Meta Roundup

Help & writing resources

In an untitled post, bridgetmkennit explains the tags system and the four different types of warnings at the Archive Of Our Own, and how to use them.

lore: BloMo18: Tis the season of saving stories....: tips on saving fanfic stories "in a format that can be easily transferred to most reading devices without losing the author's intended passages of emphasis".

There have been a few posts on BDSM, community rules and terminology, intended as resources for writers and to clear up some common misunderstandings. In Hi! My name is Minxie…, the_minx_17 talks about general rules and some stereotypes. irana wrote On BDSM, Part I to explain the abbreviations SCC and RACK, and to talk about consent. On BDSM, Part II covers negotiation (both Scene and Relationship negotiation).

InsaneJournal

An InsaneJournal Holiday Sale just started. Self-Committed (i.e. paid) accounts and Extra Userpics will be available at reduced prices until November 27th. Friday the 27th will also have a short sale on Permanently Insane accounts.

das_dingsi: Updating habits: "The interesting part is how it made me view the update page more closely than usual and I consciously noticed all the things I don't use [on InsaneJournal]."

Other

bitterfig: where do they make subtext?: "I always wonder where stuff like (i.e. homoerotic and/or incestuous subtext) this comes from, is it intentional or just a quirk of chemistry?"

lilithilien: Why do we do it?, a short commentary on an AfterElton.com article titled "Why are Women Interested in Gay Men? It's Not Because They Want to Sleep With Them!", with discussion in comments.

novembermond: has a question about friending meme[s]: "[W]hat are the dos and don'ts ... ?"

[Supernatural] ep. 5x10 meta-ish reaction posts - SPOILERS galore!
the_shoshanna: Supernatural 5.10, "Abandon All Hope...": "Thanks SO MUCH for making women just the underbrush to be cleared away before the real stuff happens."
musesfool: lacrimae volvuntur inanes: "I would like to be able to talk about the episode on its own merits, because I thought it was a fantastic episode emotionally and a great way to go into hiatus, but I am SO FUCKING SICK of the way this show treats female characters."
yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): SPN 5.10 - A sign of hope: "There's nothing there right now for an audience to cling to, any more than a clear plot direction for Sam and Dean."

spacelogic: [SPOILERS] Babylon 5 and Women

[Harry Potter] cluegirl: Fanfic evolutions... a thinky-post.: "So... for awhile now, there's been something happening in the Snarry ship that distresses me, and it's only been just recently that I've been able to put words to it; Harry has become a moron."

[Supernatural] yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Victimhood in SPN: "The end result of the four seasons of SPN so far, has been to equate the supernatural and those who fight it to a lower class status, and those who are victimized by it to higher classes."

[Twilight, Urban Fantasy genre] the_willow: Twilight & Other Creepy Thoughts: "I think I've figured out the appeal of Edward Cullen."

General:

rood: Why the AO3 needs to be translated (looking at it from a German, EFL speaker, perspective)

stele3: Meta: Movie recasts in fic: "So that got me wondering: what do people get out of those sorts of stories? Is it sorta like re-watching a favorite movie, but on your computer screen? Do you prefer your movie recast AUs to be changed fundamentally, or straight-up?"

InsaneJournal: in case you missed the news in announcements, there's a weekend-long sale of Permanent accounts, at the price of $40.

squeaky is also doing daily backups of the databases on the site, which causes "about 15 minutes of downtime each day". They're currently scheduled at 2:30PM (Eastern/US time).

LiveJournal: the_shoshanna: LJ search can turn up locked posts.

yourlibrarian: Random fandom tangents: "There was a lot of attention paid to Merriam Webster's addition of fan fiction into its entries this year [...] What do you think of the definition though?"

branchandroot: 'Training wheels' my ass: "I am sick and fucking tired of fanfic being presented as "training wheels". That's a load of BS."

