paraka | Question

Question

So, I've spent most of the day reading up on what people are saying about the OTW are saying. Mostly from non-fandom people, and it's kind of making me want to shoot things, but I was wondering:

What do you think about the OTW? Would you like an archive? A written fannish history? A wiki (OMG, I can't tell you how much I'd like a wiki for fandom, although I can see it being vandalized a lot)? Do you think it's a good idea to have a legal defense fund? If the OTW were ever to go to court, would you support them?

I'm planning on making a post sometime about how I feel about it, but I'm really curious as to what other people on my flist think about it. I think so far only one person on my flist has really written about it, but I spent a couple months away so could have totally missed something.

Also, I am having a bitch of a time working on a mysql database, any one know enough about setting up eFiction to want to help?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

...hmm, it looks like I was thinking faster than I was typing when I wrote that, what I actually *meant* to say was the people who say they don't want to be part of the OTW and the OTW should fuck off (not that I think the people who don't want to be included should fuck off, that kind of goes against what I was saying before...)

Haha, I hate when I do that.

Wow, is that ever a bad idea.
Can you imagine if the OTW went out there saying "We're here to help should there be legal troubles... unless you're into RPF, then you're SOL"

I think it depends how they approach it. There are a couple reasons I think OTW would benefit from cutting RPF out of legal/advocacy work:

- the culture of RPFandom where it doesn't have a community that comes mainly from media fandom is different than the culture of media fandom (this is a hugely broad statement, I know, just liberally apply "for the most part"s all over, lol). To me, misrepresenting that culture - as they have done several times - is worse than saying "At the moment, we don't feel our knowledge of RPFandom is extensive enough to represent it properly in our advocacy work. RPF will always be welcome in our archive, and RPFers are of course welcome in the Organization, but while we work with members of RPF communities to broaden our understanding, we will refrain from advocating something we don't feel we understand fully."

- The legal issues surrounding RPF are very different from those concerning media-based fandom, and I haven't seen any evidence they understand those. I know they're not after changing laws or being revolutionary, but if they're offering any sort of legal help I'd feel more comfortable if I felt they understood what the specific issues were. And again, it's all in how they handle it. "Of course we want to help any and every one in fandom who may run into legal trouble, but we offer this help with the admittance that, being mainly media fandomers ourselves, our knowledge of the legalities surrounding RPF is somewhat limited. We are always working to educate ourselves further, and we will absolutely not turn away anyone looking for help, but we want you to be aware RPF is not our area of expertise."

So not necessarily cutting it out fully (although, really, I'd be far more comfortable if they DID cut RPF out of their advocacy work because already I've seen bloggers referring to fandom-as-a-whole with "media fandom", and ARGH), but even just admitting their limitations would make me a happy camper.

Not that I'm condoning it, but, I think they've become a little overwhelemed by fandoms response, and they're taking the time to give official responses, rather than just have volunteers go out and give what they think is the correct answer. I know that at last night's chat, they would take a while to answer because all the mod type people had a separate chat going on where they discussed what to say.

Oh yeah, I get why...but at the same time, I think if they see a discussion getting heated, or going on for quite a while, at least stepping in with a little "interesting point, we're discussing this and I'll be back with a real answer later" note would be better than nothing.

I still think that they'd be better off though, writing up a better FAQ, and having more chances for people to openly ask questions.

Definitely. I think the chat was a step in the right direction (and I hate that I couldn't make it for more than a few minutes at a time) and I'm glad they scrapped the original plan for a room that only allowed 25 people at a time; I think the TOS/TOU focus group is a step that way, too. I know opening things up to community scrutiny can be problematic in a getting-things-done sense, but with the way fandom operates, taking community input at every opportunity is probably the best PR move they could make.

Where OTW runs into trouble, really, is they have to please two worlds at once - the "outside" world, and fandom. And both worlds require different things (for example, the board using their legal names and not disclosing their fannish identities - the legal names are what the outside world wants, but especially in the wake of FanLib, fandom's more concerned with proof of fannish involvement...so how do they please both and still maintain their privacy?), and every time those requirements conflict and they decide one way or the other, they're risking pissing off one side.

So what it really comes down to is deciding which side to come down on for which issue - like, for advocacy work they should probably favor the outside world more, for tools like the archive it's obviously more important to please fandom.

