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morgandawnFandom usually jumps into technologies, uses them, and then acts surprised when we realize that we have no clue what we're doing or how the use of the new tech has changed an aspect of our fandom culture. Right now a few authors are posting notices that you need permission to link to their fanworks in "public spaces". Or that they'd prefer their readers comment on their fic where it was originally posted. Each author gets to unilaterally define what is public with the expectation that every reader will follow because that is part of the "social contract". So for today Goodreads = public and is not a place to list or review fanfic. Tumblr is OK (for now) because it is not seen as a "public" space.*
It used to be easier to know what to expect of other fans but the moment we went online, the fannish social contract was voided due to sheer size and complexity of online interactions. Add the fact that new platforms and new ways of interacting keep coming out every 20 minutes and you have a hot conceptual mess filled with poorly understood expectations.
I know that when we went online in the 1990s few of us had any idea that fans would be publicly posting their porn fanfic** to open access websites (no. stop. think of the children!), displaying their explicit art where anyone could see (blush), and tweeting their love of RPS and knotting fic (OMGWTFBB!). By those standards, we have all breached the original fannish social contract of keeping fandom a "safe space" simply by interacting with one another in public and online. And I suspect that 20 years down the road, we will again struggle to recognize "fandom" as it continues to be reshaped by technology.
So I would rather see us practice mindfulness and awareness that the tools and platforms we use change us and our culture instead of snapping at one another because we've changed and that we no longer know what to expect from one another.
Because to be honest, I have no clue any more. And I'd be wary of anyone who claims otherwise.
*Keep in mind that most fans don't bother to turn off Google indexing on their tumblr blogs (or their LJ...or their DW..or their twitter or their.....). And even if they do, every time someone else reblogs your content, if *their blog* is searchable by Google it will still be "public".
**A few of us did have in inkling but we all kept it quiet because we did not want to scare our fellow fans with our crazy visions of the future filled with flying fans sporting jetpack keyboards and tinhats.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 01:09 am (UTC)I am fascinated by the outrage on Tumblr, because I feel like you do, see what you're seeing: Tumblr's already so far out there from our flocked/robot&spider blocked LJ/DWs that I can't believe people are surprised that others would consider their fic Good Reads discussion worthy.
We come across this ever so often (like remember the fic of fic debate where we tried to establish what can be used to transform and what can't or the can you link to tiny LJs and what if you have a huge following, is that ethical), and you nailed what's happening when fandom mores change and different fandom etiquettes clash (or new fans simply invent their own!).
Anyway, thanks for a great post!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 01:48 am (UTC)Now everything seems 'out there' but the understanding is not - recently, I was asked to explain the difference between fanfiction and original fiction (during a workshop) and I think I managed well enough, but clearly the questions asked were born out of false knowledge ("Yes, 50 Shades was fanfiction in origin. No, it wasn't copied from Twilight." etc etc)
Anyway, yes, the tools change us.
Also, can you share your Tumblr name? I'm phantomas37 :)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 01:53 am (UTC)On the one hand, fanfic is not, for the most part, "books" in the sense that Goodreads was intended to review.(Especially not now, with it being owned by Amazon.) GR is a social platform intending to sell books for Amazon, where they didn't have to develop the infrastructure and upkeep is minimal--and part of "minimal upkeep" means "fuck if we're going to bother setting standards about what 'is' or 'is not' a book. If someone wants to post a cereal box and review the artwork and nutritional data text, shrug."
On the other, I can quite understand fanfic authors getting upset that they're getting reviews from people who don't understand canon, who are reading fanfic as if it were commercially-oriented short stories or novels.
On the gripping hand... I am so, SO VERY glad AO3 exists and that the unwanted attention this will bring to fandom (because it'll bring some) will be noted and addressed by the OTW, rather than the owners of fanfiction.net or wattpad or livejournal. That anyone who screams "this so-called book is nothing but copyright infringement of [favorite other book]!!!' will be faced with a whole academic journal and several congressional hearings' worth of documentation that no, it's not.
As far as the data itself being dragged to GR--the titles, authors, a cover assigned by librarian whim, original summary and new commentary... as uncomfortable as that makes some authors, it's not illegal to make lists and links of content elsewhere on the web. GR's a mashup of del.icio.us and Yelp, focused on "books," an undefined topic; plenty of people screamed about their business showing up on either of those sites, and fandom, for the most part, ignored them. If we think it's reasonable to bitch about a hotel because their restaurant service sucks when the customers are in costume, well, the public is allowed to gripe about a story that doesn't make sense if you haven't read a series of novels first.
It doesn't stop being remix culture because the mundanes are doing it.
(The idea of tumblr not being "a public space".... oh ghods my sides hurt from laughing. Just because your stuff won't get noticed in the constant confetti blizzard of LOOKIT LOOKIT LOOKIT does not make it less public.)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:10 am (UTC)*prints this out and frames it*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:24 am (UTC)Miscellaneous people with accounts on Goodreads are uploading AO3 (and occasionally other places) metadata. And this is not so much to Amazon's advantage (they gain nothing from fanfic being listed, and occasionally will have drama over it), but it also costs them nothing, whereas curating book listings would take a lot of time and effort.
Basically, they're not going to sort out the difference between a story published at AO3 and one published at Smashwords, or one published at NewStoriesEveryDay.com, or whatever other fic-hosting site shows up. Listings take up very little server space, and the cost of curating would be much, much higher than the cost of "just allow everything, and remove individual pages when we receive a creditable complaint."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:30 am (UTC)Cool. I'll retumblr then... (Maybe that's part of the problem...folks who think of that, the whole repetition/copy of text/image as the default?)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:32 am (UTC)Yes, brilliant and highly quotable!!!
