Fandomnews

[alias_sqbr]

So metafandom recently has had lots of discussion about the recent lack of meta (in general and on metafandom specifically) Which is kind of an amusing negative feedback loop but hey.

Anyway, various people floated the idea of a more inclusive dw specific (fanfic) fandom meta community. Another suggestion was a "latest posts with a meta tag" feed, which inspired me to put "meta" into the search engine.

I found many of the same posts I'd just read, some fic, and...fandomnews

"Awesome!" thinks I. "And it's just been started, presumably inspired by these discussions. I wonder if it's skuf or one of those other people who was talking about it? Is it very popular yet?"

But as it turns out, the creator, and thus far only member..is purplepopple aka Laura Hale.

This will end well.

Comments

[elaran.livejournal.com]

lol

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Aw, and here I was hoping that Fandom News was going to be a joyous mixture of Hello!-style magazines and Fandom Wank.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah I was pretty happy there for a minute or two.

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

hahahaha

oh, fandom

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

Well that's the problem solved then - the metamob will doubtless spew out reams of posts attacking her and keep themselves busy for weeks.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Who's the metamob?

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

The mob of metafandom readers who dogpile anyone they disapprove of. The exact constituents probably vary slightly from case to case (though you will see the usual suspects appearing with regularity) but the general effect is always the same. They are the reason most people I know won't touch metafandom with a barge pole. (And I must say my own life is much pleasanter now I have stopped reading it.)

[alias_sqbr]

Eh, I doubt it, as long as she just updates it and doesn't try to actively pursue a FandomHistory/self-promoting agenda with it (more than she already is, at any rate)

That said if she does do something dodgy I imagine people will react much more quickly than if she didn't already have a reputation for dodginess.

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

She does seem to be one of those people who rubs folk up the wrong way. I wouldn't presume to pronounce on her personality or dodginess because I don't know the ins and outs of the case, but it seems a shame she doesn't get more praise for the hard work she has undoubtedly done on the fandom wiki. She was trying to record our history at a time when nobody else was bothered.

[alias_sqbr]

I think there's several different issues working against her and the comm.

Personally I had an issue with her shoddy data collection and science well before any of the other stuff came up. To begin with I really admired the work she was doing but the way she responded to polite criticism when I pointed out that her conclusions on a post to fanthropology were flawed (and they were VERY unscientific) made me start to notice how incompetent she is.

I still respected her intentions until all this unscrupulous behaviour came out. The combination of these two things is what makes me very dubious about fandomnews. Yes, it's a good idea, just like FandomHistory was a good idea, but it's possible to implement a good idea so badly as to make it useless.

I do think she also got on the wrong side of the metafandom compilers (who do not, imo, speak for any coherent subsection of fandom, though on any given issue there'll be a contingent who agree with them and a contingent who don't. Plus of course issues where they disagree amongst themselves or at least show no obvious signs of bias) because of valid disagreements eg about the whole Rockfic thing. But as much as there was I think some bias the metafandom compilers did try to be evenhanded, and she wasn't doing too badly until she got grudgey and unscrupulous enough that even those who agreed with her in principle mostly stopped supporting her.

*puts mod hat on*

[inalasahl]

Laura Hale got on the wrong side of the metafandom mods when she self-pimped a post of hers and then waited until after it was picked up by metafandom to change its contents so that it flagrantly and repeatedly tied a fan's legal name with the fan's online handle.

Re: *puts mod hat on*

[alias_sqbr]

I'd actually forgotten she did that, though there was plenty of other bad stuff I remembered.

But certainly, whatever mild bias you might have had against her posts before (Not in a personal grudge way, just diverging interests. And it was mild enough I may well have been imagining it) you were ENTIRELY justified in having a thing against her after that.

[sidewinder.livejournal.com]

Hi!

For what it's worth, I'm a co-mod on FandomNews, which is mirrored on LJ and IJ as well as its DW incarnation. We've been starting to get a few readers, which makes us happy.

I will just say, the intentions with starting FandomNews are things some of us have been talking about for some time, and it just seemed as though the time was right to launch it. We wanted to have a meta/news link community which would try to cover as many viewpoints as possible and try not to have obvious biases; one that would not be limited to LJ/IJ/DW postings, and would cover areas of fandom which normally have not been covered by metafandom (such as sports fandom, music fandom, etc.)

I'd be happy to answer any concerns or questions as the current FAQ for the comm is still being developed as it gets underway, and we're working out questions of what kinds of content do and don't qualify for inclusion in our link round-ups.

[alias_sqbr]

I think the idea is sound, it's a good time to launch it, and I have no obvious complaints with what I've seen of how you're running it.

But after everything that's happened I cannot help but feel..I'm not sure dubious is the word I'm looking for.

Anyway, I still wish you luck with it.