Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2016-01-02 08:51 pm
silveradept) wrote2016-01-02 08:51 pm
Entry tags:
Fannish Snowflake 02 - To Ask Is To Admit It Is Possible
In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Maybe you will grant a wish.
One of the interesting things about being an information professional is that you learn an epic amount of stuff about search - both how things get organized and how people usually traverse that organized space to find what they're looking for. This can make it look like I can work miracles when a couple of fragments of information end up being all I need to help someone find the object of resource they want, or to produce something new for them that they will enjoy.
Which makes a question like "What do you want on a wish list?" a bit off-balancing, because if I'm looking for, say, the Root/Shaw pairing from Person of Interest as anthro characters navigating the issues and ramifications that come with having extra appendages to hack and/or kill people with, I can bend a search engine to my query and be reasonably sure that if I don't get any results, it's because they haven't been written and made public yet, not because I don't know where to look.
So we're back in meta territory already, and I haven't really said anything about what sorts of fannish things I'd like, pointing out the structure things that would make the experience better for a lot of different fans. Like tags and warnings and transformative works statements. And websites that are just as good on phones and tablets as they are on desktops. Like scripts that will nicely wrap up an arbitrary amount of fiction into a portable file to be read offline or with electronic assists that come with certain formats. And strong tools to block and bury harassers, along with police departments that will take those claims seriously when presented with proof. There's a nearly-infinite amount of work to be done on the infrastructure of fandom, and that's without the jerks that are actively trying to undermine it or try to keep other people from joining in.
I want licensing structures like Creative Commons and transformative works statements that allow for playing within the structure of the copyright law, but more than that, I want a culture that ushers creative works into the public domain in a timely manner. By this point, several icons of the culture should be available for use and expansion of their stories and canons without having to cross one's fingers and pray that they not be sued for using. Fanworks are wonderful, and many of the people that create them should be able to make a living on them, as E. L. James has, but that only works if the "limited monopoly" part puts all the weight on the "limited" and not on the "monopoly". It's not as immediate an issue as, say, policing that kills people based on their race and then evades accountability for those actions, but fannish culture is impoverished even more every time a megacorp gets another copyright extension passed.
I want information professionals for fanworks. As with just about any other form of entertainment and information in the 02000s, it is not a question of managing scarcity, assuming access is possible, but a question of managing the volume in a meaningful way such that a person going to find a thing isn't deluged in such a way that they give up. Information professionals have developed tools, vocabularies, shortcuts, and methods to help them sift to find the really best thing in the pool of possibilities. Where is the Archivist of Our Own and their staff of human and robot indexers, taggers, and categorizers, planting an agreed-on interoperable framework and taxonomy on fanworks such that tools can be successfully used to find content? Who has crosswalks written so that someone can build a federated search for AO3 and fanfiction.net and any other site that wants to join in and contribute their archive such that someone can type in a fandom and get relevant results across sites? And, of course, a way of filtering and constructing such that people who have specific pairings, ratings, or warnings to select for or avoid can do so. Fandom already has a pretty robust classification system in place - maybe it just needs a machine-readable cataloging record and metadata system. This doesn't mean having to create one from scratch - if there's already a markup system or a database structure that can be put to use, use that. There's already incentive in place for fanworks to be thorough in their metadata for discoverability purposes - surely it can be harnessed and standardized in such a way as to make the machines do the work.
And perhaps most personally, I want fandom to be inclusive, not exclusive. It feels good to have people who share interests and to build a community with, and having lots of people taking part makes the feeling spread. Part of being in fandom, though, is trying to find the attitude of "what you do to be part of fandom is pretty fucking awesome" (assuming it is good faith awesomeness and not trolling or abuse or the other kinds of community behaviors that rightly get called out for violating Wheaton's Law), whether it's beginning material or the latest polished work from your favorite creator. Inclusive fandom means that people like me will be more likely to participate, even though what we're contributing isn't what people think of as fannish activity. And takes place in other people's spaces, a lot of the time.
