Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy.

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Title: Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy.
Creator: Dejana (and commenters)
Date(s): July 21, 2008
Medium: online
Fandom: all
Topic: archives, fanworks
External Links: Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy, page one, Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy, page two, Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy, page three; page one archive link, page two archive link, page three Archive, posted by dejana, July 21, 2008
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy. is a post by Dejana on Live Journal on July 21, 2008. It was written in response to the FanHistory outing wank. There was a follow-up post on July 24.

The author notes: "I'm probably inviting wank by making this public, but I don't really care. There aren't any key figures reading my LJ anyway. ;P"

It generated 193 comments.

Topics Discussed

Excerpts from the Post

Now, I don't know how partly_bouncy got ahold of astolat's real name. It's entirely possible it was posted in an obvious place and should have been better protected, and was added to FanHistory without anyone knowing that was Not Okay. Accidental outings happen. But then people tried to remove the info and... the site owner restored it. Forced it back on there like it was some precious data people have a right to know. That's what really burns my cookies.

With this act, FanHistory is doing something not even lol_meme would do to Cassie Clare. Something not even charlottelennox would do to MsScribe. Something not even 4chan would do to all but its most hated enemies, from what I've heard. Putting someone's real identity out there whether they want it to be or not, a piece of information that is absolutely irrelevant to any kind of serious fandom history record. This pushes them firmly out of "media" territory and into "paparazzi."

4chan, people. This makes FanHistory lower than 4chan.

Obviously, there's no law that says unwanted information must be removed. Once you put something out there on the internet, it's technically fair game. But fandom has always had a rather widely-accepted understanding about things. Certain things are Not Okay. If someone posts your fanworks on their archive without your permission and refuses to remove them when you ask, that is Not Okay. What I realize now is, with FanHistory, we now have an entity that flies in the face of all those mores. If it's ever been revealed anywhere, FanHistory feels it has a right to print it, whether or not you object, and the precious line between fandom life and real life will not be respected. Even if it was posted under a friends lock. Even if it was said to a buddy in chat. If it's out there, they're taking it. All for the sake of, I assume, some pompous desire to bring The Truth to the world, whether or not it's actually useful or relevant to anything.

I wonder if this has anything to do with astolat being (as I recall) the inspiration behind OTW, which partly_bouncy has been a vocal enemy of since the beginning.

On a personal note, I'm soon going to become a bit of a fandom historian myself, but I have already agreed to remove some recovered stories whose authors have contacted me requesting they not be on there. Same goes for the upcoming directory; I won't link to you if you don't want me to. On the flip side of the coin, I've always made a reasonable effort to keep my real name separate from my fandom persona, but with a little Google research I think it's possible to put them together. I never worried about it much, because who's gonna bother to out a minor name like me? But now it seems there is at least one person out there who would not only put time and effort into hunting down my real-life identity, but would force that identity into the public eye whether I wanted it there or not. And all for no other reason than adding one more detail to her precious fandom encyclopedia. My life, for a few extra bytes of data. I wouldn't have much to worry about if I were outed, since I'm not a public figure and I don't produce controversial material, but it's still a very unsettling thought. I am somewhat ashamed to have ever supported FanHistory or its owner.

