FanLib is not a fanfiction archive? Huh?

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

FanLib does not think of itself as a fanfiction archive.

Then what is FanLib? A naked advertising agency wearing a fanfiction archive suit? Yes.

According to partly_bouncy's recent summary of FanLib at fanthropology, the two branches of FanLib -- the fanfiction archive and the writing contest marketing campaigns -- are one big amorphous blob.

If true, this is an about-face since the spring of 2007, when the Williams Brothers frantically distanced the new fanfiction archive venture from the my2centences marketing materials dug up by Mary McNamara and others.

Remember the coloring book comparison, where FanLib assured the intellectual property holders that writing contest participants would "stay within the lines"?

To Henry Jenkins, on May 25, 2007, Chris Williams said, "As a company, we have two distinct parts […] the beta site, FanLib.com […] and official online storytelling events. […] Each event is governed by its own clear rules and terms of service that are separate from those for the FanLib.com beta site referred to above. This is necessary because contests, sweepstakes, prizes etc. need their own rules and regulations."

"Official online storytelling events" are FanLib's writing contest marketing campaigns, which, since 2004 2003, have been FanLib's primary source of income. The FanLib "beta site" is the fanfiction archive.

In spite of Chris Williams' protests, I think partly_bouncy is correct in saying it's just one business, and I think this has always been the case.

Much -- okay, everything -- about the FanLib fanfiction archive did not make sense from a business perspective. But if the fanfiction archive is simply a ploy to get a larger pool of people sucked into the "official online storytelling events," it (and the funding from venture capitalists) makes sense.

As a FanLib member, I am spammed regularly, on average twice a month, about goings-on at FanLib. Except for the occasional administrative communication (urging me to flag porn), all of the spam is about FanLib's official marketing campaigns: Star Trek, Weeds, Dexter, Uglies, BattleStar Galactica, and 10,000 B.C.

There are also offers (win a FanLib T-shirt!) designed to boost site statistics by rewarding members who write the most reviews, or upload the most content (vids are now included).

On February 11, 2008, FanLib emailed members to ask them for the contents of their address books -- to "invite friends to view your submissions" -- possibly increasing FanLib's pool of email addresses.

Sheesh, it's so easy to grasp now. FanLib's fanfiction archive was just a ploy to get the email addresses of people likely to participate in their marketing campaigns. That's it!

Oddly, although partly_bouncy said FanLib does not think of itself as a fanfiction archive, she draws comparisons with the the Organization for Transformative Works, which is unapologetically a fanfiction archive, and says, The fandom project created in response to FanLib has not produced a product.

She expects a "product" to be the outcome of OTW? Huh.

Partly_bouncy's post at fanthropology is awash with unabashed editorializing in favor of FanLib:

"A large number of people accepted FanLib into their fannish experience without any ideological problems. The site grew from 2,829 members in late May 2007 to 19,000 members in late-March 2008.* Participation on the site is up, with the audience accessing more pages when they visit the site. FanLib's message board members have become a dedicated and active group. They've formed a true community. The people who are there don't have any problems with FanLib and its corporate nature. They see the positives associated with it: Better customer service, less fandom related drama, issues being dealt with in a timely manner. FanLib will continue to attract a large audience who accepts this as many teens and others understand that advertisements and the ability for site operators to profit off a site are fundamental to providing a quality service to the audience. Product, quality product, in the end is what matters to fandom and FanLib has demonstrated they can deliver one that can be worked into people's fandom experience."

Nice referral, and I hope she gets a T-shirt for it.

*According to FanLib, they had 29,000 members in April, 2007. I do not know the reason for the discrepancy. Oh, crap. Yes, I do. I made a mistake. They only have 20,000 members, and 29,000 submissions. Wow, those are some seriously small numbers.

Partly_bouncy is correct that not much attention is being paid to FanLib these days.

