you have got to be kidding me

Hmm.

fairestcat was asking inclusive fandom events of het and slash and gen writers on and off of lj. This has very little to actually do with that--I got caught up with amireal's comment down in the threads.

Okay, first, a story. Because I always start with a story. It clarifies my point. Okay, it clarifies my point to me.



Part I

I've talked about this before, but what the heck, this is lj, we all forget everything but grudges in like, a week. So. A million years ago when SV was stil crawling out of it's diapers after a whirlwind first year--and God, that was a good year--there was a poster on ClarkLexFic--the fic only list, though someone brought the thing over to ClarkLex to debate it out--wait, too many hyphens. Start over. A person posted that there was a massive amount of present tense fic in ClarkLex and blah blah ickycakes whatever, not the point. Discussion took off, became kind of weird, but the word massive stuck in my head, along with the later commentary. Now, getting beyond my ego being bruised--since I was, you know, *posting* present tense fic all over the place, so to speak--I got curious.

Okay, in my defense, I had too much time on my hands, and at the time, I was in that place where I really, really wanted to be right. It was a rare moment where my desire to be right, right, oh my God I am so right eclipsed my inherent laziness. I enlisted a couple of people, gave them a section of the SSA, and asked them to go through and count the number of past, present, and future tense fic. And they really did, while I heckled from AIM. Seriously. I have no idea to this day how I convinced them to do that.

Okay, and becuase I'm just that dorky, I kept the results.

Smallville Slash Archive, circa August-September 2002

9 dialogue
24 multi
1 other
2 poetry
1 script

649 past
290 present
37 other

total 976

327 other than past

*****

66.5% = past

29.7% = present

3.8% = others

_______________

(current jenn comment: I think these stats cover a specific period of time--I think the week or month before I posted the stats, to make a comparison)

69

3 multi

28 present

38 past

Past = 55.1

present = 40.6

multi = 4.3

Okay, you ask, the point is?

Perception. It was perceived that present tense was beating past tense with a big fat stick of beatingness. Okay, by like, a few people on ClarkLex. They also said we sucked, but beside the point. Except I never would have gotten all inspired if I hadn't gotten all feelings-hurt, so you see, good things come out of trolling.

I lost my point. Anyway. Perception--strangling the poor past tense on their own intestines. Reality, less than a third of the entire archive. However--big however--the poster perceived the difference because in the last three months before I did this little study, the number of present tense fic were on the upswing in a serious way. And if you had come in during that time and hit the archive for latest, you just might get the impression that the fandom is All About the Present Tense. That I can almost prove, if I get really inspired and go back to study by date, but considering that i do remember what was being posted, I'm about eighty percent sure I'm right. May-August 2002 was a good time for the present tense fic in Smallville. According to the above, so was the month before this poll was posted.

I had a lot more in my diaryland account about this, but that is lost, so I'm working from memory of self-righteous satisfaction here.

Part II

The thing about the slash and het and gen separation thing is the idea that:

I still have no idea what the debate is about, exactly. On whether we should all be one large, multipairing, happy fandom where the slash layeth down with the het and watch all their tiny fic spawn play together. Or whether we separate far enough away that we never meet. Or whether the permeable edges are as permeable as we think. Or if That Other Pairing is out to get Our Pairing. Or if it's just preference, or it's actual exclusion, or if it's simply no one who is still bound by physical laws requiring sleep can *ever* read everything out there. I mean, we talk about it a *lot* without actually talking about it much at all, and this is why I rarely do meta right here--I don't understand where most of these conversations go. It seems like the catch-all for whatever is happening at the time that needs a label. Sometimes, it feels like the words 'slash bias' or 'het bias' (I don't think anyone's been accused of being gen biased--isn't that odd now that you think about it?) are used in ways that aren't covered by any actual usable definition to prove a point in a debate. To prove that someone, somewhere, at some point, was being oppressed by those other people.

I mean, the major serious divide between slash and het in a weird way comes down to which lower body orifice we're shoving a cock into*. Unless you count some adventurous het I've read. And even being aware it's more complex than that, it also weirds me out because it's like prostitution being the oldest profession--this is the oldest debate. Before we twitched for mpreg or muttered about incest and looked for the far-off cities of RPS that would be built, we were asking the question "why do you slash characters?" like it's a question that needs to be answered to make the concept relevant. Like that's even a question that isn't on the order of any zen-inducing question like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "What would Jesus do?" It's a question with multiple answers of varying levels of coherency because it's not a question that can be answered to anyone's satisfaction because it cannot be answered. Not in any way that will ever make sense to anyone fully unless they share your brain.

