Meta Roundup

rebeccama: Fandom! love time: "So, why are you glad to be in fandom? What are the "ups" of fandom?"

yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): The love of reading: "In the current gender acafan debate I thought this latest exchange explored issues about fanfic and canonicity that focused so much on writing it seemed to me there wasn't enough discussion about the reading side of it."

das_dingsi: Recommend Some Rec Sites? "Of course, I'd like to focus on InsaneJournal, as it's my new "home". But in the long run, I might include other reccing sites (communities, journals, del.icio.us accounts, ...) too. [...] Come on, throw some URLs at me!"

General Fannish Meta

lenija: ExcorcismMetaPuzzle (1) - recipient positions: "There are at least two levels on which you can like or dislike a character. [...] I suspect that people who have one OTP and one favourite character in a fandom tend to read that fandom mainly on Level One, especially when they fight over who is to be seen as the "best character" and which ship is most "true"."

yourlibrarian: Ship stats reviewed: "I was curious about where the SPN fandom, which seems active and growing, stood in comparison. And it kicked up something interesting. In most of the Buffyverse pairings there was clearly a preferred order for the characters to be listed in. Yet for SPN, whose biggest pairing are its main characters, there is a virtually equal number of Sam/Dean (493) Dean/Sam (492) and Wincest (491) listings on LJ."

rebeccama: QAF: The more things change the more they stay the same: "I have changed my mind about a number of things both since I started watching QAF, since I joined the fandom, and since the show ended. [...] However some of my opinions, views, and interests have remained the same from either 101 or at least early in the show. [...] Does anyone else have a list of things that have stayed consistent?"

babydraco: untitled post: "As someone who writes erotica with older teens frequently, but has only ever once written a story that involved what I thought chan was- I don't like people just lumping all of that together. It makes you as bad as the anti Potter porn people, because you're taking away the "Sorry, but I don't write chan" defense - don't call it chan when it isn't."

Other

elfwreck: Strikethrough links: it's not about law: "Links to prove that LJ's new interpretations of their polices aren't based on avoiding liability; they're based on management's content preferences."

Perhaps relevant to fandom: The Karen Fletcher Case. Miss Fletcher published original fiction online which was pretty graphic and dealt with the sexual abuse of minors, torture, and murder. She is believed to be "the first person in Western Pennsylvania charged with exclusively text based obscenity" (emphasis mine).

General Fandom Meta

shusu: we are all naked, our voices all clear.: "I see other people in fandom, men and women, who hesitate, who do the same thing that everyone else does but with that hint of shame, who apologize for who they are, and I think why? Why? Life is so short and the internet is so anonymous. Golden Rule aside."

the_willow: Excited About Anime: Claymore: "Before the cut, however, I will say that there are amazing similarities between Claymores (the female warriors in the series - which is also a manga - and Slayers, as in Btvs. Like there are serious similarities, but in a very interesting, if occasionally frustrating and potentially gender wtf way."

brown_betty: Bring out your dead!: "Anyway, what are the little details that have broken your suspension of disbelief?"

tigresslilly: The Question of Race from the Writer's Perspective: "Part of my problem with adding race into a story is that I'm not 100% how to do it. [...] How do I and other authors avoid being racist when adding race or is this more of a trial and error sort of thing?"

justhuman: Fall TV season so far: "So I get a response from a different person that starts off with I hate slash - and repeats it *3x* in the comment. Then he goes on to say how much he loves how they show a close friendship between straight guys and that the fangirl squee goes too far sometimes.[...] And this right after I've been in a couple of meta discussions when I was chatting to newcomers about the crap I put up with as a slasher 4-5 years ago."

animehime (in fanficrants): How to turn a reader off on one easy step.: "I don't care how good your fics might sound (not that they sounded all that interesting in the first place), consistently insulting your potential readers and their intelligence is the quickest way to get me to close the tab that contains your profile."

reijamira started a friending meme for Supernatural fandom.

LiveJournal

elke_tanzer: Thank you Erica from LJ Account Payments.: "[...] my elke_tanzer LJ is now an unpaid Basic account, and the very-recent charges to my credit card for the next year and extra userpics have been reversed. The email situation and the very-recent-ness of the charges were apparently sufficient grounds for an exception to the standing LJ policy of no refunds for charges. Below, in case anyone's curious, is my half of the correspondence I had via the support request."

das_dingsi: More News on Snap.com and LJ's New Snap Shots Feature: "So, not only do we have the theory that LJ's new link policy has only been implemented so LJ can keep the Snap Shots previews nice and clean... now there's also the fact that, again, it's all about ads and making money instead of the needs and concerns of the actual user base (who never asked for Snap Shots in the first place)."