Deutsches Meta: mllesatine (in deutschesfandom): Wie koordiniert man seine Betaleser?: "Ich habe also Probleme mit der Reihen- oder Rangfolge der Betas, mit der Zeit und mit dem Aufwand. Wie geht ihr vor? "

InsaneJournal issues: There've been instances of comment notifications not getting through, or only belatedly. You can check the Recent Comments page for replies to entries on your own journal; there the notifications seem to be listed correctly. In the message center (Inbox), they showed up as well but with a delay of up to 10 hours.

yourlibrarian: Reactions to a few articles: "Henry Jenkins' post on the Future of TV surprised me by not mentioning what I consider the most important change to TV in the last five years -- shortening seasons. [...] I do wonder about fandom effects of ever briefer shows."

spacelogic: [SPOILERS] Babylon 5 and the LGBT community: "Today's post looks at Babylon 5 as a queer-affirming work, while acknowledging its many failures, and attempts in a lovingly biased way to determine its overall queer-friendliness level."

InsaneJournal-related: There's been an influx of anonymous spam comments. The IP seems to be 110.132.116.84. You can edit your comment settings to disallow anonymous comments. When deleting these comments, don't forget to mark them as spam so the site administration will be informed about this.

skuf started a Mini Meta Fest, "geared towards those of us who want to post more informal meta, but need a little kick in the butt to get going", with user-generated prompts. The rules are detailed here. It's posted to both DW and IJ, but not all prompts on DW have been taken, and the IJ post had no prompts at all.
Responses on IJ so far:

helkamaria: Youth/minors-appropriate fanfic and Incest Fanfiction.

ishtar79 wrote about Geek social fallacies and Character bashing.

elfwreck: Fannish Entitlement and Chapters vs. long oneshots.

yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Drug use, alcohol, smoking in fanfic, with special focus on BtVS and SPN.

Other

das_dingsi has questions about syndicated feeds.

This is the rest of the links to IJ posts dealing with Survey!Fail, I haven't found any new ones since.


justhuman: I am so not taking that Survey

lady_ganesh: And the fail continues!

slashpine wrote a link roundup titled ScienceFail, part 3

the_shoshanna reposted the official response from Boston University on Ogi Ogas and SurveyFail!.

Specifically about Ogas' comparison of slash to porn fetishizing trans women, and the fannish response to it: the_willow: Shit That Upset Me And Keeps Me From Sleeping.

slashpine dissects Ogas' apology: Ogi apologizes by insulting fandom some MOAR (rev.1)

In the aftermath, keieeeye wrote: hahaha: "I have a lot of thoughts about fandom as separate from mainstream society."

Something that had sort of spun off into its own topic was a manip by alchemia, depicting "RPS, exhibitionism, partial cross dressing, and tentacle porn". The original post, re: the recent SurveyFail...., has since been edited, and alchemia also made a follow-up post: Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. The responses to this overwhelmingly seemed to have happened on sites other than IJ, though.

Note: I have a backlog of links dealing with Survey!Fail and its fallout, but for easier navigation I'm going to put them in a separate entry.


[Stargate SG-1] catness: thoughts on design: " ... By using a device (the Stargate) which allows instant transportation to various planets, the authors do not need to invent the interstellar travel and all the technology associated with it ... So the show is either an 'away mission' or 'medical mystery' ..."

[Disney movies] dragovianknight: Thots. I haz dem.: "...I don't think I've EVER been in Disney's target demographic."

spacelogic: why I love Babylon 5

In Making stats public, yourlibrarian discusses activity on Dreamwidth and compares it to InsaneJournal (and a bit of LJ).

skuf created a poll titled Do you self-identify as a 100% heterosexual woman?: "The outsider assumption about slash fen that annoys me the most is that we're 100% heterosexual women. I polled on this back in my LJ-posting days, but since my f-lists have changed, I thought it'd be interesting to re-poll."

On -isms in Fandom / Acafen discussion

logovo: That word might not mean what we think it means.: "Are people now using that word [acafen] interchangeably with fans who are just into meta?"

telesilla: too many acafans, not enough porns: "Those of us who are either lacking in certain privileges or who just give a damn about our fellow fans who lack privilege don't have the luxury of playing Pretend."

the_willow: And then there are these assholes: "But it's not as if I'm important as a human being or anything and deserve a place where I don't see crap flung in my face for other's squee all the damn time."

morgandawn: The Person On The Other Side - My Thank You To Fandom: "In all of this, we often forget that there is a person on the other side of the debate."

telesilla: "no, this is how it works/you peer inside yourself": "One of the discouraging things that I've seen come out of the latest round of meta about meta and how it harshes squee is a couple of comments I read somewhere about how discussing about Important Issues in fandom is a waste of time because you're not going to change the world doing it."

