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Challenge: Doctor Who!

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 08:29 pm

Who's been watching the new season of Doctor Who? I've been pleased, and maybe a little surprised, at how much I've been enjoying Matt Smith's take on the Doctor. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that I'm a bit of a sucker for tweed and bow ties. :)

So I checked out the Doctor Who pages on Fanlore and for a fandom that's been around since the 60's and has had such a massive popular resurgence, those pages need a lot of fleshing out! Go check it out. The online fandom and fanfic subpages are crying for details. What about the Rose wars? How about Donna? We have a pattern for knitting the scarf, but not one for knitting the adipose that was so popular at the art auction at Con.txt a couple of years ago. Any notable vids? How did the tone of the fanfic change while the 10th Doctor was in the midst of his downward spiral of manpain?

There's lot we can do with these pages, both Old School Who fans and New Who fans alike, so let's play with this for a couple of weeks. Pick an area that strikes your fancy and have at it! :)

Current Mood: cheerful

Tags:

category news update

aethel

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 03:40 pm

Just a quick note to say that we've created a few requested categories — Doujinshi, Characters, Pairings, and Zine Publishers — and updated the respective templates with said categories. Meanwhile, the "Fan Docos" category has been replaced with "Fan Documentaries" by request. The policy on fandom categories is coming soon (very soon!).

Tags:

admin,
categories

accessing the sandbox

aethel

Monday, April 19th, 2010 08:51 pm

I've added two more links to the sidebar on the wiki: one to the Help Tutorial that

brownbetty posted about last year and one to Fanlore's Sandbox.

The Sandbox is just an empty page that anyone can use to experiment with wiki markup or page formatting ideas. Although you can always make a change on any page in the main namespace and then immediately undo it (provided no one else has edited the page in the meantime), the Sandbox is intended as a low-pressure space where you can play around without worrying about messing up another page.

It's easy to wipe clean after you're done (hence the name): either go to the history tab and click "undo" next to your edit or just click to edit the page and delete all the content.

Individual versions of the page history can always be accessed later. For example, I can look at the story tropes draft by going to the history tab, clicking "last" next to the edit version I want, and then clicking "permanent link" under the Toolbox menu on the sidebar.

Wikipedia also has a page explaining the uses of their sandbox.

ETA: this brief notice turned into a help page accidentally, so I'll add it to the wiki help pages. Let me know if you want anything else about sandboxes explained.

Tags:

admin,
wiki tools

New Committee Member!

meri_oddities

Friday, April 16th, 2010 07:48 pm

We wanted to let everyone know that even though there hasn't been a lot of activity here lately, we're still working on things.

Last month one of our members had to step down for RL work reasons. We're pleased to announce that

aethel has joined the wiki committee to fill the vacancy.

We're delighted to have her!

Tags:

admin: staffing

Quick question for Fanlorians

facetofcathy

Thursday, April 1st, 2010 11:36 am

First though, I'm going to repost the Tropes page categorized and with all original page titles so we can all discuss categories and renaming of a few pages, but I forgot this was a holiday for most people coming up so, next week sometime.

Now I need opinions. I want to make a page for the very small Lewis fandom. The show is a spin-off of Inspector Morse, it is called Lewis in the UK, and I believe the rest of Europe, Inspector Lewis in America. There are two comms: one on DW which uses the Lewis name and one on LJ which uses the Inspector Lewis name.

Wikipedia uses Lewis (TV Series). IMDB uses Lewis (2006) (TV).

So what to call the page without creating problems? (I kind of like the Wikipedia option myself as I tend to default to original text name, but what if some other series called Lewis comes along?)

(Also anyone with fandom information is urged, welcome and will be loved if they offer to add content to this page.)

Umbrella pages

meg_r

Monday, March 29th, 2010 06:54 pm

The discussion about Tropes has raised the problem of how to deal with the multiple pages about consent issues/sexual assault: we've got Rapefic, Noncon and Dub-con, all with somewhat different content. Noncon in particular is defined entirely in relation to rapefic and dubcon, and all the history of the trope is on the rapefic page. I feel that none of the pages can be comprehensive when the content is spread out this way.

My preference would be to merge the pages into one [[Sexual Assault (Trope)]] or [[Consent Issues in Fanworks]] page or the like and redirect, but I suspect that will prove an Unpopular Fannish Opinion. Alternatively, how about an umbrella page with the main content, so that the terms can be usefully compared, leaving the three pages as brief glossary terms that link to the umbrella page?

Other suggestions?