I mean, if I meditaed? That would be my mantra. Right there. Clears my head *wonderfully*.

On the other hand, I always love reading the answers, so asking and answering? So not a complaint here. It's more that--it's so rarely asked for the right *reasons*. It's a complaint or an indulgence or a--an accusation? The question always seems to actually be, "why don't you write het?"

Every time--every time--this debate is dragged out and aired--the number of x/x or x/y fic compared to another is a big one, but also always fun is the infrequent challenges that exclude this or that pairing/group for one reason or another, or the archive that says no whatever pairing/rating/genre or the random troll that wanders by with homophobic or heterophobic commentary that are somehow--and don't even ask me how this happens--are immediately proclaimed The True Voice of the Other Side. Like there is some secret cabal of slashers (hetters) out there quietly working to eliminate everyone who doesn't write their pairing and take over fandom so the one true vision is revealed.

Does anyone--and I'm serious--actually believe that? I mean, really, truly, you sit down and think to yourself, those *slashers* (hetters) are destroying fandom by tying the hands of hetters (slashers) or trolling them off the net?

So today, I'm reading comments and run across a thread and then think, huh. Wow. Do you know what this debate could use? Some actual *facts*.

So here's the actual question I want asked next time the word 'bias' is thrown around anywhere. Because sometimes, I've kind of thought that fandom sometimes might work on the concept that if someone says something enough, or believes it enough, and says it to enough people in enough places, it has to be true.

Can you prove it?

The next time someone, anyone, makes a bias statement, I want *math*. I want percentages. I want a full count and documentation of the places the count was done, who double checked it. Because I want to know when anyone uses the word bias in regards to a group, a community, a person, they're using it as more than a way to get quick sympathy and score points. If you're pissed enough with fandom to see a bias and pissed enough to use the word, and pissed enough to rouse up your buddies, then you are plenty energetic enough to get yourself to counting. You know, I did it? Okay, with help. But Christ, *nine hundred something stories. So we did it. And I bet just about anyone else can do it too.

* Or in femmeslashes case--I really don't have a good way to put that one. Hmm. Give me a couple of hours. Think *spirit*, not letter.

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I think we all understand that it's a lot of work for you, and that anyone doing that much work is going to make mistakes. And we all appreciate you for doing that hard work. I'm certainly not out to crucify you guys, which is why I called it a slight issue above. You do great work for the fandom and I don't mean to discourage you.

But when a story goes out in the newsletter miscategorized, it can cost people readers. Often the author doesn't see the mistake for a while, and since most people read the newsletter the day of publication and don't go back to it, fixing it doesn't even help that much. And when the story is already in a category that has to struggle for readership, it's all the more irritating for the author. Even the relatively small John/Teyla community didn't read that story Livia mentions because they didn't know it was there for them! That's certainly the only reason *I* care--otherwise you could label my stories whatever the heck you wanted and at worst I'd roll my eyes: it's your newsletter and you can do whatever you want. So that's why people can get a little peeved at times.

(And, okay, this illustrates Livia's point. You talk about the problem of *het* being subtle or at the end--but there are plenty of *John/Rodney* stories that are subtle or have the actual smooches at the end. It's not a problem limited to het stories at all. But since you all care more about John/Rodney, and are more attuned to it and its signals, you're more likely to catch it. That's not because you're evil or campaigning to suppress non-John/Rodney or whatever. It's because it's what you tend to see.)

[azicrow.livejournal.com]

Look, we are sorry every time we make a mistake it truly is unintentional, we don't mean for you to lose readers or anything like that.

But as I've said earlier. We really don't have time to read anything regardless of whether its MCSHep or not. I'm not lying here.

I really don't read anything when I put out a newsletter. It's why I need stories labelled clearly. We do try though, if a story is on a particular community like Sheppard/weir or McKay/Sheppard sometimes we'll take the risk and go oh ok it's most likely this or this. But most of the time if something is written and I have no idea what pairing it is in or if its gen, and I don't have the time to read it, how can I possibly be expected to get it under the right heading?

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I know you guys do your best. You're trying to help people get readers, not stop that from happening! Usually, in fact, that's exactly what you accomplish.

I can only say that I *have* had two stories which *were* labelled put into the wrong category, that I have seen some other stories that appeared mislabelled to me, and that there is a legitimate reason beyond authorial fussiness that this bothers people, especially people writing for pairings with smaller audiences. This is data for you, and if you are troubled by claims that the newsletter appears biased, it may be useful for you to consider it. I am seriously not trying to launch a campaign against you guys, and I hope it hasn't sounded like it.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Whatever it is you're not doing that gets labelled stories put in the wrong category.

