femmequixotic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
femmequixotic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
otw_news2008-01-31 10:06 am
femmequixotic) wrote in otw_news2008-01-31 10:06 am
FAQ series: first set
Last week, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ciderpress wrote:
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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.
ciderpress wrote: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:
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.
no subject
It might be unfair, but it's not at all unusual. Women faculty get evaluations all the time that "judge" them in ways white male faculty are not judged; we're used to it.
I wouldn't try to represent you or your fannishness--at least, that's not how I talk about and see my scholarship. Fans are myriad, all ages (I stay away from minors because of legal issues and also personal choice--I hated adolescents when I was one, and would never teach in high schools), all ethnicities, all genders, all nationalities, all areas of ability/disability, all the human condition.
By virtue of being one person writing from a related batch of theories/methodologies, I'm excluding most of fans/fannishness. I am interested in queerness and how it manifests itself within LOTR online LJ fandom. I am interested in racism imbroglios. I am interested in f/f slash--and I'm very interested in why little academic scholarship on fandom covers either race or f/f/ slash (more is coming! we have an essay for our anthology on f/f slash in ST). I'm also interested in why most academics ignore RPF--a good number of my works in progress (it can take me two years to write an essay, another two years to get it published, academic time being what it is) point out gaps in the scholarship, gaps that I've noticed because they connect mostly to what I see/value in fandom. I am not going to spend a lot of time writing about other fandoms (if I'm not in it, I'm not going to write about it); I'm not going to write about gen or het. At the moment, I am thinking that a new and interesting project would be fan scholarship and meta, because that's so often overlooked. So unless your fannishness fits in that very narrow area, I am excluding you -- because as far as I'm concerned, a more limited focus/argument is stronger. I am not saying Fan/fandom is X, I'm saying there's this thread/type of discourse among a million others in fandom.
I'm sorry if this sounds horribly elitist: but I have no desire to try to represent "all" kinds of fannishness. I cannot; it would be insane to even try. My goal would rather be to create opportunities for more work by more scholars covering all the cool stuff that's out there that's barely been touched upon. And I am working on a super sekrit plan for just that that you'll all be hearing about in a few months.
So being criticized for not representing X and Y--well. I have no defense. I don't, I haven't, and I won't.
I know that early movements in a new field have to paint with broader strokes--and that's what happened. But I'm not interested in broad strokes, universal or foundational theories, or major structural issues--and I'm not interested in psychology (I analyze texts). That's why I was criticizing Henry's claim: that fanfiction was created by women forced to watch male texts and they wrote romance in.
I don't like or read romance. I refuse to designate sf a male text, as did the feminist and women writers of sf I love. And nobody forced me to read anything (although I did have to sit through a helluva lot of country music shows growing up when anad were I did).
So I know I'm babbling, I know I'm over the text limit, but I guess--I've admired how you've written in the past, and I'm frustrated because there is no way that I can see that I can do what you would like me to do.
no subject
No, please don't be. I've overstated the point in my own frustration, wanting to get across the peculiar pain of the fan whose involvement in fandom and receptivity to the public discussion of it is completely down to its radical and female components, and who yet continually trips over deep disagreement with the most dedicated, active, feminist commentators therein. Whom I nevertheless feel very protective toward, and therefore really conflicted about arguing with. And maybe I could end a few more clauses with prepositions, you think?
Perhaps it comes down to this: you (singular you, ithiliana) are doing what I want. There just aren't enough of you (general you, fannishly connected cultural commentators on fandom who are not bourgeois white men) yet to cover the part of the waterfront I have in view (and that's really important to the radical and female components of fandom that keep me here).
I think it might help us all to remember that while fandom has long since reached critical mass in terms of cultural influence (even if we can't say exactly what that means), fannish scholarship is not even close to that point. And you're solving that, regardless of the specifics of your individual scholarly interests. For which I thank you.
no subject
And, I can agree with something you said in another thread about the changing discourses: I just realized, reading it, that I do not see myself as that active in OTW's attempt to change public discourses (though I support it), and was going back to the 'academic' focus (it must be all about me!) which I do not see as the same as OTWs space. Yes, there's an academic journal in the works, but it's only one small part of the projects.
And while academics of different disciplines (law, humanities, computer science) are part of the group project, they are not the entirety of it, nor are most of the discourses OTW is engaged in what I consider academic. It's good to keep in mind the different public discourses: as I was driving in today, I was thinking of how fans/fandom/furries have appeared on various primetime crime dramas, how Second Life was featured in a crime show (um, CSI?)--there's a whole range of public portrayals of fandom that is going to be seen and probably believed in by a lot more people than most academics (individually).
So, television, film, comics (meaning comics featuring fans, not superhero comics), all the geek fans in the comics are guys, seems to me, from Jason in Foxtrot to Comic Book Guy), newspapers (and more and more the focus is on our consumer status)--all out there.
I think the most radical potential for OTW lies in the legal area, myself.
The area that I am interested in, where I can affect things, is much more limited--but even there I see more and more people involved which is exciting, so there are changes, and the more diverse the scholarship and scholars, the better. I was kidding one of my male friends about all the entries relating to fandom that I've put into the women in sf encyclopedia and whether the old boys would freak out--he pointed out that they probably would not even look at it because of the focus on women which made it automatically unimportant!