white_serpent
2008-12-15 04:26 pm UTC (link)

Also, this is exactly the sort of the thing that sparklefield was invented for! Not to flame, but I mean... I think people should only post really astounding Twilight related events to the lounge. That's just my opinion, though.

Oh, many people share your opinion on that.

I, for example, am of the opinion that there are probably no events astounding enough in Twilight-world that will ever merit posting anything to fandom_lounge again, though.

If only I could create new tags on that community. Alas.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	charmian 2008-12-15 09:58 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah. At this point, it's all getting kind of repetitive. If it's wanky enough, it can go on f_w. Otherwise, since we have a comm for Twilight fandom (or Twilight anti-fandom), it can go there. I suppose Twilight has (for some reason, I am not sure what) gotten really big as an anti-fandom. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

white_serpent
2008-12-15 10:28 pm UTC (link)

It's kind of funny-- on LJ, people seem to form communities for the purpose of gathering people with common interests together. Here, we form them to exile irritating topics from communities where a large number of people are.

I suppose Twilight has (for some reason, I am not sure what) gotten really big as an anti-fandom.

It makes a lot of money. Also, we have a lot of HP fans here, who are OMG OFFENDED that people dare to compare the two.

Given those two factors, it's not entirely surprising. If it were not so repetitive (and in some way entertaining), I probably wouldn't care.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

charmian
2008-12-15 10:40 pm UTC (link)

Indeed! I think it's because on JF is much more community-based than LJ? Because most people don't have their main journaling home here. So if it were on LJ many people would just post the links to their personal journals, and the issue wouldn't come up as much.

F_l seems to be a huge point of contention, though, and I don't think the fault is entirely that of the posters who post things that annoy other people. After all, if a post about some other minor Twilight aspect was accepted, then people will just think it is acceptable to post whatever about Twilight. The fact that no one (including me) seems to protest only contributes to the problem...)

Similarly, there seems to be a lot of confusion about which topics are too dark or disturbing: some people say that it's just bad to post things which are upsetting, others say it is okay, just as long as they are fandom-related.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

white_serpent
2008-12-15 11:15 pm UTC (link)

The fact that no one (including me) seems to protest only contributes to the problem...

Oh, people are going to protest, and it won't take too much longer. I tried to head it off last time by requesting

esclaramonde post a link to her community and invite people over. It shut things down a bit, but people are sick to death of it, so it's not going to take much to set people off. Specifically, if someone with a reputation for monumental cluelessness posts something else, we'll start an implosion and end up on wankitywank.

(Frankly, I was shocked that photosinensis didn't set it off. There are a lot of people who can't stand him.)

If the death posts start up again, we'll have a problem there, too.

Wait! That's it! Someone obscure related to Twilight could die, and mcity could post about it on fandom_lounge! Talk about a perfect storm...

Similarly, there seems to be a lot of confusion about which topics are too dark or disturbing: some people say that it's just bad to post things which are upsetting, others say it is okay, just as long as they are fandom-related.

Fandom lounge is for fun links. Oh, most other things are on topic, but "fun links" is its raison d'etre. Dark and disturbing is thus always off-topic, but is sometimes tolerated. Discussions are sometimes tolerated, though also actually off-topic, since they tend to move in non-lighthearted directions. Anything related to animals is entirely off-topic, though people did put up with staroverthebay's kitten posts for a few days before ripping into her. (Because kittens are cute.)

Things are tolerated since f_l is a very relaxed community for JF, and they're tolerated because, most of the time, it's not a problem.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

charmian
2008-12-16 06:07 am UTC (link)

True, but I mean, the problem is not so much the person themselves, but the content of the post. If it were only the clueless people posting it, it wouldn't be a problem, because a) there are not so many of them, and b) it would be seen as more obviously an aspect of the undesirable.

Wait, but what is "fun" about deaths of famous people? Or LJ outages? There is nothing in the userinfo saying that non-fun things are not allowed. It says "a place to circulate information of interest to fellow fans on JF," and "essentially if it's fannish and it doesn't belong in [info]fandom_rant or [info]fandom_wank or the other wank comms, then it can go here! " And if eh... it's the latter then the amount of confusion is IMHO kind of understandable. Perhaps one of the mods should put something in the userinfo discouraging disturbing content?

Fandom_discuss has sort of died, it seems, also.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

white_serpent
2008-12-16 07:05 am UTC (link)

Wait, but what is "fun" about deaths of famous people?

