The Directorium
| Wiki | |
|---|---|
| Name: | The Directorium |
| Owner/Maintainer: | Aithine |
| Dates: | January 2005-2018[1] |
| Topic: | fansites, fandom |
| URL: | The Directorium; archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Directorium was a multifandom wiki founded in 2005 by Aithine and hosted at aithine.org. The name comes from the Medieval Latin for directory or guidebook.
The site describes itself as:
a structured, searchable and easily updatable directory of fannish sites. The beauty of a wiki site is that it lets everyone edit all of the listings, eliminating the dead links that seem to plague every directory site.[2]
History
The site was founded in January 2005 and pre-dates many other multifandom wikis, including the Fan History Wiki (2006) and Fanlore (2008). The site was widely pimped early in 2005 and many fans contributed circa 2005–2007, particularly as increasing dissatisfaction with livejournal led to fannish diaspora from that service, emphasising the need for an off-LJ directory.
The project never really gained critical mass and activity declined over the years. The launch of Fanlore perhaps contributed to the site's demise, with some editors jumping ship. However, edits were down to a few a month by mid-2008, before Fanlore's September launch.
The Directorium remained online until November 2018, and the last content edit was in June 2011. The Recent Changes also reveal that in November 2012, Aithine's account was banned from the service[3] although this may have been the result of hacking.
Contents and Ethos
The site encompasses a much wider scope than the home page description of it as a directory implies, with information on fandoms, fans with an online presence, actors, television channels, as well as fannish glossary entries. According to the FAQ, the content is intended to include "fanfic, fanart, vids, zines, archives, screencaps, scripts, etc.'",[4] but this has largely been interpreted as archives, recommendation sites or similar for these types of fanworks; articles on individual fanworks have rarely been created. Real Person Fiction and underage material are not permitted.[4]
The total number of articles is around 1700.
Contributors must register with a 'WikiName', generally composed of multiple capitalised words without spaces.[5] All pages are 'owned' by the editor who creates them, although this does not confer any particular privileges.
Contributors
As of November 2012, there are 135 registered contributors in the user category, though this does not encompass all active editors. The founder Aithine remains the site owner and moderator. Other prolific contributors include Bagheera, Clare Chew, Elke Tanzer, Espresso Addict, Guede Mazaka, Maygra de Rhema, Mlle Manon, Permetaform, Ridicully, Tan Ac Awyr, Tiriel and X-Parrot.
Reception
The idea of The Directorium was generally positively received. It was reviewed by the Renegade Slash Militia:
It's one of those ambitious, let's list every site in fandom projects, but it's better than most. You can browse the listings by fandom, category, genre, actor, network, artist, medium or the decade the show aired. There's also a link to find other fans in your area, a user forum and an update RSS feed at lj. Like any add-your-site listing, it's only going to work if fandom participates, and if fandom reads the entire FAQ before adding listings.[6]
The site was recommended by Bellona, Eldritchhobbit, Espresso Addict, Kara and Mrs260, among others.[7][8][9][10][11] Templum Bellonae calls it The Wikipedia of fandom and notes that Anyone can create pages about anything related to fandom, but the process is just complex enough to discourage garbage posts.[7] For others difficulty of use was a barrier to contributing.[12]
The Directorium is linked to on Fanthropology and Newbieguide, and it appears on the resources list of least one academic media studies course.[13]
References
- ^ Last Wayback capture, Nov 21/18;
- ^ Directorium: Index (accessed 22 November 2012)
- ^ The Directorium - Recent Changes - via Wayback Sep 1/18
- ^ a b Directorium: FAQ (accessed 22 November 2012)
- ^ Directorium: WikiName (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ Essential Links for Slash Readers (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ a b Templum Bellonae: Links (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ Espresso Recommendations: Recommended links (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ eldritchhobbit: (Untitled) (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ Tales from the Script: Other Links (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ Mrs260: G/B Page: Links (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ thrihyrne Comment on Eldritchhobbit's untitled post (accessed 23 November 2012)
- ^ George Washington University: Celebrity, Fame and Fandom: Readings and Resources (accessed 22 November 2012)