winterlive | [ where do we go from here ]

my own cee has said a thing about the exodus which i think you should read. it's about where those of us who are leaving should go, what we should be trying for.

fandom_flies is trying to work up something new, something from scratch. same with scribblit. and i think those are admirable aims, like, i think that's fair, but they've talked to each other and instead of deciding to pool their lumber and their workers and their time to build a big ark, they have decided to diverge. go their own ways. that's not what fandom needs.

the american statesman and orator henry clay once said: I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance...The Union, sir, is my country.

i feel the same way about fandom. the ideal is the same: harry potter fen and star wars fen, artists and vidders and writers, friends and total strangers - we all have one thing in common, and that's that we are all us. of course, we have our insane cousins and crazy uncles and cat lady aunts that we'd lock in the attic and feed fish heads to if we were worse people, but every family does. if there's one thing i don't want, it's to lose the notion that there are dozens of people out there that i just haven't found myself in the same fandom as yet, that there's so many awesome people that will come through my flist soon. you guys, warts and all, are my community. i care about you; no matter how ridiculous you sometimes get, no matter if we fight on the issues of the day, i would miss you if you were gone.

so when we go somewhere, i want to go together.

cee makes a few excellent points about journalfen as a potential place to go. what do you guys think? do you think it's better to start from scratch, or what? wherever we go, i want you with me.

*holds ur hands*

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you might be right about that part, but i think it'd have to have some seriously shiny new design stuff to lure me in. like i say, JF has been by-fandom-for-fandom for years, and they've proven their commitment to free speech. if they'll go to bat for fandom_wank, baby, they'll fight for you too.

fandom_flies has some neat ideas, but i'd want to see them in action before i made the decision to switch. they might be worth it when they get off the ground - i just hope they have somebody on board who knows how to deal with the stuff the JF mods had to learn on their own. that's why i sort of thought, well, maybe if they work together...

i dunno. that might be shooting the moon a bit. :)

like i say, JF has been by-fandom-for-fandom for years, and they've proven their commitment to free speech.

True. I'd just never gotten the impression that the JF folks *wanted* to wind up hosting all of fandom - they seem to have problems enough with the fandom_wank traffic sometimes.

(Also? I tend to have misgivings about any online service provider whose main page is really ugly. It's a thing. But half the links on their sidebar don't work, it still says "LiveJournal", and it hasn't been redesigned since they set it up. This does not inspire confidence.)

As for new services, I think 'wait & see' is a perfectly reasonable approach to take. Let's hope somebody comes up with something awesome and surprises us all!

Also? I tend to have misgivings about any online service provider whose main page is really ugly. It's a thing. But half the links on their sidebar don't work, it still says "LiveJournal", and it hasn't been redesigned since they set it up. This does not inspire confidence.

then I would suggest you volunteer to pretty it up. when JF first began I was working to help Robin & ZR with a more aesthetically pleasing design, but their day to day technical concerns have long since trumped the prettifying. please keep in mind that they are only two people who also have Real Jobs and lives outside of those servers -- unless people are willing to step up and help, it will stay ugly.

Point taken. It's just - I don't know them, so I have to judge their site by its public face, and it's been up for about four years, to judge by f_w archives. Fandom is full of artists and designers (most of whom are much more talented than I am), and I suspect a call for volunteers would get a great response. Not many people are going to send unsolicited emails that say, "Hey, your links are broken and your layout could use some work, can I help you with that?" - you'd have no way of knowing if the site owners want help, if they like the way it looks, or if it's simply not a priority for them.

four and a half years.

fandom IS full of those people, but when JF was founded, a handful of people played with it for a few months before defaulting back to LJ. calls for volunteers got promises and enthusiasm but no action and no results. and I can't stress enough that this entire operation is just two people. it's frankly quite impressive they've managed as well as they have.

Well, I'd genuinely love to help, then. Who can I talk to and what can I do?

I would comment here:

http://www.journalfen.net/users/jf_tech/538.html

or to ZR here:

http://www.journalfen.net/users/zorrorojo/105867.html

(the second link IS a call for help in the middle, there, amongst other things)

and thank you for hearing me out.

Well, I figure I shouldn't bitch if I'm not willing to back it up. *g* And it is encouraging to know that they're working on the site - my main concern as a potential customer was that they didn't really want all the LJ exodus traffic and its associated headaches, which would have been understandable.

I figure I shouldn't bitch if I'm not willing to back it up

deity bless you and everybody who even LOOKS like you. *kiss your cheeks!*

[ where do we go from here ]

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