Excerpts from Comments to the Post

  • [desiamonds]: "If the person requested the information be taken down it should be taken down and done with. I don't see why these people keep putting it back. I created a couple of pages two weeks ago for the Dramione section of the site but after reading this I'm kind of creeped out. I have a page there too and I don't think I'd want my personal info being mixed in with my fandom info."
  • [dejana]: "It seems to be one of those situations where once something's on there, it's on there, good luck getting it off. We just have to hope nobody adds details we don't want shown :\ ... For extra fun, they have a bot now that automatically adds pages for anyone with a Fanfiction.net profile, so the number of names in their catalog is increasing by leaps and bounds."
  • [nessabutterfly]: "It's a good thing that I don't care who knows who i am. I use the same username everywhere for fandom, personal, and business. I just try to make sure I don't post anything I'd be ashamed of."
  • [korllian]: "I for one keep my username private as the plague! I don´t want my mom or prospective employers stumbling over my porn."
  • [laura holt pi]: "I've never seen the point of trying to hide who I am. I write some explicit sex, but it goes against my nature to pretend that I don't. I can't help thinking that if people have to hide who they are to keep their job/friends they either need to change what they're doing or change their job/friends."
  • [kazaera]: "The thing is that, very well, for you and others fandom may be more important than various real life issues; if your job can't handle it, change the job! Which is fine and valid, buut some people don't have that option. Some people frankly /need/ their jobs because they can't change them very easily, for any number of reasons. (Not everyone in LJ fandom is relatively well-off and has the CV necessary to be able to pick and choose jobs like that.)... Personally, if I had to choose between fandom and my prospective career I honestly don't know what I'd do, and I suspect either choice would break me. That's why I keep my real name separate from my fandom name - so I don't have to.
  • [wombat socho]: "This is the sort of asshattery that makes me yearn for an RL Narn Bat Squad. There's little enough privacy on the intertubes without creeps like that aggressively working to out people."
  • [deja]: "No kidding. What gets me is, what's the purpose of FanHistory? Why does it exist? If it was (supposedly) created for the benefit of fandom, it's certainly not behaving that way."
  • [tzikeh]: "The purpose of FanHistory is to make partly_bouncy the SuperDuper BNF of ALL TIME. Because she has no self-esteem in her real life and she wants to be QUEEN OF ALL FANDOM. And once OTW started up, she saw them as a threat to her importance, rather than as something she could work *with*. And as far as she's concerned, they should have asked her to be on the board / come to her as supplicants and asked her permission / never created it in the first place because there already *is* a fannish history wiki (HERS HERS HERS). So she's been out to get them from the start."
  • [dejana]: "Well... to be honest, I've never been a fan of OTW myself, because they charged ahead with plans to make all these things as if they didn't already exist. From the beginning, I've had the feeling that they think they can do it all better than the existing services because they're sparkly BNFs. So, as a nobody who started a multi-fandom archive a couple of years ago, I can sympathize with that standpoint. But I'd still never plaster someone's real name all over a public website."
  • [tzikeh]: "I have no opinion on OTW one way or another, for the most part, but I don't see a problem with people creating another version of things that already exist. If people didn't make different versions of things that already exist we'd only have one kind of breakfast cereal, and that would be a tragedy. *g* And I do fully support them on the creation of a fannish history wiki. Fandom *does* need a fannish history wiki, even though one "already exists", because fanhistory (the one that exists) is full of lies, bias, and purposeful misinformation, as well as multiple examples of linking fannish pseuds with real-life names, which is Not On. So I'm glad OTW is going to create another one. I have more faith in them than I do in the nightmare that is partly_bouncy. As for "they think they can do it all better", I don't really know where that impression comes from. Do they think they can do it better because they're "sparkly BNFs", or did they just want to do it, and so they got together and did it? I think maybe it's too easy to draw the conclusion that, because many of the people are well-known, they must be egotists who think they can "do it better"."
