Meta Roundup

Fandom-specific

[DCU] shadowvalkyrie: DCU musings: "Specifically, porn. [...] Even more specifically, kinky porn. And the discrepancy of why the Bruce/Tim variety tends to be a great deal more popular than the Bruce/Jason one."

[Torchwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer] firefly124: Okay, so everybody else has probably already read this AfterElton article (the article compared Torchwood and BtVS in regards to character death, and the post builds on that. I'm not being more specific because I'm unsure whether details about Torchwood's third season are still considered spoilers.)

General

thete1: "I know it's racist, Te, but the special effects look awesome!": "This has been on my mind -- harshing *my* squee -- since that first Transformers movie came out and so many of you were full of excuses about why you were going to see it anyway. Despite the racism."

In a post titled Saying Goodbye, yourlibrarian talks about important changes in TV, reality shows, the demise of the WB, and that the cause for the popularity decline in music games could be "a stranglehold on copyright".

cluegirl: Thoughts Contingent on Reader Entitlement; the fandom edition: "So what is it that makes us as readers so much more ready to be spiteful about work we DID NOT have to pay for? Other than the fact that we can, and the writer in question is unlikely to have highly paid lawyers who might give us a telling-off for acting like arseholes, I mean?"

skuf: Where's all the meta?: "Remember back in the day - e.g. 2006 - when [metafandom] issues were posted about every other day and had shitloads of links? What happened? Brainstorming: ..." (Cross-posted to DW, where the big discussion obviously seems to happen, but I decided to link the IJ version on principle.)

xie_xie_xie: metafandom and its discontents: "But the last three or four times I submitted a link, either mine or someone else's, either QAF-specific or "big picture" fandom meta, it was just ignored. I never knew if they just didn't like it, or didn't get it, or what the problem was."

First, the cause for comment rot on the site seems to have been found and fixed by squeaky. You can take a look at the bit of code that gave us all so much trouble in the news post.
However, the issue as such might still persist a few days because when the code sets some comments to disappear they aren't gone immediately, they are still in the memory cache for a while. So we might have a few remaining instances from back when the code was still there but after those are gone it should finally be over for good. (source)
To celebrate all this, there's a week-long Permanent Account sale (50$ each).

Changes have been made to the message/notification center - items in your inbox can now be marked as read and deleted, and the maximum number of subscriptions ("notices") has been increased.

Tangentially related: squeaky said he's working on a multiple icon uploader next, and via the comments I found an old resource post by sherlock with a third-party tool you can use in the meantime.

~

With the issues and discussion surrounding exporting LJ comments to Dreamwidth, stewardess wrote a post on content syndication/aggregation and LiveJournal, titled Exporting comments from LJ to DW: is there a money?

bridgetmkennit: counters and me (and maybe you): "Every time I see a meta post about comments, whether lack thereof or not, I just want to create a meta post about how people should learn to love counters."

the_rck posted "a list of thoughts inspired by reading (mostly bad) fics" -- "A few of the items in here are mini rants about genuinely offensive stuff regarding race and transsexuality. The rest mainly complain about sillier stuff."

rubyfruit_pixie: WTF?: "And not only do people think that it isn't complete bullshit to say that one writes yaoi only because het is icky or that girls are icky, people actually state this as a point of pride."

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brownbetty: re: Thirteenth Child, and a million other things: "But you have, actually, a higher responsibility than being a writer, and that is your responsibility as a human being."

magpyr: Growing pains: "You see, I used to be ignorant and happy. I read books, watched films, and listened to songs, never once pausing to think about their attitude toward race and gender."

telesilla: No, we aren't the freakin' Thought Police: "Because honestly, I am so sick of people yelling "censorship!" as if professional writers somehow had an inalienable right to show their asses and not get called on it."

telesilla: it's like rain on your wedding day*: "Apparently it's okay to dismiss/ignore copyright law when it's, oh say, Acme Shark's copyright on everything connected with the SG universe, but if it's comments on an LJ being moved without your permission? OMG UR IN MAH COPYRIGHT VIOLATIN ME!"

bridgetmkennit: Fandom, you're doing it wrong: "You know, I come to fandom to escape real life, just as most people do. But the fact that I, other PoCs, and white allies have to see your skeeve all over the fics they read? [...] These characters that are written about and the PoCs who read about them deserve better."

