Why is SGA fandom so segregated?

[trinityofone]

lavvyan! I got your package! Thank you so much, it's gorgeous. (To curious parties: it's a piece of papyrus with the Ancient Egyptian calendar on it.) Actually, the tube it came in is gorgeous, too. But I really want to try to get it framed. And this Treed Murray poster, which I keep saying I should treat myself to. (Hey, I have a new apartment and a new office to decorate here!) There has to be a cheap frame shop in existence somewhere...right?

I am incredibly, incredibly tired today. I was exhausted yesterday, and couldn't even make it through The Daily Show before I crashed. This is bad. I thought I was adjusting to my new work schedule, but I guess I'm not. Is there any way to train yourself to need less sleep?

One thing that has almost kept me energized has been the response to the SGA Bulwer-Lytton Contest. There are so many awesome and hysterical entries, it's going to be killer to choose. So I think I'll pick my--15? Is that how many entries an LJ poll allows?--my 15 or so favorites and let people vote on the Grand Prize Winner. Unless anybody has wild objections, I'll put that up tomorrow.

Like I said, the response has been incredible, and I've seen some new names (by which I mean: people I don't know, even by association, not "people who don't usually comment here"), which is always cool. But--and please correct me if I'm wrong--I still seem to be attracting mostly McKay/Sheppard people, or at least mostly slash people. Which in general makes sense, because hey, I write McKay/Sheppard, I talk about McKay/Sheppard, most of my friends are into McKay/Sheppard. As far as I'm concerned, McKay/Sheppard is for yay.

BUT. I like other pairings, too (my other fandom interest could possibly be described as McKay/women), and I think at least a little cross-pairing pollination is to be encouraged. My last fandom was BtVS/AtS, and it was wild, man. I mean, I started out a Spuffy shipper (Shut up! Their love was pure snarky and hot! At least before it became canon, anyway) but I liked the slash a lot (Buffydom was where I really grew to be comfortable with slash) and I wrote and read some of pretty much everything. It was all mixed.

Why is SGA so much more segregated? I mean, I don't think this is entirely a bad thing--I don't want my flist flooded with Sheppard/Weir stories, and I doubt the Sheppard/Weir shippers want a gazillion McKay/Sheppard stories on their friends pages, either. But is it just me, or is it extremely hard to organize activities that include all sides of fandom? Take reel_sga. The response to that has been great...but as pairings go, not very diverse. In terms of my personal reading habits, that's fine, but I had kind of hoped that there'd be more pairings represented. And maybe there still will be. That would be cool.

(Speaking of one nice bit of pairing diversity, I really loved this reel_sga entry: McKay/Ford art by deani_bean. It's the tie thing. That's awesome, and that transcends OTP-loyalty [and I say this as someone who is mockably OTPish at times]. Which is cool, no?)

Anyway, the Bulwer-Lytton thing is different, because of course it is not pairing-centric: it's mostly about mocking style and usage, although certain tropes have been fun to mock, too. It's about bad writing, but it's also about amusing and clever writing, and seeing what you can do in the space of a sentence. That's something everybody can appreciate, right?

So I guess what I'm wondering is, where are the het shippers? (Again, please correct me if they're around and I've just been too dumb to notice.) And I just don't mean, why aren't they here, responding to this--what is here is awesome, and I'm not like, demanding more people participate, omg. I just mean, I've been in this fandom for almost a year now--how have we managed not to interact at all? Of course, part of this may be me--I'm certainly not trolling john_elizabeth, because why would I want to? So I'm also not saying, "Sheppard/Weir peeps! Why aren't you over at mckay_sheppard? We've got a hot tub, come hang out!" Because seriously, why would they want to? But the fact that there's little-to-no crossover is just astonishing to me.

Maybe it's just that we have a situation that's more like X-Files fandom than Buffydom. Back in the old days, I was rabid about MSR, and I just didn't go anywhere near the slash. (Or Scully/Skinner, or whatever else there was.) I can't remember very well, but I think I was actively afraid of those unfamiliar corners of the net, and that included any of the projects "those people" may have been involved in. Of course, I think this may have had MUCH more to do with the fact that I was 14 than with my shipping preferences, but could there possibly be some connection? What I'd like to know is, do most people on the het end of fandom see even a name associated with slash and immediately go, "Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!"? Which, I hasten to say, would be totally their right. But I realize, I don't even know anyone over there that I could ask.

I'm not saying that there needs to be some sort of cross-ship dialogue, because I think those things tend to end in angry glaring at best. Possibly, just ignoring each other is the best way to avoid conflict, and I'm all for avoiding conflict. I'm just surprised there isn't some sort of neutral zone, some shaded area at the center of the Giant Venn Diagram of Fandom Life. Why do you think that is?