spacelogic: severe geekery ahoy: "It's the sort of thing I've done all my life, take characters and universes that already exist and play around with them. My sister and twelve-year-old brother, on the other hand, have always made up their own characters and universes. [...] Why do some people have fanficcer minds, while others tend towards the original?"

vain: Do people really outgrow fandom?: "I am and always have been a self-described fic snob, but these days it seems more and more like I discard far more fics two or three paragraphs in than I find good stories that I like, regardless of the fandom. [...] But there's also another possibility I've thought about a lot in recent months: Am I getting too old for fandom? I've thought about this a lot and discussed it with a couple people, but I've never been sure of the answer. Do you think it's even possible?"

skuf created a poll, asking if canon is a part of fandom or not.

elfwreck: LJ moves toward censorship: "The source code is being updated to allow journals to be tagged with "Explicit Adult Content" (which places restrictions on under-18s) or "Adult Concepts" (restrictions on under-14s).[...] My suggestion: Don't set ANY journal to either of these, unless LJ 1. Defines them very specifically, and 2. Requires that journals that fit the defs be marked accordingly."

For Starters: Helpful IJ Links

squeaky's original welcome post on announcements: "We understand why a lot of you are coming over here, and we do not believe in censorship beyond the letter of the law. We will not remove any content from the site unless we receive an official DMCA take down notice or are contacted by an offical legal agency notifying us of illegal activity."

mllesatine: How to use InsaneJournal - useful links

qem_chibati: Qem's IJ resource list for friends.

On ijlogin, toejam released the newest version.

fdir_editor started a list of fandom-related feeds on InsaneJournal.


LiveJournal / InsaneJournal

emilie_burns: Eljay to have "report to abuse" links on pages

liz_marcs: This is Why LJ Won't Be Getting My Hard-Earned Cash...: "Since it appears that you are completely clueless as to why I and many others are not willing to give you $150 [for a permanent LJ account], I've decided to spell it out for you."

gehayi (on 07refugees): In case anyone wants to know why you're looking for a community away from LJ...: "I can't believe that any so-called professional businessman would act like this toward his customers. Even after he was called on it, he still continued to make fun of people."

qem_chibati: Obligatory Strikethrough Post: "One of the reasons that motivated me to get an InsaneJournal is the fact that sometimes the attitudes on fandom on LiveJournal annoys me. (...) Sometimes it feels like the attitude for a lot of them is, unless I've experienced it, it's not really fandom."

Reactions to InsaneJournal getting mentioned on Fandom_Wank:

ingrid: WTF ...: "You hate and fear change, we get it. Please stop rationalizing your fears, it makes you look retarded."

keieeeye: *unreasonably amused*: "[A]s a mentally ill feminist lesbian I think I can say I'm not feeling very oppressed."


General Fandom Meta

icedark_elf has thoughts on the term 'BNF': "If you don't like someone, you accuse them of being a wannabe BNF, which is strange, because most people I know don't want to be BNFs. Mostly due to the reputation they have."

jadeblood: Supernatural and Its Wank: "Regardless of what the fans may think, Supernatural is not their baby. It's [Kripke's] to write as he sees fit. We're just along for the ride..."

das_dingsi: Fannish Crushes, pt. 1: "Fannish attention means you don't just 'like' a character. (...) In a way, it's similar to being in love or having a crush on someone -- he or she has your full attention, and your thoughts keep coming back to said person."

thatfangirl, in [books] Jonathan Strange, has some quick thoughts on the book's footnotes "making it in-universe RPF".

liz_marcs: We really need to start yanking this "abstinence only" bullshit out of our schools...: "andrewfarago unearthed a 1970s Spiderman comic book that was co-produced by Marvel and Planned Parenthood. (...) My point is that [it] would never, ever see the light of day today. The U.S.'s current repressive atmosphere of all things considered somehow outside the norm -- or at least the norm as defined by a very narrow slice of the population -- would make it a prohibitive commercial risk."

brownbetty: A conceptual framework for automated archival of fanworks under web 2.0: "For an archival method to gain currency, it should be no more difficult than posting to LJ."

alixtii: Meta: Fanfic as Je me souviens: "In some ways, there's nothing more depressing than when a show you once loved seems to have forgotten its past completely (...) But even then fanfiction provides us with a way of remembering that past and proving that we at least, have not forgotten it."

~

You'll notice that some of these posts are dating back to June or earlier. I included them because at this stage, I'm still trying to establish the ground level, so to speak. If you have interesting links (be it yours or entries from other IJers), actually anything from 2007 is fair game. Simply leave a comment with the link(s), or if you are uncomfortable with "advertising yourself" in public, use the screened comments post.