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This icon is getting a lot of use...
So, anyway. People who are far more eloquent than I (Jim Smith, Mike Smith and ViciousWishes) have talked at length about the recent lj kerfuffles.
I'm here to talk about the one that's apparently coming. The apocalypse.
Yes, you heard it here first, LJ might, possibly, maybe, in the future, consider, deleting or stopping or raising hell over or banning fanfiction. Not that they've ever actually said this. Or that doing so would be easy (what constitutes fanfic? What if I type three paragraphs of silly Kara/Sam conversation--is that enough? Does it have a word limit? What if it's a one-word fic?)--just think of it this way. Anything you post could be fanfic. Sometimes, I post random bits and pieces from conversations that get used later on. Does it count if I'm just talking about it? And who is going to be manning the journal suspend/delete buttons atSA SUP?
Just think about that for a moment. The man hours and time that would have to be spent on making sure not a single piece of fic escaped onto LJ, to forage in the wild.
The only way to do it would be to purge every single LJ that was ever associated with fandom. Now. I don't actually think fandom actually amounts to as much of LJ's user base as we'd like to think. But I do still think we're a sizable chunk, and there's a lot of us who pay, because we like shiny things like icons and polls.
And once they've purged those users, then they have to watch account creation, and hope they got all of us, and then hope that they'll be able to tell when someone joining isJewish (shit, I just Godwinned myself) a fanfic writer or reader... There will be paranoid code monkeys, sitting there, watching every request for a (plus, of course) account come in, checking the minute details and then stealing the last piece of pie to decide if the person deserves an LJ or will bring infamy down upon their heads.
And then what are they going to tell the advertisers and companies who paid them money for the numbers of fandom people they no longer have? "Oops, we had to get rid of them."?
Oh, I know. Server crash.
Some other things I've been thinking of...
1. Fandom is not just fanfic. Fanfic is a part of fandom, but it's certainly not the whole of it, and continuing to act as though it is is short-sighted and off-putting. Fanfic isn't even the largest part of fandom.
2. Dire warnings and screams of oppression are counter-productive, attract the wrong kind of attention and make you look like entitlement whores who aren't happy with the cool million they won in the lottery. Not to mention making those of us who think you're wrong and who do write fic look as though we're just as nit-witted as YOU are.
3. LJ is not some haven/god/creatrix of fandom and never has been. Fandom didn't just spring up because LJ was around. Fandom has been around for fucking EVER. LJ is simply another iteration of chat rooms, message boards, mailing lists and mySpace, facebook, newsgroups, IRC, random websites, message boards, blogs, and etc. Fandom is all over the place, LJ just happens to be convenient.
And that's just the online activities.
In short: the Commies are not gonna take our fic away, mother-frakkers. So shut the flonq up.
I'm here to talk about the one that's apparently coming. The apocalypse.
Yes, you heard it here first, LJ might, possibly, maybe, in the future, consider, deleting or stopping or raising hell over or banning fanfiction. Not that they've ever actually said this. Or that doing so would be easy (what constitutes fanfic? What if I type three paragraphs of silly Kara/Sam conversation--is that enough? Does it have a word limit? What if it's a one-word fic?)--just think of it this way. Anything you post could be fanfic. Sometimes, I post random bits and pieces from conversations that get used later on. Does it count if I'm just talking about it? And who is going to be manning the journal suspend/delete buttons at
Just think about that for a moment. The man hours and time that would have to be spent on making sure not a single piece of fic escaped onto LJ, to forage in the wild.
The only way to do it would be to purge every single LJ that was ever associated with fandom. Now. I don't actually think fandom actually amounts to as much of LJ's user base as we'd like to think. But I do still think we're a sizable chunk, and there's a lot of us who pay, because we like shiny things like icons and polls.
And once they've purged those users, then they have to watch account creation, and hope they got all of us, and then hope that they'll be able to tell when someone joining is
And then what are they going to tell the advertisers and companies who paid them money for the numbers of fandom people they no longer have? "Oops, we had to get rid of them."?
Oh, I know. Server crash.
Some other things I've been thinking of...
1. Fandom is not just fanfic. Fanfic is a part of fandom, but it's certainly not the whole of it, and continuing to act as though it is is short-sighted and off-putting. Fanfic isn't even the largest part of fandom.
2. Dire warnings and screams of oppression are counter-productive, attract the wrong kind of attention and make you look like entitlement whores who aren't happy with the cool million they won in the lottery. Not to mention making those of us who think you're wrong and who do write fic look as though we're just as nit-witted as YOU are.
3. LJ is not some haven/god/creatrix of fandom and never has been. Fandom didn't just spring up because LJ was around. Fandom has been around for fucking EVER. LJ is simply another iteration of chat rooms, message boards, mailing lists and mySpace, facebook, newsgroups, IRC, random websites, message boards, blogs, and etc. Fandom is all over the place, LJ just happens to be convenient.
And that's just the online activities.
In short: the Commies are not gonna take our fic away, mother-frakkers. So shut the flonq up.