Meta Roundup

[Supernatural] yourlibrarian: Story types in SPN: "This is not just an essay but a question to the group. [...] Now that I've been reading around in SPN fic for a while I think I can identify a few categories, but I'm interested in other ideas. I'm not focusing on what typical fanfic plots tend to get used [...] but rather, how canon and characters tend to get repeatedly reshaped."

musesfool: the calliope crashed to the ground: 'See, the thing is, I really don't like the "feedback = payment" equation.'

[on IP law] branchandroot: Oddities of ownership: "[O]ne thing I find curious is any author getting wound up over what another author does with “their” character. As though it were the same character. Which, of course, it isn’t."

InsaneJournal's move to another provider is on the way. According to this post in announcements, although the prices of Self-Commited (paid) accounts will have to get raised in the future, it won't be as much as previously stated, and squeaky said they'll "work on delivering some new products" instead.

In ideas, sweetsorcery asks for an increase in interest slots. (YES, PLEASE.)

Updated the Asylum Master List (+1 general asylum promotion).

Meta

boomshadow: Mary Sues and Gary Stus in Various Continuities: "[T[his short guide should help you identify a Mary Sue or Gary Stu character in your favorite fictional universe ..."

[QaF] xie_xie_xie: Hungry!Justin: "But when I use it in a story, Justin's appetite is really a metaphor rather than simply a characterization point. And I think it was in the series, too [...] food, hunger, eating and not eating, preparing food, and offering food are all very strong themes for Brian, Justin, and Brian/Justin not just in Season One but in all five seasons."

metametameta's Thursday prompts are about IP Law. JK Rowling's HP Lexicon suit has been the topic du jour, with slashpine commenting on an AP article and doing a link roundup.

InsaneJournal

No doubt prompted by the recent outage, skuf worried about the future financing of IJ (context) and later linked to synecdochic's LiveJournal post on the topic, where squeaky weighed in via OpenID.

Several polls:

squeaky asks for your opinion on the move to a different hosting provider here.

aristoboule asked if, and why, you have paid or permanent accounts (on IJ and elsewhere).

Follow-up to this post: a poll on people's preferences for off-site IJ refuge communities, here.

(Also: Happy birthday, squeaky! Have a great day!)

squeaky explains the reasons here. No data has been lost.

I also recommend bookmarking IJ's twitter page - Squeaky is usually quick with the updates and giving us relevant information, i.e. what is wrong, what is he going to do to fix it, and how long will it probably take.

General question: as myself and various other people suffered from the typical journaling withdrawal, do you know if there's some sort of "refuge" community elsewhere, where users could post and exchange news during downtimes? I guess GJ is still too unstable, and I don't know much about other journal services, but on the other hand, I'm not sure if people were happy about using an LJ community for that sort of thing. But a central meeting point would be nice. Suggestions?

Eta: I'll set up a poll this Friday to outline the options you mentioned and see what people would prefer. Will link to it here.

Eta2: the poll.

[BtVS, SPN] 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!)

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."

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)

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

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

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, squeaky adresses the issue here. Also, insanity asks people for their ideas on virtual gifts.

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. :)

First, let me direct you once more to the master list of meta posts at 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 purplepopple's FanLib: One Year Later, or 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 metametameta.

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

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."

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

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

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."

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."

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

Today is a bit peculiar. One, it's LJ Content Strike Day, and two, during the recent LJ upheavals and strike/boycott planning stages, it eventually lead to Meta Friday on metametameta. The premise was: let's not just stop producing content on LJ for that day, let's also have a content party on IJ! People are encouraged to post their meta and leave a link on the master list post, or comment on the meta posts of others. (If you're interested in how it all came about, read this post.)

Many entries that I'd usually link on meta_roundup are already there, and in this case I think it'd be more convenient to let you browse the master list to avoid repetitions. When the Meta Friday is over, I'm going to compare notes and collect the links that aren't on the master list for the recent issue of MR.

For the users who aren't that much into meta or feel unsure about posting their own essays, I've revived the IJ Asylum Meme. (This doesn't mean that fannish contributions aren't allowed, only that one of my main reasons was the wish to offer non-meta fans an option to still provide content on IJ.) It would be great to have more asylum activity, especially with the influx of new users, and the meme hopefully helps with that. The main post -- meme text, FAQ, and participation stats/list of entries -- is located here.

