Bloody hell
Jun. 14th, 2006 04:24 pmAccio has decideded not to do an 07.
So this bunch - http://elanor-isolda.livejournal.com/96332.html - is. But where the hell nwere they when we were taking bids for an 07 event in london?
ETA: The above wasn't supposed to be public, as I said here. I am sorry that it was, because it was something I said in frustration, as I explain in the comments, here.
But to make it perfectly clear, here's a longer version of how I've been feeling about the incomprehensible hugeness of fandom these days, and the fact that it's now blindingly clear to everyone that most people have no idea what anyone else not in their corner of fandom are doing, unless they make an incredibly time-consuming effort to do so:
So this bunch - http://elanor-isolda.livejournal.com/96332.html - is. But where the hell nwere they when we were taking bids for an 07 event in london?
ETA: The above wasn't supposed to be public, as I said here. I am sorry that it was, because it was something I said in frustration, as I explain in the comments, here.
But to make it perfectly clear, here's a longer version of how I've been feeling about the incomprehensible hugeness of fandom these days, and the fact that it's now blindingly clear to everyone that most people have no idea what anyone else not in their corner of fandom are doing, unless they make an incredibly time-consuming effort to do so:
I am very, very frustrated, though, at a fandom that is so divided that people who have the exact same interests, ideas, thoughts, project-plans, etc., don't seem to know what, if anything, others are doing about the exact same thing(s).
There have been at least three occasions this spring where people have brought forward the idea of having a fandom wiki, which includes fandom concepts, trends, discussions, archives, etc - and none of the people proposing the idea, or, in fact, anyone commenting on the LJs in question, realised, until I mentioed it, that there actually already was a wiki which included fandom topics/discussion. Or look at the plethora of vidding communities here on LJ - there's at least five, and while some are slash-themed and others host everything, again, there's a tonne of overlap in what they do.
Personally, and I may be unique in this, I find it frustrating that there are so many people who would do well working together, but they don't know who else is out there, and honestly? It's not as easy as it should be to *find* who else is out there. I mean, what can you google for? Harry Potter conference London isn't going to catch everything, or in this case, given the wording in the bid announcement, it wouldn't catch that at all. And also, even if you read the newsletters a lot, if you miss a day, you'll completely miss out on an announcement like this, so a calendar, or another sort of listing service, like FA has tried to do with our Knight Bus forum, is handy in this way* but hardly anyone outside of FictionAlley knows about it, so it's not as useful a resource as, theoretically, it could be. And it's not because it's a resource that I am involved in that I think it's so handy - it's because of the content it contains, and what it could contain - like, if someone is having a full-day RPG in Australia, or a meetup in Los Angeles, or a conference in Copenhagen, why shouldn't it all be listed on a fandom calendar, where people who have even things that are just in the early planning stages can get their things tentatively calendared as well?
I think my RL experience plays a part in here - I'm very active with my synogogue's annual fundraising event. and last year, we had to change it because the local Chamber of Commerce, which has a lot of attendee-overlap, wanted to be the same day. But we knew before we got too far along the planning process. Of course, if anyone created such a calendaring thing, then they'd have to make sure everyone knew about it, because without knowledge, how can you know you need to use something? And sites like TLC and HPANA and MN are showcasing fandom things a lot less than they used to even a year ago, and because of that, thngs are just not hitting the radar screens of those who could and should know about it.