  • [dejana]: "Personal story time! :D When fanarchive was just developing as an idea, one of my friends went to its discussion post and mentioned my site as an already existing community that possibly could be improved on and promoted instead of the group starting from scratch. The response she got was essentially "Oh cool, we'll send someone over there to snoop around so we can cannibalize the features we like." I've had a sour taste in my mouth about the project ever since. On another note, when I asked how fanarchive would be different from existing archives, the answer I got was "size." I could have a big archive too if I had a thousand people on my flist, you know? So that's where my "sparkly BNFs" feeling comes from, and yes, it's a lot of personal pettiness, I know. I've been working on getting over it, because I've come to realize no single community is going to serve all of fandom's needs and variety is a good thing. Of course, it's entirely possible I might be wrong about OTW's attitude, I'm totally willing to admit that. And after this fiasco, my confidence in FanHistory as an alternative is also dropping toward zero. But it'll probably be a while before I can swallow my bitterness, which I know is petty and shallow, but it's the way I feel. :\"
  • [tzikeh]: "Yeah, I can see how that could be interpreted as "Because we are Important People and Everyone Will Want to Be Our Friends", but it could also be interpreted as "we expect the archive to be huge because we will welcome everyone and anyone". Maybe I read it that way because I'm neutral on OTW. But reading through their information doesn't give me the sense that they're out to "be important". But it'll probably be a while before I can swallow my bitterness, which I know is petty and shallow, but it's the way I feel. :\ Hey, we've ALL been petty and shallow about stuff in fandom (and RL). Self-awareness is half the battle! :D"
  • [wombat socho]: "I'm not familiar enough with the site to give an informed opinion, but I'm guessing this is a hangover from mainline SF fandom where pseudonyms and pen names were largely an open secret. For example, most people in SF fandom and the SCA knew that Yang the Nauseating was Bob Asprin. Obviously this clashes with internet-based fandoms where people can become very well known through their handle/pen name while remaining comfortably anonymous, and one would think that even an old fan of my generation would respect someone's desire for privacy and not post their true name. Especially if that someone had specifically asked not to have their true name posted. Unfortunately, since a lot of folks wind up in fandom as a side effect of poor social skills, we have a higher-than-average number of self-righteous "I AM THE LAW!" fuggheads."
  • [dejana]: "I'm pretty sure this is a younger person with no respect for anyone's privacy.... Nope. Once [your name/info is] on there, it's on there, apparently. If you try to remove something, the owner will just put it back. According to her fanthropology post, which has been copied over to FanHistory as their "how to stay off this site" page, it's like abstinence being the only 100% reliable birth control - you have to never put yourself out there, anywhere. No fics in public archives, no journals, no forum profiles, no nothing. If you're out there, they'll index you. Pretty rotten, IMO."
  • [ayadec]: "It's definitely rotten. Businesses usually give you a right of refusal, even if your stuff is publicly out there. I mean, this crazy girl had me so freaked, even though I'm crazy careful about keeping my real life and on-line life separate. I even unlinked my LJ from my ff.net profile page and hid my email. Scary as hell."
  • [katydidnt98]: "I just went over to mine and cleaned it up a bit - deleted old info that I didn't want on there and replaced it with other stuff (i.e. instead of "joined fanfiction.net in 2004" I replaced it with "joined LiveJournal in 2005" and deleted an old fandom and added a new one). If it gets reverted I'm going to rewrite it and ask for it to be locked."
  • [misscheeveeuss]: "This all does strike me as somewhat illegal. There are invasion of privacy laws, etc. and usually companies/services make you agree that you're giving them the right to your personal information. This girl's never gotten permission to USE this information (which is different than just accessing it), and she's clearly seen that the person doesn't want this info used. To boot, there's provable malicious intent involved."
  • elfwreck: "People who are on the board of directors of publicly active non-profit organizations, might be claimed to be "celebrities." Or at least "public figures"--people of newsworthy interest. Newsworthy people have very few official, legal rights to privacy. Eventually, the info-explosion online will go to court for this. In the meantime, a lot of people's private lives are going to be made very uncomfortable for the hobbies and interests that their co-workers would be happy to mock. (And as it was said in the replies to the fanthropology post: there's a difference between "warn people to wear seatbelts, because some careless or malicious jerks will ram your car," and ramming into cars yourself to prove it. It all smacks of "well, then she shouldn't have worn that miniskirt/gone to that party/had a drink/been alone in a room with his brother!")"
  • [anonymous]: "It is illegal, its a breech of privacy laws. Wikipedia could be sued on grounds of breaking privacy laws. If you are really determined to do something about this hire a lawyer to go over it."
