive or not. All-inclusive can mean any kind of fanwork, from fiction (including RPF) to icons to mixes to challenges to meta relating to the fanwork. Decide whether or not you will allow recs at your community, and whether there needs to be any particular formatting for posting recs if so.
Two: how can people post their fanwork? Solely to the community, as links to their livejournal, as links to off-site content?
Three: make clear and consistent policies right off the bat regarding any potential hot button topics, e.g. fanwork that features incest or underage characters. (And please, for the love of common decency, try to be nice about it in public. Unless your community has an antagonistic focus, in which case, that’s a totally different kettle of fish which I’m not going to touch.)
Four: assemble the list of clear and consistent rules/policies and a template for posting fanwork; I recommend making them very easily accessible. The more accessible these two things are the more likely your members are to use/abide by them them, in my experience.
Five: explain how you want fanwork labeled. (Many of these categories only apply to fanfiction, but some will apply to fanart, too.)
º Subject line: what, if anything, needs to be included in post subject lines. (The more the better if posts are being memory’d.)
º Author: if you want to tag or memory by author, this can be helpful.
º Ratings: if they’re required, which rating systems are allowed, and up to/down to what rating of content members can post. Should ratings have an explanation attached to them?
º Characters/pairing: do you want them to label for all characters that significantly appear? Do you want it only labeled for the pairing that the fic focuses on, or any that significantly appear?
º Disclaimer: is one required, and if so, what kind?
º Fic size indicator: labeled by category (e.g. drabble, one-shot, novella) or by wordcount, etc.?
º Spoilers: only for the most recent episodes/movies/books, or for previous ones, as well? Would you prefer that they say “spoilers: none” rather than not list it at all?
º Warnings: what needs to be warned for at your community. Keep in mind that authors sometimes post longer and more detailed warnings at their own journal, and sometimes post no warnings at their own journal.
º Summary/author’s notes: Not much to say on this, other than, if I could get away with it? I’d banish anyone from ever posting author’s notes at a community if they’re just fake-cutting. (Personal pet peeve.) But summaries are extremely useful and I’d personally recommend encouraging them.
Don’t assume all members will have the same level of knowledge regarding posting of fanwork-rather, assume that at least some of your members have never done so before, and explain everything as such. Make it easy for your members to do things the way you want. Linking to relevant bits in the LiveJournal FAQ and guides that show exactly how to do these things can be helpful.
Some general thoughts on niches and narrowing focus:
I think for any sort of community, it’s all about considering what sort of niche your community is filling or creating. For instance, when evaluating what kind of content we wanted to allow at dlm_fanfiction, we decided to allow all types of fanwork except for icons, because all the other active DLM communities out there had lots of icon posts. We wanted to fill a specific niche in which we encouraged fanfiction, fanart like manips and drawings, fanmixes, recs and meta relating to the universe/characters/pairings-and that meant not allowing any icons right off the bat, because the icon traffic would have flooded out all these things.
Deciding the focus of the community can be challenging, especially when one is unsure how many will join and what sort of content will be posted, but I think it’s best to do it right away.
For instance, if you’re making a community and, really, you’re doing it because you want to read fic about X/Y and you’re hoping that making a general community will produce some of that, you should be prepared to mod a community that may only have one X/Y fic out of every ten posts. Or maybe no X/Y fic at all (woe!). To you it might be the most obvious thing in the world about what sort of content belongs in your community, but believe you me, it will not be so immediately apparent to every random fan that stumbles across it and joins. (And, yes, I’m absolutely speaking from experience, here. *g*)
There’s nothing wrong with stating up front: “This community is created mainly for Y content, but we aren’t opposed to a little bit of X content, as well.” Also keep in mind what kind of content you want to encourage. There may be stuff that people think about posting to the community and don’t because they aren’t 100% sure it would be appropriate. Being a mod and posting a certain type of content, like a picspam for instance, and then tacking on at the end “anyone else seen any good promo shots they’d like to share?” can go a long way towards showing members what type of content you want to encourage. Running challenges etc. are also a good way of drumming up interest, too, especially if there are shiny things such as rewards involved. *g*
Community content, like many things in life, is all about what gets the most attention. The most active posters in the community will dictate its content, so encouraging people to be active to certain areas will, in turn, dictate content make-up. And particularly in the world of the ever-changing flist, what pops up the most often on members’ flists is what they will associate with your community. And that association, in turn, may make a member think, “oh, I have something similar to all these posts I’ve been seeing over there-I’ll go post it at that community.” It’s a whole self-perpetuating cycle.
Over time, the content focus may change, and changing policies and rules to reflect that is necessary. It’s a balance between remembering it’s your (and your co-mods’) community, but that you’re also relying on the members to make it rich. That’s one reason it’s important to be clear right away about what you don’t want-if you aren’t, you may end up modding a community that is completely different from what you created it for the first place.
Edit: And the post that this was a prelude to (examples of tagging systems in certain types of fannish communities) is now up here.