And yes, I think it's so bizarre that the folks getting upset are coming from Tumblr. I don't post anything there because it IS so public and out there...
/retreats to her flock...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:47 am (UTC)I am not saying fans are using Calibre to sync fanfic lists with GR, but it is an example of how hard it is to maintain separation. And that most of us want ease of access and seamless integration - we just don't foresee how it all plays out (in fact...see the next paragraph).
Another fallacy is that the people who are listing fanfiction and commenting on it are not "fans". I saw this sad post from one GR fan today who said they understood "we" do not consider them part of fandom: http://meeedeee.tumblr.com/post/105403359911/hi-i-hate-bothering-you-but-your-ao3-profile (and yes, I have seen this point made over and over on tumblr).
The comment was made in the context that when the fanfic titles and authors are deleted from GR, all of *the reader's* added content (the lists of what they've read/what they want to read, their comments, their reviews) that are part of their GR accounts are being deleted. It would be like me deleting my blog and taking with it any post you had made in your blog that mentioned me.
examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Date: 2014-12-17 02:49 am (UTC)"[My fan stories] are not meant for casual public consumption, they are fanworks meant to be shared in a specific and protected community."
"Including fan fic in the Good Reads database isn’t against the ToS of Good Reads, but *think* about this stuff before you do it! And respect a culture you are not a member of."
"Fandom migration: It would be different if I actually migrated here and used this platform."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 02:51 am (UTC)Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Date: 2014-12-17 03:00 am (UTC)Fannish clubs at colleges aren't real fandom; only conventions are.
Zine fandom isn't real fandom; only fan clubs are.
Digital zines aren't real fandom; they have to be on paper.
ff.net isn't real fandom; anyone can post there--you need to be in a zine.
tumblr isn't real fandom; it's just kids pointing and squeeing.
On the one hand, yes, it's bizarre to have Harry/Draco fic being reviewed and judged by people who don't know thing one about fanfic. On the other, it's not like fandom doesn't have its share of sporking reviewers who ignore whatever context the author intended and discuss the raw contents of the fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:11 am (UTC)it then created a stub for me as author with no other info. It did not pull in anything from other social media sites.
I then sent a message using a form linked on the stubby author page to claim my profile - no one else except a librarian can edit it.
but yes gr does benefit hugely from the volunteer efforts of librarians.
as to why they decided to allow ff on goodresds until an author objects -check the links in the fanlore page. It reads more like a compromise plus less to police. At least it was until now
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:19 am (UTC)I'm not sure they could easily forbid entries from "fanfic archives." Does that include Wattpadd, which is used for fanfic and original fic? (AO3 allows original work.) Does it include private author webpages, where an author might post chapters or a whole work as a free sample?
Deciding what a "fanfic archive" is, is likely more work than the Amazonian managers of GR want to bother with. Unless they're likely to get sued over something, I suspect they're going to go with "a book is whatever the librarians decide to list as a book."
Fanfic archives are easy for fanfic readers/writers to identify, and to separate from "general fic archives that may allow some fanfic." But for non-fanfic readers, I'm not sure it's anywhere near as obvious. E.g. while Smashwords has a "no fanfic" rule, it's buried in their TOS (and relates to copyright; new Sherlock Holmes works should be fine)--and the whole Jekkara Press line is genderflipped versions of public domain works.
There's another issue, in that GR doesn't require links--you can review books that have no presence on Amazon or anywhere else online. And GR's limited staff is certainly not going to go poring through every "favorite book from childhood" to try to find out if the book is a "real book" or a fanfic thing.
I agree with you on several points--GR profits from other people's work, and their standards are lax to allow that. And that sucks.
I just don't agree that it'd be easy enough for them to prevent fanworks--first, they'd have to *care* that some of the "books" listed are fanfic or otherwise "not real books," and then someone would have to convince them it was a problem, and then they'd have to deal with the complexity of defining fanfic or "fanfic archive;" I'm pretty sure that GR is going to invest approximately zero hours on this.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:23 am (UTC)only the author can claim their profile. But they do create an author profile for every work added so books can be linked together.
librarians are the only ones who can do higher level edits like remove duplicates or incorrect entries
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:35 am (UTC)Also you need to be a librarian to clean up a Listopia list. Even the creators can't do it, although anyone can add books to them. I went through that hassle just a couple months ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:38 am (UTC)May I quote you?
Everywhere?
Re: examples of how goodread fans are not "real" fans
Date: 2014-12-17 03:44 am (UTC)"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:49 am (UTC)https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/54428714?comment=111100055&page=2#comment_111100055
was that when a reader creates a manual entry they can add info about the author or the story. And this is where many fan writers are (rightfully) concerned when they find their enthusiastic reader has linked to the author's blogs or tumblr accounts etc. The good news is that this info is not auto-populated. The bad news is that it is not auto-populated. which means anything can be added.
Info on the author cannot be added to their profile page by the average user - but if you are a SuperUser (Librarian) you can edit the author's page (and again link to a blog or tumblr). The good news is that once you claim your profile you can eliminate this. The bad news is that you have to know the profile is there.
Think of all the website scrapers running right now that are pulling info from your blog and your tunblr and your twitter and your Youtube account (and yes your AO3 pages which are indexed by Google) and you can see how impossible it is to limit what gets added where. At the very least, GR will remove the info, but most of these other aggregator websites will not. The only way to limit this info is to lock access.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:52 am (UTC)Cleaning up and such requires librarian status; adding books to the database doesn't. That's almost certainly part of the problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 03:59 am (UTC)Fandom really doesn't have a lock on "share and tweak info with people who will enjoy it."