  • [kajiver]: "Hi, I got linked here by a friend. I have to say, looking at this from someone who knows very little about OTW and FH (other than that I realized I had an FH page a short time ago and tweaked it just a bit) and any conflict between them, this really looks like a personal vendetta. The way "Laura" keeps using astolat's full real name repeatedly totally comes across like she's got an axe to grind, especially with the fanthropology post. I thought at first FH was kind of neat, but now I have serious concerns about it if the people behind it are going to use it to "out" or "punish" members of fandom they don't like. Most people I know keep their fandom id and real life id separate, including me. I know it won't take much work to dig up my real name, but I don't expect to see it put up on a fandom wiki. FH should honor astolat's privacy, even if she is a member of OTW."
  • [fairestcat]: "There's a new "advised to add" (whatever that indicates) paragraph on [info]partly_bouncy's [info]fanthropology post. (link) It seems FanHistory may be willing to work with [info]astolat on this issue after all... I wouldn't put much stock in this. Her "working with" has in the past proved less than honest. Astolat is not the only fan she has outed in this way. Other fans have found that she has "worked with" them to remove the information and then within weeks the information is magically back in their entry. Also, the wiki mods have flat out refused to edit the history of a page to remove the links there, making editing the article itself almost a moot point."
  • [lydiabell]: "Yeah, I wouldn't take anything she says about working with someone to protect their privacy seriously. Even if she thinks she has some great scholarly reason to link the identities in her crappy wiki, she has no reason other than sheer spite to do so on LJ."
  • [tzikeh]: "You know, there are really only two hard-and-fast rules in fandom, and they've been around since LONG before the web came into play: 1) Don't out fans. 2) Don't make money off fandom. That's it."
  • [kylielee1000]: "And this isn't even the first time this has happened. I do OTW stuff under my RL name and as a result of the bad experiences with PB's site have basically stopped posting in my fan LJ (this username). And I pretty much have nothing to lose if my names are connected, and in some ways I'm pretty sure I don't care. It's just that I won't get a say and that pisses me off. It also pisses me off that PB has outed people and only taken info down after making such a huge deal about it that everybody ends up knowing. Oh, and a third thing: PB has a transparent .gif on her site to track hits to her wiki, so I never visit it. Heads up; if you go, block the images from her URL first."
  • [dejana]: "If this has happened before, I wonder "Where's the fandom outrage?" Why hasn't the community as whole been taking issue with these practices? Maybe this time it won't fade away quietly.... I do feel a little guilt over whether I'm just making things worse by posting about this and letting it get linked everywhere. At this point, though, the information's out in the open on fanthropology and lots of people have seen it, so I'm leaning toward the "greater good" side of the scale at the moment. Maybe with this one example, further incidents can be prevented. If astolat wanted me to stop, though, I would."
  • [anonymous]: "In at least one case that I know of, FH/Laura Hale/Michela Ecks/partly_bouncy/purple_popple has refused to follow their own procedures for removing someone's legal name from hir FHW article. As a scholarly resource, it is worse than worthless. As part of the fandom community, it is positively dangerous and vile."
  • [morgandawn]: "thanks for the info. I also how the "we will work with her" addition to the fanthropology entry uses the fan's real name several times."
  • [tricksterquinn]: "She appears to have just deleted the fanthropology page as I was viewing it... so I have a saved copy if anyone needs one. Unfortunately, I don't have the comment streams included, just the ones visible without expansion on the first page."
  • [littlemoonhime]: "Wow. This is scary and freaky and definitely paparazzi-ish. >_< I'm ready to go delete any mention of my real name on the 'net anywhere including paying the fees for my whois to be hidden. The whole BNF's being treated like celebrities really scared the heck out of me. I don't consider myself to be one, but there have been too many people that have argued to me that I am for me to not be paranoid about this. *weeps* Seriously, if I start getting people knocking on my door or something I'm going to get sue happy. Or maybe I'll just keep my dog on a leash in the front yard. Nobody will approach a pissed off husky trying to protect it's master will they? Ugh...I need to go find this site and see if my data is already there, they're so off my radar I didn't even know this was a possible issue. Thanks for the head's up. I think I'm going to link to this for the sake of all the ones I know that could run into the same problem."
  • [tresa cho]: "Wow. Thanks for doing all that research. I was totally unaware that someone had my name up on a wiki somewhere. Nothing dastardly on my page, I'm nowhere near BNF status, but they should be given the opportunity to say if they want their RL facts up there. It's not only their right to privacy, but it's common courtesy."
