http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_discuss/57576.html?style=mine

My thoughts on academics trying to survey fandom aside, the last parts of this survey are really incoherent. How can you tell how "creative" someone is by the stories? Does it matter whether a fan's work is popular or not, or whether the creator picks the fan to work on their show/whatever when judging creativity? What the heck is "fair"? What is the author of the survey really asking about?

How our views of creativity change depending on how financially successful a show is? How our thoughts on creativity change based on whether a fanfic writer/whatever is "recognized" by the original creator? What the heck is creativity anyway? Creativity, IMHO, is dependent on the work itself, and how original it is.

As for fairness, I have no idea what that means. Fair to who?

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anarchicq
2008-12-31 08:16 pm UTC (link)

Yes, this.
I took the survey, but my answers to the last questions was basically
"X's popularity is not unnecessarily attributed to her creativity. True Blood is STILL about Vampires. Her fans contribute to her popularity and success."

"Depending on if Y put a disclaimer on her works, and how she interpreted the characters or where she took her fic she could be quite creative."

"It's fair but not entirely legal. Disclaimer. And if X stated she didn't want fanworks of her stuff, Y should politely respect that."

For the assistant writer one I said basically "It's fair because they were looking for a writer of the show. It was a way for X to show her grasp of characterization and plot lines."

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charmian
2009-01-01 01:07 am UTC (link)

Yeah, but popularity and success... On a major scale, I just don't think they are necessarily about creativity, whatever it is. The presence or not of a disclaimer, IMHO, has nothing to do with how creative a writer is. In these scenarios, a writer could be creative or not, the scenario gives little truly relevant data.

? Yeah, but why would it be unfair if they weren't looking for a writer for the show? It just doesn't seem to me to affect fairness at all.

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