A Teaspoon and an Open Mind
| Name: | A Teaspoon and an Open Mind |
| Date(s): | August 2003 - present |
| Archivist: | |
| Founder: | |
| Type: | Fan Fiction Archive |
| Fandom: | Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures |
| URL: | http://whofic.com/ |
| Click here for articles related to this site on Fanlore. | |
A Teaspoon and an Open Mind is the central fanfiction archive for Doctor Who fandom. It includes fanfic about the classic era of the show, the new era that began with the 2005 revival, the spinoff shows Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and various other Doctor Who-related materials, such as the BBC novels and the Big Finish audioplays. Teaspoon predates the 2005 revival, having first opened in August 2003.
The title of the archive is a quote from a classic-era episode. The site explains the context and hosts a .wav file of the relevant line. The archive was the much-improved reincarnation of an earlier and much smaller archive run by nostalgia and was initially hosted and designed by Versaphile before the archive moved to new hosting in 2004. It is currently maintained and administered by a group of several fans, many of whom have worked on the site's administration since the initial move in 2003.
The upgrading/relaunch was largely to fill a perceived need for a central and fandom-specific archive after the loss of Panatropic's archive of stories from alt.drwho.creative.
(Insert here: discussion of different fandom communities, Livejournal vs. central archives, dramatic rise in ship-based fic and new-era fic, degree that LJ fandom has integrated into Teaspoon and vice versa, other cultural issues.)
Beginning in 2008, Teaspoon instituted a moderation policy in order to enforce its submission guidelines.[1] All stories submitted are now reviewed by one of a team of moderators before being approved or denied. The submission guidelines chiefly cover grammar, spelling, punctuation, formatting, and the permitted format of summaries.[2]
Controversies
(Insert here: controversy over moderation, relation to clashes within DW fandom?)
See also Hadas, Leora. 2009. The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided Doctor Who fan fiction writers. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.
External Links
Teaspoon has an official rec community, Calufrax, for recommending stories available on the archive. The livejournal community Whofic is Teaspoon's news and support community.
References
- ↑ http://community.livejournal.com/whofic/29623.html and http://community.livejournal.com/whofic/31772.html accessed 9/29/2008.
- ↑ http://www.whofic.com/guidelines.php accessed 9/29/2008.