[Harry Potter] magpyr: Some scattered thoughts on languages in HP: "I'm in the middle of re-reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Here's some language-related things I've been thinking about ..."

[Watchmen movie] stele3: "No" means "no" means "I will stab you in the fucking face.": "Thank you, Mr. Hayter, but NO, I do not want to have your movie 'bend [me] over the pool table,' and I will not be going back to see it, 'just like Sally' (classic trope of a woman falling in love with her rapist, hi there)."

brownbetty: Let's talk about books!: "Today's topic: Oh My God, I Can See Your Id!"

spacelogic: reading historical fandom battles: we need more [x]!: "The thing I found myself thinking most about, though, was that the thing dealt with some people getting very upset over the prevalence of [het/slash/saffic] vs. other types of fic in a particular fandom, and I bethought myself of my past experience going between fandoms, and wondered: why didn't they just find a different fandom to supplement?"

betbethbeth has a post on everyday cultural appropriation.
stewardess wrote about Reckless Eyeballing in the 21st Century: "While RaceFail09 has many similarities to imbroglios about race and racism in the past, I believe its events have gained a unique momentum because they are not focused on one instance of racial prejudice, but spring from something enormous: challenging white authority. I didn't grasp this until I compared RaceFail09 to Jim Crow era reckless eyeballing ..." (Has lots of links and a timeline, too.)

Also, bridgetmkennit is looking for submissions (and/or suggestions) for the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, e.g. character spotlights, fic focusing on Asian/Pacific Islander characters, and the like.

As for the recent username purge, all asylums should have been reinstated - they actually weren't supposed to get deleted and future purges won't affect them.

Posts about race and cultural appropriation:

brownbetty: Dear racefail apologists: "Please stop making the argument from capitalism." She also wrote a post on the 'tone' argument and how "for a lot of people 'polite' means not upsetting the status-quo".

branchandroot: One more try: when it’s not about you: "In any discussion of privilege, stereotypes, oppression, agency, if you are on the plus side of the particular issue, do not try to join in with comments about your experience. It may seem like a gesture of sympathy and solidarity, but it isn’t. It’s you taking the focus away from the injured party."

spacelogic: two separate thoughts on Racefail '09: "In brief, I believe that the correct action if you are an ally and your actions or words are deemed racist/representative of cultural racism is to apologize and try to not do it again, and that everyone should have a right to decide whether to disclose their real name, but that the emphasis on pseudonyms may be excessive."

amilliondays posted a summary titled fifteen simple steps to poison your own well: "Elizabeth Bear did it, and now you can, too!"

ms_treesap: A question: "Would you say that Avatar (the original cartoon, not the fail!film in production) was appropriative of Asian cultures? My first thought was 'no', but the (white, male) creators took influences from many aspects of Chinese, Japanese, Tao etc. cultures which I'm not particularly familiar with."

Other:

[Supernatural] yourlibrarian: It's About Power - Hospitalization in SPN: "So even though realistically speaking Sam and Dean should both be ending up in a hospital on a regular basis, why is it Dean that's always lying there near death?"

[Queer as Folk] xie_xie_xie: Justin Taylor is not a "girl" -- and neither are you: "I put 'girl' in quotes because I don't mean, Justin isn't female, although of course, he's not. But being a 'girl' isn't about being a young woman; it's about that stereotypical dependent stand-by-your-man 'girl' of the old-fashioned romance novel, the one for whom love is the rock on which her life is built, and everything else comes second."

[Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer] zombieallomorph: Buffy, Gilmore Girls und Transamerica. Massive Spoiler. (vergleicht die beiden Serien in Bezug auf deren Darstellung von Frauen, Sexualität und sexueller Gewalt, sowie im Hinblick auf Idenitifikationspotential.)