Last but not least, a few words on Metafandom -- you probably remember how it was first set up as a feed, which then refused to work because of feed limitations? In January 2008, the feed was changed into a regular community, metafandom. Commenting and linking on IJ is encouraged, as Metafandom now covers all of the main journal "clone" sites, and they have revised their FAQ accordingly (see here).

It caught me completely unaware, as I don't follow Metafandom -- I had a phase when I needed to GAFIAte and left all kinds of meta-ish comms, and somehow never got back on track -- but I think it's a good thing, helping to connect fandomers which are now partly scattered over various journaling sites. I also think MF and MR can co-exist without any problems -- some MF editors have already stated that they see similarities, but also differences in our approach and our target groups, and I'd agree. I focus exclusively on IJ, including content that may not be fannish but specific to the site (e.g. tutorials and announcements), and have no intention of changing that.
However, there will be double postings where you see the same link(s) appear in both newsletters, and although that may be a bit annoying for readers of both communities, I think it would be rather silly to implement some policy where you can't link to a post in B when it has already been linked in A. Just for the record.

(I've also edited the meta_roundup profile to reflect the changes.)

And... that's it, I think. If there are any questions, feel free to ask, okay?

P.S.: In case you didn't notice (I certainly didn't until last week or so), InsaneJournal's main page now has a line specifically for fanfic writers: Yes we are fanfic friendly. We believe works of fiction are just that. And unless such work infringes on a copyright that does not fall under "fair use" we believe you have the right to post that content.

General Fannish Meta

[bandom: Panic! at the Disco] stele3 wrote a Spencer/Ryan ship manifesto.

On plagiarism:

msilverstar: Plagiarism in fandom: "My problem with this the situation is that the author accepted the praise, awards, and publication as though she deserved credit. If she'd said something about how great a writer Charlotte Brontë was, and explained that a huge part of the story was lifted from the original, that would have been appropriate attribution."

mirabile_dictu: lusus naturae: "It seems to follow a pattern; there's almost always an excuse given. I didn't know it was plagiarism. It's just a coincidence. I had to do it. The excuse is invariably followed by support from friends. What's odd about this case is the studied silence of the plagiarist."

IJ, LJ, Journaling in general

Note: After the InsaneJournal code update, you are now able to track posts/threads and receive notifications when someone friends you. Edit your subscriptions here. (I'm also working on updating the beginner's guide to IJ; it should be finished this evening.)

Many posts deal not only with LJ/SUP's latest move, but also IJ and comparisons between the two platforms.

yourlibrarian: The IJ Only Post: "Given the latest boneheaded move by LJ, there's been a resurgence of talk about why people aren't coming over to IJ. [...] From what I'm seeing the problem isn't a lack of journal moves, it's a lack of community moves."

xie_xie_xie: El Jay: "Because the expansion potential of its userbase is teens and very young 20s, LJ is moving towards increasing the social network component and decreasing the blogging/community component, in the hope they can build a site that is competitive in a Facebook/MySpace universe. [...] IJ doesn't need the kind of userbase that LJ does to succeed, because it's more niche-focused."

telesilla: You don't just pay for LJ, you work for them.: "We're giving them the fruit of our labor, we're giving them our fiction and our meta and, more importantly as I see it, our thoughts about dealing with depression and our posts what it's like to live with chronic pain or what the daily life of a bisexual person is like and they are making money off of that labor. All while pretending that we don't exist."

On the Interests Censorship issue, we have stewardess' entry Circle the one that doesn't belong: (Porn) (Hardcore) (Bondage) (Faeries), and viridescence wrote more on LJ interest censoring. So far it looks like SUP has a strong bias against alternative sexuality (including homosexuality) and, well, fandom.
Last but not least, yourlibrarian compared popular interests on LJ vs. IJ.

Fannish Meta

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."

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] 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] 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] 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: 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.)

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

Two posts by 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).