  • [laura holt pi]: "Isn't everyone getting just a little bit hysterical over this? Most people haven't even heard of Fan History. Most people haven't heard of OTW. Most people aren't remotely interested in any of our personal details. If you don't want to be known as the author of your fic, post anonymously or don't post. Is that so difficult? Though why people are posting stuff they're ashamed of baffles me."
  • [basingstoke]: "It's not shame. I used to live right by the Fred Phelps church. You know, the God Hates Fags guy? I was relentless about keeping my RL identity secret because I was afraid of picketed or worse as a gay pornographer. The point obviously is not that EVERYONE has a loud freaky homophobic church on their doorstep, but that people have reasons for being private that are their business and not yours."
  • [nephthysmoon]: "I don't know that the 'hysteria' is over the idea that someone might find out who we are and connect our RL identities with our OL ones - the real outrage is that IF this person does do that, and we ask her to remove it, she won't do it. It's the tone the original post takes, the stance that we should all accept that we should have no expectation of privacy in regards to real-life facts because posting anywhere on the internet makes you public property - at her discretion, of course. It doesn't matter if you've never publicly posted your real name anywhere, because 'they' will find it and if she somehow gets it, your identities are linked. Not a big deal for most of us, but some people DO have a problem with that, and in the past, we've commonly protected our own against snakes like this. And employers are turning more and more towards internet activities (like MySpace and other social networking sites - i.e. Livejournal) to dig up information on potential employees. Perhaps one slightly steamy scene between two characters of consenting age makes it across the desk of the HR manager at a firm you've applied to work. Because this person posted your real name and associated it with your fan name, you're seen by the HR manager as a purveyor of smut, even if the scene is very mild by common fandom standards. You're not ashamed of what you've written, but it still puts you in a bad light in the eyes of the HR manager and you don't get the job. Most people take reasonable care to keep their penname and real name from being associated - and isn't that the purpose of pennames? To keep our real identity anonymous? Telling people to post anonymously, when that is why most of us have pennames in the first place, is kind of absurd. And for most people, it's not a matter of shame. It's a matter of privacy. Yes, my family knows that I write HP fanfic. Yes, my stepmother is utterly disgusted by the track I took in one story, making Harry an evil character. It would make her uncomfortable if my identities were linked, and through her discomfort, my father would suffer, but it would do me no great harm. What might do me harm? Having my boss discover that sometimes, my LJ posts (or replies to comments, like this one) are date/time-stamped at times when I appear to be industriously working, or that I've occasionally made f-locked posts grumbling about my job. I think most people worry more about that. Would my boss likely be appalled at some of my writing? Absolutely - he's three times my age and from a different way of life than I am. What is completely acceptable to me and my contemporaries is probably NOT acceptable to him. I sincerely doubt he'd 'punish' me professionally for it, however. Others who have higher-profile careers whose firms might suffer embarrassment from their activities might not be so lucky. It's not about being personally ashamed of what we write, it's about suffering in our professional and personal lives if others find our material objectionable. If you are lucky enough to not have this worry, then that is fabulous. Be aware of how lucky you are. Not everyone can afford to get a different job just because the one they have might not be understanding of their private activities, and it shouldn't be for one person whose integrity is questionable to decide to out anyone publicly. That is what the outrage is about - that she outed someone publicly and has offered no apology for going against the person's express wishes, nor has she gone and corrected it. Most people I know aren't that concerned over this, because it doesn't concern them. They aren't big enough names that they would draw the notice of the site in question. The rest aren't big enough names to draw notice either, but they are still justifiably concerned over the trend this situation brings to light. That's what most of us are concerned about."
  • [cofax7]: "Oh, please. Though why people are posting stuff they're ashamed of baffles me. I'm not ashamed of anything I've posted. But my employers would like NOT be pleased to find out that I'm violating copyright and have in fact posted about military men having sex together. I might not lose my job, but I honestly don't want to have that conversation. And there are fans for whom exposure would mean far worse than that. Fans whose marriages would be ruined, or other relationships. How nice for you that you can tell everyone you know what you write on the internet; not everyone is so lucky."
  • [franzeska]: "I'm not ashamed of supporting a wiki run by people I trust instead of people I know to be entirely untrustworthy. May I assume from your comments that you're involved in FH?"
