ext_7189: (Default)
Joy ([identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] lettered 2010-04-22 04:09 am (UTC)

Re: Here from metafandom

For the second fandom, I found the forum there an interesting place more active than Livejournal.

This is interesting to me. I understand that many fandoms existed before journaling sites and just did not make the transition. What I'm wondering about is why some newer fandoms choose non-journaling sites (or why newer fandoms choose journaling sites--either one! ...Although on a journaling site, you could potentially just say, "hey! I saw this new show or just read this book!" and then off you go, with several other people who are doing the same thing, or who have already done it but were interested too. That is, the fandom start up cost is a lot lower on a journaling site--and seems more intuitive?)

A lot of Livejournal fandom seems to me to be media-based--live action television shows with large slash fandoms.

I think this is true, and it's why I'm so interested. Why is this so? Right now I'm interested in a fandom based around a book written in the 1850s, and there's virtually no activity on LJ, and quite a lot on a forum I found. There's also no interest in slash on this forum. I started with the Jane Austen fandom--a fandom which also never really transitioned its home bases to journal sites, and which also has very little interest in slash. I'm trying to figure out why these different sorts of fandoms spring up in these different places.

(I guess it could have something to do with what I said about fandom arising intuitively on a journal site. If a show is airing, or HP books are coming out, many people at once might mention them in passing on their journals--and then suddenly there is a fandom. If I read a book by Elizabeth Gaskell--no one on LJ cares, and I have to be more active in my seeking of fandom.)

I hate the way both forums and journaling sites manage archiving. I love reading fanfic, and I love being able to find fanfic, and in both cases it's more poorly organized than fanfic archives like the Pit of Voles and AO3.

Oh man, SO TRUE.

A forum poster of a serial story doesn't link to the previous versions; a journaling poster forgets to tag one chapter

I really don't understand forum posters who don't link, and journal posters who don't tag. Of course, I understand forgetting to tag, but I've found stories that aren't tagged at all, and I wonder . . . why are these stories here? Aren't they meant to be read? And now they are unreadable! I, as a reader, don't necessarily feel entitled, but it makes me think the author is thoughtless (which isn't necessarily true!)

It torments me when I think I've missed out on something, and I like to read fic in places I can be sure of finding all the fic there is to find.

Eeeeee! You and me both.

Thanks for your answers!

Post a comment in response:

If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting