The Wank-o-meter or How to Measure the Wankiness of Your Fandom.

[icarus]

A friend of mine got into a discussion about which of her fandoms were wankiest (I think the specimens were House, Stargate Atlantis, and Supernatural, but don't quote me on that). It got me thinking: how would you, in a fair and impartial fashion, measure the wankiness of a fandom?

I'm far too lazy (or busy) to seek the figures for a comparison of fandoms but thinking about it on the bus I did manage a formula worthy of an Excel spreadsheet.

Quantitative Measures

Now most people would -- unfairly -- point to the fandom with the most wanks, irregardless of the sheer mass of that fandom. (I'm of course thinking of Harry Potter right now.) But when it comes to wanks, size does matter. We need to adjust for the relative size of the fandom. I opted to use a ratio of story-to-wank production. You take a general total number of stories, divide that by the number of years the fandom has survived, and then divide that by the number of known wanks within the last year. (Naturally we do not include multifandom wanks like FanLib.)

Hypothetical big fandom A (10,000 stories) / years of fandom (4 years) / known wanks this year (5 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:500, or a wank for every 500 stories. This is 0.2% time spent on wanks.

Hypothetical little fandom B (1,000 stories) / years of fandom (1 year) / known wanks this year (4 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:250, or a wank for every 250 stories. This is 0.4% time spent on wanks.

In this case, the smaller fandom is wankier. Quantitatively speaking, its denizens spend more of their fanfiction time on wank.

Qualitative Measures

Yet one must consider the nature of the wanks. Some wanks are more benign than others. The Lord of the Rings had the King Kong of wanks, the Bit of Earth Scandal, yet it exposed a woman and her cadre who were defrauding fans -- and film stars -- of thousands of dollars intended for charity. Revealing a plagiarist likewise benefits the community.

The awful truth is that wanks are a means of regulating a community that has "guidelines rather than actual rules." This does not mean that wanks are beneficent. Remember how we got the term "Draconian." Draco (of Greece, not Harry Potter) wrote down the normal "guidelines rather than actual rules" that Greek society utlilized, with the intention of applying them uniformly. He'd noted that they dealt the harshest punishments to the least powerful people. The Greeks were horrified when they read their own social code (and blamed him, naturally).

To gauge the nasty-to-benign range of wanks, we need to classify wanks by their main type, and then rank them accordingly. The ugliest type gets the highest score on the wank scale, and the most benign gets the lowest score on the wank scale -- just to be consistent with the quantitative measures, where a higher number equals more wankiness.

General Guiding Principle

Here we get into tricky territory. The order of "nastiness" of wanks is open to debate. First I need a general guiding principle. A different principle will give us a different order.

I thought of Professor Henry Jenkins research on media studies and fanfiction. One of the things he mentions is that we fans value the freedom to write what we choose, including topics that will never be published by mainstream media. We take risks and explore different means of telling stories. He has a point. Fans united against FanLib out of concern that "The Powers That Be" would be pricked into shutting down that freedom. They were incensed when they read that FanLib's contests were "moderated to the max" with fanfiction writers forced to "color within the lines." Icons stating "I color outside the lines" sprouted up all over fandom. The FanLib wank unified fanfiction communities across the spectrum, including Het, Gen, Femmeslash, Slash, and fandoms that had never heard of each other.

It's safe to pick "freedom of expression" as a general unifying principle for fanfiction, based on what has united fanfiction writers across fandoms.

A System of Classifying and Ranking Wank

Having observed wanks over the last four years, I've classified them into the following types, ranked according to the benign-to-nasty scale, the most benign getting the lowest number:

1 - Expose wank. Here we have wanks like the Bit of Earth scandal, plagiarist exposes, which police fandom crime. There is relatively little disagreement over plagiarsim and fraud.
2 - Grudge wank. Blow-ups between individual authors, personality conflicts, and anonymous hate memes, all of which are spiteful, melodramatic, but impact relatively few people.
3 - Characterization/Pairing/Genre wank. Debates over which pairing is better, or over interpretations of characters, and/or the validity of different genres. The Harmonians would fall into this category. These sweep over a wide scope of people and are repressive in intent, contravening freedom of expression.
4 - Ideology wank. Anti-slash debates, race wank, feminist wank, incest wank, attempts to impose political and religious agendas on other people's stories get particuarly ugly and contravene freedom of expression. They attempt to use fandom pressure to silence other voices and/or impose an ideology onto other writers. Note: this does not differentiate between ideologies. This gets me off the hook of deciding which ideologies are "good" for fandom (which would likely have me listing out my own beliefs). Scary as it may be, from the persepective of freedom of expression there is no "approved" ideology. A rant against slash in a story is just as repressive as a rant against racism in a story if you privilege fanfiction writers' freedom to write.