General Fannish Meta

branchandroot: Stop trying to be on my side: "Let’s be clear about this: “you’re reading it wrong” is not an academic argument."

arionhunter: Slash: It's like a plague. A Gay Plague.: "Whenever someone engages with a text in some shape or form (unless they're using it as, say, wallpaper, which doesn't actually count), they are partaking in analysis. They are questioning something about a text, and then making an argument in support of their reading, even if it's just that adamantium can totally outlast Superman's heat vision."

spacelogic: "why we write ____fic": "Here I attempt to work out why I read, and write in my head, shipperfic."

branchandroot: Femslash: cross it up: "I think part of the reason for this trend in my own writing is that the f/f pairings tend to have hidden stories. You have to dig for them, for the possibilities, for the way these two women might interact. Rukia/Orihime, for example, has marvelous possibilities, but none of them are obvious because the two of them don’t interact enough in canon to create a strong template. Most of my m/m, on the other hand, comes out of dynamics that are pretty much shoved up the viewer/reader’s nose."

xie_xie_xie: Meanwhile out in Greater Fandom...: "I think that finding same-sex attraction and sex arousing in and of themselves is a kink -- to try a less judgmental word than "fetish." I don't think it has anything at all to do with wanting to insert yourself into the action or be one of the participants or anything. It's just a little thing in your brain that finds it hot. - I also don't think that liking a particular kind of pairing says anything about your own sexual orientation, and I furthermore don't think that liking a pairing that is made up of the gender opposite to your own means you have any kind of kink at all."

celandineb has a Fandom Friday Poll on Fandom involvement.


Fandom-specific

[QaF] not_yet_defined wrote a list of essential Queer as Folk asylums on IJ, including asylums that might not be focusing on QaF but have lots of QaF fans participating or hanging out.

[Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series] yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Sibling Rivalry: Spike&Angel and Dean&Sam (comparing their relationships from the canonical, as well as the behind-the-scenes angle)

[Criminal Minds] spoilers for 4x13, "Bloodline" brownbetty: later, ask me what I think about keen little gadgets in the shape of dismembered women. (Guess.): "To expand: Criminal Minds has had white serial killers and black serial killers and Hispanic serial killers. It has also had bystanders, cops-of-the-week, victims and white and heroes from all those groups. The Roma turn up, in this one episode, as bad guys."


Race & aspects of discussing race in Fandom

telesilla: Dear bare-assed white people: "When a POC tells me, a white person, that something I've done or said has racist overtones or reflects the racism that is sadly still a part of our society, it behooves me to listen because even being married to a Black woman doesn't give me the experience with racism that POCs have. I don't live with it day to day and even the fact that I am a member of a minority doesn't give me a true understanding of the ingrained racism because it's a very different dynamic. - We're all ignorant in one way or another, but to ignore someone who is, probably while heaving a sigh at having to do this yet again, attempting to educate me, moves me from ignorance into actual stupidity."

amilliondays: notes from the underworld: "I find it really fascinating, and by "fascinating" I mean incredibly disheartening, that in the recent discussion on race and racism in fiction of all kinds, when well-intentioned, smart, thoughtful white folks get up and say "no, you know, I thought I got it right but in listening, I clearly got it wrong" and these are, again, smart, thoughtful people, that barely two comments in other white people jump on them and say "YOU HAVE NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR THESE MINORITIES JUST WANNA WHUP SOMEONE FOR BEING WHITE"." (There's a follow-up post of sorts, in the war on flame.)

stewardess: How to use white privilege to make racism disappear.: "Surprisingly, making the discussion about you is the only strategy you will ever need to make racism disappear; you can rely on it for years without repeating yourself. Here are some variations, but remember this is not a complete inventory. Use it as a springboard!"

[surrounding the Teresa Nielsen Hayden debate] elfwreck: How insulting can it be, if the audience doesn't understand you?: "Point of information: 'nithing' is not a cute LOLCAT crossover of 'nitwit' and 'nothing.' It's an old Norse/Germanic word. Our modern word 'nothing' is possibly somewhat derived from it... but it doesn't mean 'you don't exist to me.' It's a lot closer to 'you are so vile and horrific, the universe should re-arrange itself so you don't exist.' [...] And she expects--counts on--much of her audience not understanding some of her words, and is hoping this one will fly under the radar as 'mild insult,' so that only her nearest & dearest will recognize what she's really saying."


InsaneJournal:

The site performance issue should be fixed now (i.e. no blank screens during peak hours or similar), so squeaky expects having more time for looking into other issues. At the moment he's trying to find out more about the causes of comment rot (comments disappearing for seemingly no reason), if you experienced it you can leave a reply here.

