fandom and migration

I don't know if anyone would be all that interested at this date, but I did a few meta posts in 2003 right after I came to LJ (Novmeber 2002) about the transition between mailing lists and LJ (and in fact, I was usenet in 1999, so I was in the last three major jumps). For some people who have expereinced fandom only as LJ, I think this entire thing may be kind of bizarre and a little frightening, which yes, it is. I transitioned usenet-onenet-egroups-yahoogroups-diaryland-livejournal and away from archives, though I've always had a webpage. Every time there was a major change, it was disconcerting and confusing.



Livejournal and Mailing Lists Take One and Take Two. I don't know how helpful or informative they are at this point, but they were referenced in someone's thesis or something at one time (I think on social networking?), so there might be something that may be useful in them if you're wondering about fannish migration.

My history started on usenet in Voyager, with parallel membership in a private mailing list that didn't move to onelist until 2000. I was mailing list primary from 2000 until 2002, diaryland for about eight months, then came to LJ in November 2002. Even then, it was disconcerting--what I thought fandom was became redefined very fast, and became to me explosively large. For me, that fandom was relatively stationary for so long is kind of surprising.

The thing is, fandom hasn't been internet-based for all that long--I want to say 1994-1996 was when it started to take off, but taraljc and liviapenn and probably Due South and Highlander and Sentinel and X-Files and Star Trek people would be better able to give context to that. In our time on the internet, we've been in LJ for a really long time. And when LJ came, there was abandonment of mailing lists, and that, too, may be making people nervous. LJ also dominated, for a lot of fandoms, all other social networking and journaling sites.

OpenID is changing that kind of choice for people, and if anyone is worried they'll be left behind because they don't want to move their primary location, I don't think this will be an issue.

How to follow someone who has moved to Dreamwidth by zvi, mirrored here on Dreamwidth. This is a comprehensive explanation of OpenID and various ways to continue to interact with people going to Dreamwidth, or for that matter, anyone on different journaling sites.

[And keep in mind, a lot of us will be crossposting or referencing between. I may not post every post in both--but if I don't feel like doing a full crosspost, I'll likely link at least. No one is going to have to make a binary choice. The choices will be legion.]

I navigated getting an OpenID myself, so if you're having problems or just don't understand or it's not working for you, please, please email me and we'll get on AIM or YIM and I'll walk you through the process myself. Trust me, I had problems until I realized that in LJ I still use s1 for my base and it didn't automatically create me an OpenID to use. So trust me, it's not like anyone who is having problems is the only one; I was getting really frustrated with the process myself.

I don't know how many invite codes will be available to account holders when Open Beta starts--and to clarify, right now is Closed Beta, because there are still bugs that are being fixed, and hey, I spent a few hours last night updating my dw style to match the new code added, so seriously, Closed Beta is closed because they are literally in a testing environment stage right now and that does require users who don't mind being testers and betas and who are zen with recreating their styles from scratch. *g* Which I am.

Right. If I don't have you friended and you want to try Dreamwidth and you don't think you'll be able to get an invite code because your flist doesn't have anyone beta'ing it or for whatever reason, I'll be offering them when I have them. I'll be buying an account, so I assume there will be more than one, and I've promised a couple already if I have them, so. I'll post on the thirtieth or the first if I have extra, and take first come/first serve.



If anyone else has any posts on fandom migration, or changes in fandom between mediums, etc, please, please, please link in comments, especially those of you who wrote them, and I'll add them at the end of this post.

Crosspost to Livejournal.

Comments

Blatant topic change

[zvi]

Heeey. This is a really nice style. Does your LJ look like this? (Has not seen anyone else's LJ style for years, because I am all paid.)

Re: Blatant topic change

[seperis]

Thank you! Pretty much the same concept, but I never could understand s2 at lj well enough to recreate it until I got here, but all my lj styles were based on white space with lines only differentiation and a main and column. This one is based on negative, so there's a lot of code I'm not sure of yet. So it's kind of a change, refresh, change, refresh right now. *g* And last night, a find/replace for the updated core.