  • [dejana]: "In my case, it's actually more a matter of being ashamed of who I used to be. Fandom, like the internet on the whole, provides an opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to build a brand-new you with no ties to the shames and failures of your offline life. I don't want the identity I have now associated with the loser I've been."
  • [liviapenn]: Are you ashamed of having sex? No? Do you want your mother to watch you doing it? How about your boss? Your children? Your pastor? Thank you; this is one of the most succinct, clear and logical refutations of the "what are you ashamed of" argument I've seen yet. It's called *privacy*. I'm not ashamed of having breasts; I still wear clothes when I go outside."
  • [livapenn]: "Laura Hale outs a fan against that fan's express wishes and suddenly *OTW* is the one who's untrustworthy? What color is the sky on your planet? It's not a "witch hunt" to tell the truth about a person's actions, quoting their own words to do it. Maybe Laura Hale should take the advice you gave above: don't do things you'd be ashamed for everyone to know about. If Laura Hale is ashamed of exploiting fans for personal profit, maybe she shouldn't do it. And if Laura Hale is ashamed of lying to people about how much profit her site is making, maybe she shouldn't do that. And if Laura Hale is ashamed of personally bribing others fans to purposely start wank in order to drive visitors to her wiki, for her own profit, then maybe she shouldn't, you know, *do those things*."
  • [dejana]: "Is it really a witch hunt if it's only targeting one person? I thought witch hunts were about making assumptions about anyone remotely suspicious just to have someone to blame. This is about one individual, who is clearly, overwhelmingly, to blame." [added three days later]: "We may disagree on other things, but I'm starting to see your point about it becoming a witch hunt."
  • [aukestral]: "Aside from this issue, which makes me LIVID (I'm currently attempting to get my RL name removed from an author's page and am wondering how far I can go without seeming like a stalker to get her attention since she's not answering my emails), it's really ironic that fanthropology is supporting this woman: even if you're a member of fanthropology, which you have to be to post, the community is set to record your IP address if you comment on a post. This scares me in general (with fanthropology, I mean - if you're logged in and a member of the community, why do they need your IP too?) - but taken in this context, it's *really* creepy."
  • [dejana]: "After the MsScribe saga, I can't blame any community or individual for having IP logging turned on."
  • [aukestral]: "But IP tracking isn't a problem with mostly-crazy: apparently her various identities are well known and she doesn't try to hide them. In fact, she needs people to know who she is. My point is simply that if fanthropology was wondering why people didn't participate, it was probably because of this: only members could post. You had to be approved to become a member and you had to be logged into LJ to comment on posts. Why, then, was IP logging turned on? A lot of us who read LJ at lunch at work are not going to comment on a community where IP logging is turned on. And if I don't know the person, I'm not going to comment from work in an LJ where IP logging is turned on. I'm not saying people should not turn on IP logging - I have it turned on myself for anonymous commenters. I'm saying that fanthropology kind of shot itself in the foot twice over the matter: once in doing it at all - they were never involved in a msscribe type drama or indeed any kind of drama that I can recall before this - and then being center stage in a drama where people could rightfully worry about their IP addresses being known to a nutcase operating through fanthropology (who could see your IP if you commented to her posts)."
  • [dejana]: "I've never been involved in major fandom drama (at least until this, haha) but after I read the msscribe saga I immediately made sure I had IP logging turned on for all comments, just in case. You never know when a seemingly innocent comment might turn out to be important later on. I see now how some might find that overly paranoid and an invasion of privacy, but I still can't fault anyone for feeling as I do. It's common practice on message boards, too, from what I've seen. I think I see your point, though - that if fanthropology is a supporter of FanHistory, they might use your IP information against you. I actually know the maintainers of fanthropology and I can't see them siding with FH on this issue. But I do understand why that would be a concern for people. Wait... are you saying if someone makes a post to a community that has IP logging turned on, that poster can see the IPs of everyone who comments on their post? I always thought that information was only available to the community's owners, no matter what..."
  • [aukestral]: "Indeed. This is why the idea that she is being tolerated by fanthropology has me so upset with them. She's not a safe person to have access to IP numbers.... The only people who can see the logged IP numbers are the owners of the journals in which the comments appear (or, if the entry is in a community, the person who posted the entry and the community's maintainers). The owner must be logged in to see the IP numbers, which appear in the header of the comment in question.
