recording history

There is a part of me that wants to make a project of listing everyone here in fanlore. I have done--five. There are five million. Give or take. Just for Trek.

Dear God.

Hmm

See, the thing is, the wiki is a lot of things to many people, but it's, for me, a living memory. Which is--awesome and breathtaking and how I'm doing some of the user pages probably wont' make sense and will be erased by someone else, but I remember associatively, so I did a lot of interconnect between people and people, people and lists, people and places, which I'm not entirely sure is what the wiki wants to be. I guess it's sort of a fannish interconnection thing I'm expressing through multilinkage, that you can't really know a fandom unless you know the people, and you can't know the people unless you know who they hung out with.

I'm not sure, in other words, that I'm doing it right. I just don't want anyone forgotten. Inevitably, people will be, I suppose, but it can't hurt to try and remember and record as many as I can. I've been going back through the link above and my folders of list email eventually wil be pulled out to see people I missed and what they did, and what they wrote, and their lists and their communities and their cowriters. I listed out everyone I cowrote with on my user page so I can go back and add them in and I'm trying to remember all my betas ever which should be a hell of a lot easier, but I'm a packrat, not necessarily all that well organized.

At least I can honestly say I now have something to do when I'm bored.

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I have spent the last few weeks promoting wikis on my campus for teachers to use, so cannot get back into fanlore (argh ugh darn). But I also got nudged by friends to do a paper for a small conference we run on campus that is about rhetorics of memory. They think that wikis as memory in fandom is a great topic (that's the main thing I thought, I wanted to get some entries on some of the fan stuff I remember from back when, meaning the 1970s!). So, um, well, um, not anytime soon, but maybe I could interview you (email, will of course run by IRB, pseuds definitely, all that stuff) but this was just so beautifully written I had to say something!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Any time!

I wish I'd really explored Wikis before as an association device; I blame my lack of attention for its potential, because it's fantastic for creating the interlinks between people and places, which makes it incredibly easy to follow trains of thought from person --. mailing list --> person --> cowriter --> community, etc. A lot of the stuff I'm putting in now is basically stubs that I'll add to when I remember something else or read something else and go OH! Yes!

It's pretty incredible. And it's almost--and this will sound way too far into the philosophical--it's doing for fans what livejournal did as well. It isnt' all about the Big Significant Moments, Fans, Trolls, and Tragedies anymore. It's also teh rest of us, who putter about and write some fic or make some art or write some meta that make the history books as well. Every fan did something, changed something, in their fandom whether they knew it or not, and that's so incredibly important to know.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

You should write up the page on Remix/Redux. I am kind of dreading it.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I did part of Strikethrough, part of OSBP, part of the Mary Jane thing, added to Fandom Wank, and Svmaria partial. *exhausted* I also did yours and DD's page that I am watching for any--changes.

Just put up a stub for now. It is so much easier to add to something that's already there than start it; people like to add and edit, I've noticed.

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

No, living memory is awesome That's how I think of it.

Hey, I may have done something silly. My current user name is of course, beadattitude, which, since I realized that it's someone's business name, also feels like I'm hiding behind her tree, which I am. I still THINK of myself as beadtific - being the only one who's used that name, and registered that way in the wiki. Though no one will look for me by that alias. I think, though I know you can list aliases.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. Please hold my hand? And go ::pokes:: I'm having a fic musing session and need suggestions.

Also, I love your big sexy brain.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Add a redirect for the alias when your regular page comes up. Wait, do you have a regular wiki/Beadattitude or just user:beadtific?

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is, the wiki is a lot of things to many people, but it's, for me, a living memory.

Yes. Yes. That, exactly.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's way too much fun. *grins*

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

While I've done a tiny bit of editing on some things, writing entire articles is not my forte. However, if you have any questions about ascem(L) way back in the day, I'd be more than happy to answer the ones I can.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God, the temptation. TrekSmut University alone....

That, and Macedon and Peggy's fic, and all these things I barely know enough about to say anything other than "It was very significant!" and "This was cool!" and "Everyone told me it was awesome!" which is probably not the meat of a good wiki entry.

I know the feeling on teh articles. SVmaria took me forever and I only covered the first time she went crazy. *sighs*

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I think you're awesome.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*snickers* More likely I am an irritation adding tons of fan pages with minimal information and going back to add like, "oh, and they archived in Trekiverse and belonged to PTFever!" The wince looking at the change log.

[ratcreature]

I like your approach because I'm not at all fond of the trend that sneaked "important" and "notable" into the explanations for the person pages even though elsewhere in the wiki mission statement it says that it doesn't want to be arbiter of relevance...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

This. I'm putting in pretty much everyone I remember and something about them.