Funny how we're all on board with "freedom of expression" when it applies to ourselves and want to take it back when it applies to others.

So let's go back to Hypothetical Fandom A and B.

- Hypothetical big fandom A (10,000 stories) / years of fandom (4 years) / known wanks this year (5 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:500, or a wank for every 500 stories.
- This is 0.2% time spent on wanks.
- In Hypothetical big fandom A, all five wanks were Ideological wanks (two conservative anti-slashers, one incest wank, one Buddhist wank, and one race wank), 5 x 4 points each = 20 on the qualitative scale.

- In Hypothetical little fandom B (1,000 stories) / years of fandom (1 year) / known wanks this year (4 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:250, or a wank for every 250 stories.
- This is 0.4% time spent on wanks.
- In Hypothetical little fandom B, all four wanks were Plagiarism wanks (new fandom where the kids don't get the difference between plagiarism and fanfic), 5 x 1 point each = 5 on the qualitative scale.

So even though Hypothetical little fandom B was the wankiest -- in fact, twice as wanky as the bigger fandom -- Hypothetical big fandom A's wanks were all about religion and politics and therefore four times as repressive.

Splashiness

A final factor to consider is the splashdown of a wank. Some fandoms demonstrate a great deal of insider cohesion, i.e., when there is a wank, you hear very few dissenting voices.

I cannot say whether such cohesion is good or bad. Sometimes everyone agrees (who's going to defend a plagiarist or fraud?). At other times, the fans keep their disagreement to locked posts, personal chats, and email, the result being a fandom version of the Royal Family: everyone smiles and waves for the camera, while ripping each other apart behind the scenes. Fandoms that have a great deal of public debate may seem wankier, but it may be a sign that they are healthy and democratic, welcoming a wide variety of viewpoints. All we can measure is the degree of insider cohesion by counting the number of dissenting voices (if you're want to go through the effort) within each wank.

- Hypothetical big fandom A (10,000 stories) / years of fandom (4 years) / known wanks this year (5 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:500, or a wank for every 500 stories.
- This is 0.2% time spent on wanks.
- In Hypothetical big fandom A, all five wanks were Ideological wanks (two conservative anti-slashers, one incest wank, one Buddhist wank, and one race wank), 5 x 4 points each = 20 on the qualitative scale.
- Cohesion-wise, in big fandom A, all five wanks had 50% dissenting views = demonstrating 50% group cohesion.

- In Hypothetical little fandom B (1,000 stories) / years of fandom (1 year) / known wanks this year (4 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:250, or a wank for every 250 stories.
- This is 0.4% time spent on wanks.
- In Hypothetical little fandom B all four wanks were Plagiarism wanks (new fandom where the kids don't get the difference between plagiarism and fanfic), 5 x 1 point each = 5 on the qualitative scale.
- Cohesion-wise, little fandom B had 0% dissenting views = demonstrating 100% group cohesion. However, plagiarism does not spur disagreement so the jury's still out.

- In Hypothetical mid-sized fandom C (5,000 stories) / years of fandom (2 years) / known wanks this year (3 wanks) = yields a wank-to-story ratio of 1:833, or a wank for every 833 stories.
- This is 0.1% time spent on wanks.
- In Hypothetical mid-sized fandom C, one wank was a Plagiarism wank, one was a Pairing wank, and the third was an Ideology (anti-incest) wank, 1 + 3 + 4 = 8* on the qualitative scale.
- In the first wank, there were no dissenting voices. In the second, 30% dissented. In the third, only 10% were dissenting views = showing 83% group cohesion.

Of the three fandoms, we can't yet give an opinon on little fandom B, but we can say that big fandom A shows (or allows) a good deal of public debate, while mid-sized fandom C shows (or allows) 33% less public dissent. Therefore, big fandom A's wanks are "splashier," more public, and involve more voices. This could be related to the high "ugliness" scale of Fandom A's wanks, with political and religious wanks drawing more dispute. Or fear within fandom C results in fewer people speaking up.

If I cared enough to do the research...

So there you have it. A method to determine the wankiness of your fandom of choice. I'm far too tired, lazy, busy (throw in "z" word of choice) to do the work of getting actual statistics. But if you're interested, drop it in Excel, plug in the numbers, and see what happens.