A page for Passover fics?

kass

Monday, March 29th, 2010 12:32 pm

Hi all!

roga just posted an awesome list of Passover fics to her journal, and my first thought was "maybe I should make a Passover stories page on Fanlore so I never lose this list again." But I'm not sure how best to do it; should it be a sub-page of the Judaism and fandom page? What makes sense?

Tropes--Not just for fanfic anymore

facetofcathy

Monday, March 29th, 2010 08:23 am

ETA. Tuesday March 30: This page is getting very hard to read for anyone who didn't happen to follow along as it was changed. I'm going to post a new list that shows all the wonderful additions people have suggested as well as a new category system. I'll put that up tomorrow, Wednesday, and we can discuss categories and visit the issue of re-naming pages in a format where no-one's opinions get lost.

ETA: Can we start using Subject Lines. I need to put this page onto ?view=flat to keep up.

The Background: This post on

fanlore : Fic -Privileging on Fanlore and Limitations to Fannish Diversity

Various conversations on talk pages on the wiki, some linked below. See also: Talk page on tentaclefic page.

As discussed on the pages linked above, most of the trope pages on the wiki are linked from the Story Trope page. That page began as a fic-focused list and the problem has spread into dozens of pages throughout the wiki.

The Proposal: Let's begin with the Story Tropes page and reimagine it, then we can all work on various other old and new trope pages and make Fanlore trope pages about all fanworks in all fandoms.

What I am suggesting is first renaming the page as Tropes, Genres and Classification in Fanworks (or something shorter if that's felt to be necessary.) If we as a community can come to a consensus on restructuring the page in this way, the next step is to rename the listed tropes in an inclusive way, and then rename the pages they link to, or make pages if they don't yet exist.

Below the cut is the code from that page, as at March 23, with my proposed changes shown. Strikethroughs = removal, Blue means new or changed. I am starting from the code here, since just looking at the page (which is a list of wikilinks) won't show you where the links actually go.

I don't have all the answers here! I am finding names hard to determine, I don't know much about art or vidding, so there may be needed additions that I'm not aware of. Please look this over, offer suggestions for names where you see ???, and let's see if the community likes this idea, and if we can go forward with making this area of the wiki better armed with a plan.

If we do chose to go this route, we need a list of pages that need to be moved (the way a name change happens) and a list of new pages that can be made(currently really hard to count, but it's quite a few). Please look this over, look at the page on the wiki and chime in with how you think this can be improved.

N.B. I have used hard coded Blue text in places. If you happen to have a background that will not display that text comfortably, please try adding ?format=light to the url of this entry. Comments are in (). ETA, suggestions from comments are in red.

ETA: I should have been clearer, that blue does not absolutely mean erase the old page name from existance. Some things, like Curtain fic, are terms that will have to have a page to explain the term, but the trope itself in a general non fic-specific way should have a page to be discussed.

( Read more... )

Make the magic public - Merlin gathering is a go!

briar_pipe

Friday, March 26th, 2010 11:59 pm

The Merlin editing group is diving in Saturday, March 27, at noon EDT (4pm GMT) and will continue for 12 hours. We will open up again on Sunday as well. Details here.

Short version: We're gathering on Google to chat and use Googledocs to play with each others' work before posting to the Fanlore Wiki. This will reduce the spammage on "Recently updated pages" and make those unfamiliar with Wiki coding more comfortable.

All are welcome. Email theoldbriarpipe at gmail to be invited into the chat.

(Yes, Frogspace made the lovely suggestion that we use the Fanlore chat, and I was hoping to, but there's no Googledocs equivalent except the Sandbox, which really isn't equivalent at all. So we're doing it off-site. But again, everyone is welcome. It's a big job.)

Tags:

challenge

Help with OpenID

cesy

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 06:47 pm

I am currently finding that whenever I close my browser I get logged out of Fanlore. Is there any way to make it remember who I am with a cookie or anything? Having to login every time is annoying - I'd like it to remember that cesy.dreamwidth.org is me on this computer.

Let me introduce you to my nemisis, Christian Kane.

facetofcathy

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 09:26 am

ETA: I made the page. I set it to be in People -- Industry as well as Fandoms by Source Text -- Real People. Which suits the dual nature of someone like this, but I'm wondering how often we will make pages for people who are not RPF characters. My concern now is that the page reflects my very firm separation of canon and character with RPF. Not everyone rolls that way.

I am trying to expand the linked RPF pages, CWRPS and J2 and I've run into an issue I don't quite know how to handle, and I don't think this has exactly come up before.

RPF is not a nice, clean linear thing like Media Fandom. It is a big tangled mess of interconnectedness, and the biggest problem I'm having is Christian Kane. Specifically what to call the fandom page for Christian Kane/Steve Carlson fic. There are no other pages right now where the pairing is the fandom other than J2, and it's got that handy cute name. So should the page get named as if it's a pairing page, but categorized like a fandom? Will that slash in the title cause technical problems?

