Talk:Take Clothes Off As Directed

I don't remember plagiarism, per se, coming up, so much as community standards that required--at the time--an author who wished to write in another person's universe get permission beforehand, and the reactions of many people that fandom didn't need to ask or receive permission and that community standard no longer existed. It came up during sga_flashfic's mission report as well, so this may actually rate a full entry. I remember being really surprised myself when so many people came out to say that they shouldn't have to ask permission for fanfic at that time and were told to stop complaining about it. Until SGA, I'd still been under the impression that as a general rule, we still followed the courtesy. --Seperis 18:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the plagiarism reference. I recall that all sorts of accusations got tossed around during those discussions, but my memory's a bit hazy. I added a few more links to lj discussions instead. Still needs a lot of fleshing out. Community standards for asking permission sounds like a good subject for an Fanlore article.--Aethel 18:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to remember specifically what other situations came up with the community standard on asking permission. In my experience, at least, it's relatively new that it's no longer considered a part of common fannish courtesy (circa Mission Reports), but the thing with Xanthe's story I don't think was the last time, though it is the last time I can specifically remember. I wonder if it can be melded into the mst3k's dibs lists--for a long time, I'd heard they were very strict about what and what is not fair game, but I was never part of the community and literally have no clue if that was accurate or not in terms of permission and courtesy toward the fellow writer or, in that case, from other writers interested in the same thing. I wonder if there are any mst3k people to give clarification on their policies as well. --Seperis 18:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a matter of "new" or "old" standards, but with different areas of fandom (livejournal vs. mailing list) or different individual fandoms evolving different standards, which then came into conflict. -- Liviapenn 19:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

In usenet, where I started, it was--at that time, in 1999--explained to me as not done at all. X-Men movieverse, same. Smallville I assumed was the same, but I never bothered to ask since it never came up, so maybe people were taking other people's stories all the time and rewriting them, I have no clue. I kind of do think it's a old versus new in some circles--to me, it does feel new and very, very unsettling, especially with the initial reactions at the flashfic thing treated, to me, with dismissiveness of the concerns of those who didn't want to be remixed without permission. I think it might have been common and accepted in some fandoms and not others, perhaps, but I think the flashfic reaction is an indicator that a lot of people were surprised that what they'd thought was a common fannish taboo wasn't one at all and made them understandably upset. --Seperis 20:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, similarly I think you could say the reverse as well: that the reaction to the flashfic challenge was an indicator that what a lot of people thought was *not* a set-in-stone fannish taboo, actually turned out to be one to a lot of people. Obviously the flashfic mods didn't put out their challenge expecting a fannish meltdown, but they did get one. So I think it's fair to say that there were definitely two schools of thought on the issue, and not just one or two people violating a huge pan-fandom taboo that everyone has shared since the beginning of time. (And the original post *did* encourage authors to ask permission before writing a mission report. It just didn't mandate it.) -- Liviapenn 20:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I never suggested they were out for oppression, I swear. That's why I couched my reaction personally and placed it within my particular experience context--it was a lot easier for me to see their point of view because, up until that point, I hadn't know there was a conflict regarding that, so it was--again, for me--a unpleasant shock to see it dismissed off-hand at first. It was obviously a culture clash on whether or not asking permission fell under general community standards or not--from my point of view, it was brand new and extremely surprising. Mileage varied for others who had never had it as a community standard and seemed to be equally surprised and perplexed that some people had a different set of expectations regarding their work as it existed in fandom. --Seperis 20:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that you were saying they were out to oppress people-- what I meant was, we could describe this as one or two people *inadvertently* violating a pan-fandom eternal taboo, or we could describe it as two schools of thought/two sets of standards colliding. (I'm just very wary of statements like in your original comment, "I'd still been under the impression that as a general rule, we still followed the courtesy" which implies that it's a matter of Courteous People vs. Rude People as opposed to two *different standards* of courtesy.) -- Liviapenn 21:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC) (fixed indentation)

