Nut Hatch and Entropy are probably the last fannish presses in the world to go on-line...
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| Title: | Nut Hatch and Entropy are probably the last fannish presses in the world to go on-line... (this is the first sentence of the essay, and the title used here on Fanlore) |
| Creator: | Jane of Australia (JJ) and her brother, Mike Adamson. |
| Date(s): | 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | online here |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Nut Hatch and Entropy are probably the last fannish presses in the world to go on-line... is a 1999 essay by Jane of Australia (JJ) and her brother, Mike Adamson.
The essay was the editorial for the first posting of "Discovered on a Website," a part of the Nut Hatch empire.
At the bottom of the essay, the creators stress their desire to become a "fannish portal":
DOAW will never actually be "finished." We'll be "MacGyvering it forever!" But where we're actually working on a part of the site right now, and its upload is imminent, it's marked with an "under construction" graphic....
As you just read, we're hoping to make this a true "fannish portal," the jump-off point for all walks of fandom. We can't do it without your help, and we look forward enormously to your participation!
Some Topics Discussed
- visibility and fandom
- legalities of fanworks
- secret passwords and the "three email trick"
From the Essay
Nut Hatch and Entropy are probably the last fannish presses in the world to go on-line, and the reasons were many ... basically, we worried about the copyright situation, since Paramount were said to have cracked down two years ago, ITC Entertainment have always been "funny" about fannish activities, and many ISPs don't understand what fandom is in any case!
However, the WWW is now so redolent with fannish activity -- in fact, overflowing with it! -- that there can't be a problem these days, or the studios would be running about like crazed weasles [sic], taking people to court ... and it isn't happening. Have they recognized that on-line fandom is probably the finest form of free advertising they ever had? That's what we're guessing!
In fact, at the National Association of Television Producers and Exhibitors' Covention [sic] in New Orleans, which just concluded, it was strongly suggested at executive level that the Industry should court and woo on-line fandom, because it's the fastest promotion/communication method, you can also get people to do the work for you without charge ... and the studio can get instantaneous feedback, so that they know by tomorrow where they went right or wrong in last night's episode, and can style their shows accordingly. It's only a very few companies, such as Renaissance Pictures, that seem to have peanut butter in their ears, and would prefer to cut their own trail and (in most viewers' opinions) make a mess, no matter that they've had access to instantaneous feedback for some two years. Most studios are appreciating on-line fandom for what it is. And it's valuable to them! They grant us a tacit right to use their images, and indulge ourselves in stories that utilize their copyrighted intellectual property, and in return we give huge service, providing on-going market research and advertising. Put it this way: if they had to pay a data collection company and an advertising bureau to do what we do for free, they'd be out millions!
Therefore ... DISCOVERED ON A WEBSITE! At last we've reached the conclusion that it's acceptable to all parties to upload an on-line fanzine, and here we are!
Now, the content rating on this site is around PG-13. This is to say, there is nothing uploaded to the public sector of this webzine that should give any offence to anyone anywhere ... so right now, you're wondering about the Nut Hatch sector.
Well, stop worrying, it's "locked!" Your kids can't get in, and neither can your parents or your spouse ... without a password, and for that you'll have to email us!
With your password in hand, you can then readily access the locked sector, where Nut Hatch is like "a site within a site." All the flyers are there, and also --
Secure on-line credit card ordering! We've automated and even animated it, "for your ordering ease and viewing entertainment!" (Sound of chuckle). Actually, it's the old "three email trick," but we've added a bunch of bells and whistles to make it totally convenient, as well as 100% secure.
We hope to be updating this site all the time. Parts of it are still (sorry guys) designated "hard hat areas," or, "under construction." Why? It has been HOT since Christmas. It has been SO hot since Christmas that the scheduled January 30 upload actually happened on February 7! You probably know as well as we do that if you run a PC in over 95 degrees, you can, and will, fry its brain. And they are VERY expensive to replace ... not to mention that you may even lose your hard drive in the melt-down.
DOAW was mostly coded in the middle of the night, when a cool wind took ten degrees off the temperature and made it possible to turn the computers on. So we're late, and some sections of the site are not yet complete. But we figure we're abut 80% done, and it's time to upload.
As they say, "come back soon," because not only will we soon have finished the whole "pilot site," but we're hoping that with your own participation, DOAW will become a "fannish portal." That is, a jumping off point to the rest of the fannish world, both print media and on-line!
To these ends, we're soon going to a add a search engine; our links resources pages should expand exponentially, and rather than trying to archive thousands of images and stories right here (we only have 10MB cache space, and it's half-full already), we're planning to network with archives all over the world, so that by coming to DOAW first, you'll have at your fingertips millions of words of fictions, tens of thousands of photos, and hundreds, maybe thousands of links!
Do do this, we'll need your help. We'll need you to pass this URL along to your own fannish group, and we'll need other archivists to network with us.
If you are a fannish archivist, let's exchange banners today, and let's get this "wormhole on the web" open for traffic!
Check back every couple of weeks for updates, guys -- eventually we would like to be able to update weekly!
Our very best wishes, JJ and Mike