otw_news | FAQ series: first set

FAQ series: first set

Last week,

There has been a great deal of discussion during and after our "Why OTW?" week, not only about OTW, but also about what it is to identify as a fan, what fandom means to different people and how individual fans and groups shape their own fannish experiences.

It's evident from what we've read that there have been some misconceptions about what our org is and what we hope to do. We apologise if we have been unclear about some of the concepts and policies, and we hope you will understand that we are still in the process of setting up policies and honing language. We don't have all the final, polished answers yet and we need time, hard work and your help to do that. In fact, our content policy will be up for discussion and feedback in a fandom-wide setting before we set our policies in stone.

In the hopes of not overwhelming you, we've decided to post the FAQ in bundles of five or six questions and answers, one bundle every other day or so. Ultimately, they'll all be added to the OTW website's FAQ.

What you'll read here in

otw_news is a bit more informal than what will appear on the website; that's because the website is for fans and non-fans alike. But here, in

otw_news, we're fans talking to fans. SRSLY.

Keep a look out for more bundles of FAQs as well as interviews with a few of the OTW's board members in the next few weeks!

1. Fandom got along just fine without OTW for forty years.

This is true and we hope will continue to be true for another 40 and 400 years--fandom will definitely continue to do fine without us and after us and forever and ever amen. But, on the other hand, fandom has not had the internet for 40 years. With the advent of the internet, and especially Web 2.0, fandom's connection with the so-called Real World has increased, and its relationship with copyright holders has increasingly come under focus. OTW is attempting to add a voice to the conversation about copyright, one that is articulate, informed, organized, and on the side of fandom.

2. Why do you care about Fanlib? Fanlib isn't forcing anyone to archive there, just ignore them!

FanLib set a dangerous precedent that fandom is available for the profitable plucking and exploitation by people who are not part of the culture of fandom; OTW does not, never has, and never will, profit from fandom, and objects on principle to FanLib's attempt to do so.

OTW's concern is that for-profit companies like Fanlib might become the public face of fanfiction, especially since fanfiction writers have a history of lying low. With more companies than ever keenly interested in how they can profit from "user-generated content", OTW doesn't want fannish newbies and other interested parties thinking this for-profit ideology represents fandom or for fans to be taken advantage of by such companies.

3. OTW's corporate structure is suspect. Fandom should be subversive.

OTW believes that its mission is best served by an organization that is transparent and accountable.

4. Why does OTW want to make fanworks legitimate? We don't need society's legitimization!

The kind of legitimization the OTW is focused on is that of fans being able to post their stories and art and vids without worrying they will be hit with a lawsuit. That's all. Sadly, we're pretty sure society as a whole will never quite understand the \o/ of something like, say, a really good wingfic. Which is a shame.

5. Edited at 9:59 a.m. 2/1/08 to remove this question. The specific concerns will be addressed in later FAQs. Our sincere apologies for this misstep; no dismissiveness of the concerns raised within it was intended in any form. We very much appreciate the discussion regarding the way it was perceived.

Edited at 9:50 p.m. 2/1/08. When we realized that our flip answer to question 5 was inappropriate for this forum, we deleted it. However, for archival purposes and in the hope of achieving some measure of transparency, here it is again:

5. The OTW is trying to take over all of fandom, and they didn't talk to me first, and they started in LJ, and they're going to cause all of fandom to be destroyed, and the worst of all is that they're a bunch of academics! They're trying to reinvent fandom when we have all the archives we already need thank you very much, and we don't need another one, and they're going to (1) legitimitise or (2) commercialize fandom and ruin it for all by dragging some terribly bad case of fanfiction into court. They use big words, and they're taking too long to set things up and they're not answering emails fast enough. (A tongue-in-cheek crticism from ithiliana's post: http://ithiliana.livejournal.com/804036.html)

Yes, there are some academics involved with the org. There are also some students, some lawyers, some unemployed folks, some young people, some old people, some fannish newbies, some folks who've been in fandom for decades, some blondes, some brunettes, and some redheads. :-)

And we're really not trying to reinvent fandom. We're building a fabulous, scaleable pan-fandom archive chock-full of interesting features which we hope fans will choose to use, but even if you'd rather not use it, you can still take advantage of the archive code and use it to build something else.

