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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?
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?
Re: OTW Part 2
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.
Re: OTW Part 2
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.
Re: OTW Part 2
I tend to look at the fan wiki as I would a newpaper (or new program, or a history book). It's all well and good to have a really great source available to you, but it's equally important to have more than one source. Because no matter how much people try, and no matter how many people work on that source, there's still going to be biases, and certain aspects are going to be misrepresented. I personally wouldn't want people to go in and copy what they've done elsewhere, I'd rather have a new source, that offers yet another opinion, so that when I go out to research something, I have more than one option, and can, instead of copying what someone else has said, take what others have said and form my own opinions.
Also, as I said to
Re: OTW Part 2
It's going to be different if only because it's likely to be different people working on it. The OTW has come off as very academically oriented, and I think that it's likely going to show in their wiki as everyone puts their thinking caps on. They are also dealing with a whole boat load of fandoms at the moment, and so are more likely to get a wider response from them.
If they just do the same thing over again?
I actually have no problem what so ever of them doing something over again. Think of RL. How horrible would it be if there were only one history text that *everyone* used. Or only one newspaper or news channel to watch. There may be a single one that you choose to watch, but you always have the variety out there, and it keeps facts straight. Because some people will always put their bias into, or slant information a certain way, and without more than one resource for people to fact check against, they can never come to their own conclusions, and the truth just gets hidden. Fandom’s not exactly like that, but still, I think it applies to any history taking. I think it should be *required* that there be more than one source.
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.
See, and here, I would say that the other wiki has absolutely *no* claim at *all* on being original. None.
They are not the first wiki out there. They are not the first to write out fan history, or make a resource available to a community to edit/add to that records fan history, and our quirks. I doubt they’re even the first to make a fandom wiki (because I know quite a few fandom specific wiki’s out there that can be quite extensive). They may not even have been the first to put the two together, even if they’re the only real one out there now.
Just because some takes two unoriginal ideas and puts them together (in ways that are suggested by both of the other ideas) does not give them a special standard over any that might fallow. It doesn’t give them special treatment of consideration. I’m sure at one point there was only on archive out there, only one fanzine, only one rec list, but just because there’s one, doesn’t mean there can’t, or worse, *shouldn’t* be another.
Think of how much it would stunt fandom if we were told, each fandom should only have one rec list, or if you want to rec fic, you have to acknowledge that you weren’t the first to do so?
I think of archives too. Within my fandom, SGA there are multiple fandom specific archives competing for attention. Most of them run off of the eFiction archive script. Should only one be allowed? Should all the other sites have to get their own scripts (even though eFiction is free and is available to *anyone*) to be polite, or else acknowledge that another site tried it first? That’s ridiculous.
The only difference here, is that there aren’t that many fandom wiki’s out there. But you know what? That’s probably going to change in a few years anyways. Like I said, I already know of a few other fandom wiki’s out there (even if they are fandom specific), the wiki format is free and easy to use, and a lot of fans out there are willing to put in the time.
Fanfiction.net wasn’t the first multifandom archive out there when it first came into being, it just, for whatever reason, was able to make itself more popular than the others. The same is going to happen I think to fandom wiki’s. It may be your friends that is able to make that jump ahead to being *the* fandom wiki, or it could be the OTWs, or it could be someone else who makes it. Only time will tell, but I don’t think the *second* to make a wiki should have to take any more heat than the third or fourth or five hundredth, just as I don’t think anyone really has a right to be upset when another is made. And I think fandom can only benefit from having more than one option available to them, if only to see how different people cover the same thing to get varying opinions.
Re: OTW Part 2
Except, they *are* reaching out to different corners of fandom. Sure the main board is composted of a group of friends, but if you’re going to be starting something as big as this, you have to have people helping you whom you can *trust* (I know because I’ve tried to do smaller things with people I don’t know, and they always seem to fall apart because you find you can’t trust certain people to do what needs to be done). Naomi is reaching out to everyone now, and recruiting them to be volunteers. Anyone can be a member, and any member can run for a position on the board. And the board is being set up in such a way that there’s always enough trusted people who know their way to get things done incase someone who can’t pull their weight is elected. It’s just a necessity for the first board to be composed of people that don’t have time to be tested.
Also, I think that the OTW hasn’t really started it’s campaign to bring users over yet, since they haven’t anything to bring them over *to*. They’re probably going to be doing a lot more reaching out once they actually have things up and running, and that’s more when people from all corners get a chance to have an impact. When there’s actually something to impact.
Look at all the outcry there has been so far that certain people aren’t being represented properly, when the OTW hasn’t really put anything out to represent fandom. All they have so far is a rather sparse webpage with a few mission statements, what really matters is how inclusive their products are.