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 skuf has a poll on general LJ vs. IJ usage.

yourlibrarian: Hey, you've got your canon in my fanfic!: "So in the rare cases where it actually does happen, I find it disconcerting to see canon following fic. And I'm not entirely sure I like it." (spoilers for the Buffy comic issue #12)

caithyra (in fanficrants): I would like a moment of silence for Canon... Also, childish=/=sexy: "But maybe it's only me that doesn't find it sexy when the man in the relationship is the strong, smart, wise, powerful, domineering, alpha, saviour one and the woman is the weak, protected, whiny, childish, in denial, beta and not knowing her own feelings and wishes one." (spoilers for Naruto & Inuyasha, as the post deals with character development)

madlodger_007 (in fandom_how_to) has a poll on IP-logging and whether it influences commenting.

On InsaneJournal's code update:
squeaky is asking for your input here, mainly on whether the update should be pushed out asap (with major bug fixes done, but there will be some errors and bug fixing work on the live site) or first finish it completely (which would also include notifications).

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 07refugees with some links.

Most of the links are fandom-specific today:

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

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

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."

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

General:

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 ideas), and branchandroot mentions things you could do to help here.

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

viridescence: Harry Potter is addictive. ORLY?: "This was a research study to be published in a refereed psychological journal, so the authors are coming at this from that perspective: that some people show the symptoms of psychological dependence to Harry Potter. Their barely-there nod to the positive aspects of fandom are overshadowed by the idea that being a HP fan might be unhealthy. It seems clear to me that although they are aware of the fandom community, they don't understand it."

celandineb created a poll about fic/art reading/commenting and what determines whether you look at/read a fanwork.

Also, justhuman is asking for recommendations on slashiest / favourite McShep episodes (SGA).

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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. :)

Attention: because the following entries deal with a) character development or b) themes of a series over the course of all Seasons, there'll be SPOILERS.

[Supernatural] musesfool: dear mr. kripke and crew: "I'm not giving up the show - I love Sam and Dean too much, so I bear all of this and cringe, trying to remedy it for myself via fanfiction - but you are definitely on notice. I really wish during one of those many interviews and Q&As you like to do, some smart fan would ask you what the hell you are thinking (or, more pointedly, why are you NOT thinking) when it comes to race and gender ..."

[Stargate: Atlantis] pouncer: Tarnished Idealism: Elizabeth Weir in the Pegasus Galaxy: "In short, I was arguing that her time in the Pegasus Galaxy shifted Elizabeth's view of the way the world worked, which is incredibly significant if you're an international relations geek like me."

General, polls, etc.

telesilla: okay so here's the thing...: "This slash/fic/art/vids we make? It is transgressive. [...] But I hope you can all understand why, if you call it queer, I get hurt and angry."

As a follow-up to this post in the previous issue, reijamira set up a poll to determine interest in a Supernatural newsletter on IJ.

Deutschsprachiges Meta: rood schreibt über eine neue Fic-Archiv-Regel bei Animexx (Harry-Potter-Fanfictions mit "Verwaltigung an Minderjährigen [...] sind absofort verboten") und listet Kritikpunkte auf.

helkamaria: Lj-ing vs. blogging: "A couple of weeks ago I set up a Finnish language blog, with my family and RL friends as the intended audience. Unexpectedly, it has illustrated the differences between LJ-ing and more traditional blogging."

thete1: Talking About Race vs. Playing the Race Card: "But, see, what certain people in fandom don't seem to be able to understand is that there's a *difference* between playing the race card and trying to have a discussion about race. The former is all about *ending* discussion, the latter -- well."

akai_senshi: OMG THOUGHTS ON YAOI: "I am simply going to consider some possibilities as to its popularity [...] Also, I will point out some inconsistencies in American girls’ perceptions of yaoi versus real-life gay men and gay male culture that may be of interest."

Also, morgandawn wonders if there are "Supernatural" fandom newsletters that are also covering IJ and JF posts.

