Somehow we'll make it, 'cause that's what we do

[dani_the_girl]

So, DW open beta date has been announced! 30 April, 2009. Yes, it's really really happening - those crazy kids :)

As soon as things actually go live, I'm planning to move my journal over there permanently. I'll probably cross-post back to here but close comments so that they all stay in one place. I'd really like to do a poll, but as I am only a lowly free account here, no such luck :( I would appreciate knowing though...

[ ] I'm planning to move over to Dreamwidth and I'll be paying money for an account.
[ ] I'm planning to move over to Dreamwidth if I can get my hands on an invite code (hint hint :D).
[ ] I've no plans to move, but I'll come comment on your entries over there.
[ ] I've no plans to move and won't comment if I can't do it on LJ.
[ ] Err, I forgot what Dreamwidth is again... remind me?

I myself am hoping to buy a seed account so once things kick off, I should have plenty of coedz to go around...

Comments

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to move to Dreamwidth immediately--if nothing else, I'm going to want a paid account and unnecessary expenses are on hold until June--but I'll certainly comment. If the majority of fandom moves to Dreamwidth I will too, but I'm not really an early adopter when it comes to social networking.

In some ways I want to see how Dreamwidth weathers it's first big fandom wank before I commit. Honestly I'm more afraid of us than of "them" in terms judging what isn't acceptable. Fandom as a whole is a small enough part of LJ for its smaller segments to fly under Six-Apart's radar, but Dreamwidth is going to be mostly fandom, as I understand it, so its radar is going to be much more focused. (And if you've never seen a fannish witch hunt, I envy you.)

[dani_the_girl]

In some ways I want to see how Dreamwidth weathers it's first big fandom wank before I commit.

Totally can see that.

And if you've never seen a fannish witch hunt, I envy you.

Yeah, I'm too young (fannishly) to have seen it first hand, although I have been a spectator (assuming you mean things like strikethrough).

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Strikethrough was fandom vs. "them" and while annoying to the people involved, it wasn't generally divisive to fandom as a whole. Fandom vs. fandom is where it gets really nasty--think ship wars, only worse. When part of fandom wants to ban another part of fandom--conventions banning slash was the first version I was aware of--you get the U.S. Civil War, only with more acrimony. Fortunately that particular conflict was pre-Internet, so memories have faded (it was a little before my time, even, AKA before 1987). FPF vs. RPF still stirs up resentment, however.

Imagine how much worse it would be if the fannish mainstream had (or thought they had, or thought they should have) the power to ban the next new offensive subcategory of fandom from posting on Dreamwidth. I've seen backlashes against slash, RPF, incest, and chan so far, so while I don't know what the next offensive category will be, I'm quite sure there will be one. Right now no one in fandom dares ask the owners of LJ to ban the sort of fan fiction they don't like, for fear that the owners will ban all fan fiction. But knowing the pro-fandom owners of Dreamwidth, they may feel it safe to ask Dreamwidth to ban that type of fan fiction. And they will justify it as necessary to protect fan fiction as a whole, because what if the DOJ/actors/Martians sue Dreamwidth and it goes out of business and takes their own fan fiction down and just think of the children!

Sorry, I try to keep it under control, but some cynicism does seem to be a survival skill in fandom.

[synecdochic]

Just FYI, that is at the point where we roll our eyes, explain that we don't restrict anything that's not illegal (and oh by the way with the exception of $things_we_have_already_stated, we need a court order to determine that something is 'illegal'), invite people to use our very nice killfile function (that doesn't exist yet, but will!), and have we mentioned that we hold a very generous liability-insurance policy, a war chest of legal defense money, and in-house counsel with a specialty in internet and first amendment law.

We're really, really serious when we say the absolute bare minimum restrictions we feel we have to place in order to cover our asses. There'll be a few things that are just 'basic human decency' type issues, like 'thou shalt not out other people, thou shalt not post someone's phone #, thou shalt not post someone's social security number', etc, that are less "legally necessary" and more "invasion of privacy" type issues, but other than that, we're really, really willing to accept a level of risk that companies backed by venture capital just flat out won't.

"Don't like it, don't read it" is both Mark's and my attitudes to a lot of things.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Good for you, but I'll guarantee that the first time something--oh, blatantly racist fan fiction, maybe?--is posted on Dreamwidth and creates a wank, someone will demand that you ban it. I'm glad to hear that you won't give in--but you are going to hear the demand.

[synecdochic]

Well, sure. On LJ over 90% of abuse reports were stuff we wouldn't act on. On DW I'm guessing it'll be closer to 98%. I could always tell when there was wank going on; we'd get eighty abuse reports demanding that we Do Something About This Travesty. So I'm really familiar with fandom going running to Mommy -- it isn't just something that's going to happen on DW, it happens on LJ all the time.

[dani_the_girl]

Yeah, I'm definitely too fandom-young to have experience of that. On the other hand, my previous experience of D. does give me enormous confidence in her ability and willingness to say "No, just deal, you people."

It's an interesting point - one of the reasons I'm not a very good advocate for DW is that part of my faith in it is based on the fact that I know D IRL and based on our conversations, I actually think she can pull this off. That's not very communicatable though, and I suspect that if I *didn't* have that experience, I might well be more inclined to the wait and see approach. I suppose on the other hand though, if all the moderate sensible people do that, then it makes it harder to get things started so there'd be that to argue towards giving it a go.

I'll be cross posting here anyway so the post was more just a curiosity thing but your comment thread with D got me thinking about it again :)

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope for the best for (and from) Dreamwidth. Fortunately no one is looking to me to be the trendsetter on moving or not moving, so I have the luxury of waiting to see what happens.