Podfic Entries

[paraka]

I've been trying to add more entries to Fanlore about podfic and have run into a bit of an issue. When I was creating new pages I was titling them "Title (podfic)" to help distinguish that this was an entry about the podfic not about the fic, which normally has the same title.

The problem though, is that this goes against current Fanlore policies to only add an honourific to an entry if there's a conflicting entry of the same name and there's a need to disambiguate. So the gardeners, rightly, were changing the names of the pages I created to remove the honourific.

And while I totally understand the reason for the policy, it still made me nervous because without the (podfic) in the title it just wasn't as clear that the entry was a podfic entry. Sure enough, one of the entries I made was later edited in a way to make it seem more like a fic entry (it's since been changed back and with other additions).

So I'd like to have a conversation about what we can do to make sure that podfic entries are welcomed on Fanlore and that future editors, trying to be helpful but not aware that the entry is a podfic entry, won't end up morphing the entries into fic entries. I've spoken to some individual podficcers about this as well as some of the Fanlore gardeners, and here's some of the suggestions we've come up with so far:

klb suggested that one way to deal with it is to include "podfic" in the title, but not as an honourific. So "Title podfic" would be how the pages are named. Most of the time, in fannish day-to-day conversations, people will often specify when they're talking about a podfic if the context of the situation doesn't already imply it. And when you look at places like AO3 or general fandom comms, many podficcers add that sort of distinction when they post their work. So adding "podfic" to the title does reflect podfic fandom today.

Sparcicle suggested that we add a note to the top of podfic pages saying "This page is about the podfic. For the story, see Title (story)."
This will give an immediate visual clue to those viewing the page that this is a page for the podfic and gives them a link to the fic page (or the opportunity to create a page for the fic if it doesn't already exist, as it won't in most cases).

There was some debate in the talk page where this was brought up that (story) is perhaps not the correct honourific and, while I'm throwing my 2 cents in, I'd like to say that I'd prefer to see the fic getting an honourific like (fanfic) instead, since the podfic is a story too (as are vids and comics and many other fanarts). In fact, what the fic and podfic share is the story, what we need to disambiguate is which medium the story is being told in.

aethel suggested adding a grey banner to the infobox to make it clearer that the template is a podfic template.

Personally, I think I like options 2 and 3 together best, but I thought I'd ask others how they feel before I start creating a bunch more pages. And please feel free to add more suggestions!

Comments

[extempore]

Hm, but you said: Fanlore naming conventions say: "Articles about individual fanworks should include only the work's title in the page name".

I understand that as: someone creates a page about a fanfic titled "The Awesome Story" and names it The_Awesome_Story. My suggestion would be to name it The_Awesome_Story_(fanfic) from the beginning, no matter, if there is already The_Awesome_Story_(podfic) out there or not. A disambiguation page can be done later, if there are both pages. But that has no impact on the naming of the page.

I don't know, how that would work with the search though. If someone searches by title, they wouldn't find the page, but a search result where the page is listed. Unless there is a disambiguation page called The_Awesome_Fanfic right from the beginning, even though only one link is on it (in which case it would be a forward, I guess? Hurm.

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

You mean like every new page should be created as "Title (zine)", "Title (website)", "Title (convention)", "Title (filk song)", etc.? How is that supposed to make things easier? o_O We would have to create disambiguation pages for every new page that gets created because otherwise no one would find anything and we would have to rename 20,000 pages. Also, "Title (type)" is not specific enough, as there are often zines of the same title, websites of the same title, stories, of the same title, etc. That's one of the reasons why our disambiguation rules say that the fandom is included when disambiguation is made. So the correct title would be "Title (Fandom website)", "Title (Fandom vid)", etc. Sometimes that's not enough either and disambiguation needs to be something like "Title (Fandom story by author X)" or "Title (Fandom UK zine)". That's not something you can anticipate when you only have one page. Also you seem to assume that only story and podfic would need to be disambiguated and that no other page would have the same title. A page needs to be named "Title" so that when someone makes a new page that has exactly the same title knows that disambiguation is needed. If you name a page "Title (Fandom story)" and the next person makes a page "Title (Fandom zine)" and another one makes a page "Title (Fandom website)", there won't ever be a disambiguation page although one is needed. If someone makes a page for a podfic, they will probably look if there is already a page for the story and might not find it if they don't know the exact disambiguation to look for, and it's even less likely that they will look (or find) all the other pages with that title. Disambiguation and finding pages would be a mess.

[extempore]

As far as I understood the concerns, it's about making all fanwork equal and, for example, not hide the podfic on the fanfic page? That only works if all fanwork have the same "weight" in title, either with or without an additional category in brackets. But since the system won't allow pages with the same title, the only other option is to add something to the title. I agree, it's a bit overkill to create a disambiguation page right from the start, but the moment a second page with the same title would be created, not only should then be created the disambiguation page (as it is already done now), but also the original page - the one that was created first - should be renamed to add the type of fanwork*. If that isn't done, then there is a hierarchy, either time-wise (page A was created first) or derivation-wise. At least that's how I would read it.

But if it's not about equality of fanwork, please disregard what I said. =)

_______
* Or other differences. I don't think I have ever seen it, but theoretically there should exist plenty of fanfic with the same title.

[anatsuno]

the hierarchy of "created first" is how it's working for now, and is considered egalitarian enough. for my money it's not a problem. /dropping in.

[extempore]

In that case I really misunderstood the point of the debate, it seems. *^_^* Apologies.

[anatsuno]

No worries, it seems I misunderstood the rule about the process of adding disambiguation when necessary too, so. :)

[paraka]

You didn't completely misunderstand. My original point was that I wished there was disambiguation right off for podfic, because it felt better to me. But even by the time I posted this, I had already been offered some other options that were more in line with Fanlore's current policies that could fit the need as well. :)

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's a bit overkill to create a disambiguation page right from the start, but the moment a second page with the same title would be created, not only should then be created the disambiguation page (as it is already done now), but also the original page - the one that was created first

But that already *is* our current policy. :) As I've said: "When there is more than one page with "Title", all the respective pages get disambiguated accordingly, including the original page."

[extempore]

*facedesks*

Right, no more internet for this blind chicken today. But hey, that's how unnecessary content gets created on the web! XD (At some point, when my brain actually starts working again, I'll go back to read up why there even is a debate in the first place since, clearly, I managed to pick up an entirely wrong meaning.)