[Archive] Meta Roundup: Fannish Stuff of Interest

May 2010

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Posts Tagged: 'tutorials'

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Issue #83

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[info]the_willow: Fairy Tales & Fables: "But this webcomic hit me all over again with the fact that there's never an explanation of why those created worlds DON'T have PoC. Why am I so hung up on providing an explanation for why my Robin Hood Character or Fairy Godmother isn't white?"

[info]stele3 noticed that some people have problems commenting with OpenID because they need to constantly re-login on IJ, and wrote a quick guide ("Permanent login for OpenID").
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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 #77

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[info]the_willow: More On Nice vs Mean (Fannish): "Do only one set of feelings matter? Or only one set of feelings from one group of people?"

[Harry Potter] [info]iamisaac (in [info]metametameta): Severus/Remus in canon: "3000 words or so of meta about moments in canon where a relationship between Severus and Remus looks like a real possibility."

[Queer-as-Folk-centric, but also general discussion] [info]xie_xie_xie: Wherein I am intolerant in the extreme: "If you ever wanted proof that I do not in fact rule the universe nor even this tiny little molecule of it that is the Queer as Folk fandom, the existence of QAF mpreg is it. [...] I think there's something really, truly scary and strange about serious "real world" mpreg fic."

[Dr. Horrible] [info]andreth_47: Dr. Horrible Meta: The Goggles of Disguise: "I was thinking about that in regard to Dr. Horrible, 'cause supervillains wear costumes too of course, and I suddenly realized that disguises/costumes/illusions are a pervasive theme in Joss's latest work of genius."

Refresher course: [info]branchandroot explains how to use OpenID when you don't have an IJ account.

[allgemeine Diskussion, plus Eindrücke über Generation Kill] [info]mllesatine: Heut mach ich mir kein Abendbrot, heut mach ich mir Gedanken!: "Jedenfalls geht mir in letzter Zeit so einiges zum Thema Slash, Feminismus und meinen Fandoms im Kopf rum. Warum sind zum Beispiel die Fandoms, die ich am meisten liebe, nur von Männern bevölkert?"
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Issue #63

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[BtVS, SPN] [info]yourlibrarian: The Emotional Bottom (discusses Dean and Spike in terms of characterization and relationships on the show and top/bottom preferences in fic -- might contain spoilers!)

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: An Anti-Redemptionist's Confession: "Or, How I Learned To Give Up The Ghost And Love Getting Our Heroes To Join The Dark Side."

[info]telesilla: It's 5pm somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy!: "Discussion in chat this afternoon about booze and SGA characters led me to think about my personal fanon (which is subject to change depending on the requirements of a fic) about the SGA characters and booze ..." (open for other fandoms in the comments)

[info]brimac13 has a poll on shipping, namely if certain shipping preferences have a negative stigma in fandom.

Older posts I didn't want to leave behind:

The recent prompts on [info]metametameta have been job-related (canon jobs, careers in fanfic, and "going pro") and previously [info]elfwreck discussed in-canon parenting (or the lack thereof), for Trek!verse and Harry Potter in particular.

[info]yourlibrarian: Posting habits and fanfic reading (deals with cross-posting content, IJ as a political choice, and journal readership esp. with meta content)

[info]apotheosis: The place of OEL manga: "I thought this might be of interest to us as American mangaka and the fact that no, I don't see that as a contradiction or taboo to refer to myself as one. [...] I still can't help but see a rather hypocritical double-standard."

Journal News:

InsaneJournal has reached 200,000 accounts in just three months. The site was running slow at times, [info]squeaky adresses the issue here. Also, [info]insanity asks people for their ideas on virtual gifts.

[info]rusty_halo made a turorial: How to migrate from LiveJournal to WordPress (and crosspost to InsaneJournal). (Link in the post goes to WordPress, but I'm using this one so people can leave IJ comments.)

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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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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 #60

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Fannish Meta

[info]nosselinfea: Plagiarism in fandom: "We are on the whole, writers of fanfiction, which in itself stands on shaky ground from a copyright point of view. It takes a brave person to point fingers when you fear that the same fingers can be pointed right back at you for writing stories that rightly belong to JRR Tolkien or JK Rowling etc. We can argue Fair Use til we're blue in the face, but the truth is no-one knows where that line is drawn."

[info]celandineb: Writing Plausible Rare Pairs: "So the question is, then, how does an author make a pairing plausible? I'm going to try to talk in non-fandom-specific terms here, because I think that the two basic aspects I see as necessary, proximity and cause, apply across fandoms when it comes to writing rare pairs."

