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fandom: into the desert

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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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I'm of two minds about JF.

On one hand, as a longtime FW member, I love it. Logically, I know it'd be the best choice for a fandom migration. The strictly 18+ rule steals all the wacko WFI-style vigilantes' thunder about targeting innocent children, and with more money, the site could become as impressive as LJ.

Here's where I'm torn, though - I joined JF at 19, but I remember being an underage smut reader. I discovered slash/yaoi at 15 and started reading porn pretty much right off the bat. I certainly realize that not every 15 year old is like I was, and some people aren't even mature enough for fandom at 40, I do think that there are more cool minors out there than people think.

While I like that JF is 18+ and has watchdog communities made up of users on the lookout for users who lied about being underage, that very same precaution that makes it so safe leaves those underage smut readers/writers who are certainly mature enough to handle it out of the party.

It may be a pipe dream, I'd like a service that's more inclusive.

i totally think that's a reasonable objection. i'm not sure what i think of it, myself.

on the one hand, i know that that age restriction doesn't limit the oversexed teens (such as i once was) from reading public posts. i know it doesn't keep them from commenting, even - as anonymous users. so i feel like we're not restricting them from much, not until they get old enough to play with the big kids without putting them in danger of legal action.

on the other hand, i do recognize that it keeps them from being members of the community, which is what fandom is all about. i'd hate to keep that sense of acceptance and understanding from a kid that might really need it.

it's a tough call, but i think in the end i come down on the side of the age restriction not being enough to keep me away. a fan-operated service doesn't operate at much of a profit, if any - journalfen certainly doesn't pay the two girls who run it anything. any fan-operated service is going to be exactly the same way with regard to money, and if they don't have that age restriction, they're looking at impressive legal fees in to the bargain to keep somebody on retainer for the whack jobs dying to scream about the children.

I think JF is a valid option and wish fandom had considered to support and help improve a site already in existence instead of building a new place from scratch (that is also based on LJ's source code, see Scribblit). JF's manpower and financial backing are very limited and I believe they could do a lot with the place if they had more support.

me too! i bought a 6 month subscription there and i think everybody should do the same - even if we wind up moving someplace else. JF stands for everything we want, even if there is an age restriction and the code's old and there's only a few servers.

they stand for freedom of speech. they are by fandom, for fandom, and have been for years. and if we really believed in those things then we'd put our money where our mouth is, y'know? out of gratitude and respect for their perseverance, if nothing else. show a little pride in our community.

And at the same time...any fan under the age of 18 who we'd consider mature enough to be participating in fandom like those over 18 should also be mature enough to get why the age restriction, arbitrary as it is in the US, is in place. The bald truth of it is that it's legal adults held up to repercussions of so influencing or "abusing" minors and not the minors themselves. So yes, there are ones who will slip over and under the wire (Always have, always will) who will drink before it's legal, have sex when the state says they shouldn't, smoke, party and raise a ruckus as teens are wont to do. I'd argue that their parents should keep a closer eye on them.

I don't mind mentoring or encouraging younger people (including my own nieces who were up to all kinds of stuff) but I'm not eager to take the rap for being in loco parentis.

If the less than 18 crowd are mature enough to be playing where they legally shouldn't be, that maturity also need to have a full understanding of the full weight of responsibility that falls on those who would otherwise welcome them. It's not fair, but it is how it is.

Maybe a reminder of those who are the cusp of 18 to take all that hard won maturity and vote to ensure the adults who would be on their side aren't paying the price for wanting to be inclusive.

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

I agree, but I think a certain amount of competition is always good for innovation. The more people you have trying to design something, the longer and more problematic the process will be; let different groups work on the problem of building a better journaling system, and I think eventually a favorite will emerge and people will flock there.

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. :)

i do concur, y. i'm sure there are a lot of compelling arguments on both sides, but for now it seems to me that the pros to age restriction outweigh the cons.

