committee post: Category proposal

[aethel]

The Fanlore wiki committee would like to thank everyone who's participated in our recent conversation about categories and anime / manga / related fandoms. Several commentors on that thread sparked the following idea (especially branchandroot -- thanks, branchandroot!), and we'd like to know what you think about it.

The idea is this: what if we remove all of the format categories, and replace them with a flat, non-hierarchical list of fandom categories? Here's a visual representation of how things work now:


[ Image Description: The "Fandoms by Source Text" category, encompassing both medium-based categories like "Film", "Real People", and "Gaming", and individual fandom categories like "Harry Potter" and "World of Warcraft". The "Fandoms By Source Community" category is unused. ]

Basically, we're rethinking how the category hierarchy for Fandoms by Source Text works. "Fandoms by Source Text" includes all fandoms that are focused on a single "text" or set of texts, like Final Fantasy, Jane Austen, or Brokeback Mountain. Currently, there are a number of "format" categories underneath the main "Fandoms by Source Text" category that we inherited from multifandom archive structure--these categories are not much used at all because a) the wiki isn't a fanfic archive and b) we now have categories for individual fandoms. Meanwhile, "Fandoms by Source Text" has a sibling category that is underused: Fandoms by Source Community, for fandoms that don't correspond neatly to a single canon text. Like Media Fandom, Anime & Manga Fandom, Filk, Vidding, J-pop, Manhwa, etc.

The restructuring plan has two parts:

1. Delete all of the format categories from Fandoms by Source Text, leaving a flat, non-hierarchical list of fandom categories.

2. Make better use of Fandoms by Source Community by moving the Anime, Manga, Real People, and Comics(?) categories there.

And then fans can make as many more fandom categories as they need, according to the naming conventions within their own communities. (We also recognize that some fannish traditions have arisen which don’t consider themselves part of an overall fannish culture; it’s not our intention to prescribe categories for those traditions, but rather to let those fan communities self-define as they will.)

Here's a visual aid for the proposed changes:


[ Image Description: "Fandoms by Source Text" category now encompasses only fandom categories like "Coffee Prince" and "Blake’s 7". The "Fandoms by Source Community" category now has categories for things like "Media Fandom", "K-Drama", and "Gaming". These in turn also lead to individual fandom categories, e.g. "Media Fandom" leads to "Blake’s 7" and "Harry Potter" while "K-Drama" leads to "Coffee Prince". ]

(This is a rough sketch to illustrate how potential fandom categories might be linked to one another and is not intended to be complete or prescriptive.)

Categories to be deleted:
Books & Literature
Cartoons
Film
Games (?)
Radio
Television
Theater
(and "Real People" could be renamed or split into whatever categories people choose.)

---

Here are some examples for how wiki pages might be categorized according to the plan.

No fandom that has a fandom category needs to have a page categorized under Fandoms by Source Text. For example:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Harry Potter
...........Harry Potter (the page)

So the page "Harry Potter" would get the Harry Potter category and no other category.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Homestuck (the page)

The page "Homestuck" would get the Fandoms by Source Text category because there is no "Homestuck" category yet.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Naruto
.........Naruto (the page)

Category:Fandoms by Source Community
....Category:Anime & Manga
........Category:Naruto
.............Naruto (the page)

The page "Naruto" would get the Naruto category.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Blake's 7
.........Blake's 7 (the page)

Category:Fandoms by Source Community
.....Category:Media Fandom
.........Category:Blake's 7
.............Blake's 7 (the page)


The page "Blake's 7" would get the Blake's 7 category, but would no longer have a "Television" category. Each fandom category would be its own thing.

---

Would this proposed solution -- getting rid of format categories such as "Television" and "Film" and letting each fandom category (including "Anime & Manga," "Manhwa," etc) be its own thing -- work for you? We want your input; please tell us what you think!

(If there are no objections to the plan above, please feel free to start moving categories on May 28. If you need help with wiki stuff, please don’t hesitate to contact the gardeners for assistance or leave a comment to this post.)

EDIT June 23: See the revised proposal here

Comments

[naraht]

"Fandoms by Source Text" includes all fandoms that are focused on a single "text" or set of texts...

I get that this is a description of the way that things are now, but it seems odd that you're proposing keeping the same term when you're proposing to put non text-based fandoms like RPF under that heading.

