News

Here's a roundup of stories about pros playing inside the fandom sandbox that might be of interest to fans:

• Dubbed the "world's very first (and only) Science Fiction Football Musical Comedy!" Packer Fans From Outer Space recently ran in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Geared to a hometown audience with its "songs about love, Wisconsin traditions and our historic football rivalry, including 'You Gotta Hate the Bears' and 'Winning is the Only Thing,'" it still provided insiderish/crossover/genre-hopping fannishness that lots of non-Wisconsinites could recognize.
• Not far away, Canadian Charles Ross performed a one-man show in Adrian, Michigan that was insiderish only to people who had never seen Star Wars (is there anyone left?) “It’s basically me onstage — with no costumes, sets, props or real talent — me, onstage, retelling the original, bad hair, 1970s-1980s ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, basically using my own body and my own impressions,” Ross said. His obsession with the saga came from a source many fan creators can relate to -- wanting to know what comes next. As a child he saw a double feature of the first two Star Wars films made. “But [my father] didn’t tell me that it wasn’t the end of the story. I was convinced that the sort-of lame tone left over at the end of ‘Empire Strikes Back’ was the way the story actually ended. And I was like, ‘What a bummer of a story!’"
• Sony Music decided to employ fan fiction to promote the band One Direction. They partnered with a Wattpad writer who created a five-chapter eBook about the band members "designed to coordinate with the video for the band’s single, 'What Makes You Beautiful.'" Fans then spread links to the books and video. The marketing effort is among the finalists for the GennY Award which "recognizes best practices of those who have applied new and innovative techniques to connect and communicate with youth." The winner will be announced at a conference focusing on youth marketing.
• Then there are some creators who are writing their own fanfic. One that was widely circulated was a story about Lost co-producer Damen Lindelof writing Mad Men fan fiction as fictional sci-fi writer Ken Cosgrove. Another frequently republished story was about romance novelist Diane Story writing Britney Spears RPF, made all the more notable given that she is the aunt of Britney's former husband, Kevin Federline. Story also "created a contest on her website where the winner can win an actual wedding invitation from Spears and Federline's 2004 wedding." And finally, Booktrib hosted an article on fan fiction that discussed Vampire Diaries actor Matt Davis writing fanfic on Twitter: "His crazy, sometimes smutty interpretation of the show he resides on is without a doubt the talk of the community. If the actors can write an alternate universe based on original content, why shouldn’t the fans?"

If you are a fan of Vampire Diaries, Britney Spears, Mad Men or One Direction, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here's a roundup of stories about fanfic that might be of interest to fans:

• Fan fiction has been widely discussed online, but the recent discussions surrounding the highy visible success of Fifty Shades of Grey continues to take that discussion to new places with, unfortunately, new misinformation. One example is an aside in a discussion of changes in publishing that describes fan fiction as "author-approved online 'mash-ups' by fans of cult novels." Another is the suggestion in a Huffington Post interview that fan fiction has only ever been written for sci-fi and fantasy genres. Still as this "concert preview" that focuses on fan fiction written for Def Leppard demonstrates, there are certainly going to be fewer people than ever who have never heard of it.
• That visibility suggests that efforts like Social Samba's "SagaWriter" tool will become increasingly common, though also that fan fiction is going to be less about fans and more about marketing. "One day TV networks might have budgets to hire social TV teams as big as their main writing teams, but for now a show like The Walking Dead could easily make a Saga where you get to talk to your favorite character while trying to avoid getting eaten." The platform allows for interactive storytelling, but not, it would seem, fan originated stories. Explains SocialSamba CEO Aaron Williams, "Within our tool you can’t use copyrighted material. We follow the same DMCA rules that everyone else does. We see TV shows and other storytellers have interest in creating fan fiction. The WB adding Big Lebowski characters to Xtranormal, the fact that they are taking steps like this was a good thing to point to for us. It means its good for the brand. For us we see that wave coming, brands or storytellers can skin to look like their brand and embed in whatever platform they use to reach out to fans."
• Other people are being more thoughtful about the fan fiction that already exists. Wired Magazine contributor Clive Thompson posted ruminations on how fan fiction writers are creating "paracosms", using the Brontë sisters' early writing as an example, and cited evidence that "MacArthur fellows were twice as likely as 'normal' nongeniuses to have" created paracosms as children. Thompson warned though that "we have to stop denigrating it" if society is to reap the rewards of such play.
• Britain's The Guardian in the meantime suggested that authors must value fan work in today's marketplace. "[T]he success of a novel such as Fifty Shades of Grey is far less surprising to anyone who understands the dynamics of fandom than to the mainstream publishing industry...That it was fan-fiction based in Stephenie Meyer's Twilightverse is beside the point. That it was chosen by fans and made successful through their support is far more significant. Because what fans want above all else – what in fact defines the very essence of fandom – is ownership of that which we adore." What's more "The publishers that survive will be the ones that understand that their role is to amplify the signal of those artists already chosen by fandom. The writers who succeed will be the ones who are there day in and day out, as much a part of fandom as any other fan, and on first name terms with the neighbours."

