Status of Fanwork Categories

[aethel]

Since response to the fanwork category proposal post was positive, we have started creating the proposed fanwork subcategories. So far, we have added:

* Zine Fandom
* Podfics
* Fanfiction
* Vids

and updated the corresponding templates. Now the Fanworks category contains only 348 pages, down from over 11,000! Check out the current Fanworks category.

The fanart categories haven't been created yet because we wanted to double check on what categories are needed. Because these categories would be added manually, and there are over 29,000 image files on Fanlore to sort through, we want to do it right the first time, if possible. So far, the proposed list includes:

* Category:Artworks
** Category:Zine Covers
** Category:Doujinshi Covers
** Category:Manips
** Category:Icons
** Category:Banners
** Category:Drawings

1. Are these good category names?
2. Anything missing?
3. Would zine covers with drawn artwork be given both the Zine Covers and Drawings categories?
4. Zine Covers needs to be further subdivied since there are so many examples on the wiki. (What is a useful way to do this? Fandom? Style? Decade? Do we want to distinguish between "art covers" and text-only covers?)
5. No one has requested this yet, but how about a "Calendars" category? There are quite a few articles about print calendars on the wiki.

Commenters on the last post also requested other templates and categories. So far, we have a template (but no category) for Template:FanFilm and related stuff. Also proposed:

*Filk
*Podcasts (needs a template first) new template
*Tape Zines (might have to be added manually?)

Regarding Filk, we have a filk album template (and an unused songbook template), but no dedicated categories other than Filk Music. We have a brand new filksong template that needs some feedback from filk experts. Do we want a new category like Filk Songs & Albums? Like this:
* Category:Filk Music (existing)
** Filk Songs & Albums (new)

Or do we want separate categories? Like this:

* Category:Filk Music (existing)
** Filk Songs (new)
** Filk Albums (new)

Comments

[elf]

I would think that "filk zine" and "filk songbook" are the same thing. It's just that filkers don't call them zines; they call them "songbooks" or just "books" (because a filk book is obviously a songbook). (IME; YMMV.) I don't know of any "filk zines" that aren't collections of songs, although there might be some with non-song content. Certainly, there are many with editorial notes/intros; could easily be some with an essay or two; not sure there's any that have fic, as opposed to "a fic zine with a song or two included."

Filkers who visit the site would not be likely to look in the "zines" category to find filkbooks. It would make sense to them if they found them there, but they wouldn't necessarily think of categorizing them that way without being told that's where they were. They would, however, look under "filk music." And possibly get confused by the label "filk zines," wondering if someone had made fanfic about filkers or specifically for filk conventions or something like that.

(Hmm, does Fanlore have a way to embed sounds? This question has nothing at all to do with categorization.)

---

Entirely other topic: How are APAs categorized? Are they a subset of zines or their own thing? (What I know of APA fandom could fill whole thimbles, so it's not an area I'm comfortable expounding on; I'm just aware that it runs in somewhat different circles than zineishness.)

[aethel]

APAs are in the Newsletters & Letterzines category.

We do tend to default to "zines" as the generic term for any fannish print periodical. There's also an issue where every zine that includes material related to more than one canon could be labeled a "multimedia zine", even though I understand the term to refer specifically to media fandom zines. I'm not sure what to do about that, especially since I have zero first-hand knowledge of any fannish print tradition.

I had thought that there were zines about filking that did not contain lyrics/chords, but I can't call up any examples at the moment.