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.
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.
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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.
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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?
By default, InsaneJournal sets the status of journals or asylums that haven't been active for over two years since January 1st, 2008 to "deleted". It then sends out emails to notify you of the change, that you have 14 days to change status back to "activated", and where to do it (http://www.insanejournal.com/accountst
So, if you look at your profile and wonder why there are a lot of struck-out names, or suddenly the number of "also friend of"-users has dropped significantly, this is probably the reason.
ETA: This is not an automated feature, but due to a username purge after the database moves have recently been completed.
spacelogic: fannish distinctions II: the difference between liking something and being a fan of it: "I used to be an admin on a very active Harry Potter forum and spent most of the day, every day, there, enough to worry my parents. Because it wasn't about the books or the films, really. It was about the culture."
[Merlin] lilithilien: Merlin and the Tarot: "But I do love symbolism and I think a greater awareness of it can help illuminate patterns and make sense of things. By looking at some of the physical manifestations of these symbols [of Tarot] in, say, a television show, we can often glean some additional meaning that (hopefully) will add to our appreciation of it."General Fannish Meta
branchandroot: Stop trying to be on my side: "Let’s be clear about this: “you’re reading it wrong” is not an academic argument.".
1. A last reminder for the people who were also on GreatestJournal: the site will shut down permanently at January 30th, so you have only a few days left to save posts, icons, et cetera. For tutorials on moving entries or communities, I recommend sherlock's posts on LJ-Migrate and LJ-Sec. To find other GJers on IJ, there's findgjers and gjmeetup. (Hat-tip to vampiress_diva.)
2. The third round of the IJ Asylum Meme has started last week. In short, people update asylums on IJ that have been "dormant" for a while, thus keeping them alive, and as a side effect get to know about various asylums because all contributions are collected in a master list. Detailed explanation and sign-ups are in this post. I'm hoping for breaking last year's record, where we had 21 participants updating 34 asylums.
A general note: over time I've noticed that there are fluctuations in the amount of meta content that's being produced, depending on other events that might have people busy writing, e.g. fic contests/challenges around a certain time of year, or political events. Meaning, fandom-wise at the moment there's not much to link to, while an Obama link roundup would have good chances. (*g*) But I'll keep looking!
Grouped by topic - first LiveJournal/InsaneJournal, then specific and general fandom meta...
News have made the rounds that LJ has fired part of their staff. twistedchick quotes from the Valleywag article and discusses the economical aspect in more detail: I did wonder why they were moving the servers away from the engineers....
The InsaneJournal Holiday Sale (including the offering of permanent accounts) starts on Friday the 28th this month, running in two phases with different prices. For details, read this post in announcements.
aristoboule reports that the official "True Blood" site on HBO actively encourages fan fiction/fan works in general, and wonders "if there's something out there the precedes this".
duskpeterson: To slash and yaoi folk: How has Hurricane Ike affected you?: "I'm working on a story for my Hurricanes Gustav and Ike Report at True Tales about how Hurricane Ike has affected the slash and yaoi communities. Anyone here want to contribute their anecdotes, for the record?"
[Final Fantasy games] lassarina: [meta] I think too much: "So, my biggest fundamental assumption about FF6 is that the Magi-Tek infusion affects not just body but also personality, because it's forcing your genetic structure to alter to accept this new ability."Note: Spoilers for the TV fandom posts (definitely for Doctor Who, quite possibly for Avatar and Scrubs).
stele3: Freedom of Speech? Not Online: "There is no such thing as free speech online, not in places like LJ, IJ, MySpace, or Facebook. There is only what they allow us to say."