If you'd like to help out people still learning about fan fiction, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

As we recently announced, the much-loved Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive, 852 Prospect, is moving in with the AO3! You can find details about the move in our announcement post; however, if you have more questions about the move, or if you're just curious about Open Doors, you can join our Open Doors team for an open house this week.

The open house will take place on May 25, 2012 at 01:00:00 UTC (see when this is in your timezone) in our Public Discussion chatroom. It will last approximately one hour. You can access the chat at: https://fanarchive.campfirenow.com/eb4b6 - just click the link to drop by. Everyone welcome!

Here's a roundup of stories about fandom under pressure that might be of interest to fans:

• In some of the latest takedown actions from the past month a fan offering free high-resolution downloads of his artwork for video game Fallout was contacted by a law firm representing the game owner Bethesda, issuing a cease and desist for his website. The artist replied in detail to the charges and has so far refused to turn his domain name over to the company, although he did remove links to the posters.
• Popular website TV Tropes removed fanfiction recommendations on their site after encountering problems with Google's Ad Sense which required them to remove "mature and adult content" from the site. Aside from the issue of advertiser control of content, however, others were upset about what it meant for their use of the site. As one poster commented "The problem, as I see it, is that the admins have destroyed countless hours of our work. I don't demand that pages be restored onto this particular server, but I do demand that the source material (pages as they existed pre-cut) be made available in some fashion, so that those who want can host it elsewhere."
• In many places, online access to content isn't affected by advertisers or corporate owners, but by governments. For example, Vietnamese authorities have recently mandated that Internet companies assist in online censorship. Among the provisions of a proposed decree, "Internet users 'are strictly prohibited' from providing fictitious personal data" which will prohibit all forms of anonymous blogging and discussion. Personal blogs will have to publicize the name and contact information of the individual responsible and will be held personally liable for all the published content on their blogs.
• On the other hand at least one sports blogger is alarmed at the possibility that team owners might put important decisions in fans' hands. "As counter-intuitive as it sounds, as much as the Sixers should care about making the fans happy, they shouldn't care about what those fans want on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a devastating losing streak. When they ask what the fans think about their roster, it isn't hip, catchy, or new-media savvy. It's insulting." Instead the blogger suggests, "continue to ask us what we think of a new lighting scheme, insist on our thoughts about a moose for a mascot, and call our home phones to ask how to make better use of '1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Sixers.' Those are the some of the best elements of a new fan-owner partnership."

If you have news of legal actions against fans or content takedowns, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Welcome to our first Survey Sunday, where you will find a list of all questions asked in the OTW Community Survey. We introduced the idea in our previous post: we cannot release raw survey data to the public, but still want to give you the opportunity to interrogate that data. So from now through December, you can ask us questions relating to survey, and we'll try and dig up the answers.

The idea behind of posting this overview of all questions is that it enables you to ask combinations. A very conservative example: by cross-referencing questions #35 and #36 you get "Do people without prior wiki experience have trouble creating Fanlore articles?"

