Fanhistory.com:About
From Fan History Wiki
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[edit] Fan History
[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folded, with some of content being moved to FanWorks.Org, a precursor to this wiki found on another site and in an unpublished fanzines.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 members of fandom a tool to promote their work, their projects, charity efforts by fans.
- Provide members of fandom a platform to share stories about what happened in fandom so that incidents won't be forgotten.
- 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 academics operating in fandom starting points for additional research and to provide academics with comprehensive data sets.
- 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] User contributions
At the present time, Fan History currently does not have much capital and has not reached a point where we are self sustaining. When we reach that point, our plan it to reward regular contributors as a token of our appreciation because without our community, we would not be where we are today. These rewards would probably include:
- Paying fandom administrators;
- Paying the costs for a few regular contributors to attend wiki related gatherings and conferences;
- Getting press passes for regular contributors so that they can attend conventions and other gatherings and cover them for our blog;
- Promoting projects by regular contributors on our main page or our sidebar; and
- Giving regular contributors a first chance at any employment opportunities that may arise on Fan History.
As of October 2008, we do not foresee being able to implement any of the options which require an outlay of cash for at least one calendar year. If you are a regular contributor who would like to have your site appear as a sponsored link, please contact Laura.
[edit] Additional information
Additional information about Fan History can be found on Fan History's help pages, philosophy, and the wiki rules.
[edit] FanworksFinder
[edit] About
FanworksFinder is a tool to help fans find, list, rate & discuss fanfiction, fanart and fanvids located all over the Web. FanworksFinder is more than a listing of fanworks, though. It's also a centralized recs system. Post listings to fanworks you've enjoyed and rec fanworks others have listed.
FanworksFinder puts all this information in one site and makes it easily searchable. Fan content is not mixed with other content, making it difficult to find. It was designed by a member of fandom for fandom. There is no content confusion or trying to adapt an interface created by outsiders to suit fandom purposes.
[edit] History
FanworksFinder was created by screwthedaisies in July 2007 in response to FanLib and the ensuing discussion in fandom about the need to have a fan run resource to protect fanworks from disappearing, and from the fragmentation that was taking place in fandom. The site was originally partnered with Fan History. In September 2008, the site ownership was formally turned over to Fan History; the domain is now owned by Fan History and the site is now hosted on our servers.
[edit] Objectives
The primary objectives of FanworksFinder are to:
- Have a reader centered fan works recommendation site.
- Create a fanworks search engine, to help make it easier for readers to find stories they might enjoy.
- Compliment Fan History and its own objectives.
- Work with fan fiction, art and vid sites to promote their content.
- Show case quality works being created by fans.
[edit] The future
We have big plans for FanworksFinder. Fan History is planning to make them happen in the near future. They include:
- Working with archives to integrate FanworksFinder into their archives.
- Increasing the number of fanworks listed on FanworksFinder by improving our RSS feed inclusion.
[edit] Additional information
Additional information about FanworksFinder can be found on the about page and the FAQ.
[edit] Fan History LLC
Fan History LLC is the company that operates Fan History and FanWorksFinder. Fan History LLC was organized in July 2008 in the state of Illinois.