  • [djelynne]: "This incident isn't the first time the Fandom History wiki and it's infamous creator have pulled this sort of thing. The first time I heard about it was a kerfuffle involving ari_o over on JournalFen. That one, if I remember correctly, involved maliciously untrue information being added to her profile by the site owner and anyone who tried to correct it was banned. In cruising through the links generated by this most recent goings-on, as well as some of the things I've encountered before, I've seen some pretty convincing evidence that partly_bouncy is only in this for the money she hopes to generate from the project, and that she's intentionally causing these fights/wanks/kerfuffles solely as a way to get more traffic/content/notice for her pathetic excuse for a wiki. Given her self-righteous posturing and the now-deleted fanthropology entry - which was obviously posted solely as justification for her using people's RL information in her wiki, as well as to 'out' the fan that she did as publicly as possible, I suspect her number of hits have been going down recently. (Also, astolat is associated with the OTW, whom party_bouncy has had a hate-on for pretty much since their inception. There's a great deal of grudge-attack in these latest moves of hers.) Sadly, even a total shunning by the online community seems unlikely to stop her for long. She'll find some new argument to pick, or create a new controversy to exploit and we'll be right back at this point again. If only there were a nice, neatly legal way of having the Fandom History wiki completely denied hosting anywhere, or something similar. At least then fandom would have a bit of a quiet period while she came up with a new scheme to try to exploit its existence for her own gain."
  • [chase65]: "...pen names are a literary tradition so it's not a stretch to think of fandom names like that. A pen name provides a certain amount of freedom and I wouldn't presume to take that away from someone, especially if they have expressly requested that I not do so. It's also the reason that my own lj profile contains no information and should it ever become mandatory to supply that info on lj, I would not hesitate to lie like a rug as this issue makes clear your privacy can not be entrusted to the care of others."
  • [tiferet]: "Yeah, my views on F_W are no secret--I think it's generally a hive of scum and villainy, although I do like a few people who post there. But I wouldn't ask F_W to change an entry on me any more than I would an ED entry--I expect BS from sites like that. FH purports to be history. But Laura Hale considers "wank" to be something that needs to be documented. She's "history" the way that Jerry Springer is a "talk show". The outing is a new low for her, but I've always been concerned about her attitude that grudges, namecalling, trolling and other batshittery need to be immortalised for historical reasons. It's very destructive, because fandom is a reputation-based community and when people who hate each other in one fandom make up in another, or when disputes are finally solved, it might be good to know that there was a dispute in 2003 about the propriety of HP incest fic, but does anyone really need to know what Arabella and I called each other? When we now know that the whole thing was orchestrated by Ms.Scribe? F_W exists to showcase people at their very worst; I think that's morally wrong and won't bore you with the details of that since you clearly disagree. They also tend to wank things that are just unpopular meta interpretations. But at least they don't claim to be 100% accurate, and it admits it's the Jerry Springer show of fandom. If, like Jerry Springer, the freak show consisted of volunteers, and if they didn't reward the horde of mice by saying "we don't countentance trolling" but continuing to report on wanks as the mice overrun them--or their members, like Narcissa and Camilla at Harmony--and so, rewarding the trolls with more attention and lulz--I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it. Laura got on the Supernatural Notice Board and asked for submissions and she specifically asked for WANK. She edited her post after I called her on being a wank generator, and unfortunately I don't have caps, but that's her approach. She says the mean shit is important historically. The thing is, I have an MA in history, and from an actual historical perspective? The names that Octavian and Antony called each other aren't very interesting. We just want to know why they were fighting and who won."
  • [dejana]: "*nods* Come to think of it, I do remember thinking the "kerfluffles and fights" section of FH was rather useless. (Pathetic though it may be, I'm drawn toward such things.) It was a lot of "X was fighting with Y on such and such a date" with no real details as to why, or what impact the incident had on the affected fandom, or the overall outcome. There didn't seem to be any point to having the drama section in there. When it comes to projects like this, you can either be about gossip or you can be about facts. By trying to do it all FanHistory fails at both."
