What do you wish Fanlore had a page for?

[fanloremod]

Hi, everyone! We thought it would be fun to start a discussion about the pages, or topics, that you wish Fanlore had. Many of us who edit Fanlore have those projects we keep meaning to get around to - or maybe it's an area that you think would be perfect for Fanlore, but don't feel like you know enough about. Maybe it's an area that you just wish Fanlore had more pages on.

What pages do you wish you could see on Fanlore? And is there anything else on Fanlore that you'd like to see? Leave your thoughts in a comment!

Comments

[elf]

I want so many BNHA pages. (Of course, I want someone else to make them so I can go in and just add a few details about the pairings or tropes I like best.)

I want some pages about "new" zines, the stuff being produced now, which seem to have the pattern "Advertise on Twitter; info on Carrd; production & general social activity on Discord; sell through BigCartel." Sometimes Tumblr's in there somewhere. They tend to be full-color productions heavy on artwork; there's little info given out about the participants and stories. And there's often drama. Authors drop out; production staff changes or drops out; someone is found to be 16 and it's a scandal; the printer botched half the copies but there's no money to re-run the set, and so on.

I want more info on literary scifi fandom. History of Hugo Awards; scifi conventions and magazines; what fanzines were before/in addition to the media-focused fic/letterzine fanzines. (The ones that there's a Hugo for "best fanzine" about, the fandom-newsletter-ish ones.) I want pages about how those connect to the media-fandom fanzines, and how they are different.

I want pages about bootlegs: fandubs of early anime; scanlations; Korean-subtitled VHS copies of Rocky Horror Picture Show; demonoid and pirate bay's place in fandom media distribution; how modern paid vs semi-bootleg movie/tv streaming sites affect fandom.

[butterflydreaming]

What about How-To's for things that fandom doesn't do anymore but were awesome for engagement and could be revived?

A bunch of us were talking about "the olden days," and that got me thinking about zines and stapling parties, something I have read about but never participated in. What other pre-internet/early internet stuff has been put aside, because we go right to AO3 for our fic needs?

Some other How-To might be, how to tag your fanfic, or how to find a beta, what to do at a convention, or other how-to related to cosplay and other fanwork. Basically, guides around fans experiences "breaking in" to their fandom and developing their fan family.

[bemused_writer]

This is a great idea! I'll second it; I think it would be a great resource to get people more familiar with how fandom has changed over time.

[error_cascade]

Fanlore has a category for How To but no main page. It might be nice to have a main page within the category showing off the history of tutorials/how to-s in fandom over time.

[enchantedsleeper]

That's a really good idea! I feel like I would be at a bit of a loss as to how to tackle making a page like that but it would be great to see it come into being. Maybe if we started a discussion on the category Talk page...?

[yourlibrarian]

There could be more on visual fanworks. For example, there is a Wallpaper entry but it includes a request for more details. There's none for "mood themes" and Banners could probably use more discussion of techniques and changes among different sites.

[alienacat]

Fallout: Equestria, the fic. Warframe, the game. Untitled Goose Game page (and is that related to the Soulmate Goose AU thing?). The Haunting of Bly Manor. Swiftgron and Kaylor, because I'm pretty sure those are big ships/tinhat things. Malora (Maleficent/Aurora). The My Immortal web series. Maybe a page for Nagini, in Harry Potter? The Unconventional Fanworks Exchange and Relationshipping.

[bemused_writer]

I think pre-existing fandom pages could include more info on influential fics or fan art; things that shifted the fanbase in some way, I suppose. That can be somewhat difficult to determine, I realize, but for example, I feel like people like Sevlow had a lot of influence on how people viewed and wrote about chimera in the FMA fandom and it could be neat to note that sort of thing. This is something I'd like to get going on the few pages I've worked on. Maybe this is what the "Fic" and "Fan Art" sections are supposed to entail when they're included? I've been a little puzzled by those.

Anyway, I think this is a great topic to get started on. Love seeing the ideas. (^^)

[enchantedsleeper]

Maybe this is what the "Fic" and "Fan Art" sections are supposed to entail when they're included? I've been a little puzzled by those.

If you mean on fandom pages, then yes: the idea is that those sections tend to feature notable/influential works from the fandom - though as you very correctly noted, that can be quite subjective! We don't lay down any absolute criteria about what makes a "notable work" in a fandom, but ideally these lists wouldn't just be an index of every work in that fandom (unless it's a really small fandom xD) because that would be very unwieldy. Sometimes it might be, "X fic shaped early fanon about Y", or "X piece of fanart shows the prevailing headcanon for Y's appearance", that sort of thing.

So your example is definitely something that I would put on the FMA page - if there are one or two specific works that are influential, you could put them in those sections, or you could have a "Fanon" section and talk about fandom headcanons/writing of chimera there and cite Sevlow's influence.

[error_cascade]

I've been off my fanlore editing game for a while, but...

Tik Tok
I'm not qualified to do this because I don't even have Tik Tok, I just occasionally see some overflow videos on tumblr, but it seems like Tik Tok is being used as an expression of fandom for many younger fans.

Right now there's no main page for the Tik Tok app on Fanlore and afaik there's no pages for any individual videos. Making a main page should be relatively easy, but I think making pages for individual videos has some complications. My primary concern there is ethical because so many Tik Toks have visible faces throughout and even if the creator made the decision to show their face to the internet at large.... frankly a lot of users are young and probably not seriously considering the consequences of it, like your face could be saved in an image on a fandom wiki.

I do think having pages for individual Tik Toks is important though because fandom video content is always at more risk than text, at least post-AO3.

Wattpad
The Watty Awards need fleshing out on Fanlore. Also, there seems to be some anti/proship discourse with some antis really playing out a Wattpad vs AO3 drama of the Wattpad is better because it bans self-harm/pedophilia/etc type.

Carrd
Another thing on this list I'm not actually qualified to comment on but the way people use Carrd is very connected to twitter/tumblr fandom & it should probably have its own Fanlore page with examples of how Carrd is used in a fannish context - advertising fan things, fannish backgrounds, listing ships, proshippers dni.

Exchanges, etc.
- Maximoff Fic Exchange, little fic exchange that ran for two years, tumblr/AO3/LJ based.
- DC Dark Week
- There's a lot of reoccuring dreamwidth exchanges without pages, like Little Black Dress, Crossworks, Writing Rainbow, Femslash After Dark, Relationshipping, others. I also think it's worth adding the chromatic characters exchange that started this year on DW - exchanges that are specifically focused on a social group tend to say a lot about trends in fandom as a whole.

Lego Fandom
Generally speaking, Lego Fandom doesn't really have a documented history on Fanlore. The Brickfilming article is good, there's no articles for individual Brickfilms. Or fan conventions, notable fans, zines, award-winning MOCs at conventions, MOCs where there's a connection to media/SF fandom, MOCs that went viral due to online videos/images. IMO Lego fandom is very interesting because there isn't as adversarial a relationship between the corporate & fandom side of things, so it makes a very interesting case study to compare and contrast with media fandom.