I'm liking it, but I'm thinking comments may need the header where the icons and info will be in some kind of color so it's easier to follow. I'm used to all white, but I'm not sure if it'll be really all that readable in long threads.

...I could seriously talk forever about my dramatic reactions every time I get something to work. I forgot how exciting and fun it is to create my own styles and work on coding it!

Re: Blatant topic change

[zvi]

ysobel is looking for docs people. I'm sure that even if you don't write, they'll need people to read their directions and see if they actually work.

ETA: To clarify, doc writers for S2 and the CSS that is common to all of the styles. The main site documentation stuff is done, and the FAQs are well in hand.

Re: Blatant topic change

[naraht]

Just want to say that I really like your style too. I hope that perhaps it will be borrowable at some point because I am hopeless with coding myself and yet most layouts are hopelessly busy in my eyes. I like the experience to be as close to reading a book as possible. :)

Re: Blatant topic change

[seperis]

You're welcome to it. *g* But hopefully I'll have a clean version up to date with DW's latest code change by when Open Beta starts, if you want to wait until then. Some of the code used in this one is redundant, so I'm doing the same design but from scratch to remove it.

I can send you this one if you want it, just tell me what changes in text (journal name, flist page name, etc) you want and if you don't know how to activate it, I can send directions. Seperis@gmail.com

Re: Blatant topic change

[naraht]

That's extremely generous of you, thanks so much. For the moment I've managed to import an LJ style that I can live with, but I may wander by again once Open Beta starts and the dust has settled. :)

Innnnnnteresting

[justabi]

I never really participated in fandom before LJ. I mean, I had been reading fic for several years in fandoms, but I never left much in the way of feedback and I certainly never made friends with anyone until LJ, so this is all new and strange to me. I'm glad that older, wiser folk such as yourself are here to calm my change related anxiety.

Re: Innnnnnteresting

[seperis]

*narrow eyes* I am not that old.

Re: Innnnnnteresting

[justabi]

*wide impressionable eyes* All this time, I thought you were Yoda!

*giggle* We're like practically the same age, but if fannish years were like dog years, you'd totally be my wise old granny! Not that either of my grannies are wise... huh. Ok. I take it back. You are spry and filled with the wisdom of the young at heart.

lemming: verb?

[ekaterinverse.livejournal.com]

fandom is pretty much the only context i can think of in which "lemming" is a v. good thing--it gave me merlin! i would never have even known it existed if friends and friendsfriends had not gotten into it, and it has been my comfort food all semester! and that's true of half my fandoms, and Fandom has changed my life, so i am going to do exactly as you say: take that leap the minute i can. omg first dw comment! *flails* this? is going to be AWESOME.

[liviapenn]

The thing is, fandom hasn't been internet-based for all that long--I want to say 1994-1996 was when it started to take off, but taraljc and liviapenn and probably Due South and Highlander and Sentinel and X-Files and Star Trek people would be better able to give context to that.

*heh* I'm not THAT oldschool-- I really wasn't fannish pre-the-internet. My progression was kind of the same as yours-- usenet, mailing lists, livejournal, a handful of miscellaneous blogs and message board sites (TWOP, etc., and a lot of comics fandom is still on blogs.)

Although I guess the difference there is that in all those cases, *I* moved from place to place when I moved from fandom to fandom-- Buffy was on Usenet, TS was on mailing lists, SGA was on livejournal, comics fandom is on blogs-- I never felt like one of my fandoms (or Fandom itself) was moving on to someplace new. (Although there were a few times when I felt like we were being *pushed* out, like when yahoogroups started deleting older messages from the archives of high-traffic lists.)

I was discussing this with someone last night, actually-- how maybe for people who *have* "moved house" a couple of times, this just doesn't seem like a big deal, especially since crossposting and communicating back and forth from LJ and DW is going to be so, so much easier than between previous "moves." But then you realize, wow, it really *has* been a long time since there's been a shift like this, even if it totally doesn't feel like it (to me, anyway!) There actually *are* a really high number of people who've never "done fandom" anywhere but LJ.

