Mod note, re: Tags, f-locking

[rihani.livejournal.com]

I just went through and cleared out a whole bunch of tags that were cluttering up the tags list. For various reasons, but almost all of them were for misspelled words/typos. So if I could please ask that you actually look through the tag list when you go to tag your fic, rather than entering in your own -- unless you've verified that the tag you want to use doesn't already exist -- I would really appreciate it. It's time-consuming on my part to go through and remove redundant tags.

I'd like to keep the tagging simple, so some guidelines:

• rating (g, pg, pg-13, r, nc-17 -- this is how they are established in the tags)
  
• your name (so if that's not listed, feel free to add it)
  
• the team(s) (full team names, starting with the city, rather than nick names; these should all be listed already, at least for the NHL)
  
• players (full names, and no person a/person b tags, please!!)
  

This will hopefully save the tags list from filling up too quickly again, and then I won't have to spend an hour clearing it out again. :-) Keep in mind, we only have 1000 tags to work with, and while that may seem like a lot, when you think about how many different people write how many different players, our tags list gets quite the workout! In case you're curious, here is a complete list of all our tags currently in use.

Thanks everyone... if there's any problems or questions about this, please let me know!

One more thing: I'm heavily leaning toward making this comm where all the posts are, by default, friends-only. This is mostly due to a lot of "outing" of fic going on outside our insular little communities, and some other smaller issues. I'm mostly curious about people's opinions at the moment, so let me know what you all think about that, please?

Comments

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

Yay for mods! x3

I dunno about entirely f-locking the comm. It can often show that a comm is dead (when it entirely isn't). Plus I mean..well. If it helps. But I dont know if its needed. Someone could just as easily join the community and then copy over some stories. I think that if you really want to try to keep your identity safe, make a story-only journal. Its the only thing I can think of if you want to keep posting and truely keep your online identity safe.

So Im in agreeance with savvyfan here.

[zdarovyeh.livejournal.com]

It can often show that a comm is dead

If it's clear that the community is friends-lock only, by like a banner or something, then this should be preventable.

Someone could just as easily join the community and then copy over some stories.

If someone does this, there's a far bigger problem going on :) [and I think reasons to ban someone].

But the issue isn't whether or not someone copies the posts out somewhere else, but to make the posts less easy to find by Google searches or other web spiders.

I was freaked out recently to have some slash fic posted on LJ community show up in a Google email alert I'm subscribed to. If it's coming up for me, then it'll certainly come up with any friends or family of the person looking for news items for him.

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

"I was freaked out recently to have some slash fic posted on LJ community show up in a Google email alert I'm subscribed to. If it's coming up for me, then it'll certainly come up with any friends or family of the person looking for news items for him."

Thats why I kind of said if this person is posting fan fic that they feel their friends/family would find questionable, for one dont use your real name, and keep an anonymous online journal to post with if its such a problem.

I realize is would be really creepy to just see one day "Hey I wrote that. Oh shit.". But there are ways to combat that other than locking down the comm. (And I do agree the people we find that copy over should be banned)

[rihani.livejournal.com]

I highly doubt that anyone would think this comm is dead -- besides, if you have a question, you can always look at the info and see when the last post was made. But it would be made clear that the content was (mostly) f-locked, and to join for access.

If people are joining and copying fics elsewhere without author permission, that's an entirely other set of issues, and one I would happily deal with the massive amounts of banning. This isn't so much about keeping a singular identity safe, it's about keeping the fandom... quiet. I don't know how long you've been in fandom, but I've never, ever found a situation, in my 20+ odd years of fandoming, where it was good to be "outed" in general. It's like an unspoken thing -- people know it happens, but if you don't publicize it to the populace at large, it's better for everyone. It's like sharing fanfic with actors, you don't do it. So keeping the comm off the radar to a greater extent seems prudent to me, personally. There's nothing to stop anyone from posting and then making their posts public, if I do make the change.

Thanks for your input. I appreciate hearing all perspectives. :-)

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

I sometimes see comms that are locked that I do think are dead. I dont think everyone looks for the last updated date. But yes I know there are ways around it that we can show that the comm is alive.

I've been in fandom quite a while (although not as much as 20+ years) and I have friended on this journal (which my friends know about.. not sure about my family but I dont think any are on livejournal) many "questionable" comms that they would find weird or wrong.

I don't believe we should publicly out people (There is no reason to). But like I said to the commenter above if someone is having a real problem with keeping their identity safe from family/friends and wants to continue posting this content, they should really get an anonymous account and post. That way people can still remain happy and I think it'll keep their identities safe.

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

Er just want to add on: I agree with keeping the comm as private as we can (I was into the Dragonriders of Pern fandom, back before Anne made it legal for us to RP her world). I was just talking specifically of people trying to keep their identities safe.