Snowflake Challenge #4

[ratcreature]

Challenge #4: In your own space, make a list of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, and/or that you'd like someone to create or do for you.

The first wish I can think of is for more (and new) reccers to sign up for fanart_recs. The comm always has had at least a few recs every month since I started it in 2010, because there's a core of dedicated members, who rec frequently, which is awesome, but more recs would be even better.

Another vaguely rec related thing, I wish everyone on AO3 would use the bookmarking feature (and let them be public). Obviously what I really miss is having more rec pages, but considering that I've abandoned mine, that would be a bit hypocritical. But browsing somebody's bookmarks is really useful too, and unlike maintaining recs, it's almost no effort.

A rather unrealistic general wish is that newer fandoms I've become interested in would also happen here on DW? I never got into Reddit, and while I subscribe to some people on Twitter I find its use for fandom even more bewildering than Tumblr. And I have no idea how to even find whatever is going on with Discord (and never really was much for chat type of interactions).

I don't know whether it's my increasing age or the changes in the internet landscape, but I find it much harder to find and enter a new fandom than it used to be when fandom spaces were on newsgroups, mailing lists, message boards, and eventually LJ (which I resented for quite a while, initially).

There used to be primers you could find for new fandoms, pointing you to where the fandom was. Like newbie pages, or a list of popular mailing lists, that kind of thing. I miss those.

Comments

[muccamukk]

There's been a couple people talking about having a challenge to write fandom primers like used to be on Crack_Van, and then posting them to fanifesto, or somewhere similar, maybe for March Meta Matters? Something like that.

I've had some success, depending on the fandom, just entering the name of it into DW search, and then following whatever discussion that turns up.

[ratcreature]

That last bit is a good idea. I mostly try interest searches, and then don't find a community and the couple of people who have that interest don't happen to have recent posts about it, and then get discouraged. Searching for content directly might be more fruitful.

[mllesatine]

crack_van now that's a blast from the past. :D

[goss]

I love that through fanart_recs I'm able to enjoy artworks I'm 100% sure I never would have come across otherwise. :)

[ratcreature]

Same. And I enjoy looking at art even for fandoms I am not in.

[goss]

Yes, exactly! :)

Try this ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> A rather unrealistic general wish is that newer fandoms I've become interested in would also happen here on DW? <<

allbingo has a new fest each month. All fandoms and formats are welcome. Pick one of your new favorites and propose a fest for it, or match it with a currently planned fest.

It's also easy to start communities here. Making them popular is more challenging, but it can be done. *ponder* Maybe something like New_Fandoms? Get people to review new TV shows, movies, books, etc. as they come out and help build a fandom for them.

>>There used to be primers you could find for new fandoms, pointing you to where the fandom was. Like newbie pages, or a list of popular mailing lists, that kind of thing. I miss those.<<

Well, anyone can write a newbie page. Finding communities might be hard, but you could ask people to notify you of them, and you could list where to find the canon and some major fanworks. That's a start.

Actually, that'd be a great resource for allbingo because sometimes folks want to play a fest but don't know its fandom or where to start. If you want to write newbie pages, there's one place it would be highly useful. And that might inspire other folks to do the same.

Re: Try this ...

[ratcreature]

The last bit was not asking for actionable things. It was a point of somewhat nostalgic wishful musings.

I already started two communities here, only one of which I have managed to keep alive, and that was at time when DW was more active than now. I am not a successful fannish infrastructure person even if conditions are favorable.

And I don't want to write newbie pages for fandoms I am new to, I uselessly wish the first website related to your fandom you stumble across still listed three mailing lists, one canon overview resource page and a webring of pages, i. e. I wish for the internet ca. 1998 back.

Re: Try this ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, I'd like to have 1998 back for a lot of reasons. This century sucks.

[krait]

Bookmarks are so great. I have 500+, all public, and have been slowly trying to add notes to them because I find that it makes them 200% more useful to have some indicator of *why* I bookmarked something. :D

[ratcreature]

Yay for bookmarking! I gave over three thousand on AO3, most of them public. But I'm generally too lazy to add notes.

The most I manage (and that's only sometimes) is to c&p the author and title because it drives me crazy if the work is deleted later, and I don't know what my bookmark was. A few times I painfully compared download time stamps in calibre to reconstruct what it was...

[krait]

Part of my note-adding definitely includes noting the title and author, for the same reason you mentioned - nothing worse than seeing "This work has been deleted!" and having no idea even what fandom it was!

[mllesatine]

I thought I was doing well with over 500 bookmarks but 3000 is very impressive. :)

[silveradept]

There's not as much information out these days that's meant for new people to do an unfamiliar canon, or for people new to a place to understand what kind of space they're stepping into. I wonder how much that has to do with general worries about the marauding bands of anti-fans and the ease at which they can bring pressure against any person who wants to be fannish in a public space.

Public bookmarks are very nice, when they're rec things. I think a lot of people use them for "read later" rather than "good things."

[ratcreature]

I use my bookmarks for "I have read this" and since I don't finish fanfic I dislike, they aren't recs in the sense of favorites, but they are still a kind of "thumbs up". I use the "mark for later" button for unread things.

[mllesatine]

Reddit is an excellent source when it comes to information. I just checked the translation of a bit of Farsi in an episode of "What we do in the shadows" but I've never seen any fanfiction posted there.

I also have a few people I check in on twitter since it's the only space I know that lets you post graphic art but it's a lot of fandom drama there. Apparently people get harrassed by the morality police and now a lot of the top posts are passive aggressive preemptive declarations I can do without.

[ratcreature]

I'm into some Rusty Quill podcasts, and from what I understand the popular Reddit spaces are moderated by the creators? Which isn't my preferred fandom setup. There apparently also was a Discord that they had to shut down because of some sort of drama, that passed me by entirely except that I saw some vaguely baffling tweets...

[mllesatine]

Oh yeah, I was confused by a popular magnus archive tag that specified that a fanfic shouldn't be archived in the official archive (or something like that). Even reading about the possibility that a creator might read fanfic makes me uncomfortable.

Not sure about the moderation part but yes, reddit has a reputation for creators reading along especially when it comes to theories about certain plot points. And I also heard that creators then change the outcome because fans figured stuff out and we can't have that.

[ratcreature]

As a long time comic fan (whose first fandom experiences in the pre-internet days were comic cons and zines) I'm somewhat used to creators also being fans, but for me it starts to feel weirder with anything involving actors, because you kind of fantasize about their bodies along with a character fantasy, and to some extent that's even true for voice actors with podcasts. And with the actual play podcasts like Rusty Quill Gaming their RPG characters are kind of intertwined with the actual people who play them.

Like way back in comic fandom somebody reposted a slash artwork I had done on a message board that was frequented also by DC comic writers and I was really annoyed about the reposting without permission (and they removed my sig, iirc, and also it was done by obnoxious comic bros who found Batman and Nightwing kissing funny and mocked it, but whatever) but that didn't feel awkward. Whereas when I hear of fans shoving slash art at actors in a fandom I'm in, it makes me cringe, even if I had nothing to do with it.

[spikedluv]

that newer fandoms I've become interested in would also happen here on DW

Same!

Oh man, I recall writing some fandom posts for newbieguide! Eons ago.

[ratcreature]

I never wrote any, but I remember checking them out first thing, and sometimes picking up a new canon or pairing.

Fandom just seems much less "spatial" these days. :/ You still see the occasional ship manifesto and such but not really guides to fandoms.