I've been advocating for JF forEVER it seems like and getting nothing but blank stares and complaints about it's robustness. May I quote from a conversation I had with Robin yesterday?

we're in a pretty damn good position to take on some significant loads. We're already pretty consistently taking on much more traffic than we ever have in the past. We're getting so much traffic in fact, that traditional web stat processing software can't properly analyze our logs-- they're too fricking big! So we're going to have to buy alternate stat software soon, too. I know we're getting at least 40,000 unique visitors and serving up 3-4 million pages per day.

I'm kinda proud of us.

She went on to say that, yes, they still need to do alot of work, but it looks like it's planned for the next few weeks, so YES, there really is no reason.

As for the age thing, I really don't know for sure, but it seems I heard mention that they might be rethinking that. But please don't quote me. I truly want to see all my flist huddled with me on this, but I'll be at JF, regardless. I truly don't understand this wish to reinvent the wheel! *hands*

I truly don't understand this wish to reinvent the wheel!

I read that as "wish to reinvent the WHEE" which made just as much sense to me! ;)

It seems to me that JF is a reasonable place to migrate because of its fan-friendliness. A lot of the outrage in this latest fracas seems to have come from the fact that the journals were deleted without warning or communication with the user. I doubt that would be the case at JF.

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!

I'm all for JF getting the traffic. If everyone who migrates there - hell, if HALF of them even - coughed up for a 6 month subscription, they cash flow would help the maintainers update the system to better handle the influx of members.

I think that eventually, on other services, fandom will eventually find itself in the same position as LJ did when it got big enough to get the attention of 'real investors.' But JF is in the unique position of being fan-oriented and not just fan 'friendly.'

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.

so when we go somewhere, i want to go together

Exactly. The idea of everyone scattering just makes me sad.

I agree about journalfen. I understand the concerns about the age restriction, but it's already there and already fandon based with large (mainly? I don't know) fandom presence. I don't see why we need to start from the ground up if journalfen could do more if had more support.

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 do say that if there's a mass migration, it should be to JF. One because of what JF stands for, two because before all this JF is the only alternative journal service I frequented, three because after all these years they deserve our support, four because scribblit (or anything else new) is gonna take awhile and as the days go by and there's no word from the man (damn the man, save the Empire) their position becomes clearer.

They want us gone.

I don't want to leave, and I'm unlikely to get banned, but if a significant fraction of the community moves, why stay? Why continue to support a system that doesn't support the crazy cat ladies of the group? So, I'm working on setting up a JournalFen account, but I hope I don't have to use it.

:clings to your hand:

i think that some kind of indication that they were interested in us - maybe a little fandom retrospective write-up of the pros and cons and history of journalfen - might be very much something that should happen on lj right now. i honestly had no idea what journalfen was all about until cee filled me in, and i imagine a lot of people are in my boat.

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!*

f_w has been active for years despite all the internet lawyers the crazies of fandom could throw at them. like i say, if they'll fight like that for f_w - which they LOATHE, by the way - imagine what they'll do for you.

I'll pass it on.

i really agree - other journals are great and everything, but when they get big they'll wanna make the moneys off of fandom and we'll just wind up with the same BS.

and the new endeavors starting up, i think it'll be a year before any of them have anything solid to offer, if they get off the ground at all. and unless you're a coder, like. what can you do but wait?

JF, meanwhile, has a system already in place. it has something we can build on. and that's better than nothing.

we can't scatter. i hate the idea of being all isolated and sad. it makes for cry!

*clings to ur hand tight tight!*

NO. KIDDING. see ya, 6A, you assholes. JF is good, at least for the interim, and we'll see what develops with this new brouha.

y'know, what with crossposting to all the other journals, if one continues to respond to all comments everywhere, i think it's a question of where one reads one's flist. the links you make in your posts will come from there, the comments you make come from there. i still check my LJ flist all the time, but what happens when everybody's crossposting and my flists are the same? it'll be the same no matter what flist i check.

see what i mean?

i think the eventual transition will be pretty seamless. lots of people are already crossposting to their different journals with relative ease, and i think the eventual migration will be about where people read their flists.