So that's my wishlist. Maybe another challenge will actually get me to reveal something about my fandoms.
One of the interesting things about being an information professional is that you learn an epic amount of stuff about search - both how things get organized and how people usually traverse that organized space to find what they're looking for. This can make it look like I can work miracles when a couple of fragments of information end up being all I need to help someone find the object of resource they want, or to produce something new for them that they will enjoy.
Which makes a question like "What do you want on a wish list?" a bit off-balancing, because if I'm looking for, say, the Root/Shaw pairing from Person of Interest as anthro characters navigating the issues and ramifications that come with having extra appendages to hack and/or kill people with, I can bend a search engine to my query and be reasonably sure that if I don't get any results, it's because they haven't been written and made public yet, not because I don't know where to look.
So we're back in meta territory already, and I haven't really said anything about what sorts of fannish things I'd like, pointing out the structure things that would make the experience better for a lot of different fans. Like tags and warnings and transformative works statements. And websites that are just as good on phones and tablets as they are on desktops. Like scripts that will nicely wrap up an arbitrary amount of fiction into a portable file to be read offline or with electronic assists that come with certain formats. And strong tools to block and bury harassers, along with police departments that will take those claims seriously when presented with proof. There's a nearly-infinite amount of work to be done on the infrastructure of fandom, and that's without the jerks that are actively trying to undermine it or try to keep other people from joining in.
I want licensing structures like Creative Commons and transformative works statements that allow for playing within the structure of the copyright law, but more than that, I want a culture that ushers creative works into the public domain in a timely manner. By this point, several icons of the culture should be available for use and expansion of their stories and canons without having to cross one's fingers and pray that they not be sued for using. Fanworks are wonderful, and many of the people that create them should be able to make a living on them, as E. L. James has, but that only works if the "limited monopoly" part puts all the weight on the "limited" and not on the "monopoly". It's not as immediate an issue as, say, policing that kills people based on their race and then evades accountability for those actions, but fannish culture is impoverished even more every time a megacorp gets another copyright extension passed.
I want information professionals for fanworks. As with just about any other form of entertainment and information in the 02000s, it is not a question of managing scarcity, assuming access is possible, but a question of managing the volume in a meaningful way such that a person going to find a thing isn't deluged in such a way that they give up. Information professionals have developed tools, vocabularies, shortcuts, and methods to help them sift to find the really best thing in the pool of possibilities. Where is the Archivist of Our Own and their staff of human and robot indexers, taggers, and categorizers, planting an agreed-on interoperable framework and taxonomy on fanworks such that tools can be successfully used to find content? Who has crosswalks written so that someone can build a federated search for AO3 and fanfiction.net and any other site that wants to join in and contribute their archive such that someone can type in a fandom and get relevant results across sites? And, of course, a way of filtering and constructing such that people who have specific pairings, ratings, or warnings to select for or avoid can do so. Fandom already has a pretty robust classification system in place - maybe it just needs a machine-readable cataloging record and metadata system. This doesn't mean having to create one from scratch - if there's already a markup system or a database structure that can be put to use, use that. There's already incentive in place for fanworks to be thorough in their metadata for discoverability purposes - surely it can be harnessed and standardized in such a way as to make the machines do the work.
And perhaps most personally, I want fandom to be inclusive, not exclusive. It feels good to have people who share interests and to build a community with, and having lots of people taking part makes the feeling spread. Part of being in fandom, though, is trying to find the attitude of "what you do to be part of fandom is pretty fucking awesome" (assuming it is good faith awesomeness and not trolling or abuse or the other kinds of community behaviors that rightly get called out for violating Wheaton's Law), whether it's beginning material or the latest polished work from your favorite creator. Inclusive fandom means that people like me will be more likely to participate, even though what we're contributing isn't what people think of as fannish activity. And takes place in other people's spaces, a lot of the time.
So that's my wishlist. Maybe another challenge will actually get me to reveal something about my fandoms.