I hear you saying that the way we're approaching this is going to make animanga fans angry.
On it's own, the technical aspects of creating categories in Fanlore doesn't seem like that big of a deal, and truthfully, it isn't. It's just a way making the wiki more streamlined, and I get that.
But it's not it's own. The OTW's baggage is Fanlore's baggage, and at this point I think that anything that even looks like deliberate erasure or neglect toward anime/manga fans is going to make some people angry. Even worse, it's going to make many more fans indifferent to the project once they hear rumors about the OTW from their angry friends.
This particular issue may be totally innocuous, but from three steps back (and the vast majority of non-Western fans right now are at least three steps back and one platform over), it will look like a pattern that includes the Yuletide fiasco, the problem with naming the servers, and the tag wrangling issue that happened mostly behind closed doors but that a bunch of people know about from the failfandom meme.
From a technical perspective, this post and it's suggestions make a lot of sense. But from a PR perspective...? Everyone says they want anime/manga fans (and gaming fans, and jpop fans, etc) to feel welcome at Fanlore/OTW/AO3. And the approach people seem to be taking towards this is, "We'll set it up, create the boundaries and lines, make everything neat before we invite anyone over." Like they're cleaning the house for a visiting guest.
And that? Is the problem. You don't want to treat these people like guests or children or people you are inviting into your already built world. You want these people to help build the world with you.
I know the sentiment is coming from a good place, but I don't think treating animanga fans like guests in your home is a good idea if you want to integrate them into the community. Fanlore is supposed to be a wiki built by fans from the ground up, fans who decide how they want to record their history. But...there are hardly any non-Western media fans here because Fanlore hasn't done an outreach yet. ¯\(°_°)/¯
Just to pull from your own post - The reason we made this post is that we know that we need the input of people who are involved with animanga fandoms to help us figure out how to structure this part of the wiki, and we'd like to get that sorted out before we begin the project of greater outreach to animanga fans.
So...who are you asking, exactly, if you want the opinions of animanga fans, but you haven't made an effort to recruit animanga fans for the project yet? I don't understand that. Because it sounds like you're asking the existing Fanlore community (majority Western fandoms, DW based) how to structure an animanga/other area. This comes across as very backward to me.
I don't think you should create the structure first and then decide on the right time to invite the anime/manga fans in. I think you should start with a sizable population of animanga fans, and then let them help create the structure that they're supposed to be a part of. Only right now, I don't think Fanlore has a diverse enough selection of animanga fans to make decisions about stuff like this.
*prays the html goes through*
On it's own, the technical aspects of creating categories in Fanlore doesn't seem like that big of a deal, and truthfully, it isn't. It's just a way making the wiki more streamlined, and I get that.
But it's not it's own. The OTW's baggage is Fanlore's baggage, and at this point I think that anything that even looks like deliberate erasure or neglect toward anime/manga fans is going to make some people angry. Even worse, it's going to make many more fans indifferent to the project once they hear rumors about the OTW from their angry friends.
This particular issue may be totally innocuous, but from three steps back (and the vast majority of non-Western fans right now are at least three steps back and one platform over), it will look like a pattern that includes the Yuletide fiasco, the problem with naming the servers, and the tag wrangling issue that happened mostly behind closed doors but that a bunch of people know about from the failfandom meme.
From a technical perspective, this post and it's suggestions make a lot of sense. But from a PR perspective...? Everyone says they want anime/manga fans (and gaming fans, and jpop fans, etc) to feel welcome at Fanlore/OTW/AO3. And the approach people seem to be taking towards this is, "We'll set it up, create the boundaries and lines, make everything neat before we invite anyone over." Like they're cleaning the house for a visiting guest.
And that? Is the problem. You don't want to treat these people like guests or children or people you are inviting into your already built world. You want these people to help build the world with you.
I know the sentiment is coming from a good place, but I don't think treating animanga fans like guests in your home is a good idea if you want to integrate them into the community. Fanlore is supposed to be a wiki built by fans from the ground up, fans who decide how they want to record their history. But...there are hardly any non-Western media fans here because Fanlore hasn't done an outreach yet. ¯\(°_°)/¯
Just to pull from your own post - The reason we made this post is that we know that we need the input of people who are involved with animanga fandoms to help us figure out how to structure this part of the wiki, and we'd like to get that sorted out before we begin the project of greater outreach to animanga fans.
So...who are you asking, exactly, if you want the opinions of animanga fans, but you haven't made an effort to recruit animanga fans for the project yet? I don't understand that. Because it sounds like you're asking the existing Fanlore community (majority Western fandoms, DW based) how to structure an animanga/other area. This comes across as very backward to me.
I don't think you should create the structure first and then decide on the right time to invite the anime/manga fans in. I think you should start with a sizable population of animanga fans, and then let them help create the structure that they're supposed to be a part of. Only right now, I don't think Fanlore has a diverse enough selection of animanga fans to make decisions about stuff like this.