Or are you? I can't quite parse this here:

No fandom that has a fandom category needs to have a page categorized under Fandoms by Source Text.

As I consider myself fairly fandom-savvy and Wiki-savvy, I think that my confusion doesn't bode well for your plan....

ETA: Are books part of Media Fandom or not? Again, confusion...

[aethel]

We are using the word "text" in the academic sense--anything that can be "read" or interpreted. So movies, books, paintings, anything televised or recorded are "texts" in this sense. There has always been some back and forth about whether RPF fit even this loose definition.

>No fandom that has a fandom category needs to have a page categorized under Fandoms by Source Text.

There is a Category:Harry Potter. The page "Harry Potter", along with pages like The Draco Trilogy and FictionAlley, gets this category and doesn't need the category "Fandoms by Source Text".

Media Fandom is an eclectic assortment of individual fan communities that share certain values, practices, and vocabulary. It is my understanding that some books, like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, are counted as part of media fandom. I guess it depends on who you ask?

[naraht]

We are using the word "text" in the academic sense--anything that can be "read" or interpreted. So movies, books, paintings, anything televised or recorded are "texts" in this sense. There has always been some back and forth about whether RPF fit even this loose definition.

Yes, I understood "text" in the academic sense. My concern was really whether RPF fits that definition. I suppose some does and some doesn't, but that might not be too helpful.

There is a Category:Harry Potter. The page "Harry Potter", along with pages like The Draco Trilogy and FictionAlley, gets this category and doesn't need the category "Fandoms by Source Text".

Ah, OK. But you would still find Harry Potter if you were looking in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category, right, because there would be the "Harry Potter" category in there?

Media Fandom is an eclectic assortment of individual fan communities that share certain values, practices, and vocabulary. It is my understanding that some books, like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, are counted as part of media fandom. I guess it depends on who you ask?

So would Fanlore differentiate this, then, and put some book fandoms into the Media Fandom category and others not? Where would the other book fandoms fit in "Fandom by Source Community" terms?

[elf]

"Source text" could potential rename to "source material." Those who aren't directly involved in academia might keep being confused when we see a tv show called a "text." (It's proper academic use; if the archive isn't intended to scare off non-academics, it should be comfortable for casual users as well.)

[sqbr]

This is probably an obvious question, but: under this new categorisation, would it still be possible to create a list of all the fandoms based on books? I understand not making that the primary classification, but it's still a useful thing to know.

(On the whole I find these categorisation questions confuse me, so I don't have much to add, sorry)

[naraht]

Yeah, I would still want to be able to do that.

[aethel]

Is there a larger "Book Fandom" identity that fans of book fandoms share? If so, we could move or rename the current category as a Fandom by Source Community. I see a page for Litfic--is that considered a fandom?

[naraht]

For my part at least that wouldn't really fit the requirement. Type of text ("book") and identity of fandom are two different things. It would be very useful to still be able to search by type of text.

Litfic might be considered a fandom by some but I don't think it's overarching enough as an identity to play the role that you're hoping to fit it into here.

[sqbr]

Why does there need to be an identity around a Category for it be worth keeping? I'm pretty sure here isn't a "movies" fandom but it would still be useful to be able to search just though movies sometimes.

[msilverstar]

I've found that this kind of hierarchical taxonomy is never perfect, and often the cause of much wank -- you should see biology taxo fights, especially with new DNA evidence.

The more you worry about evenness and consistency, the more problems. If RPF doesn't fit, make it another top-level category rather than stuffing it into something else. Balanced trees are the hobgoblin of little minds.

[facetofcathy]

I'm just throwing this out there:

Fandoms by Source Text as you have it proposed which is a page which indexes the various individual Fandom Categories.

Fandoms by Source Community as you have it proposed which is a page which indexes the various broad types of Fandoms that those source texts might be similar to, so that each sub Category is an index of similar types of Fandom Categories.

Then add:

Fandoms by Canon Type which would be a page that indexes the various types or varieties of canon sources (Live Action Television, Film, Sequential Art, Animation, Books, etc.) and each subpage is an index of similar types of Fandom Categories organized in that way.


Result: A fan who likes sequential art can look at that page and see all similar things. A fan who likes Asian-sourced fandoms can look at that page and see similar things. A fan who wants to see the list of Fandoms can go to Fandoms by Source Text and see that.

