Talk:Imajiru

I've included a full list of Imajiru's Forever Knight fan fiction because we've just had almost every page associated with her blanked out on the Forever Knight Wiki. We've restored the pages; but we don't know who was responsible. Someone anonymous. --Greer Watson 17:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The author is trying to lower her online profile. The wiki committee is consulting on this.--æþel 19:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This is helpful information. Gaylin has already posted to ForKNI-L; and someone there is forwarding her letter to the author.

I might add that wanting to "lower her online profile" is one thing, but anonymously deleting over fifty wiki pages is a perverse way to start: naturally, our first response was to revert the apparent vandalism. Not to mention the fact that we do have our own policies. Not quite the same as yours, but aiming to the same ideals, I think. Furthermore, this is not a case of disengaging her real name (which we all understand) but an attempt to blank out a pseud.

I'm glad you said "lowering her profile" rather than removing it altogether. That may be what she wants; but it's a lost cause—especially for an author who is not only prolific but good. I know for a fact that several of her stories have been recced quite widely: on LiveJournal and DreamWidth, and also on ForKNI-L (which is a subscription list, but is archived on the web). She used to have a screen capture archive which, back in the late '90s, was the go-to source for many old websites—meaning that there are a number of elderly free sites out there that credit her for their pictures (sometimes even under her real name). Not to mention the fact that taking down her website does not remove it from the Internet Archive, nor delete her stories from other fan fiction archives.

This is someone who has written classics, for Pete's sake. -- Greer Watson 23:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully, she and the Fanlore Wiki committee can flesh out what her ultimate goals are and how they fit into Fanlore's goals. Ex: is she seeking to remove her full real name, replace the full real name with the Fanlore pre-1995 naming convention, replace her real name (any form) with her online pseud etc. If her goal is to remove all traces of all activity across all the years under all names, real and pseuds - well that's something the committee is going to have to look into - they need to strike a balance while also preserving fannish history. It would take a strong argument of real life personal or professional embarrassment, and/or real physical danger, IMHO, to wipe out 15 years of fandom *pseud* history. --Morgandawn 00:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. We're in the middle of the same sort of discussion at Forever Knight Wiki. Real names are one thing: we, too, have a policy aimed at protecting people from being outed (and have made changes on request). However, we never envisioned someone trying to blank out fifteen years of very active fan activity that we've got recorded under her *pseud*. --Greer Watson 02:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Let us know what the Forever Knight Wiki decides? Also, is their real name privacy policy posted somewhere online? I think that like the Supernatural wiki, the Forever Knight Wiki covers its fandom activities in more depth. But unlike the SPN Wiki, you folks probably grapple with real life names issues more often. --Morgandawn 04:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

We do indeed have our Privacy Policy online: see Forever Knight Wiki:Policy/Privacy and Name Withheld. I might add that this is only the second time this has happened. What is more, the first time, all was done quite formally: the author approached Wikia, and one of their admins approached us, and we quickly hashed out the policy and applied it. What took us by surprise this time was the anonymity and extent of the "editing".

We've had very little comment on the extent of our author/story coverage. Of course, there may be those who long since left the fandom and don't even know the Wiki exists. However, there are also people we know are now concealing their full names, so we started straight off using their last initial or their pseudonym. But, yes: Forever Knight spans that transition between fanzine and the web. Also, there are plenty of people who revealed their names on little websites ten years ago, with no idea what Google would eventually be like.

I'll keep you posted on what eventually gets decided. At the moment, we haven't heard back from the Author, and don't actually know that the blank pages were edited by her. -- Greer Watson 08:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The Name Withheld is an interesting idea that might be useful when the use of abbreviations and/or pseuds might not be sufficient to prevent harm. For it to work there would need to be a way to tie the historical record of Name Withheld X together so it doesn't get lumped with and lost amongst all the other Name Withhelds. In Fanlore terms, when we run across similar names/pseuds we use an identifier (Ex: Mary Sue (Forever Knight writer)). Kludgy and not workable on the larger scale, but then I expect there will be only a small handful of cases where abbreviations and/or pseuds are insufficient. In Imajiru's case, she could unlink her real name abbreviation from her fannish pseud or even have her fannish pseud applied across all of her history (removing her real name abbreviation altogether). Another alternative would be to shorten her real name abbreviation to 3 initials which would make it virtually untrackable. Lots of options that will lower her profile while not erasing chunks of fandom history.--Morgandawn 20:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we've been running through similar options: abbreviating her pseud to I. is one that occurred to me. As for one of your other options: we had already largely backtracked through her history altering her real name to her pseudonym—an alteration of strict historical truth that we did for the sake of her anonymity. I did see from one page that was edited, though, that her real name (or its abbreviation) does still occasionally turn up in a list. We need to be more thorough, I guess. However, most of the pages that were blanked only named her pseudonym.

We had originally envisioned dumping all the Name Withhelds together (just as Anonymous undoubtedly is myriad); but, as I pointed out to Gaylin yesterday, we were never envisaging a case like this. We assumed that Name Withhelds would be minor authors of a couple of stories—people whose ties to fandom had always been fairly tenuous. However, we are dealing here with someone who was once very active, and moreover an author whose work is likely to be sought out. (I can quite see someone who read one of her stories then wanting to find out what else she's done.) It means we really need to keep all her stories together, so people can locate them as a group. And then there are all her other activities in the fandom. As you put it, we simply can't go around "erasing chunks of fandom history". -- Greer Watson 21:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Some random thoughts re structuring name abbreviations. In the case of a real name, it is easier to use first name, last initial [redacted] - or, as in this case, all three initials [redacted]. In the case of a one name pseud like Imajiru I would not use I. as an abbreviation because you will run into the possiblity of having more than one I. A better method would be the first three letters: Ima. Since you folks are only dealing with Forever Knight fandom, Fanlore's method of attaching a fandom identifier or a fan-type identifier may not work (ex: I. (Forever Knight fan) or I. (fan writer) might not be unique enough.) Lastly, you could go with the old tried and true numbers: I.1 and I.2. At some point this runs the risk of becoming a bit absurd if too many fans demand pseud removals, which is why I would need a better understanding of the harm the fan is facing as opposed to automatic pseud removal upon request. Then, I'd probably go for the first three initials for one name pseuds and first name, last initial for two name pseuds.....or something like that.....--Morgandawn 22:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"Lots of options that will lower her profile while not erasing chunks of fandom history." I couldn't agree more. --Mrs. Potato Head 18:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Keeping you posted, as requested: the author has now contacted us; so we know that it was indeed she who made the edits. We are therefore applying our privacy policy (now ongoing). This author will hereafter be referred to on the Forever Knight Wiki as "Name Withheld 2". This appellation will substitute in the text of articles for (a) her real name, (b) abbreviations of her real name; (c) an anagram of her real name; (d) her pseudonym (all of which variations have existed at one time or another, in one place or another).

In fact, I think I've spotted her name/pseud on a few pages she missed. I'll take care of them, too. --Greer Watson 05:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Because the term has ended, the wiki committee won't meet again until January. In the meantime, I have removed all versions of the author's legal name and substituted "J.R." --æþel 20:59, 18 December 2010 (UTC)