I know I sound old and lazy and tired, but I just don't want to move and I don't want to start all over again. I already have journals at GJ and JF, but I never use them, and I don't really want to. If all of fandom moves to JF, then I'll be sad and alone, but I really doubt I'm going to move. Short of 6A suspending me for life, I'm still going to be here posting into the void, regardless of whether fandom's here or not. :\

aw, baby. *hug hug hold hold*

trust me, everything will work out. i will never leave YOU.

*kiss kiss hold* I hope so, Danny. I like it here with all my friends, I don't want y'all to leave without me. Regardless, I'm gonna be clinging hard to you.

cling to me on skype? i'm here! *paw*

I have no Skype, but I am callink you right now!

my fone is not ringing woe omg. i will email you to be sure you have the right number!

Danners, baby, don't leave me. Pls? I know 6A is being assinine. But this is my home. I ain't goin' anywhere else.

::makes like an old guy on a porch with his shotgun::

baby. this isn't your home, it's theirs. they allow you to live here, but you don't own a damn thing.

the transition will be easy, gradual. i don't even know quite where i'm going yet. but one day, probably within the year, i'll be gone from LJ. i refuse to keep giving my money to these fuckholes, i refuse to be responsible for bringing them even one hit's worth of traffic more than i have to in order to be comfortable. they fucked over me and mine, they took our loyalty and they betrayed us. i don't cotton to that, drewface, i'm sorry.

But, hey, I'm in my current apartment and as much as I get annoyed by the landlord sometimes, it's a much bigger hassle and expense to pack everything up, rent a moving truck, look for a new apartment, debate the variety of apartments available, decide none of them are good enough, pick the least-bad one, realize that most of my friends have scattered to the winds, and end up significantly less happy.

Uh. Apparently I felt stronger about this than I thought I did.

I'm not sure I see the betrayal here; there's clearly some really horriffic business practices going on, what with the non-informing of people as to the relevant rules, but really, this was never a For Fandom, By Fandom space, as the use of the word "betrayal" suggests. The only way I can see a betrayal is in the "they took our money, the bastards, and now they're kicking us off!" line of reasoning. And honestly, since I haven't seen the offending artwork, I'm not 100% comfortable saying they were out of line on the subject matter, though as stated before their communication skills leave a lot to be desired.

they do nothing but lie and lie to us, drew. they said no ads when 6A took over. a year later: ads. they say, "oh, we never meant to delete fandom journals in deletegate, we just meant to get child pornographers, fandom is safe, fictional depictions are fine." and then, bam, ponderosa gets the boot for an image that, according to lj abuse, violated OBSCENITY laws. which lj determined by deciding all on their own whether it had artistic merit. with no word for five days as to what the fuck was going on. and today, they deny that they suspend on artistic merit (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html?thread=12535260#t12535260), which is a total blatant lie. and they can't appear to decide today on what exactly it is that ponderosa was suspended for.

and, my personal favorite, they keep calling everybody who's angry about this morons and perverts. and when we call them on that, they say "he's only human".

i don't feel welcome here, drew. i don't feel comfortable that i can post my fanfic and not get banned for it. i know i won't be seeing any explicit fanart anytime soon, certainly not for a fandom that includes the names of real people who might sue livejournal. certainly not for a fandom that includes incest, which is totally illegal. not when they have plans in the works to put a button on every single page that leads straight to an abuse report. i don't care how nice you are, there is SOME asshole out there that you pissed off one time, and they WILL go through every bit of your journal until they have reported every last bit of info they can find that might be bannable.

smallville's full of minors. clark is fifteen at the start of the show. kiss fanart for that goodbye. buffy, same deal. hell, pick any show where most of the people are in high school.

i'm sorry, drew, but i can't. might as well give my money to an organization that's known to be racist or homophobic. same deal.

Hm. I'm not sure I think the ads thing bothers me all that much, because they are not *forcing* ads on anyone (unless you happen to be a Basic user looking at a Plus account... I think?) The addition of ads for the Plus level was, IMO, a convenient way to generate some revenue for the site by piggybacking on people who wanted more services for free.

