A musing on online communities

[heidi]

I'm having a discussion in private email with someone who's been in sf/fantasy fandoms for about 8 years, and who thinks that as I've only been in the HP fandom for just over 2 years, and wasn't involved with any online - or offline! - sf/fantasy fandoms before that, that I just don't understand how certain sf/fantasy fandom things work.

Point taken, and this isn't really about that, and yes, I know that some of you will frown on me for summarizing a private email conversation here on my LJ without the prior consent of the person I'm corresponding with - but I didn't do it for any reason, other than to provide a backstory for why this is on my mind (and how is it any different from summarizing a real life conversation, anyway?).

This post is about community - specifically, online communities.

In about 6 weeks, I'll be hitting my 10th anniversary of being online. Admittedly, my first three months were entirely AOL - then I discovered CompuServe and about a year later, Prodigy. And here's a brief list of the online communities I've been involved with since I started (am attempting to stay in order):

The Legal Forums on AOL and the CNI listserv
Court TV
Tongue in the Mail/Frenz (Crowded House)
Killermont Street (Aztec Camera)
the tv show Friends (1994-1995)
The Friends Zone (an off topic offshoot of the show, started in early 1995 and still going on)
The rec.arts.disney RPG and rec.arts.disney.parks in general
alt.wedding and soc.couples.weddings
TheKnot.com
BabyCenter's July 1999 Moms board and list
and of course... Harry Potter

More than some, less than others, clearly. But it's about 10 years of online communities - some fascinating - and others, that I looked at and had a harder time getting into, like SportsNight and the SW:TPM ones, aren't even mentioned above because I never really felt like I was *in* those communities, just sort of looking at them from the outside.

This discussion I've been having has made me wonder, though - are we a fandom or are we a community? Or are we a fandom that contains a number of communities?

And do we, in fact, have anyone who could be considered "fandom management" with "official titles"? Yes, I know many of you will shout, "Heidi! You are fandom management! You have an official title at both FA and HPfGU!"

But the fandom isn't just FA & HPfGU. And I really have no stake in the "management" of the fandom as a whole - just a small role on one listserv and a slightly larger one on one site - but less control than many of you probably think! If you see HP as a fandom and not just a series of unrelated communities, is there anyone who has a management role, overall?

And do I really, really, need a vacation?

Comments

[fede.livejournal.com]

Well, the Harry Potter fandom was my first offical fandom that I ever acted in, for I was a lurker in several Anime fandoms a couple of years ago, so I really can't compare such things.

But I think that the fandom houses communities that those have inner-communities (i.e. those who are active at that site). An example would be FA, SQ, GT, Werewolf Registery, and the list goes on. You make friends (or I have at least) in those communties and so it appears the fandom isn't as large as you would think it would be.

You are ranked high on the list. (I'm wibbling madly at my guts at posting this and hopin that I don't make a fool out of myself. Meep!) I don't know what we'd FAP-ers do if you all (read: admins, mods, elves, e-mentors, nifflers and everybody else that works for FA) decided to call it quits one day. But the only person who I can view as the 'head' of the fandom is JKR, for she ultimatly can change the entire fandom with the release of another book. She could have easily killed it by finding fanfiction.net and requested that it removed.

As for the vacation...Everybody needs a vacation, even when they don't think they need one. ^^