making up fannish stuff, for posterity and beyond!

[sab]

All you all should be coming over to help edit fanlore.org. It's very easy to log in, and then those of us who toil over there would love some toiling help. For example, there's hardly any info on the "West Wing" page; come fill it up, and bring your favorite fics!

Also, for semantics purposes; help me with these questions below? Answer with the term you would most frequently use, or answer with the term you have most frequently heard if you don't prefer one answer over the other.

[Poll #1296784]

ETA: Comments! Keep 'em coming!

Love,
Sab

Comments

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

What I am saying is that the term is widely used within a small, minority community, so we need to be inclusive of the definition. That means a page that includes the definition, another page to disambiguate it, and a third to have the most popular definition listed--which is what we have. But the minority definition exists, it is used by a small population but one active in their community which is not on LJ, and we need to be alert for wording or phrasing that would privilege either the minority over the majority or the majority over the minority. We need to strive for everyone having a voice.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

What I am saying is that the term is widely used within a small, minority community,

*Where* is it widely used? Where is the community that uses it?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I was saying that within that minority zine community, the term was widely used.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

So I have no problem with THREE separate entities, one for "multimedia," one with "multimedia - zine fandom" and one with "multifandom" where the latter will cover most of what we have come to know as miltifandom.

The "multimedia (zine fandom)" and "multimedia" will need a "multimedia" diasambiguation: "did you mean multimeda referring to multiple types of media", or "did you want multimedia as it pertains to zine fandom" which would, at that point redirect toward either the more-common "art" usage and the less-common "multifandom" meanings.

The separate "multifandom" entry should obviously have a see also: multimedia, as well as including the history of the term "multimedia" which came about during the zine administration.

Does anyone else think this works?

ETA:</b This is way too skinny and on the side; I am going to move it over to the talk page.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

So we don't disagree, then.

Do enough people currently, *actively* use the term "multimedia" to mean "contains multiple fandoms," that it should be one of the term's major definitions on fanlore?

No.

Therefore, should it instead be briefly noted as an alternate historical usage on the main "multifandom" page, which should be renamed "multifandom" and not "multifandom or multimedia," since "multimedia" is not actually in current widespread use?

Yes.

If someone wants to argue that it *is* a term in current, widespread use, [citation needed].

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Do enough people currently, *actively* use the term "multimedia" to mean "contains multiple fandoms," that it should be one of the term's major definitions on fanlore?

Ah, see that's where we differ. My version of the question is: "Does the size of the fandom matter in determining what should or should not be included in the wiki?"

And the answer to that is 'no', but with some qualifications. If there is only one story in yuletide and no permanent archive, maybe that information should be collected into an 'obscure fandoms' page, but it should still be collected. So 17 webpages, including current stories being published? a 30 year history of the term? An active mailing list (Zinelist on yahoogroups)? Oh, yeah, that's worth it. It definitely should be respected and included in the wiki, and we need to make sure we don't marginalize them.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't disagree with that, but "multimedia" isn't a fandom, it's a term.

And I don't see how describing the actual history of the term is "marginalizing" it.

If I say "The Professionals fandom is not as active as it used to be," is that marginalizing it? No, it's true.

If I say "People used to read all their fic in zines, but now zines are kind of in a lull because most fic goes on the internet," is that marginalizing it? No, it's true.

If the "multifandom" entry is titled "multifandom," because that is the most accurate term that is *currently in use*, and it includes a short note, "this used to be covered under the term 'multimedia' but it is rarely called this any more," is that really marginalizing it? How is it marginalizing it to say "this term is very rarely used any more?" It's *true*.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Yes, multimedia is a term, but it has a different definition in a minority fandom than it does in the majority fandom here. And I do think it is worth respecting that fandom and including that definition on an equal level with a large fandom or a large community. I don't think the size of the fandom base matters, and my preference is to give the nod to a fannish definition over a non-fannish one, and in the case where there are two fannish definition, to include them both. Even when one of the fandoms is huge (LJ) and the other is 17 websites, a mailing list, and the definition of a term different from the one that most people on LJ use or have even heard of.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

OK, then why isn't the femslash page called "Femslash aka saffic aka altfic aka f/f?"

Because the guideline seems to be to go with the term most people use.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

oh, that's because that page was developed early on. Aristide/Mariread Triste is similar, except that because of the slash, it developed a subpage, which would be an unfortunate side effect in this situation. We're still in beta and our naming conventions aren't perfect.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, do you honestly think that's going to be the best naming convention to go with? Every page where there are different terms should be "A aka B aka C aka D aka E aka F aka G" ad infinitum, as long as someone can find even a dozen uses of that term that have *ever been used, ever* on the entire internet?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it depends on what compromise can be worked out. I do think that some page names may end up huge and unweildy, but, eh. It's just text. If it means that people feel included, it's a win.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I would agree, as long as (1) all claims can be cited, which so far, "multimedia = multifandom" isn't (in terms of it being a definition that's currently in use) and (2) as long as it isn't actively confusing, and at this point, "multimedia = multifandom" definitely is.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

If the "multifandom" entry is titled "multifandom," because that is the most accurate term that is *currently in use*, and it includes a short note, "this used to be covered under the term 'multimedia' but it is rarely called this any more," is that really marginalizing it? How is it marginalizing it to say "this term is very rarely used any more?" It's *true*.