[Torchwood] [info]andreth_47: TW: Better or Worse When Subtext Becomes Text?: "What happens to slash when, suddenly, it's canon? Where's my delicious subtext gone?"

[Death Note] [info]branchandroot: Death Note: Duology: "You know, I quite liked the first half of the Death Note manga. And I might well have liked the second half if it hadn’t followed the first. My problem with DN is that it’s two stories in very different styles, and those styles don’t go very well together–certainly not in the order they fall."

[SG1 / Stargate: Atlantis] [info]mirabile_dictu: Do not read this post; guaranteed to harsh your SGA squee: "I have a friend who has gently pointed out that SGA is television, and that, as such, I'm expecting too much from it. I say no, I'm not. I'm not wrong to demand more than the shit-flavored pabulum that we're fed each Friday night."

General: [info]mercurychaos wrote a tutorial: OpenID Explained (with screenshots!).

LiveJournal-related

(Note: because there's been so many posts about this, I tried to include mainly the ones that summarise issues and/or collect a lot of links for further reading.)

[info]diachrony: that really wasn't a good move, SUP. (rant on LJ failboating)

Two posts by [info]stewardess: Nostalgia: 6A/SUP's Greatest Fuck-Ups (a timeline) and Six Apart/SUP Erases Porn, Sex... and Fandom (on the change/removal of interests).

[info]rood has a déjà-vu: It's LJ-drama again, surprise, surprise: "Every time I read sentences like "I just renewed my paid account because I believed you last time" or "You have to work on your communication skills!" I just want to tell the poster to shut up already because LJ proved that they won't do that."

And [info]skuf has a poll on general LJ vs. IJ usage.

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Issue #58

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[info]aerynvala: Interaction Protocol Query: "How the fuck do I interact with bandpeoples? I don't know these kids, just their work and occasionally their blog posts. ... [I]s there a way to glee all over the bandpeoples without being a total stalkery tool?"

InsaneJournal

IJ has some issues with tagging entries (tags won't show up, the tags management page is missing some options et cetera), but there's a way to work around that by [temporarily] using the Lynx sitescheme. Here's a tutorial (in English and German).

LiveJournal

LJ finally posted new policy guidelines. There's a discussion on [info]07refugees with some links.

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Issue #57

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Most of the links are fandom-specific today:

[info]blue_rose: On Rose Tyler, the Doctor, his companions and relationships in Doctor Who in general.

[Naruto] [info]caithyra explains why Sasuke is an Uber Gary Stu. (Spoiler alert for the manga, especially for the latest chapters)

[info]beccastareyes: My Love-Hate Relationship with Eureka 7: "So, there you have it. I'd like Eureka 7 a lot more if the gender roles didn't make me want to throw things."

[info]celandineb expanded on last week's poll: which Harry Potter characters make you read or ignore a fic/fan art?

General:

[info]stele3 shares information on how you can receive comment notifications and have icons with OpenID.

The issue of IJ's comment rot has been brought up again (this time in [info]ideas), and [info]branchandroot mentions things you could do to help here.

The master list post has been updated (+2 asylums).
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Issue #48

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Eta Jan. 22nd: removed one of the posts because the entry is now friendslocked.

[info]elfwreck: Why fanfic?: "This is hard to explain. It's so obvious to us, that it took a comment from [info]bohemianeditor for me to even notice that the question existed, separate from "why do you think it's legal" and "isn't it sleazy to use someone's creation without their permission" and the whacked "what makes you think you're better than the original author?"

[info]branchandroot: Boys get to keep their power; big surprise: "The thing I particularly notice, though, is the gender division. The story the girls are told is that power brings pain and the answer is to get rid of it or, failing that, die. The story the boys are told is that power brings lack of control and the answer is to understand you are not actually that different from those around you." (Anime/Manga)

[German] [info]das_dingsi (in [info]deutschesfandom): Die Suche nach den eigenen Vorlieben: "Was mir aber diesmal wieder extrem aufgefallen war: ich bin außerstande, meine Vorlieben in griffige Worte zu packen, und schon gar nicht in Genres zu denken."

[info]xie_xie_xie: Why I don't "miss" Queer as Folk: "I never saw it on the air; I got it all as one, completed work. [...] And in addition to having this tiny little comprehension gap when people say they "miss" the show, I also feel slightly protective of the show -- like, don't say anything to make it be less because no more episodes are being made."

