Meta Roundup

yonmei: Copyright and plagiarism and derivative use: "Certainly, while (for example) Paramount could step in and say "Wait, we own the copyright of Star Trek and we are claiming this work is unfairly derivative of Trek" a third person who doesn't own the copyright of Trek cannot step in and say "Hey, this story is illegal, that means I can steal it."

mythicdove: please to be helping dove for she hath questions on life mystery: "Have any of you ever developed a crush on a fandom character, or an actor, sports figure, musician, ect and you can't figure out WHY?"

das_dingsi: InsaneJournal: A Beginner's Guide

First, I apologize if this entry is a bit incoherent. Things are happening rather quickly, and at times I can just stare at the screen and wonder "What's next?!" and when the next thing does happen, it's usually even worse or weirder than I imagined. I mean, a few months ago I was simply writing fannish or GLBT stuff on LJ and the worst issues I had to deal with were antifeminist trolls or (zomg!) defriending. Then I started writing about 6A's attempts to sneak in ads and the data-mining, then followed Strikethrough/Boldthrough, and now we're discussing censorship and spying on political opponents. Part of my brain still goes "... whut? What happened?!"

But I digress.

Thanks to all the people who voted in the recent poll and left comments -- you made valid points and it's true that, although this asylum focuses on fandom on InsaneJournal, we might still be affected by events on LiveJournal.

One of those effects is the recent upswing in account and asylum creations -- 2200 new accounts since Dec 3rd.

GreatestJournal had an influx of new users, too, but couldn't handle the server load and directed users here instead -- see this post in announcements, and due to this development 07refugees is now open for discussion of GJ as well.

Oh, and this is kinda tangential, but interesting in the "was it just really bad timing?" way: LostJournal will implement content flagging in its next code update.

Anyways, judging by the poll outcome, the great majority of our members would like news about LJ to be included in meta_roundup. However, there's also a demand to either just include really important stuff, or use a condensed format (and as gamera pointed out, if the poll had consisted of ticky boxes, many folks would probably have chosen both). So, I'm going to keep that in mind!

And while we're at it...

wyldraven quotes relevant articles about Facebook's Beacon feature, which "tracks all users in these external sites, including logged-off and former Facebook members and even non-Facebook members, and sends data back to Facebook". LiveJournal is one of the participating companies.

elfwreck: LJ bans some interests by removing their searchability

nosselinfea quotes Mark Kraft, former LJ staff member, and thinks about the implications: "SUP couldn't give a toss about the whiny little emo girls. They're not interested in your date of birth or your credit card number or your email address to sell on to porn sites and mp3 sites. It's the political dissenters that SUP are interested in, and you can bet your bottom rouble that it won't be adware that's the biggest concern."

heiko did a series of posts with some more information -- e.g. here, here and here. "This is not a conspiracy theory. The implications for Russian users in particular are very real."

General Fannish Meta

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

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."

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: das_dingsi: How to Restore Lost Icons / Verlorene Icons wiederherstellen

LiveJournal

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."

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

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

shusu: unsolicited: "The problem with being a niche producer in fandom is that sometimes the big train chugs past your little alley and shakes the rafters, and then out of the half-dozen lovely people who always come around to shop, there's one who wanders in from nowhere and announces that I should perform like a trained monkey because I am the only person who produces a certain product."

aerynvala: OMFG!: "What the hell is up with the Rating NC-17 or R (just to be safe)?!"

lenija: not nano: "Modern drama-series tend to show every character as not "good" or "evil", but as ambivalent, which is great. But they seem to forget that ambivalent is not the same as having a VERY DARK AND TWISTED hidden personality part. Not everybody has a secret agenda."

babydraco: untitled: "Before calling something OOC, shouldn’t we pause to wonder whether it really is or not? Because a lot of the things we consider “in character” are still based on fanon, it’s just very old, very pervasive fanon."

elfwreck has some thoughts on the newly started fanfiction archive Fictionaire.com.

Misc.

Announcement by squeaky: For permanent InsaneJournal accounts, you can purchase 5.000 userpics.

djin7 needs to know who hosted the very first Gift Fic Fest on (livejournal), or similar.

celandineb has a poll about participation in holiday fic/art exchanges.

