otw_news | A Question....

Has there been any consideration about age restrictions at the suggested archive?

As a long-time, multi-fandom participant and talking with another one this week over the issue at LJ and with fanlib, two things came up:

1. As long as we're paying someone else to host our things, they can decide not to host specific things. Also, people will attempt to make a profit off of us in any way possible. The best solution is to host our own site with a dedicated server than can house us all.

2. We were talking and we both agreed that if there was a multi-fandom fanfiction hub, we wouldn't want it to be along the lines of ff.net. Everyone I know cringes when a news source goes to ff.net to talk about the "fandom phenomenon". That said, admitting fic.'s based on quality is tricky and subjective. If we create something, for ourselves, then I hope that we would both cover ourselves legally and present ourselves professionally. There is a legal issue involving minors and NC-17 material than can only really be remedied by not allowing minors. The easiest solution seems to be creating a panfandom archive for underage readers either in association with or as part of the larger archive, requiring a age statement to sign up and logged-in-only access to adult material. Also, if there are no underage readers allowed, then there is less likelihood of creating another ff.net.

I know that this will probably not be a popular opinion. I know that many people in fandom, particularly on LJ are underage and "passing" or "socking" in order to read adult material. I'm not saying that some underage readers cannot handle adult material or aren't already participating in adult activities; however, from a legal standpoint, it seems more responsible to take precautions.

Additionally, in light of the recent LJ events, it's obvious that much of what gets archives, websites, journals and fic.'s shut down is a perceived danger to the "childrenz". If this is a site by adults, for adults it's less likely to come under that sort of negative fire. After all, we're going to have to deal with the legal ramifications of intellectual property and copyright laws already.

I'm truly not trying to rock the boat or ignore the many and important contributions of underage fans to fandom. I'm just trying to ascertain how the issues of liability will be dealt with.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have an idea for the quality issue.

The problem with ff.net is not that they don't have good stories, but that the good stories are lost in the mix. What we need is a place where authors can have rec-lists.

ff.net sort of has this option, in the "favorites." What we need is to:

a) call it "rec-lists"
b) not have it buried in the author's profile, but front and center, one of the first things you find when you come to the site
c) have a field where the reccer explains what they liked about the story

Icarus

The problem with ff.net is not that they don't have good stories, but that the good stories are lost in the mix

I agree completely, it's just so difficult to wade through ff.net to find anything that I'd want to read. And, at least in the larger fandoms, most of the more popular authors (today) don't even post there anymore because of the content restrictions.

This can be handled structurally, with rec-lists built into the site. You come to the Home page and there's a link to 'recs' and there you have various author rec-lists to click on, all in one place.

Make it a lot easier to find stories. Because "exclusive" and "comprehensive" are mutually exclusive goals.

Icarus

I wasn't advocating for an exclusive archive, but for one that handled the issue of both underage fen and finding good stories. ff.net doesn't make it easy to locate the good stuff, in fact, if I don't have a link already to a specific author or story, I don't go there looking for things. It's easier to find good things in other archives without dealing with their restrictions/set-up etc.

Rec-lists are always good and I'm all for including those, I also like the idea of the top-rated peer-reviewed stories being searchable/accessible on the front page. That way you'd be able to look for things through a variety of methods (fandom, ship, rating, rec. list, top lists etc.).

Oh, I just used the terms "exclusive" as part of the binary "all-inclusive" vs. "exclusive." I didn't mean to imply that you were advocating an exclusive club since that would defeat the purpose.

Rec-lists are always good and I'm all for including those, I also like the idea of the top-rated peer-reviewed stories being searchable/accessible on the front page. That way you'd be able to look for things through a variety of methods (fandom, ship, rating, rec. list, top lists etc.).

Cool. I'm going to recopy the suggestion to the thread where this was being discussed, with a link to here. :)

Icarus

I like the idea of being able to access rec lists, but an additional solution might be the "digg effect", the way that digg.com's news submissions become popular: if someone likes a link, or finds it interesting, they just hit a single button and it gets "voted up" by that person; digg also has the system in which the top news stories are put in an easily accessible "top-ten" list. This might be used cross-fandoms as a way to find the "biggest" stories that are appearing in different fandoms, without requiring a person to go through a lengthy process of writing a review/rec list, (which I prefer to exist as a feature).

That's an option, and I think we should consider it. But there's something that makes me wince at the idea. I'm not sure why.

FanLib is doing something similar and I don't like it there, either. For sure I wouldn't want the option to bury a story.

There's... I dunno... it loses the intelligence of a rec-list. Recs are more than just popularity meters. A good rec-list includes a variety of different stories.

Also, doing it that way will have only the most recent stories on top, while rec-lists have older stories.

Also, it will cause the big names in fandom to completely overwhelm other writers in a way that they don't right now. Yes, certain stories appear on every rec-list, but they are right next to stories that only appear on one or two rec-lists. Digg-style, it'll be all about the number of clicks. (Now bear in mind I was called a BNF in another fandom, and I've had the benefit of having my stories recc'd on auto-pilot, so I don't mean this in a selfish "hey, my story will get buried" sort of way. I mean that the variety you can find now by skimming rec-lists will be lost.)

Also, there are people in fandom who do nothing but rec stories. This gives them an important way to participate in the archive. When you find someone whose tastes you like, you can find stories you really like. Recs are qualitative, not quantitative. It's not about the numbers. A good recc'er finds obscure stories by one-trick-pony authors.

Also, I really don't like the idea of us voting on stories in this way. It adds an element of competition that I don't think is good for fandom. There's a big difference between Digg voting up stories about "a dog with three legs" versus an "astronaut's obituary" and fanfiction stories being pitted against each other.

Also, you'll end up with one fandom overwhelming another, which will cause a stink.

The more I think about it, the less I like this idea. I think it will:

1) dilute the value of recs
2) cause tension between BNFs and lesser known writers
3) cause tension between popular and smaller fandoms
4) bring in an element of competition on the archive

It would be nothing but trouble.

Icarus

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