Lessons learned from Strikethrough 2007

[icarus]

I'd say that I'm for or against LJ boycotts but that would be dishonest. The truth is, I'm too lazy to move. I'd move if I thought my account was going to be deleted, but SixApart has reassured me enough that, at least for the time being, my account is safe. If the fandom moved, I'd go with them.

The two things I learned from the latest debacle is that:

1) the SixApart execs are steadier than I'd be in their shoes, and that

2) you can delete a Lolita community but heaven help you if you delete free porn!

Back to work studying for finals. (I should have fought this take home exam.)

Comments

[jaig.livejournal.com]

Me too. *lolls around his lj and tries to care* I mean, it did irritate and rather alarm me, but after the apologies and the fixing up, I got more irritated and alarmed with the people still refusing to calm down about it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I cared a lot about FanLib, but mostly they really insulted me. And I loathe exploitation in all forms.

LJ kept pornish_pixies and afamilyaffair? They're all right by me.

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Bwah! Too true. *g*

I would move from LJ only if all my friends left (or yeah, if my own account was deleted, which is not likely, though you never know).

Good luck studying for finals.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

seems you wanted to say more too! lol

i suspect lj is having hiccups..

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Heh. SixApart doesn't need to attract us. They just need to keep us. :)

Thank you, studying is going... gradually.

Icarus

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

i'm not planning on hauling off - folks from some of the larger fandoms may not realize that there's not many 'active archives' for us smaller fannish folks, therefore we tend to congreate at lj.

so i'm staying here - i doubt i'm in danger, i've not posted anything that offensive here at lj - the steamiest things i've done (thus far) is over at mmom ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I recommend writing some big fandom, popular pairing fics and then drawing them in that way.

And, let's see. Participate in Yuletide every year. It's dedicated to micro-fandoms and gets more readership as a result.

Icarus

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

thanks! i'll keep that in mind

guess i should write some McShep ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Here you go: Yuletide (http://yuletidetreasure.org/).

I believe to participate in the challenge you fill one of the untaken challenges from the Christmas before during the year, and then you tell people what micro-fandoms you're willing to do for the Yuletide challenge (and maybe ask a friend to put in a Power Rangers challenge for you, I suppose).

Honestly, that's the best I can do. The truth is, for micro-fandoms you have to be aware that there isn't much of a readership. You write for the joy of it, because the stories are there, and get the satisfaction of reviews from other fandoms.

Icarus

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

You write for the joy of it, because the stories are there,

yep, there's a character in PR that's just waaay too fun for me to 'squick' ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That's the same reason I write Percy and run (okay, neglect) the Percyness archive. There's not a tremendous interest in Percy, but I can't resist.

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I bet you were planning on saying more than that.

Icarus

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

lol

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

Indeed. LJ has been eating comments randomly. o.0 rar.

What I was going to say was that I agree with not leaveing. . .

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I've found refreshing the page when it blanks and says it's "done" will post the comment. Sometimes.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly not sure I'd survive moving to another venue - I really, really like LJ's interface and in particular, simple comment pages. I only use my GJ account when LJ is down and I hate the default layout there, and the lack of simple comment pages. And we'd all move to different places, I'm sure, and it just wouldn't be the same, and I'd lose interest… :o/

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think unless we're changing to something appreciably better, a move would scatter what we have here. Truth to tell, LJ has collected multiple fandoms together in a way we didn't use to have.

Icarus

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

2) you can delete a Lolita community but heaven help you if you delete free porn!

That's amusing, but I think it's a little unfair. Everybody I saw getting outraged about the pornish_pixies suspension mentioned that community as well, and they have both been reinstated.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm kidding.

But I think the membership levels (and prominence) of pornish_pixies had a huge part in broadcasting the problem. It's like the difference between a blackout in Meade County, Michigan, and a blackout in downtown LA. (Remember that I'm speaking as someone who's been a member of Pornish since its inception.) The fact that it's porn made a huge difference, too. I know when I mentioned the Lolita community I wanted to make the point of how badly SixApart had screwed up, for... hmm... moral weight, but the loss of Pornish bothered me more.