However, before you dig into the questions, please read our fine print so you know what to expect in terms of results:

Here's a roundup of stories looking at transformative works that might be of interest to fans:

• In this Tumblr blog post, the issue of transformative works is addressed directly and as with many Tumblr posts, the image conveys the message. Here, the subject is Johannes Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring holding a camera as if to take a picture of her painter or the viewer. "[T]ransformative work, intratextual work, is most emphatically not a new thing, nor a creatively barren thing. It’s awesome. And this image here is delicious, because it takes that lovely painting, in which the model is mysterious, alluring, her parted lips gleaming and her eyes wide as she looks out at the viewer, objectified - and it drags it straight into the 21st century by adding the camera, making it into that recognisable MySpace pose, making her the CREATOR of the image not just the object. She is looking at herself, not at us, and this careful composition becomes an ephemeral snapshot, a fleeting moment in her day."
• University of Utah English professor Anne Jamison was profiled as a scholar of fan fiction after the course she taught on it became attached to discussions surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey. "Focusing her scholarly eye to the phenomenon was a departure from the norm for the 42-year-old professor, a native of Albany, N.Y. Yet fan fiction fed her longtime interests in female writers and genre fiction, and she’s in the process of compiling and editing articles for a scholarly anthology on the topic. 'I told everyone I knew that [fan fiction] is a global connective of housewives and professional women exchanging erotica and writing advice online,' she said. 'Everyone yawned. I thought it was very interesting.'"
• Other higher education coursework also addresses the existence of fanworks. In a recap of vidding that included citations from the OTW's Rebecca Tushnet, one student concluded "Despite the forces of money, law, technical challenges and the fans’ need to interact with the shows and characters that they love, vidding was born and continues to thrive. The fan communities and their pursuits are supported by the efforts of those, like Lessig and Tushnet, who fight for a better environment for remix culture. Over the months and years to come, I look forward to enjoying the stories and perspectives of fan culture in these kind of vids, and monitoring progress in the fight to allow them to do it."

If you make fan vids, write fan fiction or create fan art, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Fanlore is appealing for help in an urgent effort to assist fans affected by the disappearance of free sites on FortuneCity, an early Internet website provider that hosted many personal fanfic websites and small archives due to its free accounts. In conjunction with the more clearly communicated Geocities fadeout a few years ago, this action on Fortunecity's part has meant the loss of another chunk of fannish history.

Fanlore is hosting the website addresses of the now deleted sites. Knowing the addresses to old sites gives fans searching for them a chance to recover and access the content once held there by going through the Wayback Machine.

A Google spreadsheet has been started so that volunteers can "claim a fandom, read the instructions...and pitch in."

Although an email was sent to account holders, many of the addresses tied to those accounts are no longer valid or are no longer frequently used by the maintainers. In addition many fans did not see an announcement banner because it was placed with the site ads, which many users have blocked while visiting the site.

The effort to document the URLs of the missing pages is urgent because they are currently stored by Google, but Google deletes its cached records in a short time if a webpage disappears or changes. This is why many typing fingers are needed, to record those addresses before they disappear from search results.

If you can help, please do the following:

1) Sign up on the Google spreadsheet for particular fandoms. Follow the instructions to record the addresses.
2) Contact Fanlore if you need help with the project, or want to submit addresses but do not have a Fanlore account (use Fanlore's contact page here: http://transformativeworks.org/contact/fanlore%20gardeners and put "FortuneCity help!" in the subject line)

If you are an author or artist whose work was deleted by FortuneCity, we would welcome it on the Archive of Our Own. If you need an invitation to upload your work there, contact AO3 Support via our support form and put "FortuneCity content" in the summary line.

Please do what you can to help rescue these lost works!

To everyone following news on the OTW's Survey we conducted last month, we wanted to not only provide you with some more results, but also lay out our plan going forward in terms of

1) What we can release;
2) How quickly we can release it;
3) What sort of schedule you can expect.