General Meta

lastscorpion suggests in an untitled entry: "Part of the reason why SG-1 and SGA and AtS were cancelled, even though they still had strong overall ratings, was that there were too many women watching -- we messed up their desired demographics."

yourlibrarian: Invisible women: "I thought it surprising that in the [Newsarama.com] series on "The Fangirl Invasion" they don't discuss how involved women have been in fandoms for decades."

Also by yourlibrarian, Targeting the fans: "But what the article reveals is the death of ComicCon as anything resembling a fan event, as opposed to a marketing trade-show for the entertainment industry."


The Fan Fiction Survey by Ogi Ogas ("The Cognitive Neuroscience of Fan Fiction")

Note: these are all InsaneJournal posts about this topic that I am aware of at the moment. Some of these mainly just copy from or redirect to entries on DW or LJ, but I've included them because there is (or still might be) discussion happening in comments. metafandom covers non-IJ links, as does the Linkspam community on DW, which you can follow via linkspam_dw_rss (created today).

1. Link posts / signal boosting, mostly short, but some with quotes and/or a bit of commentary:

alchemia: That fandom survery going around... DONT TAKE IT

yohjideranged: Fanfiction Survey = Failboat

shadowvalkyrie: Important Fannish PSA

oconel: About the fandom survey

keieeeye: lol guys

the_shoshanna: signal boost: do not take the "neurobiological" fan fiction survey.

aerynvala: Signal Boost: Why NOT to take the "Neurobiological" Fandom Survey

2. More in-depth posts, dealing with specific survey questions, background information, underlying theory and assumptions made, that sort of thing:

slashpine: Some scientists sure have nerve, or, How Not To Study Fandom

and a follow-up, How many kinds of fail in this question? Or, Are You Smarter Than A Neuroscientist?

zellieh: Another "survey" of fans by outsiders who FAIL rather spectacularly.

yourlibrarian: Commentary!: "I like reading people's fic commentaries too, but I suppose there are a number of things holding people back from having such discussions."

darkrose quoted a blog entry by Leverage showrunner John Rogers (wherein he answers questions about his attitude towards fan fic) and comments: "But especially coming out of SGA fandom, and Joe Mallozzi's condescending and dismissive attitude toward fans of the show, it's pretty damn cool to see a showrunner who gets it."

Quick Questions:

drachenmina has a question about copyright: "When is it legitimate parody, and when is it plagiarism?"

msilverstar: "Anyone have a nice delicious to LJ/DW script that runs on Macs?" (Scroll down; it's at the bottom of a recs post) You can either use the ?style=mine link and scroll down, or jump directly to the question)

rood: Plagiarism, What It Is And What It Isn’t, An Idiot's Guide

IJ: the Permanent Account sale is going to end this Sunday, prices being $35 for a perm account and $75 for Insane Userpics (5000 icons). There's been a suggestion in comments to find other ways of getting revenue on the site, e.g. lowering the prices for paid accounts, which apparently wouldn't be hard to implement - squeaky said he just needs time to code it (source).

amalthia: Reading Habits / Rant: "The ability to save a fic quickly is very very nice for the readers. If you want to set your story apart from others in a big way, make your story easy to save."

rubyfruit_pixie: I can has Genre Rant?: "I love romance, as a genre of both books and fanfictional forms, in varying configurations of het, and slash, and femmeslash. But there are things that I wish would just go away ..."

In Romance in Fiction, beccastareyes asks if anyone knows examples of characters in long-running series that hook up and are still having adventures as couples.

After iMeem closed its doors, morgandawn posted Copyright Policies: Blip.TV, BAM Video Vault & Viddler (Updated 7/2/2009), with short notes and links on these alternative sites for vidders.