General meta (including HP)

telesilla: Stories I can't write: "Do you ever read something that is not only really quite excellent but is also something you know you can't write because it isn't how you tell a story or it isn't one of your core stories? It happens to me and sometimes I'm filled with something that can only be--pretentiously--described as yearning."

celandineb: Commentary on commenting on fanfic: "There's a certain amount of dispute as to the etiquette of commenting on fic. To what extent is it expected, what kind of commentary, and whether the author should reply in turn, are the most common points of interest. So I figured it was worthwhile to add to the mass of posts out there about the subject, given that we're starting to get close to the Great Holiday Exchange season."

dmitchell1985: SGA Renewed for Season Five? Aww, man!: "Okay, so I already mentioned how I'm not exactly fond of the new SGA. Well, it seems that New SGA has been renewed for a fifth season. I am well aware of the fact that this makes me a "bad Stargate fan," but I was kind of hoping that they wouldn't be." (Spoilers!)

ldybastet: Dumbles: "I felt as if I really should just keep quiet after reading quite a few acerbic posts and comments about how those who don't squee about it are only wanking. So, if we don't 100% like it and express it, we're apparently fuelling the wank. *cough* And that is the kind of statement that is making people hesitate to express their honest opinions and want to discuss the subject."

lysa1: Metaish: Heroes and Morale in HP: "Through the lack of a (reader-contract-acceptable) morale for the story, and especially the way the search for redemption is rewarded, JK leaves the myths and the ancient history she uses, hence leaving the reader (me, you are welcome to an entirely different opinion) unsatisfied and wanting more/less/a different hero." Eta Dec 8th 2007 - entry is now locked, I removed the link..

InsaneJournal

In ideas, squeaky discusses the option of purchasing more user pics. "Possibly a new item called "Insane UserPics" which offers 5,000 userpics. How much would you guys be willing to pay for that many?" (No, that wasn't a typo. 5,000.)

skuf: Interaction on alternate blogging site(s) vs. LJ following Strikethrough/Boldthrough: "So I wonder how typical/a-typical my experience is - do I just have an awesome IJ f-list, who is interested in interaction, or are more of you, who have moved at least half of your focus to IJ, getting more comments/interaction on IJ than on LJ, too?"

... in case InsaneJournal is down, squeaky has set up a profile at Twitter for current news on the site status. The url is http://twitter.com/insanejournal .

The InsaneJournal FAQ has been updated, specifically #132: "To what level of decency are journals held?" -- I'd also like to use this opportunity to say that the rumours of IJ using the Miller Test to determine obscene content are NOT true (ceruleagos explained it in this thread).

reijamira: Rambling about the genre "hurt/comfort": "I think if one is confronted with the mortality and vulnerability of the other only then would he show his truest feelings. It's the aspect of recognizing how much the other really means to you, of recognizing how close you came to losing your beloved one which let's us express our deepest and innermost emotions."

das_dingsi: Slash Fic As Much-Needed Escapism: "E.g., if Tim and Dick in the DCU Batverse decide to fuck each other senseless, their conflict in the story usually is NOT based on "oh shit am I gay? will society hate me? how will my life be as a gay superhero?", but on dynamics which stem from their issues as characters -- their previous relationships, their emotions, their needs and obligations. The focus is not on the outside (society, moral values, etc.) but on the inside. From that perspective, slash is a sort of safe haven for me."

Three posts by xie_xie_xie (some might not be worksafe due to images/icons):

Teh Evil!Censorship: "Maybe I love words too much. Maybe the thought that someone might try to control or limit what I can write is so terrifying to me that it makes me feel like throwing up, and I don't understand why anyone would feel any other way. But I don't think it's just about words. I think it's about ideas and creativity and liberty and communication."

Labels: "I write queer fanfic. That's what I write. My pairings are canonical and queer and are not slash. (...) So I want another word!"