[elf]

I like this suggestion. I suppose megafandoms could just have multiple canon types? (Batman: Comics, TV, Movies--there have been novels, but I don't think they have a presence apart from the comics fandom.) Not sure if "TV" should be one category or two, live action & animated.

[facetofcathy]

I would say they are three actually. Television, Animation and Webcasts or WebTV. Television could be defined on it's page to be specifically live action programming because long category names are a PITA to type in on pages. I would say that just because something is broadcast on TV doesn't make it TV, and just because something is live action filmed drama (The Guild) doesn't make it TV either.

And yes, all sorts of pages now have multiple canon types. There's even a template that puts a particular infobox on the page for "mash-up" sourced fandoms.

But something like Batman--where there may be particular fannish groups focused around single canon versions of the story that have some kind of blurry distinction from each other--would likely end up with separate pages for all of those and have only one canon type category on the page. Some of those pages might get categorized with a DCU category as well, some obviously not.

LOTR is another case where there is a question of how related book and film fandoms are--they can each have a page that would be categorized by their canon types and by LOTR.

Harry Potter seems to work best on a single page that would get a books and films cat under my idea. (And could likely use changing to that mash-up template right now.)

[alias_sqbr]

I like this suggestion too!

[skaredykat]

Yes please to this and what elf suggested.

I very much want to be able to find myself on a page for say, "Frankenstein (2011)", see that it is categorized as "Theater" and as "Frankenstein" so I can click on either category and in one case get a list of all other fandoms that are categorized as "Theater" and by clicking the other category tag get a list that shows all other fandoms (Litfic fandom, film adaptations including individual versions, Marvel comics adaptation, etc.) categorized as "Frankenstein".

Overall I'm in favor of adding more categories, not having fewer, for any page where it's relevant, and seeing them be treated more like AO3 wuzzles/tags (upgrading the database functionality if need be) so categories can be searched on and filtered in various ways to increase the wiki's usefulness by making it easier for it to return both richer/wider and more narrowly focused search-results. (Which systems like library cataloging software tend to do by adding more keywords to each entry.)

[graycardinal]

I like this proposal a great deal, with one modification: In this model, "Fandoms by Source Community" might in fact be best labeled "Fandoms by Community",

Rationale: if one is going to be non-hierarchical, one should be non-hierarchical in all directions at once, and fan communities come in many sizes and shapes. Harry Potter fandom, filk fandom, and the SCA are large fan communities; at the same time, there are many small and oddly shaped fan communities centered around (for example) Wiscon, the Free Amazons of Darkover, and Yuletide.

[aethel]

Hey, I like this rename and proposed it to the wiki committee. Thanks!

[busaikko]

Interesting. I'm wondering how this will work with fandoms that fit in more than one source community. Taking Harry Potter as an example, there are HP doujinshi (Source Community: Anime & Manga), HP filksongs (Source Community: Filk), HP vids (Source Community:??? where do vids go?), Lego HP Wii game as well as tabletop games (Source Community: Gaming), and HP film actor RPF (Source Community: RPF). Would all of these be locatable (left to right on above chart) from the Harry Potter Page?

As well, how would same-Source Community and multiple-Source Community variant canons be categorized (on the chart, moving right to left)? For an example of the first, a film remake, like old/new Karate Kid; for an example of the second, a manga series / TV anime series / animated film series (with reboots) / live-action film / etc. like Uchu Senkan Yamato, all with canons that differ to some degree. Would these all point to a main Fandom:differentiation page?

I find Source Community;Media Fandom confusing, but assume that this is already something that has been hashed out. I was surprised that it seems to contain all English-language film, television, books, music, theater, animation, and radio, but assume those would be subcategories?

[aethel]

The Harry Potter category could be cross-linked as needed: it could be a subcategory of Media Fandom and of Anime & Manga, or whatever. Or maybe the solution is to leave HP as a stand-alone fandom category.

>As well, how would same-Source Community and multiple-Source Community variant canons be categorized (on the chart, moving right to left)?

It depends on whether they are separate fandoms or not. The point of "Fandoms by Source Community" is to ignore the media format of the canon text and just identify how fans group themselves.

>I find Source Community;Media Fandom confusing, but assume that this is already something that has been hashed out. I was surprised that it seems to contain all English-language film, television, books, music, theater, animation, and radio, but assume those would be subcategories?

