[Archive] Meta Roundup: Fannish Stuff of Interest

May 2010

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Issue #86

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[info]cluegirl: Fandom Things I Miss: "Raising a toast to those things I remember with persistent, undimmed fondness from times when fandom seemed very different to me."

[info]the_obscure: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him.: "The melodramatic, almost operatic crescendo and sudden, swift demise of a fictional person we have loved does not give us an emotional high, it makes us callous on the ten-billionth time it's done, overdone, chewed, spat out, and paraded once more in the guise of originality."

[info]yourlibrarian: The Wheel of Television Fortune: "There's something rather depressing about seeing a show which had a strong, even stellar, first season turn into a mess. There's something incredibly rewarding about seeing a show that stumbled pick itself up again. There's something even more depressing about seeing a show that botched its second season learning all the wrong messages from that fiasco." (Spoilers; talks mainly about "Heroes" and "Supernatural", also mentions "Veronica Mars" and "Chuck")

Zwei Einträge von [info]frogspace: 1. Über den Start des Fanlore Wikis und der Frage nach Objektivität/Bewertung sowie den Vorteilen der User ID, 2. Wenn sich draußen die Blätter verfärben: "Apropos Form, ich bin derzeit dabei, meine alten Metalinks aus einem nur zu diesem Zweck bestehenden Zweitjournal in einen Delicious-Account zu übertragen. [...] Delicious wird von Google erfasst. Wenn ich diese ganzen Wayback-Links jetzt in einem Account sammle und öffentlich mache, dann verändert das den Grad der Öffentlichkeit und ich weiß nicht, wie ich damit umgehen soll."

LiveJournal: [info]greenwitch posted in [info]07refugees that "what appears to be Russian hackers have been taking down journals and communities over on LJ" and asks if anyone has further information on the number of affected journals and/or LJ's actions against the attacks.

InsaneJournal: A security update to the 2.0 version of Firefox (2.0.0.17) is causing problems with the Rich Text Editor. [info]squeaky suggests using the mobile update page on IJ or change browser versions, until there's a better solution.
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Issue #79

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Privacy / Legal Issues

For Gmail users (in case you haven't heard the news yet), a hacking tool has been introduced that automatically steals IDs of non-encrypted sessions and uses them to break into the accounts. The developer is planning to release it in a few days. You can protect your accounts by switching to SSL permanently. If you're unfamiliar with the procedure, [info]blue_rose posted a step-by-step guide and also linked to a patch that would ensure that Gmail Notifier is still working afterwards. I'd like to include two off-site links, an article on HungryHackers.com which explains how Gmail and the hacking tool work, and for Firefox users there's the extension Customize Google, which can also help remove or block unwanted content, including ads and Google Analytics cookies.

[info]skuf wrote a quick tutorial on how to block LJToys from tracking you on LJ/IJ/clones (Firefox only).

[info]morgandawn mentions the RIAA’s Anti-Piracy Trade Agreement Wishlist.

Meta (posts are from the 15th and 23rd, but I don't want to pass them up -- my apologies for not including them earlier. I'm trying to change that, as stated in the previous entry.)

[info]spacelogic: How Star Trek Made Me A Feminist, and Why I Don't Think STXI Is Going To Be Worth It: "I remember being freaked out by the first episode, being wary of the next several, and gradually being won over. And at some point during the entire process, I came to a shocking realization: Star Trek was more feminist than a lot of more modern TV/film productions."

[info]the_willow: Watching The Show In Your Head (Pt 2): When You Can't: "I guess I feel like there probably needs to be respect for the fact that when you can't watch anymore, it means there's too much weighed on the side of dislike and disappointment. And those weights can be aspects of racism, sexism, classcism, national isolationism or just not enough plot ..." (talks about "Monk" and SGA as examples)
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Issue #72

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Meta

[info]alchemia posted a list of mainstream/canonical Mpreg examples.