Also, IJ now offers 1 month of paid account time for $5, which might be useful for people who want to make quick layout changes - when your paid time runs out, the layout you were using last stays as it is (until you make further changes).

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spacelogic: on whitewashing: "Let's just take a moment to review the damage done by whitewashing, shall we?"

yourlibrarian is not only looking for The Dresden Files fanfic recs (as the post title suggests), but also created a poll to discuss what factors a canon text might have that contribute to also having lots of good fanfic.

In a post titled How Much For That Fan Fiction In The Window?, morgandawn talks about 'binding' fic for offline reading, and also asks "What's your favorite way of assembling your fan fiction to read offline?"

[Queer as Folk] vl_redreign created a fun 'crossover' poll to sort QaF characters into Harry Potter houses.

[Harry Potter] cluegirl: A wee little fandom 'argh': "I know that people don't like to feel obligated to warnings on their fics, and I know people's character perceptions are highly subjective, but if I was Empress of the Internet, fan writers would have to warn for Chump!Harry."

[Supernatural] brownbetty started a list of instances of racialized violence in SPN.

rood: Meta (Again?): "Most of my personal archive (about 75%, I'd guess) consists of abandoned WIPs. [...] I also tried to find new fics to read via rec-lists, and more often than not I ended up following a dead link. Websites vanish or aren't updated, and that makes me feel as if fandom is like Venice with its dead-ends and canals and narrow streets. Just without the signs that make Venice less of a maze."

musesfool: i know the words that you long to hear: "No one ever got more X-type fic by demanding people stop writing Y. Telling someone their way of engaging with fandom is wrong and that it's somehow oppressing you when you don't ever have to see it or participate in it is completely anathema to what fandom is."

For people who also have LJs: there's a new FanHistory bot intended to scrape LJ userinfos, apparently it uses member lists of fannish communities to do so. It's opt-out, meaning you have to change your journal settings if you want the bot to leave your journal alone. morgandawn provides "How to" info/links, elfwreck muses on the possible outcome of the endeavour.

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?"

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").

[Doctor Who] versaphile: Claws of Axos: "An interesting contrast between New Who and Classic Who is that while Classic!Master came up with increasingly crazy schemes that usually backfired on him, technically Simm!Master bucked that trend."

[Harry Potter] In continuation of the discussion generated by previous posts, bohemianspirit (in snapedom) wrote Still Further Thoughts on Prejudice in the Potterverse and Snape's Worst Memory: "'Prejudice against Muggles and Muggleborns,' 'On using the term 'racism,' and 'Ethical considerations in the scene in Snape's Worst Memory' are discussed behind the cut ..."

carlanime: Gossip and history and attention, oh my.: "I don't have a favourite soap opera; I have fandom." (Also discusses the Fan History Wiki.)

On ratings:

elfwreck (in metametameta): Ratings: Worksafe, Standard, Mature, Explicit: "... I don't like rating the reader rather than the content. I want fics (and arts and vids) rated by what's inside them, not by who's expected to find that most appealing."

branchandroot: First, the purpose of the system: "My impression in my own fandom sector, anime fandom, is that [the NC-17] rating is used more as advertising than for restriction. [...] In some ways, then, it seems to me that we have taken in the MPAA focus on sex and subverted it."

Meta

alchemia posted a list of mainstream/canonical Mpreg examples.

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

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

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

Other

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

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

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.

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.)

logovo has some thoughts on MXCON: "I've been thinking off and on about what to cover in the con, what the fan culture is in Mexico and what it isn't."

lore created a poll on smut/PWPs in Harry Potter fandom.

~

musesfool: it's much too late to save myself from falling: "Possibly my expectations for SPN have always been kind of low, so I am far easier to please, but I've never thought the show was particularly well-written, and a lot of the stuff people bring up as problems has always been present and I've always needed to handwave it. So. There's that." (Spoilers, esp. for ep. 3x06)

elfwreck: Why Harry Potter fic?: "A couple of comments were berating Potter fans for writing, well, slash and other erotica based on "children's stories." And I commented at one of them, and wanted to continue [...] Harry Potter is not a "child-centric, non-sexual" work. It's a coming of age story--a story about shifting from carefree childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood."

