Comment on Fandom nonfiction: seeking feedback

  1. navaan Thu 14 Mar 2013 12:48PM UTC

    The Unwritten Tom Taylor and his winged cat Mingus

    a reasonably perceptible fannish connection, either to a specific source or to fandom in general, and takes the form of an independent, nonephemeral commentary. For example, an analysis of or commentary on multiple fanworks is nonfiction meta (and must comply with our other policies, including our harassment policy). An essay on a particular character's narrative arc in canon or of the interaction between film and comics versions of a source is also meta.

    I really like the definition of meta you came up with. Independent, nonephemeral commentary is exactly what I would like it to be and what I think makes sense to be archived. I think with the examples you give for what is and isn’t supposed to be on the archive this policy is very good!

    I’m glad you finally addressed the plans for media/work types and hope this means this will finally be a top priority and not something that will take another five years. I’m really interested in any updates about the road map as well.

    My biggest concern for the time being is still how influx of fannish nonfiction will affect my ability to filter and find what I’m looking for in the meantime. (As there is no timeline for the work types yet, I expect the “meantime” to be a very long and frustrating meantime and that makes me sad.) I really wish there would be a better way to filter out tags (it’s already annoying enough with being unable to filter out crossovers/fusions/etc.) and an easy way to visibly distinguish between fiction and nonfiction or different types of fanworks (maybe with color coding work type tags or something), instead of relying solely on the tagging. As a workaround podficcers and remixers usually clarify in their work titles and I’m always thankful when this helps me both to specifically find their work more easily or when it helps me to ignore their work when I’m looking for fic - but it always gives me the uncomfortable feeling that the archive’s default is still on fic/text-based fanworks.

    I wish this post with all the relevant information to be discussed would have been the announcement about allowing meta in the first place, instead of the first pretty vague post that was made about it.

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