[info]elfwreck (in [info]metametameta): Class issues in U.S. television: "Okay, let's make it a game. The rules are: Name a show, or if we're really lucky, some shows, that are centered around lower-class or working-class characters, and are not sitcoms."

[SGA] [info]telesilla: it's been 3.4 weeks since the last time my fandom showed its ass: "In a conversation--which has since been frozen--elsewhere today, more than one person said they were glad the dreads stayed because they made Ronon look more alien. Actually, the word "non-human" was used. I'm sorry, but what?!"

[Harry Potter] In [info]snapedom, there were two recent posts comparing anti-Muggle sentiment in HP to racism; Playing the Race Card: Is Anti-Muggle Prejudice Really the Unpardonable Sin? by [info]bohemianspirit, and an untitled followup commentary by [info]ether_bunny.

Other

[info]squeaky started a Weekend Sale for Permanent Accounts and Insane Userpics, ending on Sunday at 8:00 p.m., and also asks for reports on still existing site bugs.

For Firefox users who also use LJlogin to manage their InsaneJournal accounts: Firefox 3 does not support LJlogin. I've read about at least ten other addons not working, either (e.g. CookieSafe), but apparently there's a workaround for at least some of those. [info]darkrose posted about it here.
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Issue #62

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First, let me direct you once more to the master list of meta posts at [info]metametameta, which collects all contributions to the Meta Friday event. Also, it's been such a success that it's going to be a weekly feature with prompts; you can read the rules in this post. As the asylum is open for posts all week round, not just on Fridays, there've been more meta entries, such as [info]purplepopple's FanLib: One Year Later, or [info]elfwreck's Slashfic: because women can't recognize their sexuality.* For the rest of this roundup, to avoid double posts I'm going to list the links that haven't been a part of the Meta Friday or haven't been posted to [info]metametameta.

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* [info]yourlibrarian has written more on the subject of "slash as anti-feminist", dissecting the blog post that started it in detail.

[info]roz_morgan: Meta! Meta! Lovely Meta!: "Writers, producers and advertisers like to pidgin hole their demographics. When they get a group they can’t explain for example a large amount of women watching a show about space-ships or monsters they don’t look at it as an indication of having tapped a new market. They seem actually baffled by it."

[info]musesfool: dancing gets her higher than anything else she knows: "But aside from the big huge things that make me click or not click (or click out when they appear), there are smaller, mostly throwaway details, that can cause me to have kneejerk reaction of the bad sort, where I am just completely jarred out of the story and end up clicking out."

IJ, LJ, journaling/archiving in general, Tutorials

[info]brimac13 wonders if people would be interested in an index for friending asylums on IJ. (poll)

[info]schattenstern: untitled post: "I think that IJ is a temporary solution for Fandom at best. [...] Fandom as a whole, and forgive the blantant simplification for a moment, has always wandered from one kind of platform to the next when there was some kind of technological advancement, when the new platform offered more than the old one did."

[info]tabakat: untitled post: "The thing is I feel as though I am being forced to keep a presence [on LJ] because there is nowhere else for me to go to be involved in my other fandoms. With the popularity of journal communities rising the availability of actual website archives and the like for fandoms has gone down."

[info]elance: Decentralize me!: "I don't think I'm alone when I say that the amount of fanfiction which is *solely* posted to LiveJournal communities and not archived anywhere else worries me. I believe strongly that fandom should never be centralized, never be dependent on one site alone to carry it."

Also, [info]maureenlycaon did a post on data backups to store your stories and/or artwork off of your computer, and [info]elke_tanzer wrote a step-by-step tutorial on moving LJ memories into del.icio.us.

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Issue #38

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Fan Fiction & the OTW


[info]elfwreck: Some arguments against fanfic: "It's fascinating watching the anti-fanfic crowd; here in my niche in fandom, I tend to forget what a lot of people think about our beloved hobby."

[info]morgandawn: Fandom: Stop Breathing This Instant! (on why Corporate America is still stuck inside the paper bag): "I suspect that many who are objecting to the OTW's work (and fandom as well) aren't looking at fandom as part of a larger global trend of moving away from passive consuming and towards participatory culture."

