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morgandawn) wrote2014-12-16 01:05 pm
Fandom Does Not Use Technology. Technology Uses Fandom
Fandom usually jumps into technologies, uses them, and then acts surprised when we realize that we have no clue what we're doing or how the use of the new tech has changed an aspect of our fandom culture. Right now a few authors are posting notices that you need permission to link to their fanworks in "public spaces". Or that they'd prefer their readers comment on their fic where it was originally posted. Each author gets to unilaterally define what is public with the expectation that every reader will follow because that is part of the "social contract". So for today Goodreads = public and is not a place to list or review fanfic. Tumblr is OK (for now) because it is not seen as a "public" space.*
It used to be easier to know what to expect of other fans but the moment we went online, the fannish social contract was voided due to sheer size and complexity of online interactions. Add the fact that new platforms and new ways of interacting keep coming out every 20 minutes and you have a hot conceptual mess filled with poorly understood expectations.
I know that when we went online in the 1990s few of us had any idea that fans would be publicly posting their porn fanfic** to open access websites (no. stop. think of the children!), displaying their explicit art where anyone could see (blush), and tweeting their love of RPS and knotting fic (OMGWTFBB!). By those standards, we have all breached the original fannish social contract of keeping fandom a "safe space" simply by interacting with one another in public and online. And I suspect that 20 years down the road, we will again struggle to recognize "fandom" as it continues to be reshaped by technology.
So I would rather see us practice mindfulness and awareness that the tools and platforms we use change us and our culture instead of snapping at one another because we've changed and that we no longer know what to expect from one another.
Because to be honest, I have no clue any more. And I'd be wary of anyone who claims otherwise.
*Keep in mind that most fans don't bother to turn off Google indexing on their tumblr blogs (or their LJ...or their DW..or their twitter or their.....). And even if they do, every time someone else reblogs your content, if *their blog* is searchable by Google it will still be "public".
**A few of us did have in inkling but we all kept it quiet because we did not want to scare our fellow fans with our crazy visions of the future filled with flying fans sporting jetpack keyboards and tinhats.
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Miscellaneous people with accounts on Goodreads are uploading AO3 (and occasionally other places) metadata. And this is not so much to Amazon's advantage (they gain nothing from fanfic being listed, and occasionally will have drama over it), but it also costs them nothing, whereas curating book listings would take a lot of time and effort.
Basically, they're not going to sort out the difference between a story published at AO3 and one published at Smashwords, or one published at NewStoriesEveryDay.com, or whatever other fic-hosting site shows up. Listings take up very little server space, and the cost of curating would be much, much higher than the cost of "just allow everything, and remove individual pages when we receive a creditable complaint."
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it then created a stub for me as author with no other info. It did not pull in anything from other social media sites.
I then sent a message using a form linked on the stubby author page to claim my profile - no one else except a librarian can edit it.
but yes gr does benefit hugely from the volunteer efforts of librarians.
as to why they decided to allow ff on goodresds until an author objects -check the links in the fanlore page. It reads more like a compromise plus less to police. At least it was until now
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only the author can claim their profile. But they do create an author profile for every work added so books can be linked together.
librarians are the only ones who can do higher level edits like remove duplicates or incorrect entries
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Also you need to be a librarian to clean up a Listopia list. Even the creators can't do it, although anyone can add books to them. I went through that hassle just a couple months ago.
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Cleaning up and such requires librarian status; adding books to the database doesn't. That's almost certainly part of the problem.
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I'm not sure they could easily forbid entries from "fanfic archives." Does that include Wattpadd, which is used for fanfic and original fic? (AO3 allows original work.) Does it include private author webpages, where an author might post chapters or a whole work as a free sample?
Deciding what a "fanfic archive" is, is likely more work than the Amazonian managers of GR want to bother with. Unless they're likely to get sued over something, I suspect they're going to go with "a book is whatever the librarians decide to list as a book."
Fanfic archives are easy for fanfic readers/writers to identify, and to separate from "general fic archives that may allow some fanfic." But for non-fanfic readers, I'm not sure it's anywhere near as obvious. E.g. while Smashwords has a "no fanfic" rule, it's buried in their TOS (and relates to copyright; new Sherlock Holmes works should be fine)--and the whole Jekkara Press line is genderflipped versions of public domain works.
There's another issue, in that GR doesn't require links--you can review books that have no presence on Amazon or anywhere else online. And GR's limited staff is certainly not going to go poring through every "favorite book from childhood" to try to find out if the book is a "real book" or a fanfic thing.
I agree with you on several points--GR profits from other people's work, and their standards are lax to allow that. And that sucks.
I just don't agree that it'd be easy enough for them to prevent fanworks--first, they'd have to *care* that some of the "books" listed are fanfic or otherwise "not real books," and then someone would have to convince them it was a problem, and then they'd have to deal with the complexity of defining fanfic or "fanfic archive;" I'm pretty sure that GR is going to invest approximately zero hours on this.
