Fanlore's Journal

Have you ever searched for something on Fanlore only to come up empty? Have the words "How does this not have a Fanlore page yet?!" ever crossed your mind? Have you ever wanted to share something fandom related with your fellow fans?

If you answer YES to at least one of these questions then this month's challenge is for you!

Use June Bloom to start the pages you always wanted to see on Fanlore! Spread the love of your fandoms to others.

The pages you create don't have to be complex! They can be as small as this Elijah/Elena page, or as big as this Derek Hale one. We want you to simply sow the seeds and watch these pages bloom as other editors add their own knowledge and perspective. With your help we will be able to turn Fanlore into a beautiful garden full of different pages everybody will be able to enjoy.

If you don't know where to start, don't worry! Every week we will be posting a theme to help inspire you. Stay tuned for the very first theme, coming later today!

If you don't like editing on your own, the editing party will take place June 13th. (We plan on starting at 4pm UTC, but who knows how long the party will last?) For those who can't make it, there will be a staffer ready to help you every weekend in June. Simply stop by the Fanlore chatroom. If you find the Fanlore room empty, leave your your question (along with your Fanlore username) and we will get in touch with you on your Talk page. Plus you can always send an email to the Fanlore Gardeners.

Remember:
As an anti-spam preventative measure, brand new accounts are not allowed to create pages for the first four hours. But that doesn't mean you can't help by editing existing pages first! It will be great practice for those unfamiliar with wiki editing.

Start by checking out the New Visitor Portal then start searching for things connected to your fandom! You can also check out the Fanlore Wish List for inspiration.

The Wiki Committee has an exciting announcement!

A few months ago, Fanlore was approached by the Library of Congress for permission to preserve Fanlore as a part of their American Folklife Center's ongoing digital culture web archiving project. We are thrilled to have been chosen for the project!

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is working to archive and preserve the diverse expression of folk culture currently on the web. Some other sites that have recently been archived include Urban Dictionary, Know Your Meme, and the Lolcat Bible. Fanlore's inclusion in the Library of Congress project emphasizes the fact that fan history is a significant part of folklore and culture in the United States and across the world.

If you are a Fanlore contributor of any kind, there is absolutely no need to be concerned about attribution of your work. Fanlore's Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license will still be in effect, and displayed on the archived version of Fanlore available to researchers (and eventually to the public) through the Library of Congress.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send them to the Wiki Committee!

April is over, but April Showers doesn't have to be! We hope you will continue to share your stories and preserve your fannish culture — in these fandoms or in any others!

The fandoms hightlighted the last week and a half were:

• Nochnoy Dozor (AO3 Tag)


• Kingsman (AO3 Tag)


• Cabin Pressure (AO3 Tag)


• Gravitation (AO3 Tag)


• The Last of Us (AO3 Tag)


• How to Get Away with Murder (AO3 Tag)


• Carmilla (AO3 Tag)


• Ouran High School Host Club (AO3 Tag)


• Minecraft (AO3 Tag)


• Wicked (AO3 Tag)


• Book of Life (AO3 Tag)

Some of these pages are still stubs and can use some love; even those that aren't can always benefit from additional fannish perspectives!

If you're not sure where to start, check out our New Visitor Portal! It will guide you through getting an account, Fanlore policies, and wiki editing.

Check out the April Showers challenge tag on AO3 for inspiration on other fandoms to contribute to — or, if you don't see your fandoms there yet, all the more reason to share!


Many thanks to everyone who has participated in this year's challenge! We would love to hear about your April Showers contributions in the comments below. Happy editing!

April Showers concluded the second week and we hope you enjoyed it!

The fandoms highlighted this week were:

• Over the Garden Wall (AO3 Tag)


• Valdemar Series (AO3 Tag)


• Hellblazer / Constantine (AO3 Tag)


• Alex Rider (AO3 Tag)


• Black Books (AO3 Tag)


• Marble Hornets (AO3 Tag)


• Orphan Black (AO3 Tag)

Some of these pages are still stubs and can use some love; even those that aren't can always benefit from additional fannish perspectives!

If you're not sure where to start, check out our New Visitor Portal! It will guide you through getting an account, Fanlore policies, and wiki editing.

Remember, you can follow each fandom as it's highlighted on the fanlore_news and ao3org Twitters as well as ao3org on Tumblr.

We invite you to tell us your history, your stories; share your memories and experiences; preserve your fannish culture — in these fandoms or in any others! Check out the April Showers challenge tag on AO3 for inspiration on other fandoms to contribute to — or, if you don't see your fandoms there yet, all the more reason to share!

Have you created or edited any Fanlore pages for April Showers? Tell us about your contributions in the comments below. Happy editing!

What the Wiki committee did in March

The Wiki committee is very happy to welcome three new staffers! Highlander_II, SoyAlex, and Squidgie joined us in our latest round of recruitment.
( Introductions below the cut. )

The committee also has a new Board liaison, Soledad Griffin. We'll do our best to utilize her experience as chair of Internationalization & Outreach.


In addition to recruitment, we prepared for April Showers, a month-long event involving both Fanlore and AO3 during which various fandoms will be highlighted, To kick off the challenge, we will have an editing chat this Saturday, April 4, at 4pm UTC. See this post for more details.

Systems also performed some server maintenance in March; Fanlore may experience brief periods of downtime between 8am to 8pm UTC on Friday, April 3rd (when is that in my timezone?) in order to complete it.

Now that we have a bigger team we're busy brainstorming what else we'll be able to do, and we're excited about the possibilities.

Both Fanlore and AO3 will be down for scheduled maintenance this Friday, 20th March. The maintenance will take place from 17:30 to approximately 20:45 UTC. (What time is that in my timezone?)

Note that maintenance may also take slightly longer than expected, so there is no need to contact us if you cannot access the site at exactly 20:45 UTC.

For site status updates about the sites please follow fanlore_news and AO3_Status on Twitter.

Some of you may have noticed some problems accessing Fanlore this past month. To fix this, the OTW Systems committee will move Fanlore to a new server. For this reason there will be a downtime on January 2nd, starting from 7am UTC (What time is that in my timezone?), that may last a few hours.

Better late than never, here is what the Wiki committee did in October:

From October 19 to October 26, the OTW held an amazingly successful membership drive! An incredible US$164,625.58 was raised, far outstripping the US$70,000 goal. You can read more about the drive at transformativeworks.org. Thank you to everyone who donated!

We held an editing chat on October 11, which had a great turnout! Some topics we discussed are summarized below:
( October 11th chat summary )

We also addressed our usual outside requests, including an identity protection case. In November, we will continue to work on finishing a request for Legal and are awaiting final confirmation about another exciting announcement. We are also beginning to plan some exciting projects for the new year and will continue to improve our internal documentation.