Commercializing fandom is exactly what we don't plan to do. We're here to try to prevent that from happening. Folks like FanLib and even copyright holders and user-generated content sites that make money from ad-revenues want to commercialize and monetize fandom, to make money off of the things we produce out of sheer love; we're here to offer an alternative to for-profit fansites, with the intent of preserving and protecting the fannish world we know and love.

--

femmequixotic,

bethbethbeth,

ciderpress,

mirabile_dictu,

shrift,

svmadelyn.
Community Relations Committee

Edited 7:39 p.m. 1/31/08 to remove phrase regarding hair colors per comments below.
Edited at 9:59 a.m. 2/1/08 to remove question 5 per comments below.
Edited at 9:50 p.m. 2/1/08 to re-add question 5, struckthrough, for archival and transparency purposes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Re Web 2.0: you're probably right, but since this Q&A was only ever meant to be part of a very transient set of posts (on journaling sites and via email and twitter), by the time Web 3.0 supplants 2.0, this will all be little more than a memory (i.e., the website's FAQ will have less potentially dated language).

As for 5, hmm...we'll have to discuss that. The actual acafen criticisms haven't, to the best of my knowledge, been raised as a concern about conflict of interest, but rather as a suggestion that the members of OTW who are academics are therefore not "real" fans, not real members of fandom. Our point, of course, was meant to say that, yes, there are academics involved in the org, just like there are non-academics.

The FoC issue, though: what might you suggest to make that sound more inclusive? Just to note, we didn't mention gender or sexual orientation or race, but, hmm, does the mention of hair colors read as "whites only" to you? Because if that's how it's reading, we'll definitely have to make a change.

to be honest, when I read the haircolor thing, I also noticed race as an issue. I knew it wasn't meant that way, but I noticed it.

*nods*

Okay, thanks.

To be honest, I thought about it hard and then I let it go because, as Beth says, we were specifically not talking about race or sexuality or gender when we answered this particular criticism. Economic status (wrt to education and age) has been one particular point that people have brought up repeatedly and we were addressing that particular point. It wasn't a statement to address that OTW believes in inclusion for all. Which we do.

And, on a personal note, as a raven-haired beauty myself, I can't ever think of a coined term for black hair that doesn't have negative connotations unless it's... raven-haired beauty. *g* I am always eager to learn.

Your comment is most definitely noted, though. Thanks.

Next time, please feel free to mention it on the writeboard before we post! We're not scary. :D

You mean actually read the draft post when you ask us to? Like a good committee chair? What a revolutionary idea!

*is so ashamed*

If the committee chair is too - shall we say, overwhelmed by our awesome how can we expect her committee to do anything but follow suit?!

Set a good example and constructively critique the heck out of us before we go live! We want it! Bring. It. On. *grins sunnily*

*is inspired*

Yes, ma'am! I will promise to overcome my blinding awe at your awesomeness to pre-read next time.

*salutes snappily*

:D

FWIW, those hair colors do come across to me as referring to whites pretty much exclusively, if only because when describing a PoC, unfortunately the first descriptor tends to be skin tone or ethnicity (and hair color is only mentioned at all if it's something other than dark brown/black), whereas when describing someone white, the first descriptor is often hair color (because paler skin and European descent is assumed unless otherwise noted). I just don't hear PoCs described as "brunet/te" very often.

does the mention of hair colors read as "whites only" to you?

Yeah, it made me wince, anyway. Especially since, overall, the question of representation on a lot of levels seems... really unresolved? Not even very well articulated from or about any constituency?

I guess overall, based on these first five entries, I worry that some of the extreme language of the foregoing debate is getting picked up and re-amplified here (taking over fandom, not a real fan), when some/much of what's being expressed is in fact a set of concerns that isn't actually silly at all. They may be eminently answerable worries, but they're not unreasonable on their face.

I think the link to ithiliana's entry does the FAQ a disservice in perpetuating the divisiveness it wants to answer. I love her rant, but it doesn't address any of the (imo) substantive issues that might lie at the heart of people's fears. The fact that a lot of us are not as practiced at effective problemitization or argumentation as, well, lawyers or academics probably needs to be taken into account. (Here's (http://ithiliana.livejournal.com/821368.html?thread=4348024#t4348024) my teal deer try at coherence.)

Let me add my thanks for the staggering work y'all are doing out of love. It's amazing.

Edited 2008-01-31 23:42 (UTC)

I just got home from work, but I sent a quick note to ComRel's mailing list before I caught the bus, and the line's already been deleted (with a note at the bottom of the entry saying the post's been edited and why). We might make further changes still, but I just thought you'd like to know this one has already been made.