[info]rebeccama posted three meta essays as part of the Queer As Folk Emmet Celebration Weekend (not the exact title, but unfortunately I lost the link to the initial post): The Relationship between Emmett and Drew, Emmett: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, and Going beyond stereotypes to become partners. (Possible spoilers for all seasons, as it deals with the growth and change of characters.)

Lists, Polls, and Tutorials

[info]brimac13 posted the second part of the Multifandom Fanfiction Poll ("How to choose a fic, cont'd").

[info]persecution wrote a journaling guide about user icons.

[info]envinyatar15 posted a list of Harry-Potter-centric IJ asylums.

[German] [info]majikkuinki erklärt, wie man OpenID benutzt.

Journaling

[info]nosselinfea checked out Scribbld.net's invite code system.

There's some discussion about LJ's and IJ's user stats: LiveJournal is dying. Literally. (by [info]antiaol in [info]07refugees), and [info]stewardess's InsaneJournal: Growing Like The Dickens. Also, LJ mentions the "Strikethrough 2007" in their news post, which [info]aristoboule (in [info]07refugees) calls the understatement of the year.
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Issue #34

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General Fannish Meta

[info]spacelogic: '"obviously Chinese" is not the same!': "So I've been thinking about Babylon 5, and how humans generally can be divided into three groups in that universe: Anglophones (mostly American,) Russians, and... Japanese."

Journaling / IJ

[info]greenwitch: DAMMIT: "Okay, frustration point here -- I've noticed several times now that when people create a community for a fandom, they're forgetting one major thing -- ENTERING SAID FANDOM'S NAME INTO THE COMMUNITY INTEREST LIST."

[info]the_willow: When I compare Scribblit to iJay...: "Part of me thinks it may be because Scribblit isn't open yet to making your own communities on the spur of the moment, that I'm left feeling a little loose."

Tutorial: [info]das_dingsi: How to Restore Lost Icons / Verlorene Icons wiederherstellen

LiveJournal

[info]dragovianknight: To all the people saying "LJ, did you learn nothing from Strikethrough?": "Of course they learned. They learned that 99.9% of their users will pitch a fit, and then stay."

[info]stewardess explains in Flagging Tool Fall-out why setting your LiveJournal to "Adult Concepts / Explicit Adult Content" is a bad idea.

[info]diachrony: livejournal adult-content flagging highlights: "Users will NOT be notified if an individual entry of theirs is marked "explicit" by LJ Abuse. (...) The new "Adult" warning pages might get the entire LJ site blocked in some workplaces (and libraries) for being NSFW, as they use keywords that cause sites to be restricted."

Also, [info]the_willow reports that feeds from LJ are not accessible anymore. (Explained further in this comment in [info]07refugees.)

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Roundup Issue #7

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[info]reijamira: Instructions On How To Upload Mood Themes: "First of, as far as I know, uploading mood themes is only possible for user with permanent or payed accounts. There are actually two ways how to upload your mood theme! You can use the Mood Theme Editor or the Admin Console. Personally, I like the Admin Console more, because it's much faster and it's not half as difficult to use as it sounds."

[info]ilysah: Tags Might Not Be Your Friend: "As a fandom, are we exposing our hobby to mainstream public by tagging our posts? (...) I suspect, though, the owner of this site is using some type of software, trawling the net and gathering up data based on Tags."

[info]lordhellebore: Fanfic =/= Inferior writing: "So, that doesn't mean, as I said, that I expect everyone to like fanfic, or even really get why we do it. But the "OMG you could do so much BETTER!" and "You're just afraid/incapable of doing something of your own!" comments are ridiculous and condescending and show that those people have no clue and no interest in learning about the WHY."

[info]otempora01 (in [info]writers_cafe): let's talk harry potter: "I mean, sure, every book in the world is always compared to at least one other book, but does it bother anyone else that you can't even say the word witch/wizard in relation to your own novel without someone mentioning Harry Potter? I'm not speaking out against Harry Potter as I'm a fan, but I was just wondering."

[info]babydraco: OOh! Have I won the insane Welshman?: "Don't the Malfoys and their friends strike you as the sort of people who would normally be bothered by the presence of a Person of Color in their midst? I guess skin color doesn’t matter as much when the issue is more who has magic and who doesn’t. The wizarding world considers wizard as their race."

[info]its_art: Minor Characters: Are They Original or Canon?: "So I have to ask all of my HP fen... When does a canon character ceased being canon and start being original?"