I agree that 6A's handling of this whole thing has sucked, big-time. I think there's a major crossing of lines of communication between LJ Abuse and the LJ management team, and one isn't informing the other perfectly and vice-versa. I do not think, however, that 6A really has it out for fandom. I just don't. It's not easy to articulate, but I think that text is safe always and forever, unless it is literally child porn with no other story elements. Visual expressions of fandom are probably in a murkier area, but I have no problem with limits on art so long as 6A clarifies what can be pulled for Abuse, which they appear to be doing, however slowly.

synecdochic makes good points [here (http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/149340.html)] and I think there's a lot of stuff that's blown out of proportion. 6A manages a *huge* service here, and I think this caught them by surprise. As Synecdochic says, not everybody understands fandom. It can be really hard to explain to others. So things that we as fen may see and implicitly understand as non-obscene (or non-child porn), others may not see that way. The fact that there is action going on about this whole thing is evidence that SOMEONE reported something to LJ Abuse as being a sticky thing. And while I don't think fandom should go underground or whatever, I *do* think fandom should try to see this from an outsider's perspective -- if an outsider could see the fanart as obscene, I don't have a problem with LJ saying "sorry, we can't host this". Does it mean you can't link to it? No, as far as I'm aware. Just that you can't display it on LJ. And really, that's not a problem, IMO.

I'll believe the abuse button when I see it, but it's not uncommon for a large site with a massive and unweildy customer base to have a "report this to our abuse team" splashed on every page. So... not really surprising. But that will significantly up the load of LJ Abuse Team and I really do want to believe that they're not explicity anti-fandom.

I just... I'm not convinced, yet. It's possible they'll do something even dumber down the road that I'll be like "...well, fine. Okay, that sucks," and I'll leave. But for now, I just bought my permanent account and goddammit, I'm not paying for something else. I really do think LJ has the best infrastructure, and I think there's a lot here that's getting blown out of proportion.

there IS a lot that's getting blown out of proportion - all the freedom of speech bs that people are slinging is retarded. it's lj, they're completely entitled to decide what they want to host on their servers, etc etc.

that's not the point.

they're not explicitly anti-fandom. they're not out to get us. they're just bumbling fuckups who don't see ANYBODY on livejournal, fandom or no, as useful or important. we would be just as liable on any other service, just as likely to wind up in breach of the TOS - but maybe somebody else would be up front with us about it. maybe somebody else could make it perfectly clear when asked, maybe somebody else could not contradict themselves in answers to standard questions.

that's the real sticking point, here. we could deal with everything else, if they'd just... not be retards.

I agree I don't where 'WE', but don't want to lose anyone in the journey. I/we can join any journal we'd like, but it difficult to keep up with more than 2 at a time (at least for me). Semagic at least will let you post to multiple journals at a time, but still I'd rather have only one journal that fits in with all my needs.

Cindy lee, lost but willing to take the trip.

I still think it's a Too Many Cooks problem -- I seriously doubt that the 6A team has sat down and said "okay, let's hash out a coherent company-wide policy on this and communicate that to LJ Abuse as well as all LJ members in a news posting". So instead they've got little Johnny and little Susie and little theljstaff all saying different things because there is no overarching line to lay down.

Now, since I work in a company and have seen how decisions get made in companies, I am not surprised that they do not yet have something perfectly coherent laid out. But it would surprise me greatly if a coherent platform does not emerge about what LJ will and will not allow. Bits of it have already started popping up. I may not like some of them (uh, the No Warning Insta-Ban provision is not exactly my favorite part, if you get my drift), but they're emerging. I really do want to believe the best from 6A since, like it or not, I've already invested my $.

fandom_flies has some AMAZING ideas. check it out!

you sure have. and i understand you not wanting to just abandon that money when you've already spent it.

i just don't know what to tell you, man. i don't have as much invested and i'm angry enough to be willing to move. we'll see what happens, but at least you know it won't be finalized for a while.

*random jared prettiness for you*

nnf. come on, daddy. *paws*

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