RPF

Two entries by [info]hector_rashbaum:

RPF Wives and Girlfriends: "I've never really liked the idea of nonfamous wives/girlfriends showing up in fic (...) But a post championing the use of nonfamous wives/girlfriends ... had me examining why I don't like it, because I wanted to jump into the discussion with more than "it's bad because it is."

The Fourth Fence, Blurry Boundaries, and...Something Else Alliterative: "We, and by we I mean RPFers (although maybe I should specify sane RPFers ;]), do have a fourth wall. (...) Our fourth wall is more of a fence and our respect issues have some pretty significant differences; but we have a fence and we understand respect."

Vidding

[info]elfwreck: Fannish news - Change in YouTube TOS

[info]morgandawn wrote Vidding Basics (PC Version) (including links to basic tutorials).

Other

[info]kaesa: untitled post: "They're clearly not, you know, the voice of God or the Devil or, like, soulbonds or otherkin or Things from Another World. (...) I know they're just made of brainclay -- but they're there in my head, little cordoned-off bits of mind that say "This is how so-and-so thinks, feels, acts, what hir quirks are, why sie's an asshole to this person but not to that person."

Link removed 2009/01, IJ got deleted [[info]prophet_maid: "I have spent many an hour writing, researching, analyzing, and railing about the media's portrayal of women. Hell, I wrote my thesis on it (in medieval England), and I am sorely disappointed with what the Pirates franchise did to [Elizabeth]."]

[info]aristoboule created feeds for the News communities on DeadJournal, GreatestJournal, and CommieJournal.

[info]morgandawn explains how to move your Journal memories to Del.icio.us (Firefox only).

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As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments entry. General questions can be asked on the FAQ post. :)
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Roundup Issue #4

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General Fandom Meta

[info]ignazwisdom: Great Ways to Get People to Not Read Your Story, #7: 'Put something like this in as your author's note: "Again... Not very good. I'll try to do better next time."'

[info]thete1: On Fanart, Graphic and Otherwise.: "When we say to ourselves, "well, it's not like they're going after the *writers*," what we're really saying is that fanart isn't important. We're saying the fanartists are, at best, second-class fans, undeserving of the rights and appreciation due to the rest of us."

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Your thoughts?: "If there's no profanity, and there's no sexual content beyond hand-holding and kissing, is it possible to give a G-rating to those fics and art with a gay couple, or does it get bumped up a rating because of the fact that there's an M/M or F/F couple?"

[info]shannon730 (on [info]fandom_love): Intro and Artisitc/Literary Merit?: "Artistic and Literary merit to me are about the story the work tells. That's why art is being hit harder. It's not about the art being good or bad, it's because there isn't a story behind it."

[info]hphaeton: The Warnings Discussion: "First of all I have to say that I want - no, need - to read warnings before I start reading a fic. (...) When I read an original novel/book I haven't invested any emotion yet. (...) But fanfiction is something completely different for me. (...) Often enough warnings are either too specific or not specific enough for my taste."

[info]bitterfig: delusions?: "Basically, the recent controversy about Livejournals suspension of users for posting sexually explicit fan art is making me take a look at the role fandom has come to play in my life and what my shadow career as a fan fiction writer means to me."

[info]thete1: Fannish Activities As Therapy: Making It Better: "One of the things that keeps me in fandom is the opportunity to therapize myself, and one of my favorite ways to do that is to make some of favorite characters happier. Just plain 'happy' is, for a lot of these guys, asking far too much, but *happier* is possible. (...) Do you find yourselves doing this sort of thing? If so, how do you set out to make characters happy? What's your perfect story of both personal and virtual fulfillment?"

[info]zulu: Writing Bad Habits: "Any bad habits you know you have to go looking for on an edit, or avoid during writing?"

[info]luzzu: Fuck's sake fandom: "Fandom hypocrisy for the lose. When you find yourself the victim of a witchhunt, the answer is, to start another!"


