Talk:LiveJournal/200902Archive

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I just created the entry for The Migration to LJ and think it might have a place on the general LJ page. How should I go about editing this LJ entry so it has the proper redirect? Or should I simply move the Migration entry TO this one? Also, edits and additions to that page would be greatly appreciated. --Sabine 05:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

We could move it over as a subpage to this one, if you thought it was appropriate. --rache 05:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, it's currently listed under Fan Activity and Fan Occurrences, but I think it definitely also addresses at least one of the questions posed on the LJ entry here. Would you feel comfortable going ahead and attaching it to this post, rache? I haven't tried subpages yet, and plus I'd love another user to confirm my feelings. Let me know how to proceed if you'd rather I do it? --Sabine 05:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, done. If you change the main livejournal page to delete out the info that the new page references, the main page will recheck for subpages, and the one I moved should then appear on the list. --rache 05:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the questions I answered and reframed the remaining question to address what's not in the Migration post. Should I be doing anything else? Thanks so much for the help! --Sabine 05:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops! The main livejournal page is set up as a site template, which doesn't automatically include the subpages listing. I went ahead and added that, so the migration to LJ shows up. --rache 05:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Um...I think this is highly problematic! "While fandom does exist off LiveJournal, the bulk of what we consider fandom is what is located on LiveJournal and its communities, challenges, and archives." The bulk of what many LJers consider fandom is located on LJ. I think that should be made clear rather than just using some nebulous "we" to place greater importance on LJ as The Real Fandom. --Kyuuketsukirui 04:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I wrote that, and was never wild about it. I agree with you, but wasn't sure how to phrase "among LJ fans, LJ is the home of fandom." If you've got better words, I'd love for you to change this as you see fit. It's definitely assumptive and exclusionary and needs to be changed. Thanks. --Sabine 04:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I reworded it a little. I'm kind of mulling over the paragraph right before it, too. It seems like it's making a leap that doesn't necessarily follow. It seems to be saying that blogs were the natural progression of fandom, and the only reason we didn't see fandom on blogs before LJ is because people didn't have websites where they could install blogging software. But even if they had, that wouldn't have worked for a fandom hub, because it would have all been separate. The reason LJ was successful as a new place for fandom is that it allowed people to have their blogs all together in one place and be connected with one another. There are also leaps from talking about being monofannish to just LJ in general that aren't really working, but I'm not sure how to reword any of it, so I'm just talking it out here. --Kyuuketsukirui 06:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you -- that section about fandom now basically existing only on LJ was really bothering me. --Arduinna 15:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I also reworded the section about narcissism, as it seemed to be implying it was narcissistic to talk about stuff you're intersted in on your own journal, rather than whatever person A who has you friended thinks is interesting...which is actually narcissistic on the part of the person reading, not the OP. --Kyuuketsukirui 07:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "narcissism" is a loaded term, but the sense is accurate, especially opposed to mailing lists. Personal livejournals *are* self-centered, as you've just repeated here -- people are posting specifically about what interests them (including sometimes very personal things), however they want to, and visitors are meant to be okay with that. On a mailing list, people post what will interest other people; it's an outward focus, not an inward one. --Arduinna 15:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I used the word "narcissism" intentionally (I have many posts in the late 2001-2002 era of non-LJers (or not-yet-LJers <g>) talking about the narcissism of bloggers and LJers and how horrible they were, and how they'd never get one. Heh.) but I'm willing to bow to fannish consensus if other people think it's too harsh.Sherrold 19:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I think "narcissism" is an inherently negative term, and not everyone agrees that the personal focus of personal LJs is a negative thing. So I think we either need to use more neutral phrasing, or say something like "Some fans have criticized LJ fandom as narcissistic" and cite an example. I'm uncomfortable with making that kind of value judgment without attribution.--Penknife 20:02, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the rewording and cite is a good compromise -- I do think the term should be mentioned because it was a specific criticism against LJ in those years. (S., if I was one of the people using it -- very possible -- you've got permission to cite me.) --Arduinna 21:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

