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

[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.