Comments

[veracity]

I read it was meaning that if you look, the newsletter has a "McKay/Sheppard" slash area and then a "various slash" variety. And the het is usually woefully small compared to McKay/Sheppard. It's not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation, at least from my perspective at least.

If the mods (editors, whatever they're called in the fandom) were to read more diverse pairings and show it as such by reccing, it would be a more fandom-specific instead of mod-specific list. Again, not criticism, just what I got from her statement. Please note I'm coming from the HP fandom newletters that were pretty big and a very specific for their purposes (Longbottom, Daily Snitch, Hogwarts Today, etc), and so that might be messing with my perceptions of the statement as well.

[veracity]

Well, I don't think it's a recletter persay, but if they're all traveling in the same circles, it's hard to come up with other alternatives to link. Again, I might be slightly more skewed after looking at the HP fandom's newsletters as well. It was basically the same people continously praising each other, so I might be a tad biased.

The division of links makes a lot of sense, but it in some ways it divides too. Like "McShep and everything else." I'm sure it's not intentional, and as I said, makes a lot of sense. It just kinda sets up a division. I don't mind it, personally. I read pretty much everything linked if I find the summary interesting. Well, except Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla. Again, more of my HP fandom experiences biting me in the butt. I don't want to get back into the pull and tug type thing. Probably why I'm a multishipper too, then I have a more diverse reading base, and less chance of getting pulled into a "my OTP is better than yours!" debacle.

I'm pretty new too. Since Memorial Day, so...that's what? Less than three months, and I've only started really looking for things on my own recently (though I did find the Teylafen community through the newsletter, so that was a plus). It's a matter of trial and error. Plus, meta and things like this give me links to more place to check out (like the McKay/Cadman community I didn't know existed) and dip another toe into.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Actually its not a recletter at all in any say. :)

And its actually quite easy to find alternatives we can link to outside our own personal friendslists and interests. We use a reader list for the newsletter in which we friended all the big communities and quite a few of the smaller ones (http://sga-reader.livejournal.com/profile) and we will link to every fanfic posted to any of these communities.

Also, our thought behind excluding McKay/Sheppard from the slash category and giving it its own was a practical one allowing for better readability for all involved. After all, I think a lot of people would be unhappy if we were to have a slash category that was 90% McKay/Sheppard and them having through it before they find what they are looking for.

And again, our motto can basically be boiled down to: We don't chose what to include; we link!

[veracity]

*nods* I understand that. Which is why I said that. Hell, I use the newsletter all the time to find finds and the like. It wasn't a criticism, just my interpretation of the statement made.

[saeva.livejournal.com]

Veracity had it someone on the head. It isn't but it often behaves like one. I don't think this is really intentional but -- Okay.

The editors link a) what they see and b) what's sent to them. They, being of certain tastes, see certain things when just looking on their own (read: it better be John/Flanigan or Rodney/Hewlett centric). What's linked (or, rather, e-mailed, which makes people less likely to do it than if they could just link in comments like with metafandom) to them is a relatively small portion of what they post every day however. Mostly, it's what they see.

And because of that McShep stuff especially gets put up immediately and in logical places, whereas the "het" stuff is across the board. Sometimes it shows up three days late, or not at all, or labelled with the wrong pairing or put into "fanfic uncategorized" when it was het or uncategorized when it was gen.

It's not a recletter but the editors don't seem to go out of their way to make it anything but what they see on their flists with their interests, so it's not really a LJ-fandom Stargate: Atlantis newsletter either.

It's not obvious, really, and I hesitate to make claims even now. But it's little things. The delays, the lack of branching out into the het communities that, you know, do exist in fairly significant numbers. The fact that if you icon Teyla and other characters (not John, Rodney, or John/Rodney) more often than not, even if you do a LOT of SGA graphics, your posts tend to be overlooked.

Little things that show a bias that the newsletter doesn't admit to but most people who I know who don't ship McShep (regardless of what they do ship if they ship at all) believe exists.

- Andrea.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your thoughtful post in all of this.

I'd just like to add on behalf of the newsletter staff:

1) Comments are in fact turned on and screened.

2) YES! We welcome everyone who is sending us links. We might not always have the time to respond or say thank you but we always appreciate the help.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Hee, I am that mamoru (don't tell anyone though, I am trying to hide that *g*) so thank you very much for your praise. :)

and yeah, on the two points you made. We will think of a way to get that information across and if we actually ever figure out how to autoresponse emails we will totally do that.

and OMG hungry....had to watch SGA and no time to eat but food....*goes off to hunt for something edible*.