darkshimmer: Decision Time....: "There was a story posted there this week, a Severus/Harry story to be exact, in which Severus molests a six year-old Harry. [...] I'm not sure what sickens me more - the fact that people write that stuff because they think it's hot, or the fact that people read this stuff and think it's hot." [Eta Nov. 15th: link removed, author deleted entry]

the_willow: Spitting Angry: "The point of the linked post regards Chad from High School Musical and his curly, fluffy, 'fro. It's about a boy with my hair when it's not in dreads. And the people on this community and commenting to the post who think it's excessive and hypersensitive and too PC to have a mod post asking people to think before they include a hair joke."

slashpine: Squeeful, gleeful - but rarely female: fan slang in NYT Film review: "Fandom language is more often mocked than adopted. [...] Given that, it's nice to see film reviewers using fandom terms non-condescendingly. But while it's accurate enough to call a young male reader of 1800's dime novels a proto-fanboy ... where are the fangirls?"

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 issue has been split; 24 a has the Dumbledore / HP / JK Rowling meta.

blktauna: untitled post: "Sorry, but if you can't participate in Yuletide, for whatever reason. Then you can't. [...] It's not "exclusionary" its just the rules done to suit the organisers."

brownbetty: Some thoughts on writing outside my experience: "Recently, and not so recently, I've come across a couple of stories, or had them pointed out to me, within greater fandom, where the history or culture of marginalized groups was employed to make a story more exotic or interesting, with the result the story was offensive. So I'm trying to think of how one can avoid this."

xie_xie_xie: REPOST: A QAF Fanfic Writer's Guide to HIV/AIDS: "But having lived through the emergence of the HIV epidemic, seen many friends get sick and die of AIDS, and knowing a somewhat unnaturally huge amount about HIV testing and treatment, the many fics that make very basic errors in dealing with HIV kind of grate on my nerves more than anything other than Brian calling Justin "baby." So I thought I'd write up this little guide, for those who might want it and find it useful."

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: Collecting info on copyright misuse: "I know there are several teachers on my f'list; I'm hoping some of them (or their associates) will have stories or even documented incidents related to this. [...] For example, a teacher who chose not to use a television, movie, or music clip in the classroom out of fear that his or her actions violated copyright law."

gueneiriol: Ideas for The Con (tm): "So, if you were going to attend a virtual con, what would you like to see happen at it?"

mizbean: Harry/Draco Clichés: "So what is your favorite Harry/Draco cliché, and which is your least favorite?"

musesfool: you think i'm gorgeous, you wanna date me: "I write and read slash, and I have some slash OTPs, and I am a fan of slash, but I am not a slasher, and I often have to preface my contributions to fannish discussions that way, and sometimes it feels weird."

deborak: Why I'm Not a Grammar Nazi: "When it comes to fan fiction, there are those who want to be strict about spelling, punctuation and grammar. As a historian, I cannot get worked up about textual correctness. The rules and spellings that are cherished today will mean nothing a few centuries from now."

loud99: I'm annoyed.: "It's one thing to create a community for the sake of creating it, but to do it out of some sense that the fandom is dying because some things have moved out of LJ is completely and utterly ridiculous. LJ is NOT fandom. Fans make fandom."

dmitchell1985: And we're hypocritically together ever after!: "For a stretch there, everyone seemed to be all over this racism business, but would cry bloody murder if someone ever nudged them to say that something they may have said or written was offensive. Where is the ability to step back and write reflective meta then; when a situation that truly calls for sincere thought has arrived? Where is the moment where the person doesn't simply jump to the defensive and have all of their fangirls swoop in and attack?"

On Warner Brothers' president of production Jeff Robinov's new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead":

spacelogic (in feminism): women in entertainment: "When my family picked up the first DVD of Star Trek: Enterprise [...] we played a guessing game. I held the DVD box where nobody could see it, and asked a series of questions: How many women are there on the DVD box? How many people of Asian ancestry? Are those people male or female? How many of African ancestry?"

yourlibrarian: The future of the female hero?: "Other issues are being brought up in the gender in fan studies discussion, namely that men have less reason to transform material that is being created for them whereas women modify it or focus on certain parts to satisfy their own interests. It’s not like that’s an exclusively gendered practice, since any minority group is likely to do so with entertainment targeted at a different/larger audience."