I think you are right that the OTW doesn't want you defending them ;o) mainly because if they become too associated in the fannish mind with anything political/social issue related, fandom will wander off elsewhere. I suspect they may have already gone too far down that route, but then I have only really heard of them via metafandom style posts and those by definition are concerned with the more ideologically aware branches of fandom.
If they can pitch themselves as just a big new archive, fandom may be interested, and may then pick up on some of the other things they are offering in passing. Most of fandom will be willing to at least investigate them if there is a chance of picking up more readers.
Otherwise they will end up just representing those few fans who like talking about gender/race/sexuality/whatever issues, and everyone else will just ignore them. Nothing wrong with that, of course, if that is what they want then good luck to them, but it won't have much to do with fandom and it certainly won't be providing anything fandom needs.
But a good open-source, adaptable piece of archive software - now that fandom really would benefit from. So if they are providing that then good for them.
For myself, I will continue to write for myself, post for the readership I am in the mood to post for, and don't really see how OTW will ever be relevant to my life.
Oh, by the way, I have taken a vow to stop trying to talk about gender/race/sexuality etc. issues online since they just make me upset and in the case of the race discussions last year actually made me considerably more racist (which naturally is not something I welcome). Hence I'm sorry but I won't reply to the two comments you replied to this morning - please understand that is not anything personal against you.
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Date: 2008-01-13 12:58 pm (UTC)If they can pitch themselves as just a big new archive, fandom may be interested, and may then pick up on some of the other things they are offering in passing. Most of fandom will be willing to at least investigate them if there is a chance of picking up more readers.
Otherwise they will end up just representing those few fans who like talking about gender/race/sexuality/whatever issues, and everyone else will just ignore them. Nothing wrong with that, of course, if that is what they want then good luck to them, but it won't have much to do with fandom and it certainly won't be providing anything fandom needs.
But a good open-source, adaptable piece of archive software - now that fandom really would benefit from. So if they are providing that then good for them.
For myself, I will continue to write for myself, post for the readership I am in the mood to post for, and don't really see how OTW will ever be relevant to my life.
Oh, by the way, I have taken a vow to stop trying to talk about gender/race/sexuality etc. issues online since they just make me upset and in the case of the race discussions last year actually made me considerably more racist (which naturally is not something I welcome). Hence I'm sorry but I won't reply to the two comments you replied to this morning - please understand that is not anything personal against you.