  • [tiferet]: "The behaviour of persons such as Ms Scribe and Victoria Bitter has had a profound affect on fandom; it's not wrong to document it, though I have a problem with the point-and-laugh aspect. It is interesting to fannish historians, no doubt, that Ms Scribe managed to manipulate so many people who had different ideas on what the HP books were ultimately about but all had the same goal of enjoying/appreciating them into having fights with each other that are still not forgiven (largely because FW and the cornfield folks continue to fan the flames). It's interesting in the sense of the truly awful impact a determined jerk can have on the behaviour of thousands of people if you give her a computer and enough free time. But Laura isn't interested in that. When we edited my page we kind of wanted to talk about how all this stuff got started--we assumed that Laura picked up the info off FW and didn't know any better and would be willing to hear the other side of the story and interested in what both sides of the argument thought it was about. Laura isn't interested in things like: "I actually think a lot of the Slytherfen vs Gryffindork name calling and backbiting got started when Ms Scribe went to my journal and called everyone from Nox et Lumos, Lightning War and House of Ill Faith to arms, saying that Arabella from the Sugarquill wanted all incest fic writers in HP to go to jail, then after we were fighting really hard, some person anonymously posted snippets from what I'm told was one of my Malfoycest fics in her journal and she deleted her journal and flounced off LJ forevar, but I don't know if it was my fic or not because I never saw the comments, which I didn't make, but now I bet I know who did." No, what Laura is interested in is what the F_W elite say I said about my lower parts and that I took the part of the Harmonians because anyone who thinks the Harmonians had a right to be upset in their own space must be delusional or something. You are not a historian if you are only interested in the side of the argument that makes the funniest case. You are not a historian if you only want to hear what one side has to say. You are not a historian if you don't care what I say about the whole Ms Scribe thing because I was a minor player in it and ignore the fact that as a fairly minor player there are things I could tell you about how the ripples spread from the stone."
  • [laura holt pi]: "If you don't want to be linked to what you've written, post it anonymously or under a name with no links to your real name. If your real identity is traceable by anyone online, it is traceable by everyone and you have only yourself to blame. I have no objection to people wanting privacy, but keeping that privacy is their responsibility. If your name gets out, it's because you weren't careful enough. Nothing on the internet is private. If you really want anonymity, don't post things online."
  • [taiyoukai-nile, posted a year later]: "The only thing known is that NO MONEY is made from the site. That is a definite. For a person that was on the outside and now on the inside, I KNOW this to be a fact. And WHO CARES if FH monetizes. It is the site owner's decision and not yours or anyone elses. Like I will tell anyone else.... SHAME ON YOU for trying to tell people how they should run their websites. Let me see you cough up over $200 out of your pocket per month. I do not see you wanking on Wikipedia and they accept donations. What can be controlled is using the site and adhering to their terms of service. FH has welcomed adding information whether positive or negative. Both happen and sometimes some fandoms just have way too much negativity and it shows. It does not mean that FH is against a certain person. It is because the information that has been highly discussed has been put to the table and documented. The same would go for positive information within a certain fandom. In fact, I would challenge more additions of positive news for Cassandra Claire. There are a lot of negatives from her past, and hey... we all f'd up at one time. But the challenge is to go forward and add things like her work published and reviews of her books, and that such. Regardless, of that, on the issue of disclosure, the site has some pretty clear cut terms to this. Think about this: Once you put something online, you cannot take it back. And when you become noteworthy, meaning you might be in the middle of wankage or even a positive event, expect to be mentioned. So, are you going to go to Google and Yahoo and other search engines when those names turn up there too? They are not as easy to work with to erase that and you would have to totally change your name to some pseudonym to get your real name off. Basic journalism and even newspaper columnists piss people off all the time, even in Today, New York Times, and even in magazines and other news material all across the world.... Sorry for the late reply on this... it was more of a follow-up on the progress of the website. There has been people that still visit your informative article, yet unaware of the changes as it is no longer a site controlled by partly_bouncy and there are people like myself that are stepping forward to make it a better place... Anyhow, this is not to make people change their minds, but know the progress, since I have noticed stats still coming from this article even recently."

Notes

References

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