Fandom misc

[sholio]

SSR Confidential is happening again this year - I think I forgot to post a notice here, but tag set nominations are open through March 12th. Here's a text list of all nominated characters and relationships currently in the tag set. Signups will open on *quickly checks* March 15.

muccamukk is hosting a sprint of an AC episode rewatch, starting a couple of days ago and ending in early April, to fit in all the episodes with time left to write. Here's the rewatch schedule and the rewatch tag for episode discussion posts.

(I posted a couple of comments over there today before realizing fairly quickly that I was going to have to nope out. I kinda already suspected this was a show that's too close to my heart for me to be able to dissect its flaws without ending up in a downward misery spiral, and yepppp. It's no one's fault and nothing to do with the discussion, it's just that my mode on this show is very firmly set to "roll around in squee" and not "critically analyze". Anyway, it looked like the discussion was going well and had raised lots of interesting points, so I hope people enjoy it!)

On other topics, I have had a Tumblr post I made in support of lurkers blow up over the last couple of days - here's a reblog with some of my additional comments. It went from under 100 notes two days ago to around 1900 and still climbing. I'm drowning in notes! They're eating all my other notes! I wish it was possible to turn off notes on just one post on Tumblr, but I think you have to do it globally.

In spite of everything I dislike about Facebook, it has two features I really wish Tumblr would implement: the ability to hide just one specific post without unfollowing a person, and the above-mentioned ability to turn notifications on or off on a post-by-post basis.

Comments

[ratcreature]

Temperamentally I've never been suited to lurking but my level of participation depends heavily on the interface.

I mean, I mailed email feedback to the author of the very first fanfic story I found and read, all giddy about having found online fanfic fandom - and though I never got an answer to that, I joined a mailing list the same day and started posting almost right away even though my English was way less fluent back then. (I only ever used it in school, undubbed TV and movies were hard to get, imported books way more expensive pre-Amazon, and had only visited an English speaking country once at that time and only briefly - my English only became fully fluent because I wanted so badly to talk to fandom.)

So I'm not shy at all (though as with pretty much everybody, specific stuff will start me on avoidance that escalated in social anxiety ways), but at the same time I found lists I also found newsgroups and only ever lurked there. Same with message board based forums. I found fandom fine on those when fandoms were mainly there, but never posted or commented even if I read a lot. Tumblr is like that for me too.

And wrt fic feedback I think you're right that peak-LJ was the exception rather than the rule. I mean, one reason why I usually dropped a comment on all LJ stories I enjoyed is that as paid user who got their own comments mailed this got me an easy copy of the story saved in my inbox which was the fastest way to get a decently formatted save. Now I download longer fanfic to my e-reader and it takes an extra step again to do more than Kudo or like, more so than even emailing back in ML days because I have to switch devices and interfaces rather than doing everything in my email client like back then.

[goss]

Interesting point about Fandom as a cohesive entity from 2002-2006 being the exception and not the rule. That period of time has been my only context for fannish activity, since that's when I first discovered it, so I've been judging everything else that's come along since then (Twitter, Tumblr) against that time. The "Golden Era". *nostalgic sigh*

[musesfool]

I think new xkit might let you mute notifications from a single post? I've never had the problem ;), so I don't know for sure.

I think you made some good points both in the original post (which I reblogged) and in your additional comments, but what I really liked about it was the pushback against all those scolding "You must leave feedback!" posts that have been circulating on Tumblr lately. They just make me so uncomfortable because nobody owes anybody anything! (Except obviously in the case of a gift exchange, where it's polite and expected to say thank you for a gift.) Expecting and demanding that kind of response - basing your fannish engagement on it in some posts I've seen! - just really rubs me the wrong way.

[muccamukk]

I think people mostly got yelling about feminism out of their system on the first post, if that helps. The second one is so far talking about historical details in NYC.

You can hide a post on tumblr without unfollowing as a feature of new xkit. I nailed all the money cat ones later.

ETA: Would it be helpful to have a section reserved for positive comments? Like the spoiler thread?

[jadesfire]

Given my fun and games yesterday, I've found your Lurkers post incredibly helpful today. While I'm not upset about that incident specifically any more, it has made me retreat and think I won't post much until I get my legs back under me. So I'm back to Lurker, and that's *fine* :)

Tumblr has gone so far beyond what its original creators had in mind (I listen to one of them on a podcast, so...yeah. Way beyond) that the functionality is weirdly bolted on. They've come a long way, but it still feels like everyone's not quite got the hang of it.

[gwyn]

Do you mean hide your own post from view, or hide someone else's post? Xkit will allow you to block one particular post. It's called "post blocker" hah, and it looks like a hand held up, like "stop"--I use it a lot on one person who I can't unfollow for ~reasons but who often posts hideously long things.

[minim_calibre]

I would find Tumblr so much easier in terms of communication if the renames didn't happen all the time, if there were context in discussions, if if if...

I "know" more people on Tumblr--I have more followers there than I ever did on LJ and folow more as well, but I have yet to make strong connections there like I did in the olden days. Part of it is me--my anxiety is awful at times and hampers talking--part of it is the platform and broader culture there. I was talking about it with friends over the weekend and we've found it increasingly exhausting and are now largely on Twitter, which is awful for fandom but weirdly better for communication and connection for us.

It's funny: my default for anything is critical analysis but I avoid Tumblr these days because it's almost all that and no squee at all and I need a balance! Which just has led me to avoid fannish talking online almost entirely, even here. Like I got toxic levels of critical stuff and just can't deal anymore.

New X-Kit does allow single post notification hiding. I have been tempted when I have accidentally gone viral to use it, but as my accidental viral post is of the sort that has hilarious tags, I haven't pulled that trigger. Though the notes do slow down eventually. I swear.

[kore]

we've found it increasingly exhausting and are now largely on Twitter, which is awful for fandom but weirdly better for communication and connection for us.

That is me, yeah, except I have noped out of Twitter because of all the political stuff right now, just out of self-preservation. I know most of the fannish stuff is happening on Tumblr right now, but damned if I can find a lot of it.

[shehasathree]

I'm sorry if I inadvertently contributed (albeit surely only in a small way) to The Notifications That Ate Everything. I really wish Tumblr had those features, too! (It's a really awesome post, though, so seeing the notes increase every time it passes my dash does make me happy on that level.)