The Sin Bin

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Challenge
Name: The Sin Bin: A Hockey RPF Kink Meme
Date(s): Created on 2014-06-20 - ?
Moderator(s):
Founder:
Type: kink meme
Fandom: Hockey RPF
URL: AO3 collection; dreamwidth comm; pinboard
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The Sin Bin is an anonymous Hockey RPF kink meme that ran on Dreamwidth. It also has an optional AO3 collection that is not anonymous.

As of June 2023, the Dreamwidth community has 18 posts; 21,509 comments; and 113 members.[1]

Rules

Warnings and content notes were optional. No underage prompts or fills were allowed. The only conduct requirement was not to be an asshole:

The mods reserve the right to freeze, screen, or delete wanky arguments, personal attacks, and anything that strikes them as being over the "don't be a ginormous asshole" line.

We don't want to have to turn this one rule - don't be an asshole - into a bunch of rules minutiae trying to enforce niceness, both because kink memes with lots of rules tend to die faster, but also because it is ridiculous to have to make a bunch of rules basically asking people to abide by common fannish norms of politeness. Prompt and let prompt, fill and let fill, kink and let kink.[2]

Various trolling incidents resulted in more rules added later:

  • In November 2014, posting images in comments was banned[3]
  • In August 2015, prompts or fills about Patrick Kane were banned[4]
  • In August 2021 prompts or fills about any player charged with domestic abuse or sexual assault were banned[2]

Origins

The Sin Bin was inspired by a discussion at the hockeyrpfanon anonmeme on LiveJournal.[5] One anon started the conversation with,

i miss what hockey fandom was like before the popularity boom in 2012. like the other anons reccing the older kink meme said there was much more variety in what got written, including these dirtybadwrong fics that *no one* produces now. no one wants to! the only fic i can think of portraying a fucked up dynamic that's been posted even vaguely recently is that carter/richards one, there's like nothing. and think of what would happen if someone did unapologetically post something with rape/abuse/whatever. people would be whinging about how 'problematic' and not ok it is. i want everything the ayrt mentioned in their comment times a zillion, but no one's going to post it on ao3. hockey rpf in its current state is one of the most sanitised, squeaky clean fandoms i've ever been in. except it's not really squeaky clean, we still get the filthy bdsm, but it always has to be accompanied with snuggles and juice and a author's note manual on How To Do Good Healthy Kink. i'm bored of it.[6]

A few anons expressed the opinion that the proliferation of trigger warnings were to blame[7], though one person suggested the cause was people not wanting to post kinky RPF in a more "public" venue like AO3[8], and another commented that "I've been in some super pro-warning fandom cultures where everyone is really enthusiastic and positive and telling everyone to ~write the rape fic of their dreams~, it's not like this. There's something specific to hockey fandom culture, I think, it's pretty frustrating."[9]

The future sinbin mod then posted a new thread to say they were thinking of creating "an experimental warnings-free kink meme".[5] A few commenters objected to the warnings-free proposal and said warnings were a basic courtesy.[5] The mod commented,

[I]n some CNTW spaces, there can be an attitude that you don't have to warn for common triggers, but you should anyway because it's the nice thing to do (see half of the recent marycontraire thread). All of FFA is CNTW, but people still get angry when someone posts an unwarned-for trigger, because warning is basic courtesy even if it isn't a mod rule. If warning is basic courtesy, people won't feel comfortable going CNTW, which is the whole point of a more lax kink meme. A possible solution would be to militantly weed out comments shaming people for not warning, if people really wanted the option to warn. But I think it's important to the feeling of a warning-free safe space that warning isn't treated as the default. People on the "basic courtesy" side seem to think CNTW-ers are doing it because they're lazy and hate people with triggers. A warnings-free meme would be one fandom corner out of a zillion where rigorous warning isn't expected and you don't have to worry about if and how to warn and what it says about you. And if you really don't see the point of a warnings-free meme, you're probably not the target audience. Enough people have responded positively that I think there's a demand for it.[5]

Challenge History

At the time The Sin Bin started, there was no other active hockey RPF kinkmeme.[10] The Sin Bin was very popular, and participants filled up four posts' worth of prompts and fills. The fifth post saw very little activity and even fewer fills, though it is technically still open as of 2023:

An August 2014 fill for the prompt "sid/pk, interracial kink" generated controversy in the dreamwidth comm and elsewhere, and was later used as an example in discussions about AO3 and racism. See also AO3 Content Discussion (2016), OTW and AO3 Racism Discussion (2020), End OTW Racism (2023).

After the news that Patrick Kane was charged with rape in August 2015, the kinkmeme experienced trolling over prompts related to him until the mod instituted a ban on Patrick Kane prompts or fills. The mod also promised to get a comod.

On the topic of my reconsidered stance, I just want to say that while I strive to keep the kinkmeme content neutral - like an archive, where, for instance, the expectation would not be that AO3 admins will preemptively ban stories from being posted where Patrick Kane is a character - I can see that asking people not to respond negatively or critically to content they see as rape apologism or support of rape apologism is not itself neutral. I do still feel that the kinkmeme is not the best venue for extended discussions of issues like these, and that a general "prompt and let prompt" policy is essential for keeping the kinkmeme a welcoming place.[11]

In April 2016, fans criticized the handling of a prompt using racist language; the incident was discussed in the comments on the rules post. The mods then posted an apology. "In the future, we will learn from this situation by being more thoughtful in our application of the asshole rule to racist language."[12]

In October 2020, the kinkmeme was handed over to new mods.[13]

References

  1. ^ thesinbin - Profile, Archived version, accessed 22 June 2023.
  2. ^ a b Rules and Requests for Rules Clarification, Archived version, 2014-06-20.
  3. ^ Important Rules Update, 2014-11-11.
  4. ^ Post #2, thesinbin, 2015-04-20.
  5. ^ a b c d relevant to meme's interests, Archived version, comment thread in hockeyrpfanon, 2014-05-21.
  6. ^ Re: Fic You Want To See, Archived version, hockeyrpfanon, 2014-05-18.
  7. ^ Re: Fic You Want To See, comment thread in hockeyrpfanon, 2014-05-18.
  8. ^ Re: Fic You Want To See, 2014-05-19.
  9. ^ Re: Fic You Want To See, Archived version, comment in hockeyrpfanon, 2014-05-19.
  10. ^ Re: Kink memes!, Archived version, comment in fail_fandomanon, 2014-06-19.
  11. ^ Kinkmeme is back with some changes, post by sinbinmod in thesinbin, 2015-08-14.
  12. ^ Mod statement, Archived version, post in thesinbin, 2016-04-10.
  13. ^ New Mods, post by sinbinmod in thesinbin, 2020-10-28.
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