Nothing. Thus, excessive griping by most of my friendslist about it, and I created

deathwatch.

There is nothing in the userinfo saying that non-fun things are not allowed. It says "a place to circulate information of interest to fellow fans on JF," and "essentially if it's fannish and it doesn't belong in [info]fandom_rant or [info]fandom_wank or the other wank comms, then it can go here! "

Right. Per our previous discussion, f_l is an exile community to get nonwank off of fandom_wank.

And that's the problem. It's not that these things are not allowed. They are. But it's a community with a culture, and the culture is "fun links." The farther away from from that it gets, the more likely there is to be a problem.

Fandom_discuss has sort of died, it seems, also.

Oh, well. Politics. That's partially because it's

pyratejenni's community.

I like her, but a lot of people don't. (My JF friendslist gets along like a house afire.)

It's often her style of doing things more than what she actually does, I think. She's not very diplomatic, generally, and she doesn't leaven her caprices with a lot of light humor (which helps the f_w mods get away with things like that).

She also had a series of disagreements with f_w over ginmar, which tends to make her look at a lot of people on f_w with a bit more hostility than (I think) they deserve. Anyway, all of that works together to kill her communities-- some faster than others.

Besides political issues, though, there are only a few "major" communities here: fandom_wank, otf_wank, and fandom_lounge. Everything else gets minimal use. This isn't much of anyone's primary journal system.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

charmian
2008-12-16 07:15 am UTC (link)

Yeah... There's nothing "fun" about it, but it seems a lot of people like to talk about it. Personally, I don't like them either, but not because death is... well, death and not fun, but because most of the deaths are either so well known I've seen the death mentioned in mainstream places, or so unknown to me, I've never heard of the person.

I think (being full of idealism after I have eaten) that there may be ways to resolve that problem: the problem is that some people believe it is a fun hijinks comm, whereas others just think of it as a "topics of interest/news" comm, so then someone should form a real "srs fandom news" comm. But then, it's a part of the larger JF/wank comms phenomenon: if communities are governed democratically, if a large number of people enter who don't agree on the direction of the comm, *especially* when it is not an explicit rule, these things tend to happen.

Huh, Ginmar hasn't even appeared near f_w for ages. But yeah, I know PJ has had a lot of run ins with various people. (I don't know PJ personally, don't have anything against her) It's too bad because fandom_discuss is a really good idea.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

white_serpent
2008-12-16 07:29 am UTC (link)

There's nothing "fun" about it, but it seems a lot of people like to talk about it.

No, a lot of people like to make posts saying "WTF 2008! They're dropping like FLIES." and "Oh, it's so tragic!" and "I didn't even know him, BUT I CAN'T STOP CRYING." They very seldom actually talk to each other in the process. The pattern does amuse me.

If anyone posts another animal death to deathwatch ever, so help me...

Huh, Ginmar hasn't even appeared near f_w for ages.

IIRC, Ginmar hasn't been back after the big fight with the f_w mods over trolling. (No-- wait. There was something on random_lounge, maybe, where someone started mocking her over PTSD and got torn apart.) I think there was a loose consensus to leave her alone.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

charmian
2008-12-16 07:38 am UTC (link)

Hmm, maybe you're right. I just skip those posts most of the time. I guess I was conflating it with the death posts on metafilter, which occasionally DO have intelligent and interesting things to say about the dead people.

I am never up to date on all of these consensuses. I just figured that Ginmar stopped posting about fandom-related topics, so she stopped being involved in fandom related wankage.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

white_serpent
2008-12-16 04:27 pm UTC (link)

I am never up to date on all of these consensuses.

It's because no one ever announces them publicly on fw_debate. Actually, no one discusses them much of anywhere.

(Come to think of it, things like this are probably why people believe that there are cool kids who secretly run fandom_wank. I'm not willing to guarantee it's not true, but, if it is, I don't know about it. It's mostly that a few of the people who comment a lot decide they agree, and either actively avoid participating or actively discourage certain behavior. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Witness Twilight.)

I'm sure Ginmar's removal from fandom-type topics helps, but otf_wank is higher traffic than fandom_wank nowadays. So I think she's still being avoided.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	charmian 2008-12-16 04:51 pm UTC (link)
	Well, that is pretty much guaranteed to get that kind of response. If no one discusses something, or if it is discussed in personal journals, it does look like a "conspiracy" or a "clique." (there's an essay on this I think I've linked before). Even if there is not actually a real conspiracy. (Reply to this)(Parent)