Two [info]07refugees posts:

[info]calime: On fandom migration, safe spaces and keeping in touch with your flist: "I'd love a place that would make it easy for readers to follow them - a kind of all-in-one project that could host content, but also could serve just as an linking hub with a profile page, an address book etc. So, for me the [squidge.org] project sounds very appealing."

[info]emilie_burns asks: "Is it, or is it not, more or less mandatory on IJ to flock explicit material?"

And last but not least, [info]j_crew_guy informs us that Dan Didio, Senior Vice-President and Executive Editor of DC Comics, has no idea what the word "fan-fiction" means, but likes to use it anyway.

Additional note for the people who are members of the [info]fandomdirectory, but don't have it on their friendslist because of the many new entries each update: I'd like to know if fandom asylums that only cross-post from LJ should be included in some way.

Coming soon: general fandom poll. Stay tuned.

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Roundup Issue #5

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InsaneJournal / other journaling services

Layout issues: [info]uniquewonders posted about some journal layouts, namely Smooth Sailing, Nebula, and Flexible Squares, that using them on any other site than livejournal.com is illegal. [info]lilbreck asks for clarification. The discussion thread on [info]nameless_layout can be found here.

[info]fizzyblogic: livejournal / insanejournal / scribblit / fic: Four parts: Why I Left Livejournal (And Why I'm Not Going Back) / Why I Am Using Insanejournal And Intend To Continue Doing So / Why I Am Excited About Scribblit (And Will Be Over There Like A Shot When It Goes Live) / Scribblit, Those Canadian Laws, How It Applies To Me, And Why My Fic Will Be On Scribblit

[info]luzzu: Is it just me?: "I like this site, a lot. I came here to get away from LJ and it's like some of fandom are trying to bring all the wank with them rather than leave it where it should be - on LJ."

[info]buggery: Hold that 'yay' -- everything is NOT suddenly okay.: "Yays, LiveJournal/SixApart are being reasonable again! -- or are they? -- Let's have a look."

[info]ishtar79: Lie to me some more, I LIKE it!: "Granted, the ingenuous code they use might be hard to crack, but fear not-- I speak fluent Bullshit. So in the interests of clarity: ..."

[info]lilbreck posted a tutorial (with screenshots): How To: Getting Semagic to Post Tags to InsaneJournal.


General Fannish Meta

[info]rubytuesday5681: *CLAPS HANDS LOUDLY**: "i know that the situation sucks right now and we are all angry and bitter. but going on and on and on about it is not going to fix anything. let's show the world that we can't be held down! it's time for everyone to do their best to brighten the mood a bit!"

[info]elfwreck: Stop Calling Yourselves Criminals!: "Copyright infringement is illegal. Is fanfiction 'copyright infringement?' Plenty of authors think so. Plenty of fanficcers think so. But that doesn't make it true."

[info]nosselinfea: fandomcrazy: "So now, in comes the California State Attorney General, and suddenly fandom is pulled out of hiding, kicking and screaming into the glare of public scrutiny. (...) It'll be DMCA takedown notices flying like confetti (...) Ironically, RPS isn't covered by copyright law, so it is probably the only area of fandom that's actually relatively safe."

[info]elgraves would like to know if there's some sort of fannish newspaper covering news that may effect fandom community (e.g. DMCA notices).

[info]badonkatonks: Why I approve of sexually graphic young adult literature, novels, and fanfiction: "There are many more young adult novels published than we realize that deal with teen sexuality and how it affects self-image, especially for young girls. I happen to believe there is an area of fanfiction that should be included in a 'safety net' that would protect the writer and the fanfiction from being banned and deleted only because of the fact that the character(s) are teenaged minors."

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Fannish Thoughts from Jordi: "I wonder why there's such an outcry among fans of female characters when one chooses a different character, be they male, female, or humanoid creature of indeterminate gender, to pair her up with than there is for male characters."

[info]ranalore: today's psa brought to you by the reactions to my latest posted story: "More angsty =/= more realistic."

[info]florida_minxie set up an Art/Fic Collaboration Poll and needs some input.

So does [info]greenwitch, regarding possible issues (and solutions) of the [info]holiday_wishes project. "Any thoughts or comments, even if you weren't involved in the project in the past, would be appreciated."

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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.
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Roundup Issue #3

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup


LiveJournal / 6A

[info]kieeeeye (on [info]07refugees) linked to an online article from German newspaper "Der Spiegel" about the LJ Strikethrough. Link to a translation included.

