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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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	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)

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