It's an interesting tightrope to walk, and one I'm not sure I envy ;)

Hmm, I suppose, but I more saw it as, "People always complian about how the resources we have don't fit fandom properly, or we're shocked when they don't take into account fandoms needs. Some people try to fix this, but it's too much for one person alone, so here's a big group with a lot of support that will stand a better chance of fixing this."

It's really all down to interpretation, innit. I'm not arguing (and have never intended to argue) the people seeing OTW in a positive light are wrong (and no OTW-thoughts post pisses me off more than those that try to say the dissenters are wrong because they disagree with the OP - to that end, and considering the person who linked me here has a bad habit of linking me to the THE WHINERS ARE WRONG BECAUSE OTW ROOLZ posts, this post was rather refreshing). I think what they need to succeed, in the end, will be a healthy mix - the positive encouragement, and the whiners like me finding weak spots. And sometimes the supporters will miss glaring weak spots in their excitement, and sometimes the dissenters will find problems where there are none, because no one's perfect...but if the supporters get upset that the dissenters exist and drive them all away, someday one of those weak spots that got missed will bring down OTW. And if the dissenters drive away the supporters, I doubt there's anyone on Earth who wouldn't get fed up with the constant nitpicking and start wondering why the Hell they even bother.

not contributing to a wiki based on who runs it just never occurred to me.
It's actually a pretty big factor to a lot of people. Fandom after all is one big school ground where the cool kids are still the ones with the influence. I know that when I had recently joined a fandom, I tried to start an archive for it, because the main one was shut down (because the owner decided they had had enough, and they didn't even give the members any warning). I had a few people help me out, and managed to get it up really quickly, but because I wasn't well known, and the people helping me out weren't BNFs, my archive was quickly overshadowed by one that was opened much later by BNFs. Even though I had contacted all of the authors who had posted on the site that was taken down, they all decided that they'd rather wait for a BNF to put up a site than trust someone they didn't know. There were other factors involved too, but that was a really big one.

Not contributing because a wiki is only as good as its contributors, however, really doesn't make sense to me.
It does and it doesn't for me. On the one hand it's a self fulfilling prophecy, but on the other hand, do you really want to put a lot of work into something when you're not sure it'll take off? That no one else in your fandom is going to care? If the owner/members don't care enough to work to get us to contribute, why should I (generalized I here) waste my time trying to do so. Especially when there's another one around the corner that *is* trying to get my attention. That is doing it's best to get a wide variety of members, and is going to be attached to something that by it's nature will be getting a lot of traffic and a wide variety of members.

The wiki's the one area they appear to be doing the exact same thing as someone else in fandom
I still don't think that's a reason for them not to do it. If only because as a bigger more well known group of people, with a wide variety of members, theirs is going to be bigger and offer things to more people than the one that already exists. And while *some* people are willing to take the time to go fill in a wiki, most just want to show up and have information there for them, so that respect the current wiki is failing.
The OTW is also probably going to be taking a slightly different approach to how they build and organize their wiki, so it won't actually be exactly the same.

I happen to think - and I'll be careful how I word this, because I've seen her get really criticized for sounding self-centered when she said this - I would've liked to see them contact her.
If the owners reason for not contacting the OTW is because she feels that they should have contacted her, then it's no wonder that people feel she's being self-centered. That's not really an excuse at all.
When it comes down to it, she's not a threat to the OTW; there are a hell of a lot more people devoted to ff.net than there are to the wiki.
Cont...

The OTW probably feels that they can do their thing, and let her do hers. Most of fandom has never heard of her wiki, so they're not feeling any bad feelings. She's the one that's feeling threatened (and to be honest, the site has been open since 2005, and there's less than 8000 articles, I don't think the OTW is going to have any problems reaching that number in far less time), so as mean as it sounds, she needs the OTW more than they need her. If she feels her site is threatened by what the OTW is doing, she has two options, do what she thinks is best for fandom (whether it means joining or staying where she is); do whatever she thinks will put her hard work, and the work of other who have contributed to it’s best use. Or she can sit on the fence and talk about how they’re not treating her properly, not giving her efforts the respect the deserve.