You see, to my mind the reinstatement of the Lolita comm was more of a sure thing. But the closure of pornish_pixies signaled a change in how fiction was being viewed by SixApart.

If my fictional stories were treated as if they were real, with an actual impact on crime, or a promotion of the things I depict, then well. The fact that I've written a lot about soldiers (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/firsttimeasoldier.html) and war (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/snafu.html) would mean that I'm promoting war. The fact that I've (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/littleboyblue.html) written (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/notmyaffair.html) incest (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/hereagain.html) would mean that I'm all for it. Heck, the fact that I've written about prostitution (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/) and non-con (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/begmeforit.html) would mean that I'm a proponent.

This is a disturbing position because it would mean that the only allowable discussion of any of these things is a flat political screed. It effectively silences the victims, because the tough truth of the matter is that most of these stories are written by people who've experienced rape, incest, violence, or know people who have. Write what you know.

Some of these stories bring a more nuanced perspective to their topics, nuance that's uncomfortable for those who believe that the only response these oh, hmm, what term do I use? - ills of society - is political action. Nuance and understanding is dangerous to the binary mind.

Other stories that have incest (or non-con, or..) might not have much to do with incest. One story might mock a dependency on shock value (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/thebigsecret.html), Wincest writers know that the actors who play Sam and Dean aren't really related, the incest might serve as a surrogate fantasy short-cut to intimacy, or just an example of two bad boys having no respect for the rules (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/anteup.html).

Then among the non-con writers in particular, I believe it's telling that many of those writers are female rape victims, and that many of them chose a young male, dominant character to be the one raped. It's just my theory, but I see the particular type of story where there's rape from beginning to end and (often) no light at the end of the tunnel as a kind of revenge fantasy, a turning of the tables to emotionally rebalance the scales. It seems like a rapist's fantasy until you realize who the authors are.

Anyhow, I have finals now, and several papers overdue and I didn't mean to get into a discussion which can touch off a lot of hot buttons. I don't have time to discuss it, not until Saturday at the earliest.

But yeah, all seriousness aside, we also want our porn.

Icarus

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you at all (well, except on the rape victim theory but that's another story). I mentioned in discussion with someone myself that as far as the fandom communities go we were lucky it was pornish_pixies that was affected, as smaller comms might have been ignored (and still were being, last I heard).

And as far as the interests=in favour of goes, this whole situation was like the Skyehawke drama x a billion, and I put my money where my mouth was on that one by being part of the set up of an alternative archive for people who didn't feel like being labelled paedophiles. Funny how the issue keeps on turning up. Sigh.

Now, I have fests to run in two different fandoms, so I'm out of here too :D Yay, porn.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the rape victim theory is pretty out there and if nothing else needs refinement. *g* You know that tien_ru had a post based on her experience running Skyehawke labelled "An Unpopular Opinion on Strikethrough 2007." I gather from it that she's still pretty upset.

Icarus

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Skyehawke changed the TOS without telling anyone why and left everyone wondering what they could and couldn't post.

LJ suspended journals (and changed the TOS, I think? my brain is a bit frazzled right now) and left everyone wondering what they could and couldn't post.

I'm completely unsurprised tienriu feels as she does about the LJ situation, and equally unsurprised (though sad) to see that she still doesn't seem to realise what the issues were at the time despite the effort we put into getting them across.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Communication.

In 20/20 hindsight it seems like an announcement, "Hey, I don't want to go jail over this, here's a link to a fund that's fighting this law in Australia, and here's exactly what I'm deleting from the archive, by when." Plus a clear TOS (I recall hers was fuzzy in an effort to be flexible and it caused no end of trouble). People would have still been upset of course.

In an ideal world the archive would have been moved to Denmark and ownership given to someone who wasn't at risk. I'd be willing to hand over the Percyness (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/percyness) archive if something like that happened here. Not without a pang, qualm, and a miserable moan of course.

Icarus

[ansku]

So true :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Heh. *g*