(no subject)

[niko]

Well, I think MediaWest is a bit of a bust for me.

I ran into similar problems as what I ran into last year - just not a lot of intersect between my particular niches of fandom and the rest of the attendees in most of the panels I attended, and not having any idea how to go about trying to connect with anyone outside of panels.  (Example of the former: the one anime panel - one of the reasons I've switched from going to anime cons to media cons was that I feel like the folks here are a bit more of my peers.  Anime cons are dominated by teenagers and men, not adult women.  So this panel caught my eye for a chance to talk anime with my peers for a change.  The other people who attended the panel?  Two adult men, and a teenage girl.  All my grand dreams of discussing anime from an adult woman's perspective, yaoi vs. slash, anime through the lens of media fandom, etc. went *right* down the drain. :P

I was also made of *fail* in trying to participate in Mag7 panels.  If I had more chutzpah, I'd show up at the Mag7 party they're having tonight, but with how everyone else in the panels seemed to be on a first-name basis and clearly had known each other for years and years, I just can't picture showing up (solo) as the only stranger in a room full of old friends.  I don't have the cajones for it right now.  It was cool to put faces to names of people whose work I've read on blackraptor, though. :)

On a more meta-y, less whiny note: One thing I found interesting/frustrating is how dismissive some folks seemed to be of the fandom presence on LiveJournal.  I can't say I've ever been thrilled with how decentralized and loosey-goosey LJ allows fandom to be, and I always look back at the heyday of The Sentinel as an ideal fannish situation - *ONE* primary discussion list, *ONE* primary fic-posting list, and *everything* posted to the fic list automatically gets grabbed for a single comprehensive archive (on the gen side, anyway... I think TS's slash fandom had a similar situation with 852 Prospect).  And yes, I've certainly thought about nagging LJ-writers to put their stuff up on Blackraptor, because the 'single comprehensive archive' thing, in particular, is pretty attractive to me.

But I feel like to ignore LJ at this point is just cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Especially knowing how abso-freaking-lutely *AMAZING* the Mag7 community here is, I can't imagine missing out just because I have qualms about the format or whatever.  There were a couple times where something on LJ was mentioned, and there were at least a few people in each panel where you could practically hear their eye-rolls.  *eye-roll*  ;)

Comments

[dj-aida.livejournal.com]

A while ago, I had this grand scheme to create a more useful, searchable "archive" by just linking to *EVERY* Mag7 story I could find in a giant delicious list, with keyword tags, etc. Kinda makes me want to revisit that. :P That sounds like an awesome project. Like I said above, the one thing I want most when it comes to Blackraptor is a searchable archive. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that is going to happen.

AO3 is fantastic. I can search through it within seconds to find something I want, and then fine tune my search if I change my mind about what I'd like to read. I'm looking forward to the day when they start accepting other types of fanworks - I think I remember that being mentioned somewhere. Right now fanartists and vidders have very limited options for their work: either LJ or setting up our own sites, which is not a viable option for some (vidders especially due to the large size of their creations and their legality which is questioned by some). Yahoo groups are horrible when it comes to anything graphics related.

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, with how the site seems to be done with straight html, I don't know how she'd be able to make it searchable without a load of work. Unless the "google" search that I've seen some sites use would do it... but to make it really useful, I think it would need to have summaries added, which would definitely be a *load* of work.

When I started trying to do the delicious index, I got partly through the A's and ran out of steam, because I was trying to actually read and/or skim every story and put at least a basic summary and keyword tags. It was all good when it was stories that I liked, but got tricky when I hit stories in universes that didn't appeal to me, or just... weren't very good. :)

I'm definitely looking forward to AO3 doing something for vids & art, too.