Filking at Fanlore

[elf]

In contemplation of facetofcathy's recent entry about Story Tropes, I've been thinking about "filk tropes." Except that, in filk, we don't call them "tropes." They get called genres. Or categories. Or something else. Or they don't get called anything; you just have a filksing where one song is similar to the next in some way that nobody bothers to define. And they don't parse into the story tropes categories well at all. You *could* sort filk into those categories--but that's not how filkers sort them, and it'd be kinda wrong to force them into those kinds of categories. (Gamers don't sort their games into "H/C" and "Angst" and "crack" either.)

Some *other* time I may contemplate tweaking the gaming pages at Fanlore. When I'm drugged, maybe. Because, while I'm a gamer of omfsm over thirty years, it's all pretty much tabletop RPGs with pencils & dice; I am oblivious to most of the stuff that gets called "gaming" now. (I have some familiarity with tabletop wargames, too, and a longstanding antipathy for hex maps with terrain modifiers.)

I'm a bit more comfortable with filk. I have loved filk for over twenty years, have written filk, own many filk albums & filkbooks (the first CD I ever bought was filk); my kid listens to filk to fall asleep every night. I *know* filk, in ways that I don't know vids or fic mailing lists or fanart.

But that doesn't mean I know the details of the 50+ year history of filk music, or the terminology outside of my local community (which is a rather large filk hub; I'm not on the fringes of the filk world), and I don't know the best way to sort the info I do have.

Hence this post. Halp?

I'd like some ideas about how much filky stuff, and what kind, should be put at Fanlore.

There's a potential page for every fanzine. Should every filk songbook have a page? That's a more-than-daunting prospect; there are LOTS. And unlike fanzines, they don't tend to run in sets. (A few do. Songworm I II & III; Nesfa Hymnal I & II; a few others.)

Should every filk album have a page? That seems... excessive. OTOH, it's a wiki; there aren't limits. Every album *could* have a page & a track listing. (And if so, someone should make an "album" template.)

Which filkers should have pages? Should every filker who's on a recorded album have a page? A stub, perhaps, for many of them? (This is on par with "should everyone published in a zine have a page?" A lot of mixed-filk tapes were recorded live at conventions.) Or should only "big name" filkers have pages? (There'd be some controversy about who those are, but I'm happy to go with the idea of "anyone who thinks she should be there, should be there. Anyone who anyone thinks should be there, should be there.")

I'm sure every filk recording/publishing company should have a page. There are maybe six of those. Oh, I'm not directly involved right now. I'm sure more have popped up in the last few years. Maybe there's ten. I'd feel silly making a page for Wail Songs that says "Filk company that produced albums in the 90's." OTOH, maybe that's enough for *someone* to add to; I could put a spot for "List of albums" and "company staff" and "conventions commonly attended" and someone else could fill those in.

Is it better to make stubs and leave them mostly empty or to leave those as nonexistent pages that show up in the "wanted pages" list?

Which individual filksongs should have pages? And that's a question for the filking community, which doesn't have a strong presence at Fanlore; I may try to post something at filk when I've got a better idea what I'm doing. But it's probably a good starting point that almost any song that non-filkers have heard of should have its own page, so suggestions are welcome.

Where should I do brainstorming about filkstuff? Here? At the sandbox at Fanlore? On filk discussion pages at fanlore? In my journal or filk-at-LJ, where I can get opinions from people who know filk but aren't involved with Fanlore? Example: I have a rough draft list of filk genres/categories with examples; I don't know whether to leave it as-is (posted in Filk), or give it a separate page, or expand the examples. I have a list of "mood genres" (not sure what to call them): Humor, Ose, Serious, Bawdy... there are maybe others; I'm not sure if "ballad" is a genre of that sort or not. Not only do I not know what to do with that list, I don't know where/with whom to talk about it to decide what to do with it.

I'm in serious flail-mode right now. Any feedback is good. Knowing pretty much nothing about filk is not a detriment to replying, 'cos the archive needs to be useful for people who don't know filk. (If you seriously know *nothing* about filk, maybe head over to the virtual filksing and get a taste. Ignore the word "new" which means something like "posted after 2003." If I had to suggest only *one*? Eep. "Tech Support" is probably what I'd recommend for broadest appeal, but they're all good.)