P.S.: if some of you were wondering why there suddenly was a huge influx of post-by-email entries on your flist, or notifications, the reason was possibly that the post-by-email feature has been fixed and all the queued-up content got through now.

Editor's Note: I admit I wasn't quite sure how to handle this current issue - I was hoping the problem with the missing comment notifications would have been solved by now, but they're still not getting through on personal journals. (Although you receive them in asylums, and the replies to your comment on somebody else's journal. Support requests have been opened about this.) - That sucks.
On the other hand, I didn't want to wait for perhaps several days longer, and would like to at least provide readers the option of bookmarking the posts for later.
~


Misc (mostly 'pro' or 'neutral' towards warnings) - posters warn for potential triggers or use spoiler warnings (highlighting the text)

arionhunter: On Art (describing the defintion and community standards for Art and how it's being changed in the warnings debate: "It exists in a vacuum and can be an asshole if it wants to, and it doesn't care how the Other reacts to it."

darkrose: Sometimes, the obvious isn't.: "There seems to be an assumption that certain things should be warned for, regardless of the specific fandom. The problem is that the obvious triggers may not be."

telesilla: It's too late to worry about slippery slopes; we're already on one.: "... I intend to still label my fic in some way. I know BDSM can trigger people and I don't want reading my fic to be triggery for anyone; I've felt awful when it's happened. - It's the practice of lumping BDSM in with negative things that I object to and will no longer do."

logovo: What does it take away?: "I don't get the lack of empathy in the warning discussion."

rood: On Warnings And Why You Might Consider Using Them:: "I've spend most of my life avoiding [topics triggery for me] and it's not as easy as it sounds. [...] I am thankful for everything that makes my life easier."

bethbethbeth: Confessions of a Former Warning-a-phobe: "I'm absolutely sure that I'm not going to include things that some people want to be warned for, but I've finally come around to the idea that something is better than nothing."

the_shoshanna: my (new) thoughts on warnings: "I want readers to feel as though someone just punched them in the gut. But I don't want them to spend the next four hours throwing up because of it, you know?"

loqia: An Anti-Warner’s Warning: "Anyway, the point is both sides have valid arguments and, when it comes down to it, aren’t asking for anything unreasonable."

Suggestions:

bridgetmkennit: untitled: "To be honest, this entire debate is making me think that there should be a call for the fics that have no warnings because they're not writing the common warnings, to actually list their fics as 'Warnings: None in as far I know' or something to flag that it's safe." // Also wrote an untitled post about the problems with using TV series / movies / books as an example when it comes to warnings.

stele3: Triggers vs. spoilers: an offer and a compromise: "On the subject of people who don't want to warn because of artistic integrity: have you considered using spoiler-warnings?" (includes code to create a highlight-to-read warning)

Tangentially related:

telesilla: A simple question: "Please be careful when assuming that everyone in the world is going to react the way you do, because it can make people who don't react the way you do, or the way you say a certain group reacts, doubt their own recovery."

I noticed yesterday that currently comment notifications don't seem to work on IJ.

So far, when this happened, it was only temporary and the emails got through with a delay. Until then, you can either visit your inbox, or check the 50 most recent comments page.

There are a lot of posts on the issue of warnings on fic (or the lack thereof, and everything related to these points). IJ has less quantity overall, but it's still enough that I decided to split up the newsletter, so people have an easier time reading (or scrolling, depending on the individual).

This entry deals with general meta and IJ, whereas the next entry will have the links on warnings.

Editor's note: Since Dreamwidth opened, there's a lot of content being cross-posted -- well, more than before -- and chances are high that posts are also being read or linked elsewhere, or show up on people's friendslists multiple times. But as there are still many users on IJ who prefer reading / commenting (or getting comments) on InsaneJournal, in my opinion that outweighs the issue of double or triple posts.

~

InsaneJournal is going to move to a different hosting provider, in the hopes of reducing costs which might also benefit the users (source). Because of this, the sale of Permanent accounts for $50 each -- initially started to celebrate the disappearence of comment rot -- has been extended, and also offers 6 month Self-Committed account time for $10, and 12 months for $20. For updates about the server move, please follow IJ on Twitter: http://twitter.com/insanejournal .

