Fandom as a Category v2 Posted

[meri_oddities]

We have posted the revised version of the Fandom as Category policy change Here to the Fanlore wiki. We invite discussion on it. Please post your comments here on Dreamwidth. If there are no problems or issues that require a change, the policy will become final in seven days after posting (4/28/2010).

At that time, we'll start adding the fandom categories and we'll put out a call for help with moving and changing the pages the need it.

Comments

[meri_oddities]

Very good question. I guess that it does. Like Chris Kane, he's his own RPF fandom. So, yeah, he'd get a category.

What were you thinking in general?

[cesy]

There's a fair amount of overlap in RPF fandoms, though - the AO3 tag wranglers had the whole metatags feature coded mainly to cope with it. Also, there frequently isn't a fandom consensus on what the name of the fandom is - how would Fanlore decide what the name of the category should be?

[meri_oddities]

Another good question. We'd have to come to some kind of consensus. The only people who can create categories right now is the committee.

What do you suggest, because really, we're open to suggestions.

The only RPF I know much about is J2 -- with Chris Kane and the CW thrown in.

[mary_alice]

If you can link categories, couldn't you link all the synonymous names for a fandom together, thus avoiding the need to choose?

I don't think so

[aethel]

Even if we could redirect synonyms to a preferred term--according to Wikipedia, we can't--we'd still have to choose.

[facetofcathy]

In general, trying to map RPF fandoms onto media fandom models is--difficult.

I don't think big sprawling multi-page fandoms is a problem with RPF the way it is with FPF. But what is difficult is showing the more tenuous connections. All J2 is CWRPF, but not all CWRPF is J2, and some C.Kane is both and lots is neither, and when is fanning Jensen Ackles an RPF activity and when is it a media fannish activity?

So, if we make each Real People page its own category and put Christian Kane in the Chris/Steve category, the Kane category, the CWRPF category and the J2 Cateogy and the Jossverse RPF category, does that solve anything by making the connections that way?

And then Lotrips is the Lotrips page and the related people pages, and if Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom start shooting two different TV series in Vancouver and everybody writes fic about them huddling for warmth, then what is that? A whole new fandom? Two new fandoms? Because there's also fic about Elijah and his co-star Danneel Harris (see what I did there?) and there's fic about Orlando and Adam Lambert too.

And what do I put on the What We Keep page? (multifandom RPF shared universe) Every fandom that has a story attached to it?

Or....

Somewhere in my journal is a conversation about AO3 tags that's got some thoughts on creating a hierarchy for RPF fic that has some info from people knowledgeable about aspects of the fandoms that are outside my area. This is what AO3 is trying to deal with via metatags, and I confess I don't see yet how that will function in that environment.

The general idea we were discussing there was a few broad main categories--Actor RPF, Music RPF, Historical RPF, Sports RPF--and then someone brought up 18th century composers and said where do they go--music or historical, and I banned them for muddying the waters--okay, I didn't really.

But if Actor RPF was a category that listed everything from Lotrips to J2 to good ole' Christian Kane, would that achieve anything?

If a music RPF category showed Bandom and Popslash and the My Chemical Romance page, and J pop and those composers in wigs--that might be useful. And could that lead to broader focused pages that compare Bandom and Popslash and Beatles RPF?

I think we have to ask ourselves what the goal is for navigating these pages to know the answers, and I'm not too clear on that. Sorry you asked?

[meri_oddities]

I'm never sorry I ask, since what we're doing isn't just for now, it's to not have to do it again in the future.

Yeah, I see what you're saying, but I also think we need to come up with some kind of framework for it. I like the broad categories of Actor RPF, Music RPF and Historial RPF etc...

I think that maybe that should be broken down by smaller categories. We could start with Actors like Jensen Ackles or Christian Kane or Misha Collins all seem fit into their own categories under Actor RPF.

Whereas someone like Daneel Harris or Chad Michael Murray doesn't seem to have their own fandom, more that they seem like they thrown in as secondary characters. I would want to categorize both of them under CWRPF But maybe they does have their own fandom and I don't know it.

And after a while, we're going to have a huge number of actors under Actor RPF. But again, it's better then just putting them all under people.

And I can't even begin to touch Music RPF. I do know who Adam Lambert is, but my Music RPF is limited to old hand circulated stories about Aerosmith. Yeah, I'm that old. *g*

[aethel]

So maybe we'd have a structure like this:

Fandom By Source Text (existing category)
_Real People (existing category)
___Actor RPF
___Music RPF
___etc.

?

[meri_oddities]

Yes, exactly.

[facetofcathy]

Well, I've been thinking about this, and thinking about the first sentence I wrote up there: In general, trying to map RPF fandoms onto media fandom models is--difficult.

Maybe we shouldn't try. What would happen if the Real People category got moved out from under Fandoms by Source Text and this new fandom policy applies only to FPF which are all in Fandoms by Source Text by themselves?

That leaves the door open to categorize Real People in a way that suits the pages that start to appear--right now there are not very many. Let the structure form more organically. Aka, it ain't broke--don't fix it.

I think we're having problems because, as a genre, RPF is growing faster now than it ever has since Popslash hit LJ, and it's hard to see the shape of something in that state of flux.

[meri_oddities]

I see what you're saying with that, but I don't actually think not making a decision is a good idea. I'd rather have some kind of structure that can expand and grow rather than leaving it to chance.

To be honest, too much with this wiki was "left to grow organically" and now we have a huge mess. Yes, we might have a mess anyway, but at least we will have tried to direct it.

So, I think we need to come up with something. I am not sure I want to take it out of Fandoms by Source Text since the actor, musicians, historical figures are the Source Text as it were.

[facetofcathy]

Well, if you want to keep RPF and FPF together, I hope the categories for RPF are chosen because they work for RPF, not just to keep it all the same.

I don't have a real favourite between the two approaches I laid out, and if someone has another idea, I'd love to hear it. Categories do two things to my mind, they lead readers to pages, but they also lead editors in making pages.

I think fandoms as individual categories will help editors to make more pages in FPF fandoms, since the category is clear, but if you have to determine a new category whenever you make a new RPF page, will that hinder page creation?

[meri_oddities]

*I* think of RPF and FRF as the same category, but if you've got an argument for separating them, I'd like to hear it. I'm not wedded to anything other than finding a structure that we think will work. As I said, I do not want it to grow organically.

Aethel's idea could work, too.

Fandom By Source Text (existing category)
_Real People (existing category)
___Actor RPF
___Music RPF
___etc.

And then we add the sub-categories for people and groups. Like Christian Kane, Jared Padalecki, Lotrips, My Chemical Romance et al.

[facetofcathy]

I don't really have a firm reason to split it, but I do think there is a distinction between the forms.

I like Æthel's idea, as the most functional for now, and it gives some good broad linkages. The more narrow linkages we would just have to put in the pages themselves--perhaps we should think about a see also line in the RPF template?

[msilverstar]

Musing about this... actor names on the same level as whole fandoms seems a little awkward to me. Would it be possible to put someone in multiple fandoms?

__Actor RPF
___Lotrips
____Orlando Bloom
...
___Pirates of the Caribbean
____Orlando Bloom

Or just jumble it in, assuming that the Orlando Bloom page has links to both LOTR and POTC?

__Actor RPF
___Orlando Bloom
___Billy Boyd
___Doctor Who RPS (fandom)
___The Faculty (fandom)
___Cristian Kane
___Jared Padalecki
___Johnny Depp
___Lotrips (fandom)

This would make the list get enormous...

thoughts?