But like I said, setting up the basics for a wiki is easy, the code is open source after all, the real effort is getting information put into the wiki, and the OTW already has enough support all over to make that part easy too. The don’t really need to the existing wiki to move forward, and I really can’t see them extending that courtesy to the wiki owner when they haven’t done so to any of the other groups that they are making an alternative for just because in this case, there’s only one other main alternative (there are a ton of fandom specific wiki’s out there already).

I think they would've benefitted from talking to archivists and other fannish people of influence from more varied backgrounds earlier.
Umm, Naomi is an archivist. She's the one who created the Automated Archive software that a lot of archives are based off of, and has been running archive for almost 14 years. Didn't I also hear that the creator of Skyhawke is volunteering with them? And reading the bios of the board, one of them also runs a huge Buffy archive. They seem to have a lot of experience to me....

do you really want to put a lot of work into something when you're not sure it'll take off?

For some reason it makes more sense to me worded like that, lol. I always think of it as "I'm not doing any work until I see other people doing it", which just seems like a silly argument to me. "I don't want to waste my time until I'm sure this'll go somewhere" still isn't something that resonates with me, but I get it more.

I think where I have trouble talking about the Wiki issue is I'm friends with the FanHistory owner, so I have trouble removing my bias.

I don't, and won't claim to, know what her reasons were for wishing they'd contacted her.

From where I'm sitting it contributes to that idea of "we're gonna come in and do all these things right since obviously no one else can"...and to some extent time will tell on that.

I have a hard time seeing how a fandom wiki could be fundamentally different than another fandom wiki, but if OTW's IS noticeably different, that'll probably appease me.

If they just do the same thing over again? Good reason or not, I personally have an issue with them coming in and duplicating something I know a lot of time and effort has gone into without so much as a nod at the original. Which, I suppose, is all down to personal issues. That bothers me, there are lots of people who aren't bothered by it.

Umm, Naomi is an archivist. She's the one who created the Automated Archive software that a lot of archives are based off of, and has been running archive for almost 14 years. Didn't I also hear that the creator of Skyhawke is volunteering with them? And reading the bios of the board, one of them also runs a huge Buffy archive. They seem to have a lot of experience to me....

Oh! I didn't mean to imply there's no experience there - "more varied backgrounds" is the important part of that sentence. Their experience is almost exclusively media-based, LJ-centered and female. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those, but their collective knowledge is all gleaned from similar experiences, and I think they'd only benefit from reaching out to different corners of fandom.

Ok, I don't really have time to reply properly to your comments, since I'm going to be leaving in a few minutes to spend New Year's at a friends, but here's the but of the transcript that applies to the RPF legal stuff (I've edited out some extra stuff like who was leaving the chat room and mod commands):
Hi! My question, shockingly, is also on
the legal side of things.
first, i want to applaud you guys for
having a big-tent approach to fannish work. it seems
like it would be easy to say, "we're here for fic
because we think we can win with fic, but the vidders
are on their own," etc.
however, RPS in particular seems to have
its own set of legal issues, yet i've only seen
comment so far on the fanfic/fanvid side of things.
are you guys working on specific
messages/defenses for RPS/RPF?
I will start by saying that probably we
will set up a chat with Rebecca Tushnet, our head of
Legal, who can give the really correct answers to all
the legal questions
well, from a CommRel perspective, as well.
not being a lawyer, I will say that my
understanding from our discussions is that RPS/RPF are
on much more solid and understood ground
legally speaking
with respect to libel?
we definitely *are* concerned about them
in terms of caring about RPS and RPF
and wanting to protect them too
libel/defamation/slander you are totally
safe as long as it is clear the work is fiction
in my nonlawyer understanding!
right.
are there other legal aspects for RPF
that you are specifically concerned about?
since RPF pushes a good number of people's
squick buttons pretty hard, is OTW going to work on a
"message" about why it's legit?
and why it's included?
let me actually answer this more
generally -- we are not looking to judge squick/squee,
period. that is, we have zero desire as an org to get
into the business of deciding what is "worthy" or
"good" and don't think it is our place
we're going to include everything that
our legal team tells us we can that does not risk
getting us sent to jail :>
ha ha, awesome. thanks.
(Anything else, Lottelita?)
not at the moment!