In ideas, edison suggested modifying the "Newest (Updated/Created) Asylums" list on the main page in a way that would have RP asylums listed separately.

~

betbethbeth: (The Return of )The Best Spin-offs That Were Never Made: "If you were Queen (or King) of the T.V. Programming Universe, what sort of "we'll never see it in our lifetime" spin-offs (of current or long-gone shows) would you like to see on the fall schedule?"

rubyfruit_pixie asks for advice on writing slave fics, for example: What research do I have to do, if any at all? Are there guidelines to writing slavefic that go across the board?

[general & Torchwood] snakeling: Linguistics for fandom 101 (a quick guide to Ye Olde Englishe for fanfic writers, and that Jack Harkness is not American)

[True Blood] bitterfig: True Blood as fan fiction: "The world of the books remains recognizable, the characters have the same names and many of the major events remain intact, but everything has been sexed up to the max and minor characters have been given personalities, histories and stories of their own in no way suggested by the source material."

[general & Star Trek] elfwreck posted a few quick thoughts inspired by converting old Trek fanzines.

prettysock: Thinky Thoughts on Age and Fandom: "There are two important things I think adult fans could do to make fandom as a whole more welcoming to young fans." Also: "So that's the other thing I wanted to say: Fandom is good for young fans."

the_willow: Was Pre-Slash Originally Meant As A Rating?: "So what is pre-slash? I've picked up a meaning through osmosis, but considering how much history of slash I didn't pick up, I feel a need to ask questions."

accioslash: More Comments About...Comments: (on favouriting/reccing something without also commenting) "As an author or artist, does this type of behavior bother you? As a reader/viewer, have you ever done something similar?"

Asylum news: during the recent account sale I purchased a permanent account for meta_roundup and switched the layout to Complete Style, which offers tags on the sidebar. (Soon I'm going to re-organize the tags slightly for better readability.)

~

Two posts by yourlibrarian:
Fanfic hostility (notes on an article about fandom where it's "the fact that fans are writing romantic stories about the leads that has [the author] hyperventilating, not the incessant tales of rape, pedophilia, and exploitation")
Tracing usage: "I've mentioned in my personal blog that I think 2009 is the year when fan fiction has become, if not a mainstream pastime, at least a term understood by many in the media and requiring less explanation in the press. What interests me though, is how this term is being re-interpreted by a wider audience to become, less about actual fan fiction, than about what the speaker sees as related issues."

rood: Fandom, Zines & Profit: "I am rather new school when it comes to fandom, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the appeal of zines (even though I don't own a single one). In fact, I wish I had the money to buy them, because zines have some advantages."

elethian: untitled post (on changing attitudes towards short vs. long fics, uses stats from the Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest)

First, the cause for comment rot on the site seems to have been found and fixed by squeaky. You can take a look at the bit of code that gave us all so much trouble in the news post.
However, the issue as such might still persist a few days because when the code sets some comments to disappear they aren't gone immediately, they are still in the memory cache for a while. So we might have a few remaining instances from back when the code was still there but after those are gone it should finally be over for good. (source)
To celebrate all this, there's a week-long Permanent Account sale (50$ each).

Changes have been made to the message/notification center - items in your inbox can now be marked as read and deleted, and the maximum number of subscriptions ("notices") has been increased.

Tangentially related: squeaky said he's working on a multiple icon uploader next, and via the comments I found an old resource post by sherlock with a third-party tool you can use in the meantime.

~

With the issues and discussion surrounding exporting LJ comments to Dreamwidth, stewardess wrote a post on content syndication/aggregation and LiveJournal, titled Exporting comments from LJ to DW: is there a money?

bridgetmkennit: counters and me (and maybe you): "Every time I see a meta post about comments, whether lack thereof or not, I just want to create a meta post about how people should learn to love counters."

the_rck posted "a list of thoughts inspired by reading (mostly bad) fics" -- "A few of the items in here are mini rants about genuinely offensive stuff regarding race and transsexuality. The rest mainly complain about sillier stuff."

rubyfruit_pixie: WTF?: "And not only do people think that it isn't complete bullshit to say that one writes yaoi only because het is icky or that girls are icky, people actually state this as a point of pride."

