More On The FanLib Fiasco

[astridv]

(This is gonna be just a brief drive-by post with linkeage. The whole thing cost me so much time these past few days just following various threads... I shouldn't even be here, let alone post. It's like I can't avert my eyes.)

So, the FanLib debut went down smoothly as a load of gravel, unsurprisingly. It has finally made fandom_wank, and Making Light chimed in, too.

Henry Jenkins (whos 'Convergence Culture' I'm just reading, coincidentally) has a concise and insightful summary/analysis in his blog, and he invites Chris Williams (CEO of FanLib aka the guy who left the unfortunate comment of doom in my journal and many others) for an interview. That actually makes sense... have that dialog on neutral territory, with Jenkins as intermediary. Williams accepted the offer; if you'd like to submit questions you'd like to see addressed, Jenkins suggests you email them to him or leave them in the comment section of his post.

(Not that I think consensus is really possible, mind... I believe that even if FanLib hadn't done pretty much everything wrong one could possibly do wrong when approaching fandom, the main problems would still remain because their basic idea - community outsiders profiting from fanfic - is fatally flawed... YMMV.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden brings it to the point (first comment in the Making Light thread): If fanfic writers are living in and fixing up buildings that theoretically belong to other people, FanLib's the guy who shows up to try to collect the rent, even though he doesn't own the buildings and hasn't done any of the fix-up work.)

Interesting aside... if you google 'fanlib' the first few pages reflect nothing of the current argument but rather link to gushing posts about their revolutionary enterprise. If you want the real story, check technorati, where you can see the fanlib-critical posts pop up faster than you can read them.

This thread on fandom_lawyers discusses the possible legal implications.

Oh, oh, and have you seen the ad campaign? Guys, the ads! One picture says more than thousand words, and those ads are a fine illustration how those people don't *get* us. Now we got slash about it, too... ♥ fandom

Finally one of my many favourite quotes that came out of the whole mess, from telesilla to Chris:...you were dead certain you had this vast, untouched pile of gold to skim off whenever you liked and then suddenly, you realized that it has round-the-clock dragon protection and hey, those dragons breathe fire!

I must say, I don't remember ever seeing fandom in so much agreement on anything. The same people who were arguing and squabbling only few weeks ago, now united in their dislike of one website. Gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. :o)

[eta: dug up by riba_rambles: how they're pitching fanlib to *industry*]

Comments

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. :o)

Same here.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

It reminds me a bit of 'Independence Day' (but with fewer FX). ;)

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

What a seething, maggoty pile of boggle.

I keep following this, and I keep hearing fresh things to blow my mind. The arrogance and stupidity just passes belief.

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

I love the Internet! With all its good people, who are working hard to entertain just me. *eats the popcorns*

But seriously if one looks away from the legal mumbo jumbo in Fanlib, and compare it to the much despised (not by me) fanfiction.net on the technical merits and structure. I would consider fanfiction.net a vastly superior site. I do find it strange that they would try to break in a consolidated area, without trying to bring some improvements

[newscaper.livejournal.com]

Well reader ratings are the one advantage fanlib has that FFN does not, for whatever reason.

Of course the significance of the ratings at fanlib is near zero because both their catalog and readership are so thoroughly in the basement.

As I'd said elsewhere, they have a nearly insurmountable chicken-and-egg problem: you need fic to bring readers, but you need readers to make it worthwhile for authors to take the effort of re-posting their existing fic there.

I put one short story up on fanlib as a sort of test. I pointed one of my reviewers to the rest of my stuff at FFN via PM. Interestingly enough, it apparently did NOT filter out the url for FFN (something FFN themselves are wusses about doing). I wonder how long that would last.

COme to think of it, here's another way to subvert 'em form the inside -- just put up the first chapter or two of a multi-chapter story with a pointer to the rest posted elsewhere. I wonder how long it'd take 'em to catch on to that.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

Well reader ratings are the one advantage fanlib has that FFN does not, for whatever reason.

A ratings system at ffn would be handy. And they already have the data from the favourites lists and alert list that possibly could be used for that... an indirect ranking rather than the five-star ratings system.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

So entertaining, I've read little else all week. For Jenkins this must be a dream come true, to watch this clash between fan culture and corporate money in real time, from this close.

Some suits who wanted to found a startup saw a product but not the culture that produces said product, nor the fact that those two are entwined. I find the whole thing annoying but also fascinating as hell. It even kept me from reading fic, imagine. ;)

Apparently some folks submitted pink dude/blue guy fic to fanlib but it got taken down by a mod. Oh sweet irony.

But seriously if one looks away from the legal mumbo jumbo in Fanlib, and compare it to the much despised (not by me) fanfiction.net on the technical merits and structure. I would consider fanfiction.net a vastly superior site. I do find it strange that they would try to break in a consolidated area, without trying to bring some improvements

I heard (but haven't tried it out myself) that fanlib doesn't even have a feature that lists fic by author. I mean, c'mon, that's one of the most basic features. Also, they cut off summaries after only a few words. But hey, they got shiny pictures. :P

FanLib's dissing of ffn has made me feel downright protective of the good old pit. And really, I don't dislike ffn as much as other LJ fans, because in the Bones section I've found enough pearls amongst the pile of slush that I'm always encouraged to keep digging.

Just, like newscaper says, what ffn could use is a ratings system... they already got their author's fave stories lists, plus the tracking lists, so if they could just combine those data and tag to the stories, that would at least help to select the pearls from the slush more quickly.