The things I have had a chance to read though hasn't been able to dampen my enthusiasm though.

Cool!

I'd like a fan history wiki that is transparent, group owned (aka not owned by one person or persons + persons who are accountable and unlikely to wander off). I also like the idea of seeing more articles etc discussing and documenting women in fan history. A central archive would be a nice complement (not a replacement) to the thousands of existing archives. And of course having some legal assistance or legal direction is all good.

In short, what I like about OTW is that it is a large group, a bit more formal/professional than your typical fan endeavor, less likely to be taken over by one single person/group and well funded. And that is is not trying to be (and frankly never will be able to be) the exclusive owner of fannish works or history.

In short, a good start with lots of room for others to branch off and still do their own thins.

I've been following OTW since it's first glimmer in a few BNFs personal journals and, while I'm ambiguous about the tenor of the organization, I'm pretty positive about several of the things they're trying to do.

I'm very interested in a central archive, so long as there's no cost to join and they do not have some sort of 'quality' restrictions (as 'quality' in fandom is mindbogglingly controversial, plus I don't think that sort of restriction has a place in fandom).

I suspect that the first time they are actually faced with a lawsuit, they will be very, very surprised and I remain quite concerned about the information that one of their lawyers has a very bad odor in fandom as a suspected/known plagarist. Personally, I belive that OTW is right - that fanfiction and other fanworks fall under the fair use clause of copyright law so, yes, I would support them if they were taken to court.

However: there are several fan wikis out there including: http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Main_Page which has been in existence for several years but is still struggling to get its existence out. I thing the owner has some trouble with ... objectivity however she is committed to allowing the wiki to be edited, created and modified to expand the range of opinions. She is also, I think, a bandom/rockfic (not sure of the terminology here) fan and not at all personally involved in fanfiction, particularly LJ - so her knowledge of that sort of material is limited. She is, in fact, putting out a call for fandom to help her with the wiki, to expand the information, do fact checking and so on. There are others, I belive theres a spesifc fanwiki.

(pardon the happy new year spelling ;/)

I just wanted to step in to correct some things. :)

I'm a Star Trek fan. I came into the Star Trek fandom on-line around 1994 on Prodigy's message boards and when Prodigy first began allowing access to the web. I was actively involved in the Babylon 5 fandom from 1996 to 1999 or so. During that same period, I was also involved with the Sailor Moon and X-Files fandom. In 2000, I was on staff at FanFiction.Net with Steven Savage. I ran Writers University based on the site. (I could get more into my fandom pedigree, but erf. Like all fans involved heavily, it gets loads of wanky.) I'm currently semi-actively in the CSI fandom and following large bits of other fandoms.

I just look like I'm in bandom because, as an outside interest beyond my own fandom involvement, I've been interested in since I founded FanDomination.Net, where I found a lot of my administrative work dealt with Good Charlotte, AFI, Mest fans. Because of that, I immersed myself in that community. I made contacts with other bandfic communities like RockFic. Through these, I became obsessed with bandom... I've really, really, really spent way too much time researching that community's history.

That all said, I'm aware that I have bias issues. :/ I've taken steps to help alleviate that. They include Adding a Neutral Point of View Dispute header (http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Fanhistory.com:Neutral_point_of_view), (And I use it for articles when I spot them where I know I have issues. Most recently, this included the article on William Petersen.) explained where I am bias and what steps I am taking to fix that (http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/User:Laura/Resolved) (And I've made sure others are editing those articles since I've posted that) and included some of the bias related fixing stuff on the Books to do list (http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Fanhistory.com:Books_to_do...).

The lack of user contributions is a problem. The solution has been to reach out, as widely as possible, to tell people about the wiki and ask for their help. As a result, traffic has been up. Fan History had over 23,000 unique visitors in December. We've been averaging around ten plus unique contributors a day. The feeling I have, based on discussion with other contributors, is that Fan History is about six months away from being able to self generate traffic and being utilized more widely.

