I assume, however, that the collective and very bright minds in OTW's 'management' have noted that yes, even such a small (?!) thing as the journal's comment function can be as transformative as the work OTW supports, or can simply default into the structures of control that already exist to suppress fandom, feminism, and other social movements for new forms of col/laboration.
I love your feminism/fandom recasting!
I don't really know what to do about the structures of control. The journal will be less fannish and more academic, because we want the journal to be authoritative and important. It will be geared to that acafan-meta intersect mostly. But we want to be sure we have timely, accessible, shorter content too. So we're trying to have a little something for everybody thinky.
I haven't experimented much yet with the software's commenting feature, but we need the software for a bunch of things other than commenting, like tracking MSS through peer review and keeping a database of subscribers so they can RSS feed the articles. We need a lot of functionality, and we have to make compromises while keeping within our #1 priority, which is open access and freedom of exchange of information. I have no idea if commenting is going to be such a compromise. I hope not.
I also hope that the people who want to discuss the articles will do it within the purview of the journal and its software, to keep it all together (TEXT and COROLLARY permanently linked, so the COROLLARY becomes part of a DIALOGUE). LJ is so easy, so comfortable, and we all know so well how to handle it—I personally get irritated at, say, WordPress or Blogger because they are so stupid. But I'd hate to see discussion moved elsewhere simply because the software is annoying. Work with us here!
Of course, we're not live yet, and so who knows how it will all play out? I'm just really excited that people are excited. How bad is it that we had to start a new journal because fan studies is so inadequately represented in media studies outlets? What is that even about??
There's a niche that we need to fill, and we want to do it right.
Re: Amusing: Plus ca change ... .
I love your feminism/fandom recasting!
I don't really know what to do about the structures of control. The journal will be less fannish and more academic, because we want the journal to be authoritative and important. It will be geared to that acafan-meta intersect mostly. But we want to be sure we have timely, accessible, shorter content too. So we're trying to have a little something for everybody thinky.
I haven't experimented much yet with the software's commenting feature, but we need the software for a bunch of things other than commenting, like tracking MSS through peer review and keeping a database of subscribers so they can RSS feed the articles. We need a lot of functionality, and we have to make compromises while keeping within our #1 priority, which is open access and freedom of exchange of information. I have no idea if commenting is going to be such a compromise. I hope not.
I also hope that the people who want to discuss the articles will do it within the purview of the journal and its software, to keep it all together (TEXT and COROLLARY permanently linked, so the COROLLARY becomes part of a DIALOGUE). LJ is so easy, so comfortable, and we all know so well how to handle it—I personally get irritated at, say, WordPress or Blogger because they are so stupid. But I'd hate to see discussion moved elsewhere simply because the software is annoying. Work with us here!
Of course, we're not live yet, and so who knows how it will all play out? I'm just really excited that people are excited. How bad is it that we had to start a new journal because fan studies is so inadequately represented in media studies outlets? What is that even about??
There's a niche that we need to fill, and we want to do it right.