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Fandom far afield
When was the last time you participated in fandom on the internet not through a journaling site? I don't really mean posting fanfic to something like fanfiction.net, unless you also post and discuss in the forums there. I mean discussion, meta, the posting of fanfic, the making of graphics, etc, all being share through a medium other than LJ, DW, Insane Journal, JournalFen, etc. This would be a forum, website, mailing list . . . if you did something like a fanzine, not online, I'm interested in that too.
1) What fandom was it?
2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc)
3) When was this?
4) Are you still active in that fandom?
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site?
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places?
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation?
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place?
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?)
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site?
11) Which medium do you prefer?
If it sounds like I'm doing a study, I'm not. I'm just dabbling around in this other fandom, the fen of which seems mainly to congregate around a forum rather than playing on LJ/DW. I'm wondering how many people share my experiences there. Forums used to be my main method of fandom access. I was comfortable in them and found LJ inconvenient and not very suited to my style. I became used to it because I decided a lot of cool people were here...and now I'm beginning to think it's the only way!
1) What fandom was it?
2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc)
3) When was this?
4) Are you still active in that fandom?
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site?
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places?
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation?
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place?
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?)
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site?
11) Which medium do you prefer?
If it sounds like I'm doing a study, I'm not. I'm just dabbling around in this other fandom, the fen of which seems mainly to congregate around a forum rather than playing on LJ/DW. I'm wondering how many people share my experiences there. Forums used to be my main method of fandom access. I was comfortable in them and found LJ inconvenient and not very suited to my style. I became used to it because I decided a lot of cool people were here...and now I'm beginning to think it's the only way!
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1) What fandom was it?
The Sweeney, The Professionals, MFU
2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc)
2 message boards and two mailing lists
3) When was this? within the last few days.
4) Are you still active in that fandom?
Absolutely
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site?
I rather dislike journaling sites for activities other than journaling. There's no means of seeing all the contributions, no means of keeping up with all the discussions and no proper form of archiving.
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places?
Depends on your version of "in fanom".
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation?
depends on your definition of "in fanom"
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place?
Yes there is a difference. The boards and mailing lists are as smothering, controlling, or as eager to make everyone conform to "nice"
It's hard to withold information and ignore people on mailing lists and forums. Of course you can make a kill file, but you don't cut the other person off unless you banhammer them.
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?)
Well for the Sweeney... they are terrified of it. Total no go on their turf. I knew about that before hand so it wasn't anything I mentioned, but several others have and the reaction has been... a whole lot of protesting too much ;) The Professionals and the MFU areas are quite at ease with the reality of slash.
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site?
Far easier outside a journaling site.
11) Which medium do you prefer?
Actually I like mailing lists. Great archive, easy to access from any device, easy to keep up with, great archiving.
Forums are nice as well. I really am not a fan of LJ and I use it as little as possible. You can never find anything, if you do it's always locked down, there's no sort of central area for anything, no reasonable search method, no reasonable archiving of past discussions, if you could ever find them in the first place... I have never understood the allure of journals except as journals. They work poorly for anything else.
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Yes there is a difference. The boards and mailing lists *aren't* as smothering, controlling, or as eager to make everyone conform to "nice"
It's hard to withold information and ignore people on mailing lists and forums. Of course you can make a kill file, but you don't cut the other person off unless you banhammer them.
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This is true, and I find it really annoying!
The boards and mailing lists aren't as smothering, controlling, or as eager to make everyone conform to "nice"
This seems to fit with what other people are saying, from the opposite perspective (people have mentioned the attitude on boards is more oriented towards defending your opinion. Which other people have mentioned results in more arguments and screaming matches). I wonder what it is that makes the "Cult of Nice" more prevalent on LJ.
You can never find anything, if you do it's always locked down, there's no sort of central area for anything, no reasonable search method, no reasonable archiving of past discussions, if you could ever find them in the first place... I have never understood the allure of journals except as journals. They work poorly for anything else.
I agree, for the most part. I think journaling sites as fandom hubs is a sort of ridiculous idea--whoever thought of it? But I like it here because I've found a lot of cool people here, and my fandoms are happening here. The fandoms that aren't happening here don't seem to have fen of the same sort...er, I mean, they all seem to be coming from a different perspective than me.
One thing I do think journaling works for fannishly is the fandom that is fandom. That is, something like metafandom could not exist in a forum or mailing list. You could discuss meta for a specific fandom there, and there could be a metafandom thread that collects these discussions, but fandoms on journal sites embrace pan-fandom elements, which fandoms afield are unable to do. That is, usually fandom is decentralized in LJ, and centralized on a forum, but when we're talking about "fandom" as a whole, it's the opposite way around.
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The Professionals lounge (board) used to have fairly open, adult discussion of a range of topics, although the rule was always no slash in the fanfic section. There was a Private Message circulation list for slash recs and everything. Since the membership has expanded to include some younger teenagers (who are known to be teenagers, as opposed to anyone underaged who may have stumbled across the board in the past) the atmosphere has become much less slash-tolerant. And it's remarkable in its self-policing, by the more active members these days who weren't there early on when things were freer, so they're going *oooh!* at comments that wouldn't have rattled a single cage two years ago. A lot of the slashers have decamped or aren't as involved any more.
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