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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. :)

elfwreck: Meta, Race, and Censorship: "I am not important to these issues. And without a compelling reason, I haven't got the energy to submit to getting my hand slapped, over and over, as I try to figure out the dual issues of "what areas in myself could use improvement" and "what public expressions will get me bitched at."

yonmei: "I can't talk about race because I'm white": "So, I'm white, and I figure that while I might say the wrong thing or miss stuff or just get it wrong because I've got 41 years of white privilege behind me, it is still probably better to speak up rather than shut up. Because racism is everyone's problem."

amilliondays: I like:: "It's an acknowledgement, a concession that in a million fucking years I never would have expected, and yeah, I'm fucking grateful. I imagine every one of us is, and we have a right to be, because so few instances of fan outcry are listened to in comics that fans complaining TPTB don't listen to them is the easiest fucking punchline in the world." (Spoilers for Batman #673.)

ciaan: How to write hot and individual sex scenes: "I believe that the three key elements of a hot sex scene are physicality, emotionality, and intensity."

morgandawn: Meta: Vidders - Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience.: "And it would be a vastly over-simplified panel dividing the vidding audience into two "vastly oversimplified and somewhat random but let's just play along" groups: Kinetic Viewers and Narrative Viewers."

Polls / Journaling / Other

letmypidgeonsgo has a poll on your favourite New Who episodes.

brimac13 asks what content is or isn't acceptable in Harry Potter fic.

I've updated the Master List for index/directory asylums.

xie_xie_xie: Why I hate my friends: "I've read a lot of bloggish commentary over the years about the whole "friend" concept on social networking sites. (...) That word carries so much charge that it's pretty much impossible for any of us to use the feed reader without feeling like we're granting or witholding affection or approval."

ree created a blue userstyle for the IJ portal (needs Stylish or to be added to userContent.css for it to work).

There've been reports about a site called Spokeo.com that is designed to find people's content on social networking sites (using their email adresses to do so) and collects them into one handy feed-like format. 36 sites are trawled for content, including journaling sites like LJ and IJ. According to this post by ships_harry, the situation for journal owners isn't that bad unless you search for their URLs directly. But if you still want to reduce your output for feeds, or know more about the issue, see kabal42's or cluegirl's posts here and here, and I've added the instructions on how to opt out for asylums/communities here. This also makes you less "attractive" for content scrapers.

janecarnall: On writing PoC (when I am not one): "But there seems to be, in some people's minds, a barrier that says "I can't write about that because I'm not the right colour to do it" - and really; kick that crap out."

justhuman: Meta topic - Fictional Responsibility to Real Life Issues: "How much responsibility do authors have to present a controversial issue with all of its nuances? [...] Is the author required to insert a potential anvil of information in the fic to let you know the character is at risk?"

ingrid: "In writing, Viscount ...": "See, the problem with finding (and creating) the perfect rec community is that the responsibility of discovery is on the reader, not the reccer."

slashpine: Short rant on LJ suck-ups, and then a longer bit on OTW: "I. Lap dogs of LJ [...] I have a bone to pick *g* with the people ranting about LJ last summer and now quietly giving them money again. // II. OTW: Like LJ-Biz minus the cat macros [...] OTW stakes out new territory for fandom. Why is it doing it the same old mainstream society way?"

amireal: In which we talk about definitions and paths and all the stuff in between.: "I'm saying that there is a historically female dominated fandom space. [...] It wasn't a purposeful creation but a bunch of women fell together and realized they had a common way of playing."

Polls

letmypidgeonsgo has a short Doctor Who companion poll on Rose, Marta, and Donna.

tommygirl asks if there'd be interest in a MST3K/snark asylum for Supernatural.

Deutsch: lenija möchte einen "Porn Battle" im deutschen Fandom starten.

LiveJournal: The new LJ Explore Area

In short: this feature picks up public content from your journal/community and showcases it in the Explore Area categories. Communities can not opt out of it, only individual users. For more information (incl. how to opt-out), see xie_xie_xie's post in 07refugees. morgandawn and elfwreck both have examples for what kind of entries ended up in the spotlight.

morgandawn: Vidding: Why In The Old Days We Used Bearskins and Stone Knives!: "So every time I curse the difficulties with digital vidding - this vid reminds me it was never that easy."

bethbethbeth: Three HP Comm Notes and one Multi-fandom Thought: "I'm trying to come up with a Universal Theory of Spoiler Protection, but I'm not certain whether the key issue has more to do with the the number of fans of the show/book on your f'list or the significance of the spoiler."

darkrose: Not Your Granddad's Magical Negro: "If you really want to know how we can talk about race in fandom, here's how: White fans have to want to have the conversation with actual fans of color (we do exist!) rather than talking to each other."

telesilla: just don't expect fluffy bunnies: "I have an answer to the question (paraphrased) "why can't we discuss racial fetishes in fandom, the way we can discuss chan or non-con or incest as fetishes." This is a reply I posted to the flocked entry that started all this."

InsaneJournal

persecution created the Unofficial InsaneJournal User Poll Version 2.0. (FYI: 1.0 was this one, from August 2007.)

In regards to the new site schemes: squeaky is looking for volunteers familiar with CSS for IE 5 and 6.

mirabile_dictu: PEDTM: day twenty-four: love and the internet: "Shirky closes his talk with, "We have always loved one another. We're human; it's something we're good at." I think that's true. It doesn't mean we're not at times horrible to each other, and it certainly doesn't mean we don't disagree vehemently with each other. But I think it helps explain the existence of fandom."

happier_bunny: Weighing In: "Not everyone is going to like everything and a critical discussion of someone's work DOES NOT translate into a request that it not be written. It also doesn't translate into: I don't like you."

branchandroot: What is ‘in character’?: "But let me simplify it a little and specify more: should one stick with information presented in the anime/manga, which is frequently contradictory; or information presented in guide/info books, which often provides more background detail but may, again, be contradictory; or information pertaining to real life?"

telesilla: so if your characters wrote fanfic... "...what would they write?"

aristoboule created a poll about writing/RPing original characters and/or fandom characters.

sherlock explains how to tweak the new Worksafe site scheme (sidebar) with Firefox and Stylish.

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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. :)

This post will get updated regularly. It's going to include meta-ish asylums, indexes/directories or master lists, as well as newsletters and asylums where you can promote your own IJ communities. (I.e., I won't mention new asylums in the roundup issues, but instead include a note that this post has been updated.) I recommend bookmarking it for future reference. A copy of this post will get mirrored on my personal journal here.

Note: RPG-related indexes are included. So are non-fannish asylums when they serve as directories or information hubs. Main goal is to help people navigate IJ, with or without specific fandoms in mind.

( Promoting asylums / Friending )

( Existing Directory/Index Asylums: Multifandom )

( Fandoms A - Z )

( Fandom-related feeds on IJ )

First, a note on asylums:

When Fandom-with-a-capital-F was still relatively* new on IJ (and so was meta_roundup), I often included friending memes or new asylums. Now I feel that Fandom has gained its own momentum, the number of asylum creations has increased greatly, and at this point it would be difficult for me to decide where to draw the line. At the same time, users have tried to come up with their own solutions by creating index asylums and/or master list posts beyond the fandomdirectory or 07refugees. (* I say "relatively" because I don't want to imply that before the Strikethrough et al there were no Fandom people at all on IJ.)

So, what I'd like to do in the future: stop promoting asylums individually in the roundup posts, instead create a fixed post with a reference list for available indexes, promotion asylums, and other relevant lists that can help you get an overview as well as getting the word out. A Meta Index, so to speak. (Probably one for tutorials as well, there's still a demand for that because of the influx of newcomers and the slight but important differences between the LJ and IJ code versions.)

Somewhat related; I'm going to create an editor account for meta_roundup, for two reasons: 1. in case it might become too much work for one person and I need co-editors; 2. in case I might have to give up working on the roundups completely -- I want others to be able to update the index lists et cetera after I'm gone. Starting with the next issue, all entries (regular roundups, not news) will be posted with the new editor account.



On with today's Meta:

liz_marcs: You did not just go there...: "Look, I understand that the Organization for Transformative Works (hereafter referred to as the OTW) is a big deal to some people. I've read the various arguments in support of it, and I'm still not horribly impressed. [...] That said, posts like "fanfiction is like gay marriage" is not going to win me over."

the_willow: Is Fusion Only For Cuisine?: "And I've found myself thinking of the experiences I wanted to have in certain rpgs I was a part of. [...] So, was I trying to have Fannish AU Experiences in the wrong venue?"

diyanni: Fan fiction pet peeve #7: "Every relationship story has to end in sex." (Link removed Feb-1st-2009 as the journal has been deleted)

yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): The long-haul girl?: "A conversation with shadowscast about her drabble at the LJ site churchofjoss led me to think about religion, Riley and his relationship with Buffy." (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, deals with character development over the course of several Seasons)

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For the people using Hotmail accounts and having their IJ mails blocked: squeaky contacted Microsoft and the issue should be resolved soon.