There would be no media format subcategories. Every fandom that is considered to be a "media fandom" would be a subcategory under Media Fandom. If there is some question about whether certain fandoms fit there or not, editors can discuss it on the talk page.

[alias_sqbr]

This is less a complaint and more an alternate data point, since I realise you can't make everyone happy: not everyone who creates fanworks is part of a single coherent "community" for the relevant canon, and I have this niggling feeling that the way you've set things up could replicate the same rigid bias towards the POV of the majority within the separate subfandoms that you're trying to get rid of in the wiki as a whole. I'm not sure how you'd fix it though :/

[facetofcathy]

I think this is an excellent point.

There's a discussion from back in 2008 on a talk page that I can't find again, where an editor asked about the very concept of organizing by source text in relationship to fans who are fans of the fic for a pairing and don't care about the canon at all.

I was also having a discussion on my journal about the idea of fans intentionally seeking out characters to slash, rather than finding a source slashable. And I feel that fans do both of those things for fandoms that other fans access via the canon.

But, none of this matters when it comes to writing the page. I think we could all do with remembering that categories put on a fandom page in no way limit or permit or indicate content of that page. So if I were to go to the Stargate Atlantis page, which is a Fandom by Source Text and start writing about fans who have never seen a single episode, but love the fic, I can do that. I should do that, in fact.

I made a page about the Fanwork DM of the Rings which is a thing a guy made independent of transformative works fandom but which meets any definition of transformative work and also has a community of fans around it, just like any Sam/Frodo 121 part WIP does. So this page is in the LOTR category because it is like all the other things in that category even if Shamus himself has never even heard of those other things and he just thinks he made a webcomic.

All of which is saying that, yes, I think the wiki has and will always have a broad POV of transformative works fandom (that still includes but isn't focused on other sorts of fannish activities) and I think that's totally okay.

[naraht]

There's a discussion from back in 2008 on a talk page that I can't find again, where an editor asked about the very concept of organizing by source text in relationship to fans who are fans of the fic for a pairing and don't care about the canon at all.

I was also having a discussion on my journal about the idea of fans intentionally seeking out characters to slash, rather than finding a source slashable. And I feel that fans do both of those things for fandoms that other fans access via the canon.

I find myself amused/interested by the idea of having a "Source material: fanon" category for fandoms that are particularly non-canon-regarding in this way.

[sqbr]

I think there are two issues here: Usability, and the sense of inclusion. I agree that it probably doesn't make much of a difference from a useability point of view, but I have this unhelpfully nebulous instinct that people are going to look at the classification for their fandom and go "Well, I don't relate to it that way, so I mustn't be the sort of fan they want editing the page".

[kylara]

There have been some excellent suggestions in the comments here. I'm wondering if the wiki committee is planning on making another post to continue proposing/clarifying the category restructuring with the new suggestions?

I would also like some clarification on the use of "media fandom" as a category. I've only ever heard this used around Fanlore and I get the impression that it might have rather different definitions depending on use; e.g. from the Fanlore article, it seems it might be including anime/manga fandom in the sense that "media fandom" is trying to refer to fic-writing fanart-drawing vid-making side of fandom in general (which is sort of how I initially interpreted its meaning), but when it's been used in discussion around here I almost think it's intended to refer to fandoms originating in English to differentiate them from other (re: anime/manga) fandoms. Could someone please clear this up?

[rbarenblat]

Rachel here chiming in on behalf of the wiki commitee: yes, we do hope/plan to make another post for more conversation and clarification of category restructuring, but we're not quite ready yet. Thanks for your patience.

Re: media fandom -- media fandom is the corner of fandom with which I identify, and I think of it as a category which began in differentiation from science fiction fandom -- there was SF (science fiction) fandom, which centered around SF books, and then there was media fandom, which centered around television shows like Star Trek, Starsky & Hutch, Professionals, etc. I think many early media fans were SF fans, but at that point in time, the creation of fanworks like fanfiction and fanvids was frowned-on in mainstream SF fandom, whereas creating fic and vids became fairly central to mainstream media fandom.

I think the term has since broadened, colloquially, to include a variety of television and movie fandoms; there are also book fans who I think self-define as part of media fandom, maybe because they are also part of communities around tv and movie sources, or maybe because of a general commonality of fannish culture.

That said -- that's one media fan's personal and fairly idiosyncratic definition; other media fans might describe media fandom differently. (Anyone want to weigh in?)