You might be surprised at which fandom is actually the wankier. Conventional wisdom says that the wankiest is Harry Potter. I haven't run the numbers, but I doubt it.

*tips hat*
*exits stage left*



* = Thank you, sociofemme. *roars with laughter* There may be a reason I'm not running the numbers. 1 + 3 + 4 in fact does not equal 12.

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

You have left out the category where the messiest, meanest wars occur, the ones that leave an entire fandom a smoking ruin:

Actor (or BTB) wank. The Great Blake's 7 War, the George-Lucas-and-fanfic war, the Beauty and the Beast war, the Ray Wars, most of the later part of X-Files fandom, most of the biggest fights in SG-1: all of these have involved the actors or PTB in some way. Even the Rat Patrol Sock Puppet Extravaganza, though in a minute fandom with canon decades cold, involved someone who claimed to be in contact with an actor (and there was something about who owned the rights to RP, too, IIRC).

I actually though that SGA would be melting down 'round about now, what with TH leaving, but I guess that goes to prove that Weir was never that much of a Mary Sue.

Oh, good point.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You know, that is a important category of wank I missed. It comes up in every television fandom.

Now where would it fit on the scale...? Hmm....

Re: Oh, good point.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

History says that actor/BTB wanks in open fandoms are top-of-the-charts. The Harmonium wanks in HP are the closest that fandom has gotten. The fact that HP is fundamentally text-based keeps it from developing the truly catastrophic levels of wankitude an actor wank can bring -- which in HP would be big enough to basically end the world.

Re: Oh, good point.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Comparing wanks is a little like trying to figure out which is the worst shit stain. On the one hand, it depends on your criteria, but on the other hand -- it's still a shit stain either way. *laughs*

We have a Bavarian band practicing at 11:30 at night. They're outstanding, good enough that I don't care that it's 11:30pm.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

I think HP is only the wankiest because it's also the biggest.

but i try to avoid wank, so i'm not the one to ask about any of this. your methods are fascinating, though.

hi!

Hi!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think once you factor in how prolific and balkanized HP writers are, the wank per story ratio goes way down. But getting the numbers, oi. You can use ff.net stats as a thumbnail sketch for fic totals, but collecting the wanks from the various different pockets of HP writers would be a task and a half.

Icarus

[thalia]

I'm very impressed. And, no, I'm not going to run the numbers.

There may have been a time when HP was the wankiest fandom, but I think others have caught up to it in the last few years.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Love the icon.

And, no, I'm not going to run the numbers.

I'm completely intimidated by the mere concept of running the numbers.

[thalia]

Love the icon.

Thanks. I didn't make it, but sometimes it's all too appropriate.

I think reliable numbers would be impossible to come by, honestly, but it sure is tempting to try. I'd love to see how some of the anime fandoms come out.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*g*

I think the standard of "reliable numbers" can be lower than, say, what you'd use in Quantum Physics.

All we need is a general comparison. So comparing fandom fic totals on ff.net (where the same segments of various fanfic comms post) and taking your wanks from Livejournal (which most fandom communities use as a base) can give you good enough numbers to compare. Good enough for government work, as they say. Then the wanks can probably be taken from the "wank report," thus avoiding the filtering and gloss you get through F_W.

It's doable, just... labor intensive. Especially if you get into measuring fandom cohesion. My head hurts thinking about it. (Although some madness makes my heart go pitta-pat at the idea of that level of detail. Or that could be the Pepsi.)

Icarus

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

This is very intriguing! But I would give the math on Hypothetical Fandom C a quick check, unless the qualitative wanks are weighted somehow that I'm not getting? 1+3+4=12?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I'm laughing so hard, tears are running down my face. Thank you. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOOL! Maybe it's good I didn't run the numbers, eh?

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing*

's okay, your concept is solid. :D I'm particularly impressed how you integrated the idea of community cohesion into the measure, though I think it can probably be accounted for in level 1 wanks--perhaps in measuring the number of people who feel compelled to note the scandal, rather than the amount of dissent? E.g., for a plagiarism scandal, a high level of comment and discussion would denote a high level of community cohesion, in that they're closing ranks against a threat? I don't know exactly how that would mesh with the way that you've conceptualized it for the other levels, though.

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

I would argue that 'grudge wanks' are nastier than 'characterization/pairing/genre wanks,' or that anonymous hate memes should at least have their own categories. They are targeted at fewer people, but they needn't be personal to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

On the other hand, I do have limited experience with multiple fandoms.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is why I had to come up with a general guiding principle for the rankings -- which doesn't mean that I haven't missed something.

