General Fandom Meta
laurashapiro - VIDDING META You Can't Stop The Signal In this post, I hope to outline the most pressing issues vidders face, and how we might benefit from wider exposure as a community. My goal is to facilitate a broad discussion of these issues, with as many people as possible joining in. I am especially hoping to hear from vidders who are outside of my normal vidding sphere.

kalpurna - Expanding the Imeem Thing to Slash Fandom So, there's lately been a quiet revolution in vidding fandom, one of which I heartily approve. I agree with every single thing that's been said here, and I personally have felt this way for a long, long time – I don't at all want to push my views on others, and I know a lot of vidders like to stay hidden for their own personal reasons, disclaimercakes – but I think there's a lot, a LOT to be gained from a collective stepping-out-of-the-closet on this one.

elke_tanzer - elke_tanzer vidding visibility, imeem, llamas, squid and a rubber duck I highly recommend all of the following posts. Some highlights: TV Guide has discovered shipper vids on YouTube. Imeem is pretty much mostly very wonderful. David Hewlett has an account on YouTube and watches fanvids. Women vidders are fabulous and our community's history is amazing and if more of us are able to be out and proud, more power to us! And we can and should discuss what we want from the world at large, because if we never even try for it, we'll surely never get it.

researchgrrrl - elephants in the living room can't always be ignored I TMI'd in this entry on the two points that I did to establish the context for my opinion. I have been featured in what, in retrospect, is a published RPF story. When I started thinking about that yesterday, I realized that I'd have a hell of a lot less of a problem with someone opting to write a femmeslash story where I'm re-oriented into being a lesbian who's having an affair with a coworker (and not just because the receptionist here is a babe *g*) than I would if someone wrote about how I broke down after the rape in a way that was meant to be hot and sexy.

sistermagpie - Unconscious moral instructions And as readers I think we get more satisfaction out of the potential holes in the way it's presented. It's good that both Rowling's and Tolkien's presentations of the world can annoy some readers or strike the right emotional buttons with other readers.

grrliz - E-Accessibility and You! I've compiled a bunch of things that LJ users can take into consideration when producing content and designing layouts for their LJs in order to make it more accessible to a wider audience.

thelana - what to do in an event of plagiarism After the big case of plagiarism here in the fandom (stop_plagiarism's report here and here) I thought it would be good to list some pointers as how to recognize plagiarism. Most of these are just rephrasings of the stop_plagiarism charta specifically tailored to the most recent event where a single person apparently plagiarized over 22 authors.

umbo - Going Under and grace, too rambling meta on writing So fiction from that kind of personal place is possibly more likely to wallow in the id more than something that's coming from a more intellectual place. And the personal place, the id, to me is a huge part of fannishness.

executrix - Them That Choose 3.14159 Pumpkins But I do agree that it's really hard to simultaneously see the splendor in the grass and gas-chromatograph it. Also, I think that Meta is a sort of separate outcropping of Fandom, and lots of people really enjoy discussing the show, writing and reading and reccing fics, and vidding, without being particularly interested in fandom history or sociology or media studies.

fabu - One more thing about disagreement and how I run my life on lj There's not much (outside of things like mathematic, scientific, or historic facts) that I see as black/white, right/wrong. I tend to see things in terms of a spectrum of beliefs/understandings/approaches, none of which are more or less right, they just derive from a different mix of preferences, interpretations, etc.

southernbangel - Lee's Rants, Rambles, and other fun musings - A question for the ages. . .
Consistent talk of an imminent collapse is not the most beneficial way to resuscitate a fandom; it only encourages more "fandom is dying" comments rather than a proactive solution to the problem. Why on earth would people be encouraged to join or contribute to a fandom where the refrain is "Woe is us! We're dying!"

arionhunter - Children of Innocence The question of children given great power is a multifaceted issue. Can children truly understand and appreciate the magnitude of danger they’re faced with? Is it heroism when they stand up to it powerless, or misguided naiveté due to immaturity? And most importantly, how much of the ardent defense of Stevie’s choice, and of child heroes in general, is born out of one’s own childhood dreams of being a hero, never realized?

stitcher2ficcer - FanParent Relationships I even manage to pull them into something I've discovered first--and we enthusiastically read each others' work, serve as betas/editors for each other, and they share all their artwork with me, including both explicit and light slash and yaoi.
I know we're pretty unusual in this regard, but I wonder if there are others out there like us... or if there might be others if kids weren't so fearful of sharing their fandom with their parents.

bethbethbeth - PSA for FicArt Exchange Participants Because you know, even if you're a compulsive refresher. nobody keeps checking the communities forever. Once January rolls around, we usually re-post our fic in our journals or on our websites or to the archives...and we all pretty much forget about the fact that our stories are posted in the comms completely. However, readers don't...and it's nice to be able to read the feedback of the person who's finally reading their way through one of the exchange communities in five months time.

bruceb - A mildly anti-fannish rant, on TV and stuff I'm struck by how disconnected I feel from what it is that seems to most concern the posting fans. Specifically, I find that I genuinely just don't care how well some things hold up under an allegedly dispassionate logical analysis.

( cut for possible spoilers PotC2 )

Polls, Quizzes, Questions, etc.

book_of_calm - community policing In your experience, if someone is being very annoying in the community, how do people respond to them? When someone breaks the rules, does a moderator step in or do other community members step in? What’s the difference between the treatment of newbies and people who should really know better? How often do you have a community that is almost entirely self-policing/moderating as opposed to having a strict mod?

morgandawn - iMeem 101 If You Are Looking For Vids

celandine - Fest fic and feedback Random poll of attitudes about writing, reading, and commenting on fest fic follows...