It might be interesting to do a random poll and figure out whether having participated heavily in fandom on some other platform, or having been fannish before livejournal existed, makes you more or less likely to be interested in Dreamwidth.

[kass]

It might be interesting to do a random poll and figure out whether having participated heavily in fandom on some other platform, or having been fannish before livejournal existed, makes you more or less likely to be interested in Dreamwidth.

Ooh, yes. :-)

For my part, I never found any of the previous migrations from lj compelling. I didn't see how GJ or IJ or JF were a substantive improvement over lj, and in some cases I didn't like the look of the alternate site, and I think by the time people started making noises about leaving lj I'd already been there for several years (I came onboard in 2002, initially rather reluctantly. Heh.) But this one is different, because there are positive reasons why I like dw, rather than just negative reasons to be dissatisfied with lj. Also, I like that I will be able to import my old posts & comments (so there can be continuity) and I like the ease of openid access.

[twicet.livejournal.com]

Than you for the above it was both interesting and helpful.
I know next to nothing re tech. I think! I have created OpenID, hoping for the best :)

[twicet.livejournal.com]

Hi sorry to bother you. I have checked all info. and am trying to change my OpenID to simply "twicet" rather than "twicet.livejournal.com"
Could you help please?
Liz.

[valentinemichel]

Hi Twicet! Butting in. Hope neither you nor seperis mind.

I think open ID is tied to your full LJ ID - which means the name change may not be possible until you have a code or a paid account to re-register as "twicet."

[twicet.livejournal.com]

Right, that would make sense, I think! I had noticed that others had the same type of ID and then the ID had a line through, which I took to mean they had changed it.
Thank you for replying. I sort of stumble my way through the online world and bug my, no longer at home offspring, for help but neither has an lj.
I like the look of DW, will keep checking in, again, Thank you.

[rigel]

*drops by via metafandom*

And Oooh I like how you've customised Negatives - so much easier to read!

This is my fourth-ish fannish transition (from mailout list, to omg remember when the internets was young and we had usenet discussions (to which my mother will always manage to trump me with "back when I walked uphill in the snow both ways for my fannish meetings, we had punch cards to keep track of all the Dr Who shenanigans")and later yahoo group/bulletin boards and now LJ)

Grah! HTML fail - sorry about that! I should not be allowed near a keyboard, due to my inability to type coherently :D
DW is exciting because it's a new way for me to pull together all my fannish interests into one (massive) reading list of awesome.

[rosalita]

In from Metafandom. I started out on alt.tv.xfiles and the Chaos mailing list in 1995 (remember when mailing lists were run by people who had their own servers?), then moved on to onelist/yahoogroups/etc, and then to LJ/DW/IJ/JF/etc. I gotta say that I still miss the wild west aspect of Usenet and the fact that fandom wasn't so segmented in those days. Yes, there was more fighting because fans of all different viewpoints were thrown together, but the variety of fannish opinion all in one place was what made it interesting.

Someday, something entirely new will come along and we'll all move to it, just like we moved from Usenet to mailing lists, to LJ.

[(Anonymous)]

fwiw, i started reading Highlander fanfic in 1995; and alt.* groups at about the same time. i found my first senfic about a year later, and was completely hooked.


since Highlander fandom had some pretty impressive archives at that point all ready (the one i recall that i really liked was graphics intensive and i can't for the life of me figure out where it went), it's obvious that fandom was there before i was. at a guess, i'd estimate that fandom probably hit the net about the time the usenet really took off - may 89-90?

at any rate, re: the topic at hand, there's always going to be some things people like about the old school, and some advantages to the new. i *still* prefer use-net style lists to lj conversations *and* yahoo lists. but, eh, whatever.

changeovers like this are always going to have a certain amount of 'rocks fall; everybody dies!' built in...

-bs

[(Anonymous)]

for some reason, i didn't realize this was on DW, not LJ - sorry for the anon posting. i always sign my posts 'bs', as a habit, but my LJ account, should you need bonafides, is under 'boogieshoes'.

-bs