Comments

[grey_bard]

Every ficcer can have a page if someone cares to make one, ergo, every filker should be able to do so too. It stands to reason.

Which is not to say that *you* should have to make those pages.

[elf]

It'd be relatively easy for me to grab a stack of filktapes & start making stub pages for the filkers listed on those tapes. Much easier than trying to decide which people should get pages.

It's nice to hear that theoretically, every ficcer can have a page; that means it's impossible to make too many pages for people. Some might stay very basic stubs that just say, "Performed song X on album Y in [year]," but that'd be fine.

[dewey]

Is it better to make stubs and leave them mostly empty

I would vote for this. I know when doing author pages one of my hardest decisions is how to name the page! (Capitalize or not. Use LJ name or fic name or AO3 name or...) Making a brand new page is scary!

If the page exists already then I suspect it will be more likely to be added to.

[mrs_potatohead]

I agree with Dewey; making a new page can be intimidating. A blank screen may be what stops someone from taking the next step and adding what she or he knows. I think a start, even if it's just rudimentary, encourages folks to contribute.

Also, I've added stubs for things that I don't know much about, only to discover later how they fit into the bigger picture. Each time, I'm thrilled to have the preliminary work in place.

[aethel]

>Where should I do brainstorming about filkstuff?

The sandbox talk page isn't an ideal spot for discussing filk since no one would know to look there, but otherwise, I'd say the answer is yes.

>Which filkers should have pages?

Probably not everyone who ever filked, but anyone that Fanlore editors have something to say about. That is, if there's nothing to say about a particular filker and the page will only ever be a stub, then it's probably not worth creating the page.

[msilverstar]

I agree: make pages for people who you want to write about.

Adding musician names to album pages or vice versa makes them at least searchable.

[djonn]

Something to bear in mind:

A considerable number of well-known/significant filk performers/creators are also inhabitants of other parts of the fannish/genre community, and therefore may already have pages in the wiki. [Two examples off the top of my head: Mercedes Lackey and Seanan McGuire.]

Having said that, if someone were going to start implementing a schema of filk pages, one approach might be to start by mining the list of songs and individuals who've won (and/or been nominated for) Pegasus Awards. That list is by no means exhaustive, but it provides possibly the closest thing to a broad, representative sampling of filk history gathered in one place on the Web.

[elf]

Yep; know that. I'm starting with albums that have songs that have been Pegasus-nominated; I figure each of those could/should have an entry, and I'm listing which songs got Pegasus awards or nominations, and a complete track list. I've added a couple, and as I get time, I'll add more.

I don't think every filksong that's been nominated should have a listing. Especially the ones that don't have lyrics listed... seems odd to have a stub page that says, "this song, words by A, lyrics by B, was nominated for [Award X] in [Year]; here's a link that confirms this." (OTOH, maybe putting a listing there will encourage people to post comments--this was first sung at [convention]; it was filked by [name]; it was sung in person to [author] and made her blush; whatever.)

I'm leaning toward the idea that any filker who has a whole album of their own should have a page, and filkers who've been included on several con tapes or in several filkbooks should also have pages; other filkers might or might not have pages.

[djonn]

Sounds as if we're on much the same wavelength.

One other observation: it's been my (limited) experience to date that the available templates (Person, Fan) for adding people don't deal as well as they might with personages who wear multiple fannish or fan-related hats -- and a significant number of filk performers/creators do indeed wear multiple hats. My take is that at some point, someone needs to look at making the template(s) more flexible in order to deal with this phenomenon; you might want to think about this (or nudge other relevant folk to do so) as you start building pages.

[mrs_potatohead]

JMO: I'd start by making a page for each filk recording company. And then go over the major awards and make a page for things that stand out there. Both these things will provide words, ideas and names to wikilink, which in turn will start to make a road map: patterns will emerge, glossary terms will pop up, certain names and titles will reappear, and memories will get jogged. It'll grow from there.

Individual filks vs albums/filk songbooks? Every filk *could* have a page, just like every piece of fiction, art or vid. Someone simply has to feel strongly enough about it to create each page. I think, though, what will happen is that that there are certain filks ("noteworthy" "popular" "influential" "well known" "famous" "ones you like a lot") that will get a page. And folks will fill these in with other articles as the subject grows.

I think it's really neat, Elf, that you're doing this. Filking on Fanlore is lacking, and it shouldn't be!