The way it is phrased tells the people who are into the fandom that their input isn't valued. 'but rarely called this any more' is a very dismissive phrase, and it does marginalize and trivialize the people who use currently use the term multimedia to mean multifandom.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

The way it is phrased tells the people who are into the fandom that their input isn't valued.

... What fandom? Again, we're not talking about a fandom, we're talking about a term.

'but rarely called this any more' is a very dismissive phrase, and it does marginalize and trivialize the people who use currently use the term multimedia to mean multifandom.

I honestly don't understand how it is dismissive to accurately describe the evolution of a fannish term over time.

"Stackhouse/Markham was a popular pairing during early seasons of Stargate Atlantis, but it is rarely written any more." Is that dismissive, or is it true?

How is it dismissive to truthfully state that a term that is used on exactly 17 sites on the *entire internet* is rarely used?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but we are talking about a fandom that uses a particular definition of a term.

"Stackhouse/Markham was a popular pairing during early seasons of Stargate Atlantis, but it is rarely written any more."
Both dismissive and true. If I was the lone Stackhouse/Markham writer in the fandom, and I had just completed my megalithic, 225,000 word story of their undying love, I might get a little upset at having it so lightly dismissed. If you stopped at
"Stackhouse/Markham was a popular pairing during early seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and added something like "the last S/M story 'hot date on the balcony' was posted to community MarkxStack in 2006.", that's not dismissive to me; those are both facts.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but we are talking about a fandom that uses a particular definition of a term.

.... what fandom? Where? On yahoogroups? On usenet? On website forums? In letterzines? Where does this fandom exist? [citation needed]. You can't just keep saying "fandom uses this term." We're talking about a wiki. [citation needed].

"Stackhouse/Markham was a popular pairing during early seasons of Stargate Atlantis, but it is rarely written any more."
Both dismissive and true. If I was the lone Stackhouse/Markham writer in the fandom, and I had just completed my megalithic, 225,000 word story of their undying love, I might get a little upset at having it so lightly dismissed. If you stopped at
"Stackhouse/Markham was a popular pairing during early seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and added something like "the last S/M story 'hot date on the balcony' was posted to community MarkxStack in 2006.", that's not dismissive to me; those are both facts.

Honestly, that strikes me as profoundly irrational. If you are the sole X writer in your entire fandom and it insults you to hear someone state the fact "X is rarely written any more," you have personal issues.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Gah-- I take back that last comment. I apologize. Give me a second and let me take another shot at that.

That was a stupid comment and it got personal. Let me try again. *apologizes again*

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Okay, basically, my point is this.

At a certain point, yes, size *should* determine what term is used.

Otherwise, you could have someone say "I call slash 'Red4xnine' and therefore the slash page ought to be called 'Slash aka Red4xnine' or else I feel excluded."

What if I get 15 of my friends to get in with me on this Red4xnine thing? Do we get to rename the slash page? Because otherwise it would be hurtful and exclusionary?

At a certain point, you have to draw the line and say, *most people* use X to mean this and Y to mean that.

Yes, at one point, most people used X and Y to mean the same thing. However, at this point, there are only 17 individual uses of Y on the internet, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to say "X aka Y." Because that is, as shown on this page, actively confusing.

So what we have now is on one side:

-- the documented, cited fact that "multimedia" to mean multifandom is *not* a term that is currently in widespread use and, as shown in the comments, is *actively confusing* to a lot of people. However, people are perfectly willing to put a section on the "multimedia" page describing its alternate definition.

And on the other side:

-- your uncited, undocumented claim that feelings would be hurt if "multifandom" and "multimedia" are not given *equal weight* on the page. Your argument is that describing a factual, documented case of fannish drift away from one term and towards another would be actively, hurtfully exclusionary towards a group of people, but you can't actually point to any place or any group where this term is actively in use.

That's where we are.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

Livia, I think it's important to keep in mind that we're not discussing theoreticals here -- we have people on the wiki who actively use the term and who actively argue for its inclusion. So I think this whole fuss is about not marginalizing these very real people (by marginalizing their terminology) whom we work with closely on the wiki. So, yeah, feelings have been hurt, not just theoretically.

Yes, something may be true, but especially when we pull out the numbers/size argument to trump other arguments*, we need to be extra-special-careful to at least not sound dismissive in our language. I mean, what does it hurt to be accommodating and as neutral as possible, while still representing current usage?


*and I actually do share your point here, even if I may disagree over how to balance the being inclusive-yet-still-practical/useful edge, but hey, we'll work this out, I guess.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

we have people on the wiki who actively use the term

Where? If someone could just point me to recent discussions where this term is actively being used by a large number of people...? Because I swear I've said "citation needed" at least nine times now, and so far the only citation anyone has provided is a single link to Agent with Style's website. That does not indicate to me that the term is in widespread use, *currently*.

