committee post: Category proposal

[aethel]

The Fanlore wiki committee would like to thank everyone who's participated in our recent conversation about categories and anime / manga / related fandoms. Several commentors on that thread sparked the following idea (especially branchandroot -- thanks, branchandroot!), and we'd like to know what you think about it.

The idea is this: what if we remove all of the format categories, and replace them with a flat, non-hierarchical list of fandom categories? Here's a visual representation of how things work now:


[ Image Description: The "Fandoms by Source Text" category, encompassing both medium-based categories like "Film", "Real People", and "Gaming", and individual fandom categories like "Harry Potter" and "World of Warcraft". The "Fandoms By Source Community" category is unused. ]

Basically, we're rethinking how the category hierarchy for Fandoms by Source Text works. "Fandoms by Source Text" includes all fandoms that are focused on a single "text" or set of texts, like Final Fantasy, Jane Austen, or Brokeback Mountain. Currently, there are a number of "format" categories underneath the main "Fandoms by Source Text" category that we inherited from multifandom archive structure--these categories are not much used at all because a) the wiki isn't a fanfic archive and b) we now have categories for individual fandoms. Meanwhile, "Fandoms by Source Text" has a sibling category that is underused: Fandoms by Source Community, for fandoms that don't correspond neatly to a single canon text. Like Media Fandom, Anime & Manga Fandom, Filk, Vidding, J-pop, Manhwa, etc.

The restructuring plan has two parts:

1. Delete all of the format categories from Fandoms by Source Text, leaving a flat, non-hierarchical list of fandom categories.

2. Make better use of Fandoms by Source Community by moving the Anime, Manga, Real People, and Comics(?) categories there.

And then fans can make as many more fandom categories as they need, according to the naming conventions within their own communities. (We also recognize that some fannish traditions have arisen which don’t consider themselves part of an overall fannish culture; it’s not our intention to prescribe categories for those traditions, but rather to let those fan communities self-define as they will.)

Here's a visual aid for the proposed changes:


[ Image Description: "Fandoms by Source Text" category now encompasses only fandom categories like "Coffee Prince" and "Blake’s 7". The "Fandoms by Source Community" category now has categories for things like "Media Fandom", "K-Drama", and "Gaming". These in turn also lead to individual fandom categories, e.g. "Media Fandom" leads to "Blake’s 7" and "Harry Potter" while "K-Drama" leads to "Coffee Prince". ]

(This is a rough sketch to illustrate how potential fandom categories might be linked to one another and is not intended to be complete or prescriptive.)

Categories to be deleted:
Books & Literature
Cartoons
Film
Games (?)
Radio
Television
Theater
(and "Real People" could be renamed or split into whatever categories people choose.)

---

Here are some examples for how wiki pages might be categorized according to the plan.

No fandom that has a fandom category needs to have a page categorized under Fandoms by Source Text. For example:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Harry Potter
...........Harry Potter (the page)

So the page "Harry Potter" would get the Harry Potter category and no other category.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Homestuck (the page)

The page "Homestuck" would get the Fandoms by Source Text category because there is no "Homestuck" category yet.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Naruto
.........Naruto (the page)

Category:Fandoms by Source Community
....Category:Anime & Manga
........Category:Naruto
.............Naruto (the page)

The page "Naruto" would get the Naruto category.

And:

Category:Fandoms by Source Text
.....Category:Blake's 7
.........Blake's 7 (the page)

Category:Fandoms by Source Community
.....Category:Media Fandom
.........Category:Blake's 7
.............Blake's 7 (the page)


The page "Blake's 7" would get the Blake's 7 category, but would no longer have a "Television" category. Each fandom category would be its own thing.

---

Would this proposed solution -- getting rid of format categories such as "Television" and "Film" and letting each fandom category (including "Anime & Manga," "Manhwa," etc) be its own thing -- work for you? We want your input; please tell us what you think!

(If there are no objections to the plan above, please feel free to start moving categories on May 28. If you need help with wiki stuff, please don’t hesitate to contact the gardeners for assistance or leave a comment to this post.)