If you were, I haven't caught you at it, yet. <g> I did find this: [re LJ] "[redacted by Arduinna]" It's by [a fan] on Prospect-L. Can we use it? How "private" are open Yahoogroups? --Sherrold 01:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I think quotes from MLs are fine. My main problem was that it was just stated as if it were a fact. But really, since the problem is not necessarily that people actually are narcissistic, but that other people feel everyone should only talk about what they themselves (er, they being the complainer; too many theys here) find interesting, it's probably best to rephrase as I've done and actually describe what's going on. (I mean, even the quote... Just because reader A finds B's posts on X to be "pointless shit" doesn't mean that readers C, D, and E don't enjoy them. So it's really a problem with A, not with B.) --Kyuuketsukirui 09:45, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, quoting email from a members-only mailing list is verboten (so I redacted your comment, S, to be on the safe side, since it shouldn't go on the talk pages, either.) Basically, think of posts to members-only lists as friends-locked posts. Which is frustrating but only fair, since people posting to lists 5 or 10 years ago had every expectation that their words wouldn't wind up on a public webpage someday without their sayso. *g* (And may have used their real name on a safe, friendly mailing list, where they wouldn't do that on a public wiki...) What I've seen (and done myself) is people making general comments (like "some fans have criticized LJ as narcissistic") and then as a reference saying something like "saved email from Prospect-L, accessed blah 2008" -- it's okay to mention the list and link to its front page, just not to directly identify the specific content or authors of specific posts without permission. (You could always drop J a note, she might not mind being quoted!) Kyuuketsukirui, I think we're talking at cross-purposes about what "narcissistic" meant in the context of S's statement, but I needed to be in bed about four hours ago, so am putting that bit off for now. *g* --Arduinna 11:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I took "open Yahoogroups" to mean it was a group anyone could join. I'm not familiar with the ML in question. --Kyuuketsukirui 11:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

The question isn't whether it was a group anyone could join, but whether posts were visible to non-members -- the citation policy says no linking to posts in any mailing list or community "that requires members to join before viewing posts."--Penknife 14:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not debating the policy. I think it's bizarre, but I don't actually care. --Kyuuketsukirui 15:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

fan activity on LJ clones

The article currently makes it sounds as if nobody really stuck with other sites, but that isn't true among the groups most affected like HP Snarry comms, and HP art stuff in general, like exchanges that would allow underage chan art that got people banned. I mean, yes, relatively few people migrated exclusively to IJ or JF, but a couple of significant comms of the previously LJ infrastructure and fests are now elsewhere. Like the Snape/Harry newsletter is now on IJ, the snarry_games, hd_worldcup, merry_smutmas, pornish_pixies of course, painless_j moved her thematic lists off LJ, which were a central point to find fic, and doesn't post kink recs there anymore either, other BNF moved too. Some smaller fests are on IJ now as well, like the snapely_holidays, snarry_swap... smutty_claus main location is on JF now I think. Of course lots of people and comms stayed, andmany crosspost, but a significant chunk of HP fandom moved their fandom content.--Ratcreature 08:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right. Should that be a section on the LJ entry here or should we put a, like, "fan activity on LJ clones" link here and make that its own page? --Sabine 08:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

And probably there should also be some HP specific information; the move from LJ isn't referenced on the main Harry Potter entry, but I bet it's in some of the entries for the pornish-pixies and so on. I don't know HP fandom well but I think it definitely marked a significant portion of the off-LJ fansquatting, like you said... --Sabine 08:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

IJ already has a page, as has JF, and communities have their respective entries, like pornish pixies, so I think that community specific info should go into those, general activity in a place into the entries of the services, and just the move away from LJ covered in the LJ entry. It would a bit odd to cover other places as "not-LJ" rather than under their names, so I'm against a summary page for LJ clones. Unfortunately I'm not that active in HP either, so I'm not so certain of all the details and all the communities that moved, but I definitely noticed as a casual HP reader. Also personally I x-post now, because a chuck of my f-list moved, so my fandom experience is more splintered now than a few years ago.--Ratcreature 09:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Good thinking. I added a tacit reference on the Harry Potter page in the hopes that someone else will follow it up. But yeah, we can just keep the stuff about moving away from LJ here and then let people browse to the IJ or JF entries for that information. --Sabine 09:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't the HP move related to strikethrough and boldthrough? Instead of just "threatening to jump ship", the fandom really did "jump ship", and is now thriving on IJ and other places. --rache 15:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the point is that the protest and outrage was widely spread across "fandom" i.e. multiple fandoms (communities like "fandomcounts" and such) but in the end mostly those communities left whose content had been TOS'ed or was more likely to run into trouble (like fans of chanslash art), while others, even if they had complained still stayed, because thier fandom content was "safe" (e.g. I can't think of any SGA comm that moved).--Ratcreature 19:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and change the phrasing, since it's implied that all fandoms stayed with LJ, when they did not. --rache 20:57, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The way it is phrased now isn't right either though. Even at the height of the strikethrough outrage there was plenty of meta from fans who said they wouldn't leave, and that the chanslash art being TOS'ed wasn't reason for them to switch, that LJ's position was understandable, that other services would be just as bad, that fan run services would be worse and so on. It was never cohesive either way. Even in the most affected sub-fandoms like Snape/Harry fans not everybody moved as a block.--Ratcreature 21:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Migration to LJ PPOV?

I'm having sort of gigantic issues with some of the wording in this, but I don't want to just go in and start changing things willy-nilly. (Ack, sorry, this is insanely long.)

My experience in the 1990s appears to have been drastically opposed to the person's who wrote this, to the point that I'm sort of blinking at the image I'm getting of fans locked voluntarily away into solitary lists or newsgroups, never talking to anyone new or reading anything different because that's just how it was. There were definitely monofans, yes -- but IME they were monofannish because they wanted to be, not because there was no other recourse. It just wasn't that hard to be multifannish in online forums in the 1990s.