I mean, what does it hurt to be accommodating and as neutral as possible, while still representing current usage?

And as I've said before, I have no problem with (1) including "it was at one time the mainstream fannish term meaning multifandom, and is sometimes still used to mean this" on the "multimedia" page, and (2) including "an alternate term, 'multimedia,' is used in many cases, especially in the zine community" on the multifandom page.

I haven't seen anyone yet give a good reason why this isn't an acceptable solution.

I mean, what does it hurt to be accommodating and as neutral as possible, while still representing current usage?

It hurts the wiki to misrepresent the actual state of affairs in fandom. Let's be brutally honest, and I'm sorry if this hurts people's feelings, but the term that is used 95% of the time is "multifandom."

It is not only *incorrect*, it is actively confusing to have a page titled "Multifandom or multimedia," as if these terms were both widely in use and generally understood to be interchangeable, like "Femslash" and "f/f," for instance.

I'm all for respecting people's feelings, but at a certain point, you can't just say "it has to say X is true because if you don't say X is true, it hurts my feelings." You need to actually provide some kind of citation that X is actually true.

Unless someone actually can provide some citations for the assertion that "multimedia" is still actively used by large numbers of fans, to the point that it is interchangeable with, and widely understood to mean the same thing as "multifandom," the wiki shouldn't indicate that that is the case, because it's *not true*.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

First off: I was talking about sherrold and Arduinna, who are both pretty active wiki contributors and use the term -- especially all the zine articles use that term.

Secondly, I take Arduinna's word on it that the term is still in use, and she has also (privately -- there is, as you can imagine, a lot of constructive conversation going on behind the scenes) sent a list of links for citation. No-one claims that the term is still in *wide-spread* use (except *within* some circles), so the lines are actually a lot more nuanced than they appear here -- it's not hurting anyone's feelings that 95% of fandom (well, hey, LJ fandom at least) are using a different term nowadays. '"it has to say X is true because if you don't say X is true, it hurts my feelings."' has never been the case.

I'm talking about style, not content: let's rather phrase 'X is true' in a way that doesn't say 'neener neener, Y IZ WRONG LOL' -- you know, if someone reasonably says, 'sorry, this is hurtful to me/not entirely accurate, can you phrase it differently?', we might at least listen. A lot of comments here are to the tone of 'lol they're doin it rong' and I'm just like, hello, IDIC?

And I think we just have to agree to disagree about what juxtaposing two terms in one article title means (not that this isn't subject to change, so the point will prob. soon be moot) -- I personally don't attach any devaluation of multifandom to its pairing with multimedia. *shrugs*
But anyway, this is pretty much the only point we actually disagree about, I suppose.

[ratcreature]

While I agree that multifandom is the more common term by far, I'm not sure how much the lack of results for "mulitmedia zine" in itself says. I mean, if I google for "multifandom zine" I get five google hits, slightly more for "multi-fandom zine", but still less than fifty, so the neither combination is used much on the google indexed web either.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

But the thing is, if someone was challenging me to prove that "multifandom" is a commonly used term, I could probably provide hundreds of cites, using google or ljseek, to cite people actively using "multifandom" to mean "contains multiple fandoms."

I don't think I really need to do that, because I don't think anyone is disputing that "multifandom" is a widely used term. Not necessarily the only term, but *a* widely used term. If someone wants to dispute that, I'll be glad to cite.

What's in dispute is the use of "multimedia." Is it CURRENTLY in use? Is it widely used? As of yet, no one has cited any current use of "multimedia" besides a single link to Agent of Style's website, which indicates to me that "multimedia zine" may still be a term that's in use, "multimedia" in general is not being actively used by fans to describe things that encompass many fandoms. I mean, I've repeatedly asked for cites, and no one is coming up with anything, so what else can I conclude?

As for googling "multifandom zine," I think that has more to do with the fact that "multifandom" as a term gained prominence after-- and now I'm not sure how to say "zines started getting less popular" without hurting feelings. Is it dismissive to say that people don't make/publish zines as much as they used to? Apparently to some people it is. Minefield.

But you get the idea. The term "multifandom" doesn't overlap much with the heyday of zines. Googling "multifandom vid" or "multi-fandom challenge" gets a lot more results.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's just... I'm trying to process how someone would get offended by something that is simply a factual statement. One person writing a pairing, even if they write a 200,000 word story, is still rare!

For several years my primary fandom was Jude Law/Ewan McGregor RPS. I wrote about a hundred fics total, but outside of my fics there are less than half that that I have found in existence, ever. It's not hurting me to say the pairing is rarely written! It's true! Unless that one person is cranking out dozens of fics a week, any pairing written primarily by one person is going to be rare.

Stuff that goes on Yuletide is rare. Do people get upset at the idea that their fandoms are on Yuletide? Of course not. Rare is rare. Most people who write rare pairings or rare fandoms know full well their stuff is rare and desperately wish that wasn't the case.