[info]bemysty (untitled): "What IS happening, however, is that independent bloggers (...) take note of this affair (...) And while the fanfic community is nearly universally disregarded as freakish, the issues themselves are being discussed from a different angle - it's not about fandom for those people because they don't belong it; they see the business and customer relations side of things."

[info]babydraco: throwing rocks and stuff. skip if you're on my LJ: "YOU'RE normal, YOU'RE not a pervert who draws pictures of naked seventeen year old boys. -- What happens when they change the rules? And they will, because they already have more than once. Here is a list of things Livejournal has done to their customers in the four years that I've been on here."

[info]p_zeitgeist: But, why are y'all assuming that getting rid of fic would be good for an IPO?: "I keep seeing the this line of reasoning around LJ today: Six Apart is known, or suspected, to be getting ready to do an initial public offering. (...) But I have to wonder, because it seems to me that a damned good argument can be made that getting rid of fandom would be ghastly for that projected IPO."

[info]emilie_burns: 6A is sailing the failboat in the sea of stupid.: "However, 6A has determined that while fictional porn is harmful, illegal, and dangerous, and should be removed from their servers, there is nothing wrong with communities which advocate dangerous eating disorders and assist other users in 'tips' for self-starvation and purging."

[info]ketchupblood (untitled): "Frankly, I'm kind of upset at how incredibly immature the fandom is being. I saw a post where they were trying to max out LJ's bandwidth or something by flooding pictures onto LJ servers. That completely reminded me of something I did in fifth grade with my fifth grade class, where we tried to cost the cafeteria some money by boycotting school lunch."



InsaneJournal / Fandom Migration

[[info]scorienne: settling in: "I really probably ought to try to post something in the communities I've joined, because it's possible that everyone's expecting someone else to do it (the same way that I am)."] Journal has apparently been deleted by its user.

[info]entrenous88: fannish squee and glee, part the first: "For all that keeping up with the situation and taking action is very, very important, something I'm not seeing as much right now -- and dude, this is highly important stuff -- is fannish squee and glee. To me, that's part of the fight to keep fandom alive and strong, keeping vital the reason we all started out in various fandoms to begin with -- our love for various canons, our excitement for fannish products, and our interaction with both of those resources as well as with other fans."

[info]anniemoon asks whether we'd be interested in a fandom-oriented friending community.

[info]ceruleagos has a poll about InsaneJournal usage.

[info]das_dingsi: Asylums and Tags / Kategorien in Communities (tutorial on the usage of tags on InsaneJournal and how to change the tag permission level for asylums directly at the admin console)

[info]brown_betty links to a tool that migrates not just journals, but communities.

[info]chrome327 links to source codes / layout help for the Flexible Squares and Smooth Sailing S2 styles. Eta Aug. 15th: These layouts are NOT licensed under the GPL, which means it's illegal to use them on a site other than LiveJournal. (source)

[info]quiltyred (on [info]07refugees) reminds us of the navigation strip feature.

[info]liz_marcs found a Fake LJ-User Tag Generator to get rid of all those not-working journal links in posts.


General Fandom Meta

[info]jadeblood: Would You Want To Be Shipped That Way?: "I have a question for people that write fan fiction, make art, or just generally ship real life celebrities together: would you want someone to see you and a friend together and begin pairing you up?"

[info]mahoganyhandle: something that leaves me confuzzled...: "I've read a few slave fics recently and I noticed a theme that rather baffles me. In a slave fic, people seem to think that the slave would be bound so much that they'd want to serve. (...) I don't, however, see the point in making the slave so helpless and dependent on his master that he can't even take care of himself, let alone anyone else."

[info]baffledking: Babbling about Authorial Intent: "At some point the phrase 'authorial intent' has become dirty to me. I am firmly, firmly of the opinion that the minute a text (text in this usage meaning source material) becomes available to me in it's finished form then the author's opinions are no more valid than the average internet Joe's."

[info]yourlibrarian: How do you like your stories?: "[T]he profic/fanfic differences to me generally come out in favor of fanfic. And this is mostly because fanfic can do what profic does but the reverse is not true. One thing, for example, that I can't ever imagine seeing in a tie-in novel is a truly dark story."

[info]purplefeen: It's rant time: Sex is not a dirty word - or a dirty act!!: "Hon, if you're going to make Willow (or any other character) ashamed, you're giving in to the small-minded toadies of the world who once told women that they were whores if they made a sound during sex."


As usual, you can leave comments with interesting links or use the screened entry mentioned in the FAQ. Older meta entries are fair game, as long as they're on InsaneJournal and from 2007.