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.)
Some clarification on Fan History
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.)