Why not just make it a pairing section or subpage of CWRPS you might ask? Well, because I believe, much more than J2 even, that it is definitely a separate fandom off on it's own. There are separate Kane and Chris/Steve comms on LJ and fic is only crossposted to J2 or CWRPF comms if a J is in the story. If this were to be considered a subpage of CWRPS, then J2 should absolutely be one too. I don't like at all the idea of a fandom being buried inside another one just because it's small.

Why not just make the page Christian Kane and talk about all his RPF adventures there? Well I thought of that, but as the conversation on the Billy Boyd page has just trailed off, there is no real consensus on how to handle people pages. Could I do that and categorize the page as a People page and a Fandom by source text--Real People page both?

Explanation for people who have no idea who any of these people are: Kane played a fairly small part on Angel, but definitely showed up in Angel RPF, often paired with David Boreanaz. (There is a very brief Jossverse RPF page that doesn't have much detail, so anyone who can flesh that out is welcome and encouraged to have at it.)

Mr. Kane is also a friend of Jensen Ackles which naturally drew him into the vortex that is J2/CWRPF fic. I've got brief discussion of his roles there on the CWRPS page.

Mr. Kane used to have a musical partner in Steve Carlson, and Chris/Steve is a common secondary pairing in CWRPF that also exists as it's own fandom and stories are mostly based around their canon musical career.

Just to make things more complicated, Kane is of course on Leverage, and while the Leverage newsletter lists RPF fic, I can count on one hand the number of stories that have anything at all to do with other Leverage people in a significant way. (The Leverage RPF comm on LJ has 9 entries.)

Congratulations to all who got through that--now, any suggestions?

Merlin pages editorial gathering

briar_pipe

Sunday, March 21st, 2010 05:57 pm

A bunch of Merlin fans are getting together at

camelot_fleet this week to discuss what needs to be done to update those pages. We plan to do a huge editing party this coming weekend. Everyone is welcome to join us!

Tags:

challenge

Fic-Privileging on Fanlore and Limitations to Fannish Diversity

kylara

Saturday, March 20th, 2010 01:08 am

Following a discussion in Talk:Tentaclefic, RatCreature suggested bringing the topic up in the community to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully get some more input on what to do about it. The topic began with the suggestion that the "Tentaclefic" article, which address tentacles in fandom and fanworks more broadly than just fic, be renamed to incorporate other mediums of fanwork. This expanded into a broader discussion on what to do about other such named articles and fic-privileging on Fanlore.

I'm mostly from anime/manga fandom. From the discussion it seems that fic is the core of many Western-sourced fandoms which would explain the fic-centricism on Fanlore. Fic is also important in anime/manga fandom, but quite a lot of activity is also focused on visual mediums such as fanart, webcomics, and manga-style doujinshi. Tropes aren't limited to written fiction, and fic-centered terms are not as prevalent.

I'm concerned that when topics (such as tentacles) have articles with fic-centered instead of inclusive names, that this works at the exclusion of other mediums of fanworks. I would like to see more anime/manga information brought into Fanlore, and so far the inclusion has been rather limited (which could be for a number of reasons besides). Still, I would like to see Fanlore remain welcoming to expansion.

So how about it? Ideas on how to be more mindful to non-fic fanworks? RatCreature's also looking for ideas on how to rename topics like "wingfic," "apocafic," and others which are not inherently fic-centric.

Policy Posted for Comment

meri_oddities

Friday, March 19th, 2010 06:30 pm

We've posted the Fandoms as Category policy change to the policies section of Fanlore. We'd like to open it up for comment. You can find it here.

We, the wiki committee, don't work in a vacuum and would like your input on this. If possible, We'd like to have the discussion here on Dreamwidth. It's easy to answer questions and respond to comments. If discussion becomes unwieldy, we can schedule a chat in the Fanlore chat room.

This is only the first of several policies we're working on and are planning to put out for comment in the next few months. So, let us know what you think.

Current Mood: accomplished

Tags:

Help with Login IDs?

briar_pipe

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 02:38 am

Ok, I've spent ~2 hours looking through Help and FAQ pages for this info, and no one's in the chatroom right now, so I guess this is my last stop. Help me, Fanlore geniuses - you're my only hope!

I originally started editing Fanlore using an OpenID account based on my LJ. But since I don't log into my LJ very often anymore, I went ahead and created a regular account. I assumed that after I did so, there would be a way to merge the two.

Silly me.