There are a number of existing fandom related history projects out there that rock. There are also wiki related ones. http://directorium.org/Home is a fantastic wiki which could have been consulted and changed the scope of. http://wiki.fandomwank.com/ might be wanky but they have a really good basis of historical information that could be utilized. There are also a number of fandom specific wikis which deal with history: http://www.dariawiki.org/ , and http://creekfandom.wikispaces.com and http://swfanon.wikia.com/ are the ones that are pretty good starting places. Mary Ellen Curtin's Foresmutters Project is not a wiki but it is a pretty exhaustive fan history related projected. Comic fandom and science fiction fandom both have their own share of historians. http://www.fanac.org/ is one of the best fandom history projects out there. Good stuff. (Music fandom does not have the same historical bent as the other two. Anime is hit or miss. Their focus tends to be more oriented on the product history than on fandom itself and I'm really digressing.)

As someone who strongly believes that most, if not all, fanfiction is legal, I'm very excited about OTW. Whether or not we "need" a multifandom archive, it will be very nice to have that resource available -- an archive that is run by people who will not run scared at the first sight of takedown notices and the like. But you knew that already. :)

I'd like a glossary, at least. Some kind of translation into plain English so people who don't speak tl;dr can understand what the hell they're talking about.

If they just do the same thing over again? Good reason or not, I personally have an issue with them coming in and duplicating something I know a lot of time and effort has gone into without so much as a nod at the original.

Er, yeah, pretty much where I stand as well, as someone who's put a lot of time and work into the FanHistory wiki at this point and not inclined to repeat those efforts just for the sake of repeating myself elsewhere.

I think the idea of OTW is a good one. They may not be doing everything as perfectly as some folks wish, but their intentions are good.

I have to say I agree with the opinions about not wanting the Powers That Be coming in and sweeping away everything fandom has - the idea of building some sort of defence against that is very heartening.

On the other hand, my ever-present cynical side wants to sit back and wait and see how things pan out.

Ok, back from holidays, but only on my lunch, so I probably won't be able to respond to everything.

"At the moment, we don't feel our knowledge of RPFandom is extensive enough to represent it properly in our advocacy work. RPF will always be welcome in our archive, and RPFers are of course welcome in the Organization, but while we work with members of RPF communities to broaden our understanding, we will refrain from advocating something we don't feel we understand fully."
Well, the impression that I got from the chat is that they are acknowledging that they don't know all the legal ins about outs involved with RPF, but they don’t know all the legal ins and outs of FPF either, but they are going to invest time into learning those ins and outs in case anything ever comes of it in court.
I also got the impression that if it does ever go to court, they’re going to do whatever to win that specific case, and they’re not going to try and make it about *all* fanfiction. It might be used as precedence in a case later, but they’re not going to try and mash all fandom in as one thing.

if they're offering any sort of legal help I'd feel more comfortable if I felt they understood what the specific issues were. And again, it's all in how they handle it. "Of course we want to help any and every one in fandom who may run into legal trouble, but we offer this help with the admittance that, being mainly media fandomers ourselves, our knowledge of the legalities surrounding RPF is somewhat limited. We are always working to educate ourselves further, and we will absolutely not turn away anyone looking for help, but we want you to be aware RPF is not our area of expertise."
Except… they’d end up saying that an awful lot.
So far, most of the focus has been on fanfic, media fanfic if you’d like, but they’re offering their services for all fanworks, this includes things like vids, and artwork made, it includes fan videos (scripted acts) and manips. It includes book fandoms, TV fandoms, movie fandoms and the RP fandom (and probably more that I can’t think of at the moment).
The main lawyer they have on the board is American. What if it’s an Australian that needs legal help? Are they to put a warning up that they only know American law?
The purpose of the legal side of things is to *build* a case, any knowledge that they bring to the table now is just a bonus. And they want to develop a network of contacts so they can have people to call on in case something is beyond their current abilities, but that being said, if the lawyers that are on the board are professionals, then I would think they’d be professional enough to take what’s given to them. Each case is going to need it’s own research, each case is probably going to need outside help, it’s just a matter of where to go for that outside help.
So yeah, I don’t think the RPF writer is much less represented than a Canadian vid maker (like me).