Y'all are so cool! and quick. This and esp., understanding where others might be coming from is *exactly* why no one can represent fans but fans.

The hostility to academics that I saw was more than knee-jerk anti-intellectualism or a pet peeve. (Revenge for that low grade last semester, lol.) I was surprised to see people even calling meta "not fandom", along with the debate about how aca-fans should relate to non-acafans.

Some of this is coming from lack of recognition of what the broad continuum of fanwork includes. Efforts to narrow fandom to "just fanfic" or by % of posts, or location, are doomed to failure, because they leave out more than they take in. Fans may switch from fic to modding fests and vice versa, and are still fans. Someone who lurks, recs, betas, comments but doesn't post fic, is still a fan.

A lot of fanwork is not fics: metas, icons and vids, compiling long rec lists and tables of info, making polls and talking about the trends. That's not just "not fic", it's "non-fic." Aca-fans are made of non-fic. As I see it, they may write farther away from the source material, and post in more distant "comms"; but they're still responding to the source material. Fandom's existence is still their work.

Ah, but they get paid! Oh, and they "use" fans' work!

I see three issues in the anti-academic rants. First, the definition of fan activity in terms of type of source material, format for work, or forum for sharing is an issue OTW's already been grappling with. Why not facilitate some discussions? How about posting some rough draft "maps" or definitions to kick that off -- or better yet, find some unpublished, or re-usable work (Henry J?) that could be posted online, for fandom to discuss?

Second is the issue of recompense. Does pay for anything related to fandom disqualify one as a fan? What is an academic "earning" by studying fandom? LOL, not much usually; but still -- the question merits an answer. There's more than money involved. Distrust of aca-fans is similar to discourse about BNFs. At issue, then, is voluntarism vs. reward, anonymity vs. recognition.

Some skeevy myths lurk here too -- the myth that unpaid art is better; that women are above being paid (!); that "community" and recompense are incompatible (also !); and the folk law corollary that if you don't make money off it ("borrowing"?) it isn't illegal. Reduced to bare logic, none of these compute.

OTW will have to be able to articulate these issues for non-fandom audiences. But they're debates that are part of fandom's world, too, as well as fundamental to its definition, which is why they keep coming up in comments. I would urge trying to find the time and fen to host the discussion within fandom. The results would be useful at all levels.

The last issue is the problem of "authorship," which within fandom includes both plagiarism and re-use issues, and for aca-fans broadens out to how they represent fandom material to non-fandom viewers (and on the flip side, how they gained permission from their fandom sources). The "netiquette" of quotation, linking, remixing, commenting, etc., are all related strongly to both the ways that fandom gets its own original material (poaching?) and how it wants aca-fans or pro-fans to treat fandom (not poaching!). Again a core issue, worthy of formal discussion.

How do the ethics of fans vis-a-vis source material, fans v other fans' material, and aca-fans v fandom materials, compare and contrast? Are there uniform principles that do, or should, apply all along the spectrum? Or are there qualitative differences? What specific "netiquette" and guidelines have been developed, how do they vary (by fandom, for instance), and would it help fandom internally, or OTW in its work with the public, authors, academia, or fandom critics, to have this in writing?

All three issues -- fandom's activities, recompense, and control over material -- come into play in OTW's main mission and associated interests, as well as coming up in criticisms of OTW's members. I think OTW should take them seriously, address them as fully as any given stage of thought allows, and help fans think about them publicly so that we all see the different values better.

(Zero-calorie reply: thank you, I really like this comment.)

i really like this reply :-)

*ganks*

This and your comments below are really, really useful, imo; they're at once clear-sighted about the size and importance of the principles at work here (whether we know it or not) and respectful of the effort and intentions behind it. Thanks very much.

Wonderful post!

and for aca-fans broadens out to how they represent fandom material to non-fandom viewers (and on the flip side, how they gained permission from their fandom sources). The "netiquette" of quotation, linking, remixing, commenting, etc., are all related strongly to both the ways that fandom gets its own original material (poaching?) and how it wants aca-fans or pro-fans to treat fandom (not poaching!).

I have noticed that this is a fandom-specific concern. I have seen published studies where the writer did not obtain permission to quote from blogs, stories, or open posts. In my little fandom corner of the world, this is considered impolite, even unethical. And yet it's absolutely reasonable to many, who consider an open post...well...open. This kind of thing lacks consensus within the fan community, and the strategies you list may not be consistently meaningful.