EDIT June 23: See the revised proposal here

Comments

[naraht]

We are using the word "text" in the academic sense--anything that can be "read" or interpreted. So movies, books, paintings, anything televised or recorded are "texts" in this sense. There has always been some back and forth about whether RPF fit even this loose definition.

Yes, I understood "text" in the academic sense. My concern was really whether RPF fits that definition. I suppose some does and some doesn't, but that might not be too helpful.

There is a Category:Harry Potter. The page "Harry Potter", along with pages like The Draco Trilogy and FictionAlley, gets this category and doesn't need the category "Fandoms by Source Text".

Ah, OK. But you would still find Harry Potter if you were looking in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category, right, because there would be the "Harry Potter" category in there?

Media Fandom is an eclectic assortment of individual fan communities that share certain values, practices, and vocabulary. It is my understanding that some books, like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, are counted as part of media fandom. I guess it depends on who you ask?

So would Fanlore differentiate this, then, and put some book fandoms into the Media Fandom category and others not? Where would the other book fandoms fit in "Fandom by Source Community" terms?

[rbarenblat]

My concern was really whether RPF fits that definition. I suppose some does and some doesn't, but that might not be too helpful.

The wiki committee has just been talking about this, actually -- and we share your sense that some RPF fits this definition and some doesn't. For that matter, some fans whose activity centers around "real people" call what they're doing "RPF;" other fans don't.

The nice thing about this system is that fans can choose the categories they want to put on their pages, so fans from communities which identify with the RPF category can use that category, and fans who identify in some other way can create a category to encompass their way of self-identifying.

ut you would still find Harry Potter if you were looking in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category, right, because there would be the "Harry Potter" category in there?

Yes, definitely. The "Harry Potter" page would be listed in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category, and also in the "Media Fandom" category. Pages can have more than one category, so that's no problem.

So would Fanlore differentiate this, then, and put some book fandoms into the Media Fandom category and others not?

That would be up to Fanlore users, I think.

[naraht]

...fans can choose the categories they want to put on their pages...

If this is the line that the committee is taking, then doesn't it in a sense make the whole issue about how to categorize anime/manga fandoms rather simple? Some fandoms could use the old "Format" categories and some could use "Fandom by Source Community" categories and some could use both, depending on what suits the users/fans best.

I suppose I'm confused about where the line is drawn between top-down and bottom-up decisions about how the wiki is supposed to operate.

[aethel]

>"Harry Potter" page would be listed in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category,

...the "Harry Potter" CATEGORY, not the page :)

[rbarenblat]

(Yes, I realized that typo as soon as I had posted the comment, but I can't seem to edit comments, so I couldn't fix it! Argh! Sorry!)

[zebra_in_dream]

The nice thing about this system is that fans can choose the categories they want to put on their pages, so fans from communities which identify with the RPF category can use that category, and fans who identify in some other way can create a category to encompass their way of self-identifying.
What happens if fans disagree on which categories to put or not to put on a fandom?

[(Anonymous)]

That's what discussion pages are for.

[rbarenblat]

zebra_in_dream, I'm sure you're right that there will be situations in which fans disagree about which categories to use and not use. I'll echo anon here: in a case like this, a conversation would unfold on the Talk page where fans could argue in favor of whichever solution seemed right to them. And hopefully a consensus could be reached.

What the wiki committee doesn't want to do is dictate how fans self-identify. It's important to us that fans be able to choose the labels and categories that they want. And yeah, sometimes fans are going to disagree with each other. So we'll turn to the Talk page and let the fans in question talk it out.

It's not a perfect system, but the wiki committee would prefer the flaws of a system in which the decisions are up to fans (even if fans sometimes disagree) than the flaws of a system in which decisions are up to the wiki committee. :-) (I mean, we're fans too! but we're not fans of everything, and we're not experts on everything, by a long shot.)

[zebra_in_dream]

I think expecting a discussion and a consensus is a very idealistic view.
The probably more realistic situation is an edit war, uncivil discussions in various places and the call for people with administration rights to step in and protect the page in the desired version and ban the other side, possible stalking and interfering with what the other side does on marginally related and unrelated pages and even places outside of the fanlore.