InsaneJournal

[info]emilie_burns collected links to various statements by [info]squeaky, regarding InsaneJournal's policies and stance towards fandom.

Also, [info]squeaky just upped the friends limit, as well as the links limit for the sidebar.

[info]snakeling: IJ Siteschemes and how to modify them. Tutorials for Firefox, Epiphany, and Opera.

[info]tinnidawg found two Firefox add-ons that help you download all your memories and userpics/scrapbook pictures.

[info]guiltyred (on [info]07refugees) points us towards the email notification center, which also has the option for new friend notices. Unfortunately, it does not work (yet).

[info]telesilla shares her thoughts on the various journaling options (InsaneJournal, GreatestJournal, JournalFen, Blurty and Scribblit).

[info]mythicdove: Poll: "For those of you who have/had a LJ and wrote fic, curious as to what you are doing currently."


LiveJournal

[info]diachrony started a discussion (on [info]07refugees) about Matthew Skala's online article, "The Terrible Secret of LiveJournal".

[info]p_zeitgeist: You know that thing about killing all the lawyers? (crossposted from LJ): "But horribly, thanks to a potential flamewar I turned away from at the last possible moment, I have a new hypothesis about what's been going on with 6A. And I almost resent the fact that if it's correct, it will mean that I was right in the first instance, they really do mean well, and every single thing we've objected to is by way of being a hideous accident."

[info]justhuman: I should be sleeping, but I’m going to post potentially fannishly unpopular stuff first: "Back in June sometime between Strikethrough and Boldthrough, I said in a comment somewhere that it was good fandom was pushing back, but eventually we’d need to back down on some of the issues because freedom of speech has never been absolute in the US and there are laws against distributing certain types of images and content. (...) Getting the California Attorney General involved in Fandom vs. LJ ... this cannot end well."

[info]diachrony: now about making text or hyperlinks, and what LJ thinks of that ...: "It seems (...) that there is now a strong possibility that LiveJournal will summarily ban and delete users for merely providing a text link to another site that hosts content LiveJournal deems 'objectionable.'"


Other

[info]the_willow: IBARW: Grab Your CoC meme - C. Fillmore: "A cop's show with a black title character, who despite the laughs, is an intelligent hero. How could he not be one of my absolute favourite Characters of Colour."

[german] Da bei LiveJournal nun auch Links zu illegalen/obszönen Inhalten zur Suspendierung führen können, hat [info]mllesatine sich mit der Rechtslage zu Verweisen und Hyperlinks im deutschen Raum beschäftigt.
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Roundup Issue #2

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InsaneJournal

[info]stewardess: ALERT: Use Caution When Naming An RSS Feed. (Further information in the comments. Also, see [info]grimmhill's post.)

[info]qem_chibati: RSS Feeders (talking about Firefox livebookmarks, Google Reader, including flocked posts and more -- post is a constant work in progress)

[info]only_gremo describes a problem with uploading user pics when using Firefox, and how to solve it.

[info]yourlibrarian asks about possible (virtual) gifts for InsaneJournal users, and [info]sylumgator wonders if a Holiday Wish List site would be a good idea.

Fandom / Fanworks

[info]jaybee65: Meta: Looking on the bright side of recent fannish upheavals: "It's possible that this is one of those watershed moments for fandom, although I think it's impossible to tell right now what direction things will move in. (...) [The] assumption is that it's better if fandom congregates at a single, agreed-upon-by-consensus space. But is it, really? I'm not so sure."

[info]millstone1005 (on [info]fanficrants): ratings: "It really annoys me when people rate all of their stories R (Mature) for "safety", regardless of the actual content of the fic."

[info]ketchupblood thinks about three types of painful fic.

[info]ingrid [on the so-called 'miscegenation debate']: (untitled): "It's okay to say you've never heard it. It's pseudo-clinical and rather old. But when someone (or a few dozen someones) informs you that this word represents a Very Not Nice School of Thought and in all honesty, has nothing to do with what you are trying to put across for a stupid fic contest, that, in fact, you used the wrong word entirely you really ought to listen to them."