I'm trying to add Notable Work to everyone I put in to give some context. I need to go through Trekiverse and ASC and read the history up. OR better yet, get Stephen or one fo the other ASC people to do it.

It's so much fun.

boo "notable"

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Somebody sneaked notability into the person pages explanation? Boo, hiss!

Somebody ought to edit that out because, well, boo hiss!

Too freaking busy for my own good right now, but I'm all for ignoring all that stuff and going for memory!

[elgraves.livejournal.com]

I've been looking through the newsgroups on google groups. They have post as early as 1990. I forgoten until I went looking at the past that the first archives were ftp sites. None of them are still functioning today. (I tried some) The newsgroup archive is really cool in that it's like living history; but unfortunately a lot if it is lost.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*sighs* Yeah, it is. I'm wondering when someone will do the X-Files ones. Those wars were frekaing *famous*.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

I forgoten until I went looking at the past that the first archives were ftp sites.

I remember when I first found asfs and the archive, which was being run by alara_r at the time, was an ftp site. Nothing but eight character file names and you just downloaded and took your chances. Good times. :)

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

There is just so many little tiny connections. Fandom is all about the people for me, so I think it's awesome that you are adding those. Very cool.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

In some, it's necessary but it hit me with Stephen Ratliff--the guy's in *everything* about usenet Trek, and crossreferencing was amazing when you could see how much he'd done, founded, taken over, or reorganized. I mean--seriously, the guy's a machine.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

A little at a time. A little at a time.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I am telling myself that. *nods*

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

OMG I can't stop putting stuff in this freaking wiki and somehow it is all your fault.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

NOW YOU KNOW MY PAIN.

I wrote up the first part of Svmaria in a single delirious sitting. It's just so hard to *stop*.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xenakis_/]

Hello there,

So in the spirit of living memory, I started to write up something about Austria and Poland on the QAFUS page http://fanlore.org/wiki/Queer_As_Folk_US , but I cannot for the life of me remember who came up with the metaphor. Was it you? Josselin? Wrenlet? Any idea where that first post is? Feel free to edit/add to what I've written.

a friendly lurker who just caught the Fanlore bug ;)

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Really interesting that this comes up now, after the discussions here:http://www.hardcorenerdity.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2239098%3ABlogPost%3A20903 and here: http://losyark.livejournal.com/227284.html in the last few days. Zeitgiest! Good luck with the listing, btw!

[elf]

I've been contemplating how much energy I have to throw at non-fic fandom... gaming and filk are the two I know best; gaming's tangential but related (esp. the TSR copyright crackdown during the early internet days), and filk is, IMHO, the music of fandom--but I don't know where to draw the line. Not sure whether to list Important And Influential filksongs as subpages of "Filk," or of their fandom (if any; Hope Eyrie isn't related to a fandom).

And as soon as I can think how to label "Copyright Fandom Controversies And The History Thereof" in a short, wiki-able title, I'll start collecting links for it. (I'm hoping someone else comes up with the page title, or a set of related page titles.)

I'm hoping that, by this weekend, I'll have some thoughts sorted out on how I intend to throw stuff at Fanlore, and advice for beginners on how to find templates and categories and how to find new stuff to add to.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I"ve been thinking of doing a quick step by step on How to Make an Article and It's Okay to Do It Wrong, Everyone Does It Wrong a Lot and Seriously, There Are No Fandom Police. Most of the battle is fought once people lose their inhibition at creating an article--it's gravy after that.

Wanna collaborate on the Intro to Newbies?

[fyrdrakken]

Having just gotten curious enough to go back and scan the list of names you mention, I was tickled secondarily by seeing that yes, the goddes and I are on there in the Trek names, but primarily by seeing a pair of DW BNFs listed under VOY writers. (I think lizbee may have been Somebody in HP fandom as well, and certainly in Mary Russell fandom.)

The really funny bit being that lizbee has been getting involved in the wiki herself trying to get the DW pages up to standard. (And pondered making one for the Mary Russell fandom.)

ETA: I have the vague urge to at least create stubs for a few people, but I logged in and it's not like there was an obvious link to click for "create new entry" and the template page was coded in gibberish something I'm unfamiliar with, so I'm leaving it for people who have more caffeine in their systems and actually care enough to read orientation info for possible instructions.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Enter the name you want into Search, click on it, then if it doesn't exist, it asks if you want to create it. If it's a fanperson, use --> http://fanlore.org/wiki/Template:FanProfile template. Copy it, paste it to the new entry, and enter information and voila! It is done.

...perhaps I spend a lot of time there.