My experience of coming in to fandom in mid-1993 was finding one mailing list (forkni-l) via a web search, and very shortly thereafter finding out about DS lists, HL lists, and soon enough XF lists. All of these also led to chats, where I got introduced to other fandoms, and to people in different corners of the fandoms I was already in. Taking list convos to private email and getting to know people got me onto even more lists. And people would introduce new public lists on existing lists, even for different fandoms. There were even multi-fandom discussion lists and multi-fandom fic lists (some of which I'm still on), not to mention the multi-fandom vidding list (still on it).

By 1998, I was/had been on multiple lists for well over a dozen individual fandoms, plus 9 multi-fandom discussion lists (some serious, some just chatty, some that allowed fic as well), at least 2 multi-fandom fic lists, and one multi-fandom vidding list. I knew about fandom lists for many more fandoms than that, as well; I just wasn't interested enough to want to read posts about them every day so didn't sub. But sometimes I'd get stories from them, forwarded by friends who knew I'd like them. And multi-fandom archives started appearing in the mid-to-late 1990s (ff.net, Complete Kingdom of Slash, Wonderful World of Make Believe...).

Plus, of course, there were zines, which I ordered by the fistful (new and used) whenever I had some spare cash, in every fandom I knew and as many multimedia zines as I could find (they'd get announced on any list where there might be any interest at all in one of the fandoms included, or you could just ask known publishers for flyers and get their entire catalog). I had trading systems set up with a few different people, where we'd mail each other zines so we could read more than we could afford ourselves. I tribbed to some of these, as well. I went to multi-media cons in the '90s, too -- not many, but a few, and I met people there and got exposed to more fandoms and more zines, etc.

I had *zero* media-fandom connections before I got online. I did all of that just by reading list mail and talking to people who interested me.

Also, this section says that it was 1999 before people had access to free webspace. But people had free webspace starting around 1995, from Geocities, Tripod, and Angelfire, and even before that, almost everyone who went through an ISP had free webspace that came with their account. People used them for putting their own fic up, or art, or creating archives, or making recs; almost everyone had a links page so visitors could find more places that would interest them (often multi-fannish, and including links to what would today be called meta or rants or writing guides); people were on webrings for the same reason. They didn't have blogs until 1999, no, but that's because that's when easy-to-use blogging software became available.

So to me, it looked like LJ took off not because it finally gave people a place to be multifannish, but because it gave them a place to talk publicly about their personal lives and fandom at the same time, and to have greater control over the conversations they were involved in. Also, in the early days, all there was was individual LJs, and people liked the total lack or rules and the presumption that with no mailing lists to force people to interact, there would be no more flamewars. (I'm not kidding, I heard many people say that the lack of fighting and flamewars was what drew them to LJ, where everyone was was completely accepting and tolerant of other people's views because this was all about self-expression.)

You can see why I didn't just want to go in and start reworking things. *g* Just, my experience overall is *massively* different, to the point I'm not entirely sure how to work it in without erring too far in the other direction. *throws this out to everyone* --Arduinna 15:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it was easy to be multifannish pre-LJ, what has changed is more that it is now harder to be monofannish. Or rather one can be monofannish on LJ, but is still likely to see stuff from other fandom.--Ratcreature 16:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

In some ways, this is a meta article, and it's hard to go in an put in alternate perspectives. Having thought about it, I will start giving it a try, though I may make a hash of the changes. I am up for suggestions for how to fix it as I am fresh out. --rache 18:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I changed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs, but I need significant help on the forth. Does anyone else remember the free mailinglists like egroups having blackouts in the 2000-2002 timeframe, or why that might have happened? I could easily have my facts wrong there. --rache 19:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Do we even need the mono-fannish thing here anymore? (She asks, after her giant screed about it all.) It started out being named as the direct cause of the migration, but reading it over now, it's sounds like something that belongs more on the mono-fan page; it has no real connection to LJ or the migration there at all at this point. Maybe it needs to be switched to something about LJ tending to make people more multi-fannish by default? (i.e., change the focus to what LJ did/offered - although maybe that belongs in a different section, as well, something like LJ's effects on fans and fandom.) Re the blackouts, I don't remember any; I know that sometimes eGroups or YahooGroups would glitch out for a few days, with mail either vanishing or coming in late and very disordered, but I don't remember lists actually vanishing per se (unless they got TOSed), so I'm no help there. (I do remember sitting through a lot of other people's panic as LJ went down for a day or days on end, though, and people retreating to lists or suddenly getting accounts on JF or IJ or DJ or GJ as a fallback while they waited it out. *g*) --Arduinna 21:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't know if we need mono-fannish or not. I do think the key point was that livejournal led to more fannish osmosis. Go ahead and take a stab at changing the wording if you want, see if you can make it more what you are thinking about. --rache 21:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)