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

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

0.o ... who put a flea into your ear about some strange new meaning of "media" there?

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

Are not the majority of vids multimedia projects because they combine music and video clips and sometimes still images and so forth? Do the audio/video aspects count as separate media? Hmm...

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

This is what I'm trying to figure out. Does "multimedia" have that usage in fandom?

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- so a "multimedia vid" would use still imagines and music and clips, even if it were single-fandom. But would a multifandom story, like a xover, be considered multimeda if it were just a story? What about an archive: If it only accepts fic, but from many fandoms, is it a multimedia archive or a multifandom archive?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

No. (I already answered and am glad to see the results are clear so far). If someone used it like that, it's more likely to have been a mistake and should be deleted and not encouraged OMG.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

"Multimedia" does not mean "multifandom" in any context I have ever been aware of.

How could it? If all vids are multimedia projects, then to call a multifandom vid multimedia would not differentiate it from monofannish efforts.

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

My thought on the matter is that it's a PPOV matter, with people who came into fandom through different cultures using different definitions, and that it's not so much an either/or as it is a situation in which both sides need to be represented and included, and it needs to be clear that the wiki seeks to include the history of all relevant cultures, not just those who use a particular terminology.

(And it gets more complex, possibly, when you factor in that the Archive of Our Own intends to host vids in a future incarnation, after this one is out of beta. So would it be a multimedia multifandom archive? A multimedia multimedia archive? A multifandom multimedia archive? etc.)

(ETA: I've never thought of vids as multimedia, though I suppose they are. It's when you incorporate fic into the audiovisual mix that it becomes MM in my brain. But sane and my brain? Not always willing to claim acquaintanceship.)

NB: I represent neither the Fanlore gardeners nor the Content Policy committee, nor indeed any entity other than ainsley, in the creation of this comment.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

yeah, i've seen that usage around, too! but i also prefer it not be used that way.

-- my take on "media" in this context is not that audio and video are each a type of media which commonplace vidding combines, but that the overwhemlingly most common type of vid-- show footage edited to music-- is itself a medium, and a "multimedia" vid is a vid that combines show footage with another fandom medium, like manips. (does that make sense?)

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

(And it gets more complex, possibly, when you factor in that the Archive of Our Own intends to host vids in a future incarnation, after this one is out of beta. So would it be a multimedia multifandom archive? A multimedia multimedia archive? A multifandom multimedia archive? etc.)

Yeah, what do we do there? I mean, in my mind AOOO has to be a multifandom, multimedia archive. First because multimedia multimedia archive is just confusing when those terms mean different things, and second because I personally use "multifandom" in the current sense, and have noticed that it has remained in use among fans who come up through zines and cons vs. internet fans -- but has it stuck around to the point where it's a straight synonym for multifandom today?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

From the very start of fannish vidding, any vid that had more than one movie or show as a source was called a "multimedia" vid, even though that term is incorrect. I'm certain "multifandom" will replace it eventually, but in the meantime I have VHS tape after VHS tape from the mid-eighties labeled "MM vids".

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

(does that make sense?)

It does, but it's wrong. ;) It's just what they were called from the late 70s until internet fandom / computer vidding took off, around the late 90s.

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

More than one fandom = multifandom. More than one medium = multimedia.

Pretty much any vid could be considered multimedia because it combines video with music/sound (and sometimes still pics and/or text). A text story with illustrations (more than just "cover art") or other materials could also be considered multimedia. In both cases, though, that would apply whether it's about one fandom or a dozen.

Two very different terms. Sounds to me like some people have been mixing them up.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

Is that usage of the term exclusive to vidding, then? The poll suggests scenarios involving multiple fandoms in a single fic or a collection thereof; I'm assuming (partially from your poll answers) that the term would not extend to those?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The missing question is "A zine which accepts (or accepted) fanfiction from any fandom is" - a multimedia zine / a multifandom zine.

The answer is, again, "multimedia zine". Though the term is wrong, "multimedia" was used to mean "multifandom" before fandom went viral online. Again, I have zines called multimedia (not by me, but inside the zine) from the 70s and 80s. It was just the term used. I do not know why and I doubt anyone knows the original source w/in media fandom, but there you go.

