committee post: Seeking a few good anime and manga fans!

[rbarenblat]

The Fanlore wiki committee has been brainstorming this year about outreach to different fan communities, especially fan communities which are unrepresented or under-represented on Fanlore. Anime, manga, and related communities are an area where we’d like to do some outreach.

Before we really dive in to trying to spread the word about Fanlore in various anime and manga communities, we want to make sure that we’ve created a good wiki structure in which fans can add pages. Here are the category pages for anime and manga as things stand now:

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Anime
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Manga

We probably need to reexamine how the above format categories are assigned to fandom pages. Do we want anime movies to be in the Film category? Anime/Manga may also need a separate Fandom by Source Community category (and what should we call it?). One issue we’ve become aware of is that the terms “anime” and “manga” may exclude similar material created in countries other than Japan (manhua in China, for example). We’re not sure what the right answers are. Here are a few ideas:

Option 1: Merge the Anime category with Cartoons and the Manga category with Comics.

Anime + Cartoons → Cartoons
Manga + Comics → Comics

Option 2: Create a new category, Animation, for the combined Anime and Cartoons categories. Merge the Manga category with Comics.

Anime + Cartoons → Animation
Manga + Comics → Comics

Option 3:
? something we haven’t even thought of yet!

We’re hoping for a system that will accommodate many needs, including those of manhua, manhwa, and a variety of animation and comics fandoms from around the world. If you have knowledge in these areas, we definitely want to hear from you! We hope to find a few fans who are excited about the prospect of chronicling and preserving anime or manga fandoms and their histories, who can help us 1) figure out how best to structure this corner of the wiki and 2) reach out to anime and manga communities for more participation once we have a good structure in place.

Might you be that person? Let us know by dropping a comment on this post, or contact us using our contact form. And please feel free to signal-boost this post on your own journal or in the fannish spaces you frequent. Thanks!

Edited to add: stay tuned -- a new post is coming from the Fanlore wiki committee which contains a new proposal for how to handle categories on the wiki, based in large part on response to this post. We've made a follow-up post, which is here: Category proposal.

Comments

[extempore]

are recognized as Japanese by their English-speaking fandoms (which is relevant as this is for the English-language wiki)

For me, this somehow hits the nail. Over the last weeks I started to dig around in the fanlore wiki and several times I met a "wall" when I wanted to add something or edit content. With "wall" I mean I had to stop, because I couldn't quite identify with what I read or I didn't quite know where to fit in certain content, which categories to use etc. I noticed this especially on the "anime" and "manga" pages when this topic emerged on the talk page (anime and manga outside of Japan).

I understand that fanlore wishes to be inclusive and to accept all corners of fandom. But to me the question is: from what point of view? It cannot be inclusive from a fan's PoV, I think, because everyone experiences fandom differently. But I also was told that yes, it should be from a fan's PoV, as it is them who will bring this wiki to life and diversity is a good thing and wouldn't it be good, if there were several different views of something on one page so people could get an impression of the different "colors" of fandoms? (I have a similar impression about AO3, btw.) But when I, as a fan, edit the page, I do it according to how I experience my fandom. And in my english language fandom Anime is not Avatar/Airbender, but soley stuff that comes from Japan. But there are enough other fans who see it differently. =) And when it comes to the part of actually categorizing the content - that is one tough nut to crack.

I don't know, how to solve this. Perhaps it's something that isn't even seen as problem other than by me: ;) I just can speak from my - so far short - experience with fanlore as someone who played around with a wiki for the first time and as someone from animanga and game fandom: I am still confused about categories (somehow I miss a clear overview or structure, like a "categories" page that shows me exactly what where is) and that adds to my confusion about how to properly sort things (the sitemap shows me some structure, but I can't quite... grasp it for my personal use, I guess ^^;). Before Frogspace told me about the Fandom by Source Category, I was rather confused about how to tag pictures I uploaded, for example.

As for the naming/sorting suggestions - I would go with the second. As I understand it, Animation and Comics would be the "roof categories" with Manwha, Manga, Anime, Cartoon etc. the various branches? I don't think there will be a perfect solution that makes everyone happy, but I also think that's not what should be the goal. The goal should be to offer a frame in which fans can operate adequately to tell their stories, a frame that is not too complex (or it becomes a barrier for newbies), easy to navigate and understood by most people. Animanga will be a challenge because of its "blob-ness", because it merges with other aspects and media, too, like video games or live acts. (And also because of the OTW's history with that part of fandom. But that's for another discussion.)

I'm just not sure, if fanlore can be or should be a place to discuss terminology with the goal to find a single, all including punch line. Hm.