Fanhistory.com:About
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[edit] About
Fan History is a collaborative project like none other currently serving the fandom community. Its core function is as a wiki which allows members of fandom - men and women, young and old - to actively participate in documenting the history of their various fandoms, share current news which may impact their experiences, as well as creating an easily searchable web indice of related communities, projects, and activities. It gives members of fandom a chance to share current fandom news that may impact people’s experiences in fandom. Fan History users can also promote their own creative projects, and share opinions with fellow fans and alert them to scams and questionable practices encountered within fandom. By providing these resources, Fan History allows users to celebrate their activities, whichever corner of fandom they come from: anime, cartoons, comics, movies, politics, science fiction, sports, television, theater, and video games.
[edit] History
Fan History is an outgrowth of Writers University's history department. Writers University was founded back in 2000 on FanFiction.Net by Laura under the nome de pume Michela Ecks, moved off about six months later, spent several years at writersu.s5.com, on its own domain and otherwise in a state of flux. The site eventually folded, with some of content being moved to FanWorks.Org, a precursor to this wiki found on another site and in an unpublished fanzines. During this period, Laura's research into the history of fan fiction and fandom continued. Fan History on its old location was not inviting enough participation on the part of wider fandom, which was the reason for its move to MediaWiki on its own domain in May 2006. In March 2008, FanFictionNetBot was run in order to help Fan History meet the goal of becoming a fandom directory. In July 2008, Fan History became a limited liability corporation known as Fan History LLC.
[edit] Objectives
Fan History defines fandom as as a community of fans whose activities involves some one else's intellectual property or real people. In broad terms, these communities are based off anime, actors/celebrities, books, cartoons, comics, movies, musicians, politicians, sports, and video games. It doesn't include fans of business or products you can touch because the communities aren't organized similarly or culturally related to most traditionally accepted fandom activity.
Fan History's original objectives in writing of fandom history were to increase interest and to provide a more comprehensive secondary source for academics writing on the topic to turn to. Since that time, the mission, while still including those goals, has changed to include:
- Provide members of fandom a resource to find links to communities in fandom, and explain parts of the culture in those communities to help them adapt to them.
- Provide a comprehensive directory for fandom that anyone can edit. This is necessary because of increased fragmentation in a web 2.0 world, and as members of fandom transition away from various services because of downtime, problems with policy, etc. It is also necessary because a lot of time in fandom trying to track down authors and artists who disappeared and in trying to locate fanworks that have disappeared.
- Provide companies that deal with fandom a source to locate fandom communities, understand how fandom functions, identify current issues in certain fandoms, give examples of how certain issues were dealt with, etc. By knowing that information, they can better interact with and cater to fandom's specific needs.
[edit] The Future
Fan History has big plans for the future and is slowly working to bring them to fruition. These include:
- Making Fan History into the largest fandom directory on the Internet.
- Publishing materials on the history of fandom for distribution at conventions and for use in academic settings.
- Becoming more of news site for fandom activity, providing updates on what fandom is up to.
[edit] Additional information
Additional information about Fan History can be found on Fan History's help pages, including our philosophy and the wiki rules.
Fan History is in the process of looking for capital to help facilitate our growth. If you are interested in a copy of our business plan or our pitch, please contact Laura through LinkedIn or via e-mail at laura @ fanhistory.com. Seriously inquiries only please.