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

Multi-media = mixed-media = more than one media format. (Vids are technically multimedia, since they mix audio and video, but "multimedia video" is either redundant or implies ... other media involvement.) Multifandom vids are also implicitly multimedia, but they have the distinction of "taken from multipe sources" rather than "taken from a single source".

A multimedia challenge would be one that accepts any media form, i.e. "sumbit prompts, and your person will produce fic, artwork, or vid based on one of those prompts".

You can have a multimedia multifandom challenge/archive/etc., but the terms are not redundant, and they would need to be both multifandom (in context of what it is; multifandom fic would have to be a crossover, but multifandom archive could be non-crossover fics that collectively span more than one fandom) and multimedia (in a distinctive context; a vid archive is not multimedia, because it only houses one medium, that of vids).

(...at least multimedia/multifandom has a "look at the words, yo" explanation. don't get me started on the divergent meanings of "jossed"...)

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

The reason I checked yuletide as multimedia is because it calls upon movies, tv shows, books, RPF, comics, commercials, plays, etc. I would also call it multifandom, though.

[general-jinjur.livejournal.com]

fwiw, multifandom & multisource are sometimes terms that are used interchangeably. and i could see how someone could confuse the terms multisource and multimedia.

not that i'm arguing, i just see how it possibly could happen.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

it needs to be clear that the wiki seeks to include the history of all relevant cultures, not just those who use a particular terminology.

Sure, but isn't there a difference between saying "Multimedia means A and B," and saying "Multimedia used to mean A for 20 years, and that is part of our history. But over time it evolved, and these days 99% of the time when you see it, it's going to mean B."

I seem to see at least one person arguing for the first entry, and that just doesn't make any sense to me in a prescriptive/descriptive sense. I mean are we going to be using past definitions for *every* term that used to have a different meaning, and using them as if they were current? There are people who have been in fandom for 10 years (me, for instance) who have never heard "multimedia" used to mean "multifandom," and it just seems factually wrong and misleading for it to appear on the archive as if it's a current fannish term that is in broad use.

eta: I mean, by the same logic, why not write in the "Star Trek: TOS" entry that Star Trek: TOS is the biggest most active fandom there is, and that there's no fanfic available on the internet? Because that was true for years as well. But it's not any more. So we should note that it was the case, but also note that things have changed.

[slashfan54.livejournal.com]

An smart poll, where are you from, Mars?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

I agree with this.

here via the metafandom delicious

[ursamajor]

I can see the logic in calling a multifandom challenge or archive that specifically includes fannish creations from all types of source texts a "multimedia archive," but that's not my understanding. To me, a "multimedia challenge" means your results can be in any creative form, not that your sources must be from multiple different source text types. Likewise, a "multimedia archive" hosts fic, icons, wallpapers, vids, podfics, and other expressions of fannish creativity, and the sources can be one or multiple text types, from one or multiple fandoms.

To me, fanvids are kinda inherently multimedia within themselves - at the very least, you're mixing a visual source, whether it be still photographs or video clips, with an audio source of separate origin (and possibly audio sources that came entangled with the visual source, if, say, you're including a dialogue snippet from said visual source over an instrumental section in the audio source). But my first instinct for what to call an archive of vids would still be a "(fan)vid(eo) archive," not a "multimedia archive" - "multi" would imply at least two different groups of results, and preferably more.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Yes, Mars.

[argosy.livejournal.com]

To me, and in the usage I am familiar with, vids would not be multimedia--because that is the media they are--video, meaning only one media--pictures, sound, music, etc.--no matter where they come from--all combine to form that media.

So I disagree with the notion that the multi-media indicates the source (maybe you have a vid featuring television, music, and magazine stories, for instance)--it all comes together to make one media.

Multimedia would mean using the video as part of my theater presentation and such.

[penknife.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the best answer is. I'm used to "multifandom" -- it's the only term for "multiple fandoms" I've heard. Multiple other fans on the wiki are arguing that some fans still currently use "multimedia," and that it's not true that it's fallen out of fannish use, especially off LiveJournal. I'm not sure how to reconcile this in a way that won't make anyone feel that their experience of what terms are in use is being dismissed. (It may be that there is no way to do that. I don't know.)

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

You know, I was looking at that same page in Fanlore and I think it's a dialect difference between an older/zine-based segment of fandom and LJ-fandom. Because nobody I know in LJ-fandom would say that, but somebody clearly thought that was totally normal speech!