Ah. That would be questionable in this context. It was introduced to me as a part of courtesy, literally that being the term; the term community standards didn't enter my active vocabulary probably until it showed up in lj meta when everyone went to LJ, so it tends to linger as how I think of that particular aspect of standards first. Consider it retracted and replaced with simply community standards and no reflection on those communities that do not share it. --Seperis 21:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

And added to, I'm sorry for not double checking my terminology before using it in this context, as it does read questionably. I should thought about how it read more carefully, since the situation then was thorny. I really didn't mean to call everyone who didn't agree untutored barbarians, more that at the time, it came across as against standards as I understood them. Though as an examination, it's kind of fascinating, with LJ forcing so many groups with sometimes separate but parallel development to smack into each other like particularly unwieldy freight trains with really, really interesting results. --Seperis 22:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

When I was having a conversation about doing something with the hurt/comfort page, Klangly references "The Rack", published in Contact #4, which was a story where Kirk's career is destroyed because of the rumors of his relationship to Spock. This story had a lot of authorized and unauthorized sequels, and eventually they were all collected into a zine; if you want it, the reference is here: http://wickedwords.livejournal.com/617783.html?thread=3136311#t3136311 --rache 19:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

This footnote really needs rewording. I'm not even sure what it's trying to say: "Xanthe to date has not mentioned the story publicly, though she has referred to on her site [1] the following after the original story being nominated for an award: "SGA Big Name Fans all got their knickers in a twist about"" --Kyuuketsukirui 20:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That Xanthe had problems with the occasionally vicious critiques of her story that came about after that other story was released and the compare/contrast began? Is there a better way to word it? I do think its relevant, since there were a lot of people saying that Xanthe didn't mind either the story or the criticism, which is incorrect. --Seperis 20:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it's relevant. I just have trouble following the sentence and her site wasn't loading for me, so I couldn't check it out and see if it made it any clearer. Is this rewording correct? "To date Xanthe has not mentioned Helen's story publicly, though on her site, she has referred to her own fic as the story "SGA Big Name Fans all got their knickers in a twist about""? --Kyuuketsukirui 20:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Your command of grammar is far superior to mine today; that sounds much clearer. Thank you. --Seperis 20:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

No problem. :) --Kyuuketsukirui 21:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

excuse to test the sections function, actually

This sentence seems out of place: "Authorized stories in Xanthe's universe include The Spaces Inside by lavvyan, an earthside AU where Rodney is a prostitute, and the series High School Confidential by Elayna, an AU where John and Rodney meet in high school." It could be useful information, but slightly off-topic as it stands at present. Footnote?--Aethel 02:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, listing the fics she did authorise seems like something that should go on the page for her fic(s), rather than here (or if it does go on this page, not in the middle of that paragraph).--Kyuuketsukirui 06:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I think in this case its relevant to make the distinction that she *has* authorized fic in her universe, but not this specific one, since that's a big part of the controversial aspects of this story's release. Though maybe as a footnote instead? I'm not married to it, but maybe a mention that she has authorized fic before, if not naming them specifically, and leaving that part to her page. --Seperis 08:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

How is that? I organised the info that had previously been in the footnote, along with the sentence about authorised stories, into a section on Xanthe's reaction. --Kyuuketsukirui 08:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

That works for me; it's definite a fan reaction to the story. --Seperis 19:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Question--should the controversial aspects be moved over here to this entry? Xanthe's story, until Helen's, wasn't controversial in itself, and it was pretty much Helen's story that was teh controversial topic in relation to Xanthe's, so it feels more appropriate that the bulk of the links and discussion go here, or are mirrored here as well. Opinions? --Seperis 18:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.--Aethel 22:33, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

stub?

I think the stub template should go now. This may not cover everything related to the story and kerfuffles yet, but it's substantial enough to count as article proper, IMO.--RatCreature 11:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Also, we could copy the controversy section from the Coming Home page, then it would be pretty much complete. --Doro 12:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

That would need to be merged with the "fandom reaction" section on this page though, rather than just copied, because there's some overlap.--RatCreature 13:10, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Done!--æþel 22:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)