She writes, "On December 15, cryptoxin mentioned FanLib in a post about the Organization for Transformative Works, saying 'I understand the backlash against FanLib, but does anybody still consider them a meaningful threat to fan cultures?' No one answered the question and no one demonstrated that FanLib was stil [sic] a meaningful threat to FanLib [sic] these days."

I dispute her claim that happened because "…FanLib had demonstrated that it was no worse than any other fan fiction archive. It had taken steps to be more inclusive and had actively reached out to fandom in the preceding months."

FanLib is being ignored because it bombed as a fanfiction archive. Its investors may be pleased with it as a mechanism for direct mail marketing, but to fandom as a whole FanLib was a tiny blip that quickly faded.

We will never know if the fanfiction archive was shuffled under the marketing campaign umbrella because that was FanLib's plan from the get-go, or because of its dismal growth. We do know the intellectual property holders who fund the FanLib "contests" are funding the fanfiction archive, too. No one is surprised. Or even excited.

Thanks to ardwynna_m, who brought the fanthropology post to this community's attention.

Comments

[delle.livejournal.com]

keep in mind that partly_boucy aka Laura Hale and a number of other pseuds has a HUGE hard-on for OTW because they didn't personally invite her to be part of the organizational set up. She's hardly an objective source. And I'm not surprised, given her history, that she's "suddenly" decided that FanLib is all that and a bag of chips.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Criminy. You mean the "FanLib is where you go when people are meen to you" thing is still going on?

[elf]

Of course it is. Negative feedback is frowned upon at FanLib. Not allowed to say not-nice things in fic comments. Not allowed to rate stories or posts low (well, you're allowed to, but they don't like it and it makes for hand-wringing threads in the discussion forum about how to stop those mean people.)

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

Negative feedback is frowned upon at FanLib.

Negative = constructive.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

Ironically, Partly_bouncy has been arguing that negative feedback should be encouraged there. But given the bias against her here, I suspect most people will overlook that.

[elf]

She may well be in favor of negative feedback & constructive criticism. However, when the topic's come up on the forums, there's been a strong tone of "if you can't say something nice about a story, just shut up." Including by the staff, who seem to think any criticism stifles creativity.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

Srsly, don't go on anything she says, let alone anything even remotely connected with OTW. She wouldn't know objectivity if it bent her over and did her without lube.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

And you would? A cheerleader for OTW? Laughable!

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Wait, telesilla has a reputation as an OTW cheerleader? Hee! Dang, that's hilarious. I must be the OTW pope, then.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you are in trouble, because I haven't seen you in a cheerleader outfit like Maria Bello in HoV.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'll BUY IT for her!!!

Oggie will steal the pom-poms, though.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

I'm there the minute you look like Viggo. Srsly.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah that's me. Why when the discussion about OTW started up there I was....

Complaining about some of their wording and the fact that their legal adviser has a really creative attitude toward plagiarism.

If extremely cautious optimism strongly tempered by my experiences with JournalFen and other fan run sites/organizations is cheerleading then...go team. I guess.

One of my biggest problems with OTW is the fact that it's so polarizing. The Fan History crowd is all "why do we need another wiki?!" and assumes that if you aren't with them you're 100% against them. Hell, one of my MMORPGs has two wikis and I use both of them depending on my needs. Fandom's big and there's room for more than one wiki.

As for partly_bouncy, I don't really think it's saying anything new to say that she's not an objective person on the subject of OTW.

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

She didn't 'suddenly' decide to use FL, she's been a member for a while. Before OTW I think., though don't quote me on that.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

This lot never let facts get in the way of their character assassinations.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

It's clear she has a bias about FanLib and the OTW, which makes what she says about FanLib doubly interesting -- since, presumably, she wishes FanLib to succeed. Saying the fanfiction archive is simply part of the marketing campaigns is not at all what FanLib wanted people to believe last year.

I predict backtracking.

[delle.livejournal.com]

honestly, I think "anyone but OTW" would make her happy. It's not that she's so invested in FanLib, it's that she's so anti-OTW.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly honest, I forgot all about Fanlib until I saw it mentioned here today. And I doubt that I'm alone.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you are not. I receive news alerts for FanLib, and I get nothing but the occasional drivel on the marketing campaign writing contests. Nothing's happening there that concerns the average fanfiction writer or reader.

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

I purposely didn't sign up for their alerts. So I don't get their spam.

[elf]

Fanlib: the archive for people who are moving up from Quizilla, but aren't quite ready for fanfiction.net.

It obviously never had any intention of being a serious archive; the ~800-words-per-page limit shows that.

They see the positives associated with it: Better customer service, less fandom related drama, issues being dealt with in a timely manner.

I.e. "throw your stories here and avoid anything like an actual community." (Issues being dealt with? Hmm, did they ever decide how to deal with people who went through & mass-rated everything with 1 star? Did they address concerns that they were re-rating fics without informing authors, according to staff preferences, which weren't available for public view?)

About those 29,000 submissions--are they using those funny numbers where they count how many stories are under each catgory, including double-counting the double-listings? (Which might mean, "29,000 listings, which would be different from 29k actual entries. However, it's also possible they really do have that many "stories"--I recall thaty they allow single haiku as an entry.)

[nic]

They have an 800-word-per-page limit??? OMG, how can ANYONE think that's a good reading experience?

...maybe kids would.

[elf]

They don't have a "limit;" they just split to multiple pages at somewhere between about 700 and 900 words. It's... weird, reading what I think of as "ficlets" split into two sections (oh, and you don't get any say about where the split happens; it can be in the middle of a sentence.)

They're obviously not collecting novels; they're expecting people to post single-paragraph squee fanfic. I've seen "fanfic" there that looks like a summary: Character X and Y are marrying. Z is unhappy, and decides to break up the wedding. Character X fortunately has kept his Magic McGuffin, and defeats Z easily. Everyone cheers. X and Y kiss.

Add three-hundred-word description of how beautiful Character Y's dress is, and you're all set.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the 29,000 number is legit, and they aren't doing that weird thing they did before, where they counted a single crossover story as five separate entries, once for each fandom it was about.

If they don't have at least 29,000 entries with 20,000 members, even I will be depressed. ;)

[elf]

Remember: 20,000 accounts, not members. Like LiveJournal, nothing prevents a person from signing up a dozen sockpuppets or alternate accounts. (Unlike LJ, there's not a lot of reason to do so; I don't imagine there are many people with a different account for each of their fic fandoms. But there may be some with different names for the fic originally stored at different archives, or preventing variations on their names from being used.)

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

The thing that got me about her post was that it was too much.

I didn't read anything except the first few parts, than randomly skimmed. Because good lord.

It was like reading a technical manual. *yawn*

And also, redundant. Whatever happended to 'clear, concise and to the point'?

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

When trying to convince folks of something, brevity is your friend.

[megselv.livejournal.com]

omg that post was seriously tl;dr

[megselv.livejournal.com]

(Um. Partly_bouncy on fanthropology, I mean...)

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

NO you meant me I know it111!!!!

*cackles*

[shalom]

I never got that email "inviting" me to pimp share my address book, but perhaps it was only sent to writers, and not to forum members?

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Possibly. I received the email, and I've submitted a story there. It isn't in public view, though. Er, at least it wasn't last I checked...

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I removed the story because they changed the rating from PG to R. There was no sex or violence, just a few curse words. I think the undertones of wincest made them nervous.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

Disagree with Partly_bouncy if you like, I disagree with her myself about FanLib (like OTW, it is not what it pretends to be). However, I don't doubt her personal integrity for a moment and I think this post and some of the comments attached to it show a lack of respect for others that is exactly the kind of thing that makes me distrust both FanLib and OTW.

When you need to make personal insinuations and attacks, it generally means you have no other argument.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I've stated, not insinuated, that her post is an editorial in favor of FanLib. She's welcome to contradict that.