~

brownbetty: re: Thirteenth Child, and a million other things: "But you have, actually, a higher responsibility than being a writer, and that is your responsibility as a human being."

magpyr: Growing pains: "You see, I used to be ignorant and happy. I read books, watched films, and listened to songs, never once pausing to think about their attitude toward race and gender."

telesilla: No, we aren't the freakin' Thought Police: "Because honestly, I am so sick of people yelling "censorship!" as if professional writers somehow had an inalienable right to show their asses and not get called on it."

telesilla: it's like rain on your wedding day*: "Apparently it's okay to dismiss/ignore copyright law when it's, oh say, Acme Shark's copyright on everything connected with the SG universe, but if it's comments on an LJ being moved without your permission? OMG UR IN MAH COPYRIGHT VIOLATIN ME!"

bridgetmkennit: Fandom, you're doing it wrong: "You know, I come to fandom to escape real life, just as most people do. But the fact that I, other PoCs, and white allies have to see your skeeve all over the fics they read? [...] These characters that are written about and the PoCs who read about them deserve better."

branchandroot: Id-candy safety: "I’m all in favor of having books that are id-candy, brain-fluff, that demand nothing from your intellect and instead go straight on to punch your emoporn joybuttons. [But] id-candy is a different thing from good writing."

rood: Living Two Lives – A Story of Bilingual Fan-dom: "I suppose all of you who are multifannish know at least to some degree what I am talking about, because essentially, I am talking about being in two fandoms at once. But while most people experience two fandoms as two different things they’re interested in, for me, it is the same thing, in two languages." Has comments in english and german.

bethbethbeth: Won't someone think of the reccers?: "No, it's not your job to maintain recs pages for reccers, and yes, some of you writers clearly wish your older stories would disappear from memory, and yes, some of my favorite authors have, themselves, disappeared (at least from fandom). However, for those of you who do have a stake in your stories continuing to be read, see what you can do to make it easy for the readers to find you and reccers to update their links."

celandineb's Friday poll was about the etiquette of pimping fic/art, and skuf's poll about tiered recs (i.e. "recs lists where the reccer's favourites are singled out/marked in some way").

slashpine created two polls on recs: part one is about general reading habits (so to speak) and definitions, part two asks more specific questions about what you like to see in recs. (If you're confused about the term "hot rec", that's answered in this comment thread.)

celandineb's Friday Poll is about pairings, and how important they are to you when choosing to consume or create fanworks.

duskpeterson wrote Daily life: Slashers rule OK, which deals with the events called "Amazonfail", and how many of the early posts about it were apparently written by slashers.

rood: How To Archive Your Fics On LJ/IJ/DW/JF: "And that, of course, reminded me of how ill equipped journals are for fic archiving."

slashpine: Meta with recs: There's "slash" & there's *slash*. I want *that* one: "I think the 'tough-guys' atmosphere that Judith Warner discusses illustrates one reason for so much m/m slash. Slash is the opposite of boys mocking each other as 'gay'. [...] But why are we rewriting the *mens* script, not the womens?"

Also by slashpine: Environment & HP. Or really - envt & all of fandom, an entry "on the whole theme of environmental awareness in HP, HP fanfics, and HP fans" (including thoughts on tree!fics).

Dreamwidth-related / Fandom migration:

branchandroot: Demystifying Dreamwidth some more: "Since I've seen a number of odd notions running around lately, I figured I'd post some quick explanations." (Adresses, among other things, the invite codes, the fandom factor, or accusations that DW wants to sink LJ.)

elfwreck: Coming soon on Dreamwidth: Patience.: "Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. It fades. That shiny feeling, that rush of activity and spark of delight, that gleeful manic commenting on random journals, it doesn't last."

skuf posted a question (and got answers) regarding DW's TOS, namely about Content and the rights to remove / adapt / modify ... it.