Look, either you're bothered by an impression you may be inadvertantly creating, or you're not. I understand if you don't much care, actually--there's only so much energy anyone can invest in any one fannish project. You're a volunteer and you may feel that you're doing all you can, or that you shouldn't have to worry about impressions that you don't think are fair, and I truly do not challenge that.

If you *do* care, though, what I am telling you is where that impression may be coming from (that and the tendency of anyone who's in a minority position--or thinks she *might* be in a minority position--to fancy herself persecuted). I'm actually not interested in debating with you how you might better run your own project. I'm sure you all know how to handle your own business better than I do. Take what I've said into consideration or not, as you prefer. If you're troubled by the idea that you might give the wrong impression, though, you might want to think how you guys might want to combat that in your own way. I just *happened* to post about this subject tangentially (the last time this happened to me was well over a month ago). I doubt everyone who's ever had a story miscategorized or who's seen a story miscategorized is reading this thread. Is it worth it to you, in terms of whatever the extra work would be, to try to avoid giving them the wrong idea? That's really up to you.

[azicrow.livejournal.com]

Sorry for snapping, its not you and I am sorry. I'm not normally this irritable. Don't worry I'll sort out m random posts in a second. Basically I really do want suggestions. This isn't a debate, you obviously see something wrong and I want to know if you have any ideas of how we could fix it. The problem is when a mistake is made we're unaware of it, thats the very reason its a mistake. we can only be caught by our readers who point it out.

Honestly what else is a suggestion going to do, if you can think of one tell us because like I said we're human we need help and pointing in the right direction from time to time. so if you think of something tell us because believe me we're not doing anything deliberately to cause these mistakes. .

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Oh, the one thing I would suggest is being extra-careful before assigning a story to "uncategorized" (especially) or "gen," since, sadly, those tend to be the great audience-killers. Clearly, if the story is labelled "gen," you don't need to think twice, but before you put a story in "uncategorized" it wouldn't hurt to double-check. I mean, it's one thing not to pick up that a story is really Ronon/Elizabeth when the only indication is that it's crossposted to six comms, one of which turns out to be an R/E comm, but if the story is labelled on sga_noticeboard, that shouldn't be missed. I don't know if the policy is to put all unlabelled fic in "uncategorized"--which would make a certain amount of sense--but if it's not, and you put stories in "uncategorized" because you can't figure them out, then it's probably worth giving them a quick skim first. I find that pairings tend to jump out at you most of the time.

Since these are the smallest categories, the additional time involved should not be as great as anything involving rechecking *all* stories.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

I think there are two things being mixed up there.

1) We of course read the header and put the story in the right category. If we didn't it was an honest mistake and sadly these happen. We don't have the time to double check every post (if we ever actually get some additional help this might change though and in that case we will clearly strive for perfection in *all* categories). That is sadly the truth.

2) When a story is labeled not too clearly (favorite examples - all of them seen before and more regular than you might think: "gen, John/Teyla", "Elizabeth", "I really don't know, maybe....") or even by no clearly visible at all, we are not going to be extra careful but would be exstatic if authors were to decide they maybe want their stories in the right categories they should label it clearly. Which would take them a lot less time than it would take us to 'skim' all the stories we were unsure about (It actually already saves us a lot of time now that we don't have to worry anymore about not clearly labeled stories ever since we decided to leave those uncategorised).

3) We actually don't think that gen and uncategorised are the ones most often mislabeled but rest assured that we already have been very careful about these categories for a while (which is why we make so few mistakes in there and so many more in some of the other categories). I would also like to point out that the sheer number of things people have so far thrown around (not here but in a few other discussions as well) that would not result in a lot of additional time we just have to really ask ourselves in which cases is it justified. In which cases is the problem really a problem and nut just perceived as a problem.

Believe me, we are trying to figure that out and should the result really be that we are clearly biased in any of the work we doing we might have to rethink what we do.

So far, I've not seen any proof of that.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I would also like to point out that the sheer number of things people have so far thrown around (not here but in a few other discussions as well) that would not result in a lot of additional time we just have to really ask ourselves in which cases is it justified.

I only made this suggestion because your co-mod asked me to, twice. I have no desire to butt in on your process. I don't even know how long it takes, but I'm sure it's endless and you've done your best already to make it efficient.