Wherein Xie rants: "But really, more than I'm upset at the authors of these crappy fics, I'm upset at the readers who suck them down like teenagers at the mall suck down high fructose corn syrup. (...) For the love of god, would it freaking kill you to learn to use some form of critical thinking?"

yourlibrarian has taken a look at some statistics on fan fiction sites.

brownbetty has gotten the script called "lj instant tag" to work on other LJ clones. (Needs the Greasemonkey script.)

Also: the potter_prophet, an IJ-specific HP newsletter, is looking for editors.

InsaneJournal

In 07refugees, keieeeye says there'll be a major code update soon, which should fix several site issues. Apparently, the days of miraculously disappearing comments will soon be over. (And as a personal comment: I love it that squeaky works on the site issues, instead of giving us "extras" and "features" we didn't ask for.)

djin7 compares the IJ user stats before and after the LiveJournal Strikeout/Boldthrough. It's insane (pun was not intended, I swear).

bethbethbeth mentions issues with IJ's friending feature.

Fandom Stuff

yourlibrarian: Ads and You: "And vidders will probably be affected by ads soon as well, since YouTube is now planning to run ads embedded in the video content they host. Given that the advertising push on LJ seems to have led to a greater concern about content, it seems to me that monetizing sites through ads is likely to be the biggest problem to fandom in finding spaces to host their content."

das_dingsi: Dark!fic vs. Dark Themes and My Fictional Landscape: "'Darkfic' (as according to the above definitions) doesn't do it for me, but 'dark themes' certainly do. And I like it here. It's an interesting, sometimes a bit clichéd (I guess), but very satisfying place. I wouldn't want it any other way. Probably I couldn't want it any other way, because (as with most of our preferences) it's not even a concscious act."

Two posts by musesfool:
we got each other and that's a lot: "All fanfic is in some way in conversation with the source text, but AUs tend to force the intertexuality of the conversation, because without some knowledge of the source (and often, the deeper the knowledge the better), the reader can't be aware of the changes and, more importantly, what those changes mean. (Though with the rather large change of making an always male character always female, there are larger issues at play)." - Mostly Supernatural-centric, dealing with X-as-a-girl AUs.

you've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real: "I think making a big public display of it riles people up, and yeah, it's rude, but seriously, people who think fans aren't saving their favorite stories to their hard drives for rereading are naive at best (...) Reposting or redistributing it publicly is a fannish faux pas, but I think it's really hilarious and hypocritical for fanfic writers to be screaming about copyright violations and lack of permissions."

bethbethbeth explains why friending a community's watcher journal is a bad idea.

cluegirl started a Fandom Happiness Is... meme.

Deutschsprachiges Meta

mllesatine: Das UHT Mysterium: "Ich lese jede Menge SPN Fanfic und was mich immer wieder überrascht, ist die Bemerkung, dass die Winchester-Brüder eine sehr körperliche Beziehung haben (im Gegensatz zu dem, was man on-screen sieht). (...) Der körperliche Kontakt zwischen ihnen ist praktisch nicht vorhanden. Und ich werde damit einfach nicht fertig. (...) Es ist nur so *beunruhigend* eine Familie zu sehen, deren Mitglieder sich gegenseitig wie Fremde behandeln."

lenija: Migrationsströme zielsicher. Résistance putzt Brille.: "Wo sind eigentlich all die interessanten Diskussionen und Pläne geblieben bezüglich der Frage, wohin das Fandom nun umziehen will?"

If you've got a fannish entry you'd like to see included, be it yours or posts of other fandomers, just leave a comment with the link. You can also use the suggestion post with screened comments if you're more comfortable with that.

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."

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."

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."

otempora01 (in 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."

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."

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 07refugees posts:

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."

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

And last but not least, 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 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.

General Fandom Meta

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."'

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."

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?"

shannon730 (on 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."

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."

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."

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?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


LiveJournal

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

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."

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."

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

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 mllesatine sich mit der Rechtslage zu Verweisen und Hyperlinks im deutschen Raum beschäftigt.

InsaneJournal

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

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

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

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

Fandom / Fanworks

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."

millstone1005 (on 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."

ketchupblood thinks about three types of painful fic.

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."

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?"

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.

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."


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

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."

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."

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."

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

blasphemy_blue started a Multifandom Friending Meme.

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.

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.