[aethel]

In practice, there has been very little edit warring on Fanlore and plenty of discussion. If a consensus cannot be reached, users should appeal first to the gardeners and then, if a solution still can't be found, to the wiki committee. Our policy:

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanlore:Managing_Conflict#If_it_is_a_dispute_with_another_user.2C_perhaps_over_a_malicious_edit

[aethel]

>But you would still find Harry Potter if you were looking in the "Fandoms by Source Text" category, right, because there would be the "Harry Potter" category in there?

Correct!

>Where would the other book fandoms fit in "Fandom by Source Community" terms?

I know there's a Science Fiction fandom category, but there might not be an umbrella term for all these fandoms, I don't know. Not every Fandom by Source Text category needs a "Fandom by Source Community" category.

[naraht]

Some fandoms might just not have identifiable source communities, I suppose this is fair enough. "Feral fandoms," perhaps?

[(Anonymous)]

You really want to call some minority fandoms feral?

[naraht]

I'm not particularly fond of the term, no, but it seems to be the term for what I'm talking about.

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Feral

If you have a suggestion for a better word, go for it.

pardon my intrusion, but...

[annotated_em]

Something other than "feral"--anything other than feral. "Miscellaneous" comes to mind, or "unsorted."

But "feral" seems like a bad idea to me, not least because it's already freighted with nasty connotations just from general use. On top of that, it seems to be a term that originates out of academic study of fandom, and I think that imposing something that even sort of looks academic onto minority fandoms (also a problematic term!) is just a bad political decision all around. Miscellaneous/unsorted aren't much better, to be sure, but "feral" is just a bad idea.

I mean, sheesh, I am technically a feral fan, by the Fanlore definition you cite, and that puts my hackles up in a major way--even though I'm an academic, too, and can see the logic of the description and definition.

Re: pardon my intrusion, but...

[(Anonymous)]

Miscellaneous fandoms sounds much better, thank you. :)

Re: pardon my intrusion, but...

[naraht]

"Miscellaneous" sounds fine by me. I really wasn't advocating for the term, it was just the one that came to mind.

Re: pardon my intrusion, but...

[(Anonymous)]

I think that imposing something that even sort of looks academic onto minority fandoms (also a problematic term!) is just a bad political decision all around.

Just throwing this out there, but imo the term 'sequential art' falls into this category, too.

[(Anonymous)]

stultiloquentia had a discussion (http://stultiloquentia.dreamwidth.org/141225.html) on why feral is not the best word to use (and this is me putting it nicely, because the whole concept of 'oh, those fans who had 'gateway' fandoms is elitist'.

Not the same anon, as above though.

[zebra_in_dream]

"Feral" to me sounds like you'd better wear all your protective clothing, have someone backing you up and be up to date on all your shots before approaching cautiously.

[graycardinal]

I've just suggested below, in the subthread started by facetofcathy, that "Fandom by Source Community" might more properly be labeled "Fandom by Community". It seems to me that this may address the problem with "minority fandoms" by removing size (and thereby the implication of hierarchy that goes with sorting things by size) as a necessary component of the concept of community. To reprise the statement I made below, if one is going to be non-hierarchical, one should be non-hierarchical in all directions at once.

In this context, skaredycat's comment in the same thread, about Categories in the wiki context becoming more like tags/wuzzles in AO3 context strikes me as thoughtful and perceptive. Essentially, we want to give the user the ability to sort things in as many ways as possible, and the trick in accomplishing any proposed restructuring is simply to avoid losing various existing ways to sort things in the process.

[zvi]

If they don't have source communities, do they have to have a source community tag? Miscellaneous categories should be avoided when one is categorizing, they are just an admission that the schema is inadequate.

[naraht]

I take your point. I also think that the fact that some fandoms may lack identifiable source communities is worthy of note. Perhaps it would be simplest to have "Category: no source community"?

[aethel]

We don't need an extra category for fandoms with no source community because there will already be a category or page for each fandom under Fandoms by Source Text.

[naraht]

But surely it would be interesting/useful to be able to find fandoms that haven't got a wider source community? I know I would like to be able to discover which ones they are.