Oh yeah, I get why...but at the same time, I think if they see a discussion getting heated, or going on for quite a while, at least stepping in with a little "interesting point, we're discussing this and I'll be back with a real answer later" note would be better than nothing.
I think though, that while certainly in some cases they’d be able to do that without any problems, it’s a little too much to ask for the board to go out searching for discussions all over the internet and try and answer questions. I mean, have a look at

metafandom and how so many of the posts are about the OTW lately, and that’s just the ones they’re catching. There are a ton of other discussions happening in a ton of different places (including message boards, blogs that aren’t on LJ, mailing lists, in RL, you name it), and I don’t think they’re going to be able to track them all down.
Instead what they’re doing is providing people with a place to come to them with such questions. Despite the fact that people seem to be really confused over the OTW and their stance on things, the chat last week had very few people there. I don’t think there was ever more than 30 people in the room, and about 6 of those were from the OTW.

Where OTW runs into trouble, really, is they have to please two worlds at once - the "outside" world, and fandom.
Yeah, that’s definitely going to be their big problem, and at the moment I kind of feel that they’re moving in more of a RL mode than a fannish one, but I think if they’re a legal company they have to. That’s why they’re using real names instead of fannish ones, because it’s required by law, but I also think that most people know their fannish names as well, at least if they’re a person who would know their fannish names already.
Personally, I think that working in a RL mode is more important at the moment, and I just wish that fandom would realize that they need to. If we are ever taken to court, it’s really important that the OTW can be looked at and seen as a professional organization and not as a group of squeeing fan girls.

considering the person who linked me here has a bad habit of linking me to the THE WHINERS ARE WRONG BECAUSE OTW ROOLZ posts, this post was rather refreshing).
Well like I said, I have my gut reaction, but I see that it’s not everyone’s reaction, so want more info (and am too lazy to read the 50 million posts about it right away, I’m working on it though, about 10 down only 49,999,950 to go :P)

I think what they need to succeed, in the end, will be a healthy mix - the positive encouragement, and the whiners like me finding weak spots.
And I’m not saying that people shouldn’t point out weak spots, but I must admit, I’m getting rather tired of people not giving them a chance to work things out. It seems that some people want things to be done perfectly or not at all. That if they aren’t recognized in their own unique way, then the OTW shouldn’t even try.
Every group has it’s bumps, and hurdles to get over, the OTW just needs to be given a chance to try.

I've been busy reading the new comments to this post before I knuckled under to answer you... *g*
:) Find anything interesting?
Sorry it took me forever to respond, I got swept up in the holidays....

Vidding. That is another whole new ballgame when we are talking about C&D's. And I think it is a situation that OTW would be mad to use as their first test case. It is only my personal opinion, but I think that, on a sliding scale, vidding is actually the least defencible of our fannish works.
I think on the transformative/fair use side, vidding is actually better off than fic. Have you seen this video? The real problem comes with the music we use. Because we use songs in their entirety, we're open to problems from the music owners.

RPF/RPS is probably, from my limited thought on the subject, the most easily defencible as long as it is clearly marked as fiction.
Yeah, I don't actually know that much about RPF/RPS period, but from what I understand they're pretty safe, in fact, I was linked not too long ago to a site that sells RPS books. Also, if things like the Enquirer can exsist and try and pass their crap off as possible truth, then I think fans are safe :P

FPF/fanfic would be the middle ground, with fic based on material no longer copyrighted being safe, and a test case needed to decide if fanfic based on a copyrighted property is transformative enough to avoid being derivative.
It gets me how people can write fanfics based on things that are no longer/have never been copyrighted, and have it published and be considered "real writing" or be considered "respectable authors" just because the original author has been dead for more than 70 years. The one that annoys me the most would be Anne Rice and her little tantrum over fans writing fanfiction for her books, but her recent book is basically bible fanfiction.

Well, when I spoke to the OTW at their live chat, it seems that they're not going to take on any big corporations, they're going to wait until someone takes them on first. Since I'm pretty sure the fic archive is going to be the first possibly objectionable thing up, I have a feeling that's where it's going to come up first. But who knows.

They also said that they're not going to be going to court if they don't think they can win. They might have to give into TPTB demands.

I don't think a grandfather clause, as you're explaining it, would really work. People try that with speeding tickets all the time (I wasn't the only one speeding! There were people going faster than me!). Also, a lot of the time, when a copyright holder goes after a zine, they'll go after all the zines they can find for their works.