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I am not saying fans are using Calibre to sync fanfic lists with GR, but it is an example of how hard it is to maintain separation. And that most of us want ease of access and seamless integration - we just don't foresee how it all plays out (in fact...see the next paragraph).
Another fallacy is that the people who are listing fanfiction and commenting on it are not "fans". I saw this sad post from one GR fan today who said they understood "we" do not consider them part of fandom: http://meeedeee.tumblr.com/post/105403359911/hi-i-hate-bothering-you-but-your-ao3-profile (and yes, I have seen this point made over and over on tumblr).
The comment was made in the context that when the fanfic titles and authors are deleted from GR, all of *the reader's* added content (the lists of what they've read/what they want to read, their comments, their reviews) that are part of their GR accounts are being deleted. It would be like me deleting my blog and taking with it any post you had made in your blog that mentioned me.
examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
"[My fan stories] are not meant for casual public consumption, they are fanworks meant to be shared in a specific and protected community."
"Including fan fic in the Good Reads database isn’t against the ToS of Good Reads, but *think* about this stuff before you do it! And respect a culture you are not a member of."
"Fandom migration: It would be different if I actually migrated here and used this platform."
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Fannish clubs at colleges aren't real fandom; only conventions are.
Zine fandom isn't real fandom; only fan clubs are.
Digital zines aren't real fandom; they have to be on paper.
ff.net isn't real fandom; anyone can post there--you need to be in a zine.
tumblr isn't real fandom; it's just kids pointing and squeeing.
On the one hand, yes, it's bizarre to have Harry/Draco fic being reviewed and judged by people who don't know thing one about fanfic. On the other, it's not like fandom doesn't have its share of sporking reviewers who ignore whatever context the author intended and discuss the raw contents of the fic.
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Possibly, not unlike the private pointing-and-laughing turkey reads fans have done for decades. But everything seems to be done in public today. They're doing public turkey reads at some fan events. Public as in "hey everyone gather in my room/lobby and bring your favorite bad fic."
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
And having those "reviews" in print on a public website isn't quite the same as a one-off RL thing, unless those public turkey reads are being recorded and posted on YouTube (they may be; I hadn't heard about them until now).
Specific and protected community
AO3 is *not* a site for fanworks made for a specific and protected community. Neither is fanfiction.net.
"And respect a culture you are not a member of."
Because, of course, if you were a member of fandom, you would not want listings of your favorite fics on the site where you put rec lists of your favorite reading materials.
... didn't we see this whole argument played out in paper zines when the internet was new, and some people were posting fics on usenet? Can we make a drinking game of it?
Re: Specific and protected community
Re: Specific and protected community
I LIKE protected spaces and locked communities. I was a huge proponent of having a locked only option on AO3 and am very glad it's there (and used by many) for sports RPF, for example.
But you can't have it both ways....
insert image: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/091106/defeats-the-purpose.gif
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
"[My fan stories] are not meant for casual public consumption, they are fanworks meant to be shared in a specific and protected community." But then they SHOULD share it in a specific and protected community. Open AO3 and f#$%^& Tumblr are certainly NOT THAT. I'm sure we all remember the debates over the access limitations of flocked communities. The bad side was that limitation. The good side was that the subjects in question didn't fall over their fanfic when they vanity googled.
I think what annoys me here the most is that the most vocal opponents are on a platform that is the broadest and most searchable we've ever had. And they themselves constantly copy rather than link material. And to then go and scream foul when the publicly accessible, googleable stuff gets linked? This isn't the debate we had way back when in re to metafandom, where we were worried that a blog with 5 users suddenly got linked and overrun. This is an already widely accessible and linked text that suddenly pops up in the "wrong" context.
Personally, I don't like breaking the fourth wall and having fanfic in everyone's face. I minimize my digital footprint and accept the lack of publicity for certain things as a result. But you can't really have it both ways...
(And I still can't believe what side I'm on here :)
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Thanks for the link...
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ways - like loving the source and appreciation of the written fan word
"I have NO problems with authors wanting control over any personal information that is posted here, I think you guys are dead right in being upset about that. I think it's a bit creepy and misguided for users to do something like that, even if they did probably have good intentions.
I just hate the way all this came about, and that many of us have been made to feel flat unwelcome in the fandom, as well as lost a bunch of our own content. Many of us had some great discussions on our review pages, and those are just gone, *poof!* with no notification, and no way to recover it.
I know plenty of fic authors who have been caught up in things like FF.net deciding their stories broke whatever rule and were pulled, but at least they were notified first. We got nothing but "GR is evil!" and fic listings and our reviews and discussions tanked.
Maybe next time something like this happens somewhere else, (because face it, it's going to happen again eventually somewhere else) instead of going off half cocked, all "fuck Goodreads!", authors will actually try to find out how the site really works first."
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/54428714?page=2#comment_111104126
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I am kind of frustrated by fans freaking out and going after other fans like this. And yes, I'm sure I've done my share of similar things in the past, but...doesn't mean we weren't wrong, just like I think they are wrong now...
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