My personal take on academics writing in fandom, be they acafans or just academics who happened to stumble across something fannish and interesting and engaged as an outsider (like an interesting study I read about Television Without Pity by a nonfan), is that all academic work, of every kind, is a kind of nonfiction fanfic, and fanfic itself is a kind fictive criticism. Don't all these forms of creation require basically the same strategies? Deep understanding of the source text; engagement with a community with certain standards that surrounds the text and provides a framework whereby it is judged; remix for effect or parody; application of an outside theory on an artwork (deconstruction! stream of consciousness! pointillism!).

Academics are intensely, fannishly interested in a particular subject, and they engage according to a set of rules governed by a community, which rewards them if they do well with things like tenure. Fans are intensely, academically interested in a particular subject, and they engage according to a set of rules governed by a community, which rewards them if they do well with things like feedback or status. It's true that if you get tenure, you presumably get money to go along with the job that they now can't arbitrarily fire you from, whereas with fanfic, you get adulation and little else, which brings us to...

There's more than money involved. Distrust of aca-fans is similar to discourse about BNFs. At issue, then, is voluntarism vs. reward, anonymity vs. recognition.

I'm unaffiliated, but I do see some troubling trends that may limit the ability of acafans to continue their work. One big one is ethnographic research, which is increasingly becoming limited to publication from people or groups who have been certified by an institutional review board to do work with human subjects, even if that means that you just administered a questionnaire online. Ticky boxes = human subjects! And it's also true that academics who work with things considered weird by nonfans, such as, oh, let's say SLASH, may not do work in that field, because it would do to have their RL name linked with such a topic.

So even within the academic world, "voluntarism vs. reward, anonymity vs. recognition" is fraught. It's just not that simple. You probably can't get a job or tenure if you're doing nothing but fan studies, but you can if you leaven it with something respectable, like media or film studies, or audience analysis. And sometimes you can't publish on what you're interested in because you don't want to out yourself or force your school to fire you because you are interested in Harry Potter slash and they're all underage ohno!

I agree that all these topics need to be discussed; and I really didn't know, one way or the other, what fen think of acafans, mostly because I know quite a few acafans and they seem pretty much like fen to me. It seems odd to be so mistrustful of people who have so very, very much to lose, merely by dint of having a RL name attached.

I have noticed that this is a fandom-specific concern. I have seen published studies where the writer did not obtain permission to quote from blogs, stories, or open posts

I was told recently (by someone I'd never spoken to before) that lurkers culd quote just fine w/out permission, but since I am in fandom, I have to meet a higher standard; while I agree, in principle, with that (i.e. as a member of the community, I have a higher responsibility to the community than someone outside), I was then told that I should realize that my even asking for permission to talk about a story was an incredibly hostile "academizing" act that was probably traumatic to the person (turned out not to be true, when I finally managed to connect to the person who'd been busy in RL and not checking email). But at that point, I disengaged because I figured no matter what I did, I was damned (and that person is also an academic).

So there is NO agreement on any of these issues.

The IRB issue is more complex than you present it here: a *lot* depends on the makeup of the specific IRB and the specific campus. I hope more and more the Boards realize that different disciplinary standards apply, and that one cannot apply a cookie-cutter approach. Outside of working with certain populations (prisoners, pregnant women, minors) as the "study group," and outside of certain types of studies (clearly medical and psychological are the most relevant), the submission to IRB is not that onerous (everywhere). My own campus IRB is very good at being aware of diffrent standars for, say, oral history and journalistic types of research, and while I have some some questionnaires, that research never came until full IRB review.

Of course, academic committees are academic committees, and there can be power mad idiots anywhere (even in fandom). The old IRB chair here did not used to allow ANY ethnographic research at all, only quantitative, even in social sciences. People cheered when he left campus.

It seems odd to be so mistrustful of people who have so very, very much to lose, merely by dint of having a RL name attached.

Academics as a class/group do have a lot of social status and privilege, and I understand it's hard to people outside that culture to see the hierarchies within. But you're right here--and it's unfortunate that at least one critic of OTW is determined on linking one of the OTW members to her real life academic persona, something I'd always thought was frowned upon in this wonderful fandom culture we are all a part of (except for us academics, apparently).

A wonderful post--you know a lot about academia without being heavily invested in the scholarship/publish or perish parts of it all.

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