With so much fanfic out there, it is interesting that there is still not a test case. Yes, fans do succumb to C&D's, but it is interesting that no copyright holder (and there are some vitriolic ones out there) has yet taken it beyond a C&D.
Well, unlike things like music downloading, fandom doesn't hurt the products. So the right holders aren't stupid enough to take it beyond C&Ds and fans, so far, haven't been stupid enough to not listen to the C&Ds.
That said, I still think we have a chance of winning if we do take it to court, and I think something like the OTW is a good group to do it, because they'll have the power of a large chunk of fandom behind them, rather than just being some disgruntled fan who decided not to give in, and tries to represent themselves.

Whoops! I wasn't specific enough - when I talked about them not stepping into discussions I was specifically talking about discussions in the actual

otw_news comm. My bad :)

Personally, I think that working in a RL mode is more important at the moment, and I just wish that fandom would realize that they need to.

Part of me says "right on!" to this, because yeah - squeeing fangirls don't really win hearts and minds.

But part of me...well, really, it's that space between "people shouldn't judge, so I'll act as if they don't", and "people do judge, so I'll adjust my behavior". Fandom judges, fandom wanks, fandom pries and questions and pokes at things and demands to know exactly who's trying to capitalize on them. Fandom is unlikely to shut up and just accept OTW knows what they're doing, whether they should or not, particularly if it looks like OTW's painting a big bullseye.

You are right, really - if OTW expects to deal with Real World things, it must cater to what the Real World expects. But consider the fandomers who don't want fandom to be adapted to the Real World, who will think that's what OTW's after - they're not gonna listen to "but but but the Real World".

Every group has it’s bumps, and hurdles to get over, the OTW just needs to be given a chance to try.

Most definitely.

Well, the impression that I got from the chat is that they are acknowledging that they don't know all the legal ins about outs involved with RPF, but they don’t know all the legal ins and outs of FPF either, but they are going to invest time into learning those ins and outs in case anything ever comes of it in court.

Mm, I think that section of the chat was good to hear.

they’re not going to try and mash all fandom in as one thing

But by claiming they intend to use "transformative" as a defense for RPF, they're doing just that. Rather than ask about it - and I know multiple people have given them the name of someone who's done a ton of legal RPF research - they chose to assume and just mash it in there. I suppose time will tell if that changes, but that's where my feeling they're not necessarily willing to learn comes from - times where they have chosen to assume rather than learn.

The main lawyer they have on the board is American. What if it’s an Australian that needs legal help? Are they to put a warning up that they only know American law?

Point taken.

So yeah, I don’t think the RPF writer is much less represented than a Canadian vid maker (like me).

In essence, you're right. But from a language sense, they've been very careful to keep their language inclusive of all types of fanworks - ficcing, vidding, art, etc. - while the first time anyone said "um, your language isn't so much making with the including RPF" the reaction was...less than good. But, yeah, you're right.

Well, I don't really know that much about RPF and the OTW reactions, so in this case I'm going to have to bow to your experience.

Dah! That was me, I forgot that I had deleted my cookies and would have to sign back in. Sorry about that.

Whoops! I wasn't specific enough
Ahh, I was thinking back to the chat where someone complained that the OTW is based too much on LJ, and that they should move off of LJ sice so many people are pissed with it :P

when I talked about them not stepping into discussions I was specifically talking about discussions in the actual otw_news comm
Yeah, I was a little surprised that they had a chat instead of just opening a thread on the LJ. But I think part of it is having everyone sit down at once to talk about this stuff, and also, I think the same questions are being asked over and over again, even when they do answer. Which is why I think they need a better FAQ.

But part of me...well, really, it's that space between "people shouldn't judge, so I'll act as if they don't", and "people do judge, so I'll adjust my behavior". Fandom judges, fandom wanks, fandom pries and questions and pokes at things and demands to know exactly who's trying to capitalize on them. Fandom is unlikely to shut up and just accept OTW knows what they're doing, whether they should or not, particularly if it looks like OTW's painting a big bullseye.
Yeah, but in the vein, since there are always going to be people demanding information, no matter how open they are; people saying it sucks, no matter how good they are (and people loving it no matter how bad they are) I can see why they might choose the path that gets things *done* rather than having the most open communication, since it'll work out more if they can *show* us they can do this rather than *tell* us.

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