If I used personal hurtfulness as the main guiding principle of what makes a wank ugly, then yes, grudge wanks would be the worst. But grudge wanks don't interfere as much with the freedom of a writers to express themselves, because they're targeted and individual. Also, it would be hard for me to use personal hurtfulness as a measure for the ranking system because some people are injured by hate memes while others just don't care.

Ideological battles, on the other hand, do have a chilling effect on the fandom that goes through them. I've seen slash writers targeted on forums, for example, with people quoting the bible. And even those who disagreed with the bible as gauge for Lord of the Rings fanfiction hid under their desks. Links to slash stories were provided in order to pillory slash writers, silencing an entire segment of the LotR fandom on that forum.

Icarus

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

From an anecdotal and/or bystander perspective frequency of wank is the big factor in whether I think of a fandom as wanky. Also, knowledge of groups/camps of BNFs who are feuding? Another indicator of a wanky fandom. Because for me to notice that sort of thing, it has to be pretty obvious, because I am not too plugged into the gossip behind the scenes.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah, but anecdotal evidence isn't accurate for several reasons:

1) It doesn't take into account the relative size of fandoms.

2) Nor does it take into account the openness of dissent which can be a sign of healthy debate.

3) Also, anecdotal evidence generalizes all wank as being equal, which, well, there's a big difference between a wank that exposes a plagiarist, preventing that plagiarist from continuing, and one where battling factions stifle a writer from writing a genre a BNF doesn't like.

Also, the statement "this fandom is wanky"... hmm, how to phrase this...? The term "wanky" is vague. In order for it to have more than just gossip value, you need to define what you mean by "wanky," and what's bad about it (or what might not be bad about it) so everyone's on the same page.

What I have is a complicated analysis that says "wank" is an effort to use peer pressure in order to exert control in an online community where you have guidelines, but few rules. In some cases, this may be good: rules about tackling plagiarism.

In other cases, this may result in one group attempting to suppress another, or to foist their own agenda onto others. If we consider that "freedom of expression" is fundamentally important to all of these fanfiction groups, this is bad.

Anecdotal evidence is good for gossip and illustration, but not much use for actually measuring what happens in a fandom.

Icarus

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

I agree that's true for comparison purposes, and tracking trends and overall stats. But from living it firsthand, the relative size of the fandom isn't the factor in driving one out of fandom. It's the weekly Drama in one's particular community. While one could argue that the fan could find other communities, the person living it has to deal with the vitriol even though a fandom might be large of small. And leaving a community in a way is the sa,e as leaving fandom--it's unpleasantness leading to a diminishment of fannish activity.

[elf]

'Nuther aspect to factor in:

Publicity:

Widespread Wank: is carried on several (4 or more) different websites: qualitative wank measure (Q) x1 (In the Fanlib wank, this includes LiveJournal, JournalFen, Making Light, Henry Jenkins' blog, and Fanlib's own forums. Plus other places were carrying the story.)

Moderate Wank: Mostly confined to one or two sites, often with a collection of separate wankable areas--i.e. LiveJournal, YahooGroups, or Fanfiction.net's forums, plus a potential mention at fandom_wank. Measure Q x .75.

Small Wank: Wank stays confined to a much smaller range of sites--a single forum, plus a couple of blogs of members, or a couple of email lists. (Plus, of course, potential mention at FW.) Measure Q x .5.

Tiny Wank: Confined to a single email list, blogsite, or forum; if it gets a mention on FW, it's discounted as not being interesting or relevant enough for conversation. Q x .25.

Possibly--SuperPopular Wank: More than 10 web locations, spills well out of its own fandom, gets slashdotted or dugg; is possibly noted by mainstream media. Example: Dumbledore is Gay; LJ Bans Potter Artists; Han Shot First. Q x 1.25.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. Definitely a worthy addition to the spreadsheet. *marks this down*

Icarus

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

You're my new nerd-fan hero. :D

I think this is a great system, and also agree that actually running the numbers would be a major headache. I'm certainly not doing it, although I'd be fascinated to read the results if anyone else did.

Angie

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Do I get let in the nerd club now? *g*

I think this is a great system, and also agree that actually running the numbers would be a major headache. I'm certainly not doing it, although I'd be fascinated to read the results if anyone else did.

I almost, but not quite obsessive enough to get the numbers.

Icarus