So now I have a user page and one set of watchlist/contribs under OpenID, and a second set under my new login. Does anyone have any idea how I get myself out of this mess? I would really rather keep the new login, if possible, especially since I've already contributed under it.

Thank you to anyone who has ideas!

Table of Contents and Templates, revisited

cin1607

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 09:56 pm

It looks like taking the TOC coding out of the templates caused more issues than it fixed, so we've added it back in. We're looking into ways to improve our stylesheets so that we can fix the problems that led us to taking the coding out of the templates in the first place. Thanks for everyone's feedback on this. We'll keep working on it. :)

Current Mood: hopeful

Tags:

admin,
technical

six degrees of help pages

aethel

Sunday, March 14th, 2010 08:37 pm

Point the first:
I created a mashup fandom template the other day for fandoms with multiple source texts selected based on the actors (bandmembers?) they have in common. Today I was tweaking it and looking at talk pages to see what other fandoms the template might be used on when I belatedly realized that I should have called it a "6 degrees" template. There's a 6 Degrees of Canada, 6 Degrees of SGA (still redlinked), and even a 6 Degrees of Pete Wentz. (And Kiefer/Lou.) On the Harrison Ford talk page, someone mentioned they were having trouble finding an appropriate fandom category to tag him with... So, are there enough of these fandoms to justify a "6 degrees" category (or some other term, I don't know what)? In any event, I'd love to see a wiki entry about this kind of fandom if anyone is knowledgeable enough to write one.

Point the second:
After my last post, I started five help pages before I ran out of steam. Check 'em out (and edit them):

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:Fanworks
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:Pairing_pages
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:People_pages
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:Glossary
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Help:Character_pages

Along the way I realized no one had added any character or pairing pages for RPF fandoms. Although now I see that isn't entirely true: see Monaboyd. There's a brief discussion here on how to organize RPF character and pairing pages that needs more input from RPF fans.

Sphinx Install Complete

meri_oddities

Sunday, March 14th, 2010 05:18 pm

A quick note to let everyone know that the Sphinx search engine has been installed at Fanlore and is ready for use.

If you have any issues send a message to the wiki committee at wiki [at] transformativeworks [dot] org.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the testing! We appreciate it!

Current Mood: accomplished

Tags:

admin,
technical

Spinx Install on Sunday

meri_oddities

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 08:09 pm

Just wanted to let you all know that Fanlore will be down on Sunday 3/14/2010 from 3:00pm Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5) to 4:00pm EST to install and test the Spinx search engine extension.

The wiki committee will be testing it after the install, basically just running a few searches. If anyone is around and wants to help out, you can join us in the Fanlore chat room at about 3:30 pm EST to run a few searches and make sure that everything works right.

ETA: Time designations

Current Mood: accomplished

Tags:

admin,
technical

LOTR and the Help pages

aethel

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 04:18 pm

Two things I wanted to ask about and/or draw attention to:

1. We've been talking about moving LOTR RPF to a top-level page. The only question is how to represent the name. One vote for LOTRiPS, one for Lotrips. I've seen various capitalizations. But I was only in Lotrips for half a second (or a month?), so I wouldn't listen to me. More votes wanted!

1a. Speaking of which, the LOTR pages, not to mention the Doctor Who pages and the Star Wars pages, need to be reorganized. There's some discussion on the talk pages.

2. I've been looking through (and editing) the Help pages a lot lately. mrsvelvetears has been doing an excellent job of improving the language in the existing pages, but I think we need to add more pages to this namespace to document how we the editors have been handling certain topics in practice. There is a WIP help page already for Fandoms. I'd also like to have separate help pages for Characters, Pairings, Glossary terms and Fandom Glossaries, Fanworks, Lists, ...? These pages could be short or long and could include which template and categories to use, as well as naming conventions (to sub or not to sub), suggested headings and topics, and examples. There are some tips and discussion scattered throughout the wiki about these topics, but nowhere obvious. I'm willing to dive in, but would I be stepping on anybody's toes? Admittedly, it's a bit late in the game to ask, since I've already been editing the Help pages, but I thought I'd check in in case nobody had noticed....

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Challenge: Doctor Who!

category news update

accessing the sandbox

New Committee Member!

Quick question for Fanlorians

Umbrella pages

A page for Passover fics?

Tropes--Not just for fanfic anymore

Make the magic public - Merlin gathering is a go!

Help with OpenID

Let me introduce you to my nemisis, Christian Kane.

Merlin pages editorial gathering

Fic-Privileging on Fanlore and Limitations to Fannish Diversity

Policy Posted for Comment

Help with Login IDs?

Table of Contents and Templates, revisited

six degrees of help pages

Sphinx Install Complete

Spinx Install on Sunday

LOTR and the Help pages