Thinking about the spn newsletter

[thuviaptarth]

[ETA 4/3 9:59pm: I've heavily edited this post to separate out the general discussion of fandom and fantasy space from a specific question of the SPN newsletter; it was thoughtless of me to associate the two.

[This post is public because I did want to get the opinions of fans not on my flist. However, it is not a request itself, and it is not directed at the maintainers of the spn newsletter, although I'm aware some of them may stumble across it; I am trying to figure out if a request is a good idea. A day later I'm inclining towards "not a good idea," but I dislike deleting posts; it feels like trying to cover up your mistakes, and I'd rather acknowledge having made them and move on.]

I've been wondering if it might help settle some nerves in Supernatural fandom for the newsletter to re-arrange the template to list gen stories before Sam/Dean.

I like this idea entirely apart from the recurrent arguments about the role of incest in fiction because it accords with my personal notions of categorization -- you do the gen, which is a subset of stories distinguished by its lack of or failure to focus on pairings, and then you do all the stories that belong to the category of pairing fic, broken down by significant pairings. It seems to me that this makes it easier for non-Wincest readers to cut off their reading when they reach the end of the category, instead of having to skip past the Sam/Dean (unless of course they're also looking for het or other), has a neutral effect on the subset of Sam/Dean slashers who also like gen (which seem to me to be a large percentage of fandom), and offers only a mild inconvenience to the Sam/Dean slashers who do not like gen, as they tend to be indifferent to gen rather than disturbed by it.

There's a lot of "seems" in there because I haven't done any kind of rigorous analysis of this (my life is sadly empty of pie charts), and because I haven't yet gone through the newsletter info/memories to see if this idea has already been proposed, discussed, and rejected. I don't want to re-hash old arguments, and I don't want to express this as a demand or an entitlement; I think the newsletter is a great fandom resource, put together by people who are doing great work for the fandom infrastructure, and I get a lot of good out of it as it is.

But I thought I'd throw it out there as a proposal and see what you guys think and whether you know of any previous fandom history affecting it that I might not be aware of.

[ETA 4/3: Other issues moved to a separate post.]

I'm going to be offline for most of today traveling and celebrating Passover, so I will probably not be able to respond to comments quickly.

Comments

here via vee

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

You name us (i.e., metafandom) and we come :) [And I'm glad you already gave tacit permission to get linked, or I might have felt a bit less comfortable linking a multi-purpose post.]

FWIW on the newsletter, on SGA we have gen listed before het and slash, and I'm not even sure how we ended up like that (though our wanky suggestions tend to usually involve the complaint that McShep shouldn't be a separate category, bladibla...or the fact that we categorize at all, which is why we have an uncategorized section!), but it might have been in part to make sure to show that it's not just about the McShep (esp. as all compilers in the beginning were as far as I remember).

Otoh, I'm not sure a public post (esp. if we metafandom) will not be *more* rather than less pressure on the newsletter folks, though. By throwing it out there, they now have to either ignore popular opinion or follow it or...whereas just dropping them a line would have kept it out of the spotlight and put the ball firmly in their court...

Re: here via vee

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Um. Honestly, I thought of metafandom being interested in points 2 and on, and not so much 1, and ... I think you're right about the pressure. If I edited the post to break it into two pieces, would you mind NOT linking to the newsletter suggestion but linking to the other part? You are within your rights to link to anything public, but I'd rather not bring the world down on the newsletter people (or me, though I would feel compelled to accept it as Darwinism in action).

I should not post before running out the door for a three-hour trip. It makes me do dumb things.

Re: here via vee

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

most certainly.

i'm taking the link down and will put the new one in as soon as you let me know, OK?

Re: here via vee

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

Re: here via vee

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

The new link is here (http://untrue-accounts.livejournal.com/70800.html), and thank you again from saving me from my own thoughtlessness. :)

Re: here via vee

[copracat]

on SGA we have gen listed before het and slash, and I'm not even sure how we ended up like that

This may sound wierd but it makes sense to me in this order: gen, het, slash. Why wouldn't you put them in that order? But there's no realy basis for how I think!

Re: here via vee

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

This is going to sound weird, but when I was thinking about it yesterday, I thought: "Gen goes first because no pairings, then you break down by pairings, but should het or slash go first? Do it in alphabetical order: het, slash, then OT3s and OT4s."

What? I like the alphabet!

Re: here via vee

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Or mix up het and slash and just do alphabetical order by character name, though that's more for ensemble shows like SGA or Buffy than for partnership shows like XF or SPN.

Re: here via vee

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

yeah, i mean, I don't recall any debates or anything...but as I said, maybe unconsciously someone realized that with a bunch of OTP McSheppers, it might be nice to deflect :D

I think having gen first makes a lot of sense...heck, it's alphabetical :D

Re: here via vee

[copracat]

My Torchwood and Doctor Who newsletters put all fiction together. My Snape/Potter newsletter sorts stories by 'one shot' (by which they mean an actual finished normal story such as people have written, oh, forever but for some reason HP fandom has to give ordinary stories a new name to differentiate them from the preferred HP fandom kind of story: the Work in Progress*), completed stories, works in progress and drabbles.

*Oh yes, I have a grievance.