Just please don't tell me that I'm jumping to conclusions based on nothing. I've had labelled stories miscategorized twice. That's not the end of the world, and if you want to tell me that I was just unlucky, I believe you, but it is my experience, and people are going to come to conclusions based on experiences like that. Dismissing people who are trying to point out to you in good faith how you may be, unintentionally, making an impression other than the one you want to make doesn't build confidence in them that you care. I didn't say anything before (I mean, this happened the last time a good six weeks [?] ago, and I didn't make any public complaints about it) because I didn't think it was worth the trouble, and now I'm thinking that was right. But wouldn't you *rather* know if you are inadvertently giving people an impression different from the one you want to?

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really don't want to say at all, that we don't take these perceptions that people have serious or don't take it into consideration.

I also don't want to imply that your experiences should be disregarded, but the question is not do we make msitakes, the question right now is, do we make more mistakes in one category than in the other.

So I guess if you were to say I wrote 10 McKay/Sheppard stories and all of them were labeled correctly but I also write 10 other pairing stories and two of those were mislabeled then it would really be a statement about our bias. Whereas your experience (as bad as we feel about it) is just a statement about us making a mistake.

We*ve all been thinking about the situation a lot during the last days and we would be really happy if we knew why and how so many people feel that we are biased.

And it all comes back to me wondering...if I were a McKay/Sheppard author and my story would be mislabeled...would I assume it was because someone made a mistake or because the editors are biased.

Would this discussion take place anywhere if we as editors were not so open about our own interests? Would people also go around and automatically assume that we were biased if the same newsletter with the same mistakes were posted by a Sheppard/Weir Fan. Or an anonymous poster.

And the truth is I don't know. I think in many cases the bias is perceived as a bias because thats what a lot of people already feel the fandom is doing to them. And I don't necessarily mean this discussion here right now.

A few weeks ago someone accused us of only including icon links if they included mckay or sheppard. I don't ever look at any icons. Any Icons. And I'm sure that person was feeling that way because we had forgotten or missed icons posts of hers that included other characters.

This was her experience but in the grand picture it had nothing to do with any bias from our side. Because, we miss just as many McKay/Sheppard Icons.

[azicrow.livejournal.com]

Okay I tried emailing this to you, to your email account that I found on your website but the delivery failed I don't know why but it did. NOw I get the feeling I offended you so I wanted to send you this.

Hi, this is Azicrow,

Firstly I really do want to apologise for my conduct on the board, being that rude is inexcusable and I am actually quite ashamed of it.

There was no excuse for it I should have controlled my temper better and this temper was in no way intended to be directed at you. I just found out someone was voting for a particularly right wing party (Imagine a politicised arm of the KKK) And their main target are people like me. As you can imagine it took me off guard and so when I was writing to you I was still quite shaken up about it. But regardless I still should not have been so vicious with it all. I do care about the newsletter and the hard work people put into their work. Without their work there'd be no newsletter.



Now I didn't write this on the board simply because I did not want to make it seem as if I were seeking the crowd's favour as it were.( This seems a bit redundant now seeing as my emil didn't get through so you can ignore that bit)) BUt If you'd like me to make a public apology I'd gladly do it because I am truly truly sorry. And any suggestions you may make will be brought back to the rest of the team and considered.





I do hope you can forgive me in this matter.



Thank you for your time.



Azi

[azicrow.livejournal.com]

Now I'll shut up before I look like some freaky stalker person. :)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Don't even worry about it. Seriously. I know what it's like to put a lot of work into a project and then have it criticized.

I hope you do believe me when I say, despite certain frustrations with regard to miscategorization, I think the newsletter is a great public service to SGA fandom, and I have never thought that any problems resulted from any malice or deliberate bias on the part of the mods.

[azicrow.livejournal.com]

((OK let me try this again because my last one was really rather rude and I apologise it was in no way direced at you, I just heard something quite bigotted and it annoyed the hell out of me. ))



We have catalogued thousands of stories and we make mistakes that is truly all it is, we have a reader journal with 170 communities so we are not relying on our friendslist and we are grabbing stories for every genre and pairing possible. we have no time to read things on days we do newsletters I know this is particularly true in my case. Whether it is a small or a big pairing if it gets misplaced the pairing has nothing to do with it.

For those two nights it does not matter if you wanted to write Hermiod/Sora or McKay/Sheppard, I don't have the time to read that story that night I'm sorry, I have to go back AFTER I have posted the newsletter and see any stories that I might want to read, THEN I get my personal time, before that its all professional and if its atlantis it goes in simple as that. We've not read the fic we've no time. It goes where its labelled as much as it can considering you have to deal with human error.


Now to make this more unbiased what would you suggest that we're not doing that will also be feasible timewise considering the length of time each newsletter takes?

I hope thats better