proposal for fanwork subcategories

[aethel]

ETA June 29: Check out the follow-up post listing categories created so far.

Every Fanlore article that documents a particular fanwork is currently listed in the Fanworks category. This category contains 11,000 articles and counting, so it's not very useful for browsing. Fanlore editors have been discussing the possibility of adding subcategories to the Fanworks category for some time now. So the Wiki Committee put together a list of some potential subcategories, some of which already exist on the wiki and can be cross-categorized under Fanworks:

Category:Fanworks (existing)
* Category:Doujinshi (existing)
* Category:Fanfiction
* Category:Vids
* Category:Zines (existing) - create a new cat called "Zine Fandom" to house non-zine pages; current usage of category is mixed
* Category:Artworks
** Category:Zine Covers
** Category:Doujinshi Covers
** Category:Manips
** Category:Icons
** Category:Banners
** ?

What do you think?

Notes:
1. We don't necessarily need a category for every single type of fanwork (or the Fanworks category will be empty), but we should create categories for types of fanworks with a lot of Fanlore content. We can always add more fanwork types later.
1a. There is a lot of material about fanart on the wiki, so more art subcategories would probably be a good idea. What is the best way to group fanart?
1b. We are thinking that the proposed "Vids" category would also be a subcategory under Vidding and would not include AMVs. There is a mixed-use Anime_Music_Video category, but it still has only six pages. :(
2. Except for the fanart, moving pages from the Fanworks category to the subcategories should be relatively easy because we can add the categories to the infobox templates instead of to each individual page.
3. Most of the new categories can be cross-categorized under the relevant fan activity cat. For example, Category:Fanfiction could appear under both Category:Fanworks and Category:Fiction Writing.

Comments

[tiyire]

I don't think we currently have enough pages about podfic for a separate category. Pages like Written by the Victors (podfic) have Category:Audio, and many (if not most) pages about fanfic that mention a podfic don't have any additional categories. Interestingly, we have a separate category Merlin Podfic filled with pages about fanfic, so the question is do we want all fanfic pages that mention a podfic to have an additional podfic category? Personally I don't think it's necessary.

[anatsuno]

It seems like it's not necessary now because there aren't many pages about individual podfics. Now, the fact that you're not going to make a category insures that I, personally, will not feel welcome making such pages. I don't think I'm the only one who will experience these feelings. Podfic is a category of fan work that is having a very hard time getting recognized as a fan work in itself and not just a handy audio-version of fanfic that the merit goes to the author for.

Every place, fannish challenge or fannish wiki that doesn't take pains to ensure podfic has a place basically insures that podfic artists will either kick up a fuss when they want that space to exist, or slink away unloved. Experience shows this to be true.

So, yeah, maybe it's unnecessary now. As a fan living in a podfic world and as a podfic maker though, I think it should be there.

[liviapenn]

The general procedure on the wiki is to wait until there *are* several pages for a subcategory before adding a Category tag. It is counterintuitive, but it's just that the wiki doesn't want to have a lot of empty, unused categories that might then in the future have to be renamed/reshuffled because the categories don't quite fit whatever's been added.

Looking at the Audio category, it is pretty messy and could probably use some categories.

I'd suggest creating:

Filk (might later need to be broken down into Filk Songs, Filk Tapes, etc.)
Podcasts
Podfic
Tape Zines

Audio Collage & Fanmix -- borderline, don't seem to have enough examples yet to justify their own category?

-- Some category to cover original fannish songs that aren't filk, like Wizard Rock, which is now a thing in more fandoms than Harry Potter, but I don't know what this would be called. Fan Rock?

[anatsuno]

Those divisions make sense to me... :)

[aethel]

I just created an infobox template for podfics here. Which we'll need if we create the category. The issue is, as liviapenn says above, that we don't generally create categories until we've got some pages to put in them. Although it's true that creating the category first might encourage people to add podfic pages, this strategy didn't work too well for us when we created the AMV category, which still only has 6 pages. Part of the problem I think is that we haven't quite figured how to write about podfics separately from the fic they're based on (and we didn't even have a dedicated template for it).

If I have time this week, I'll try to start some podfic pages. The podfics discussed during Pod Aware might be a good place to start.

[liviapenn]

The infobox looks good! I might suggest, though, also including a line where wiki editors could list the author of the fic? Then both the author of the original fic & creator of the podfic could be linked if they have pages on Fanlore.

[aethel]

I added an author field. How does it look now?

[morgandawn]

I tested the template here:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Joyous_Anthology_of_Bandom_Podfic

The author field comes up blank. Otherwise, I was able to figure out most of what went where, even knowing very little about podbooks/podfic.

[aethel]

I fixed the blank author field issue. Thanks!

[liviapenn]

It looks good! Morgandawn's test page also looks good.

[cesy]

It might be worth doing another reminder post that the category exists and needs expanding.

[aethel]

The category doesn't exist yet, but I'll do the reminder post as soon as it does!

[anatsuno]

And to answer your actual question, it seems that the Merlin podfic category 'filled with pages about fanfic' was an attemps by whoever made it to create a handy listing of all the Merlin fanfic that exists in podfic form. This is great and all, but not *at all* like a series of individual pages about these podfics or others, ie, it's not really "about podfic" in the way that pages made to discuss/reference individual podfics could be.

So yeah, personally I also don't think it's necessary to have a podfic category to add to pages that are about Fic not Podfic, as in the case you describe. But I do think it's necessary and good to have a Podfic category so people will know that it makes sense or them to document individual podfics they have things to say about.