[info]spacelogic: fannish stuff: "I'm starting to wonder if there is or has been any good sci-fi TV show that actually had a gender-balanced or female-majority cast. Anyone know?"

[info]babydraco: Meta post #1: HP/Other: Occlumency/Identifying with Characters: "I think lots of fen identify with Snape. Come on...he was a socially awkward child who masks this with sarcasm as an adult. He's an academic, as many fen are, but even the ones who aren't still like reading, and researching and arguing over obscure stuff. He's not conventionally attractive (okay, he's sort of ugly) and many fen identify with that, but even those who don't, have to contend constantly with the *stereotype* that they are ugly or out of shape. Before anyone's even seen them."

Sometimes the same people write several meta entries. It happens.

[info]yourlibrarian:

Insiders and outsiders: who's who?: "There's been a lot of talk in the Gender Aca-Fan discussion going on at fandebate about the lines between producers and fans but less on those in between, which at one point a participant suggests may be academics. (...) I'm applying these points primarily to the Buffyverse since that's what I currently know about, but I suspect that there's truth there for a number of fandoms."

From great characters come great fandoms: "I have on occasion been able to continue watching a show for the sake of a character alone, or a pair of characters. And I have watched many shows in which I enjoyed the show but had no real desire to go further than just viewing. But if it’s a good show and it’s got a great character, that to me is the equation for fannish interest."

Reviewing the Past: "To me [American Gothic]’s not that old, but it aired a year or so before BtVS came on the air. (...) At the time it was felt that references to pop culture would take viewers out of the show because it reminded them of real life. Instead he argued, this actually makes the characters seem more real because they live in the same world we do. He noted that BtVS was a major show that served to make this change on TV."


[info]zulu:

You know what I like? Being productive.: "I think I want to learn, but I also want to sit back and say, 'You know what? It's crack, and it makes me happy. I HAVE MADE IT FOR THE LULZ.'"

Writing, you know, that stuff.: "It's really hard to write a medical plot interspersed with the usual shippy stuff I write (...) the problem is making it real-ish and still interesting for the shippers."


LiveJournal

[info]das_dingsi: LJers are freaked out. Brad is unimpressed.: "You probably read that ValleyWag story by now (...) that LJ founder Brad Fitzpatrick is going to leave LiveJournal. And he probably is. (...) Of course, he's been asked on his opinion about the on-going kerfluffles."

[info]liz_marcs: Here Are My Thots...Let Me Show You Them: "While the latest LJ kerfluffle is going in full-swing, let me make clear my stance here, especially since there seems to me to be a certain amount of misinterpreting what I'm saying. Personally, I think the artists in question who got perma-banned from LJ were, to put it kindly, stupid. (...) My perception that the artists in question acted stupidly, however, is nothing compared to what I currently think about LJ/6A."

[info]ranalore: okay, seriously, y'all are not helping: "Posts with explanations for the possible logic of 6A/LJ's actions are good and useful. Posts about how to back up your memories, flists, posts, comments, and how to cross-post to multiple journal services are good and useful. You know what I don't think are good and useful? Posts berating other fans for choosing to leave LJ or choosing to stay."

[info]emilie_burns makes a good point about community management: "If the only maintainer is suspended, that's bad news for a comm's survival, so I'm just taking care of that."


Other

[info]blasphemy_blue started a Multifandom Friending Meme.

[info]bubble_blunder: A Question For Those Who Read My journal: "I mean thoughts, opinions, viewpoints and the like about things like censorship, sex offenders, vigilante groups (...), fandom, parenting (...) So, my question to those reading is this: If I were to make a series of Editorial style posts about these types of issues would you read and discuss them, or would you be more likely to say, 'TL;DR' and move on by?"



As usual, you can leave comments with meta links here or on the screened post. Older posts qualify -- basically, all meta from 2007 posted on InsaneJournal is fair game.