[saeva.livejournal.com]

For me the problem with screened links is similar to the problem with emailing, though less so.

First, I didn't realize you even allow comments now since the userinfo still instructs people to email (and maybe I'm the only person who reads the userinfo *laughs*). And another commentor had it head on there: people on LJ hate going off LJ. I'll use it as a last resort but if it's an LJ newsletter for LJ fandom then it feels very weird to email editors about something that isn't, like, a problem I wouldn't want to air in public.

Still, with screened commenting the same issue sort of arises for me (and I bet others) in that we can't see what you're chosing not to include from what gets commented. Which is probably nothing, but I come from fandoms with newsletters where that wouldn't be true and I'm sure others do too.

But, honestly, having been given the list of what you are watching I suddenly have much less annoyance than I did yesterday. There's a method to what I -- and others, really -- have been noticing. So, if you don't mind, I have a few suggestions:

1) Link to sga_reader somewhere obvious so that others can see what you're watching and maybe even make suggestions. This de-mystifies the process a lot, you know?

2) My major issue with the list for a long time was that icons of people who post Stargate stuff pretty regularly were being ignored and I couldn't understand why. Now I know: you're not actually watching any communities exclusively for icon posting like stargate_icons or atlantis_icons.

You might want to do that (for both, since the former gets atlantis icons that aren't crossposted to atlantis_icons) *laughs*. Just as a suggestion.

3) The feeling that myself and others have been getting is that very often the fic that is being linked to ends up in weird categories a few days later than it should (by should I mean, X McKay/Sheppard fic is posted in M/S category that day; X gen fic ends up in Fanfic Uncategorized two days after it's posted). This happens often enough that a few people who read both M/S and non-M/S have noticed and that's where a lot of my commenting is coming from.

I don't really have a concrete suggestion because I don't know what's behind that (though I don't believe it to be intentional). So, perhaps you could just be aware that some people have been noticing and that it gives the newsletter than unintentional feeling of bias.

(I mean, to be completely honest, you remember the April Fool's joke? There were not a few people who, before they worked out that was a joke, were really happy with an idea like that because --

Well, truthfully, what the fandom really needs is a newsletter for McKay/Sheppard and one for everything else, especially as it gets bigger. But since that's not happening and I wish I had the time and energy to help with the newsletter (I really do but I'm overtaxed as is), well, I'd just like to say that I'm not the only one who feels that way and none of the people I know who do are anti-McShep on principle so it isn't that bias.

Uh, this is sort of a reply to all your comments, but I'm glad this dialogue was open. And not all of this is fair to you -- some of it has to do with previous fandoms and previous newsletters all around. But you do seem sort of unapproachable, as a whole, with the emailing and the screening, etc. in a way, say, metafandom (which also has a bias, I'll be the first to admit) isn't.

Hmm. And sorry if some of this doesn't make the most sense. I'm still recovering from a hospital stay.

- Andrea.

[trobadora]

we can't see what you're chosing not to include from what gets commented

We didn't realise people weren't aware they could comment, but never in the history of the newsletter have we ever ignored any links sent to us by any method. The disclaimer we included in the profile was solely for posts we felt had nothing to do with SGA.

We do feel bad about the fact that we can't talk more to all the people helping us out by sending us links - that isn't because don't want to, but simply because we don't have the time. There are only so many hours in a day.

Screened comments don't mean we're not listening - it just means we're talking in private so people can, for example, self-pimp without feeling awkward about it.

Sorry we seem to have missed two of the icon communities. Most of us watch those comms independently, and as with every other community we may sometimes have missed posts. There's certainly no intent behind it at all. We'll add them to the reader now.

The feeling that myself and others have been getting is that very often the fic that is being linked to ends up in weird categories a few days later than it should (by should I mean, X McKay/Sheppard fic is posted in M/S category that day; X gen fic ends up in Fanfic Uncategorized two days after it's posted). This happens often enough that a few people who read both M/S and non-M/S have noticed and that's where a lot of my commenting is coming from.

This is simply not true. As we already explained, we link everything as soon as we see it and put it into categories according to what the authors provide. The best way to ensure posts end up where they are supposed to be is to make sure the authors include the information in the header.

Well, truthfully, what the fandom really needs is a newsletter for McKay/Sheppard and one for everything else, especially as it gets bigger.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Didn't you ask for an unbiased newsletter designed to unite fandom? I don't see how more segregation is supposed to accomplish that.

But since that's not happening and I wish I had the time and energy to help with the newsletter (I really do but I'm overtaxed as is), well, I'd just like to say that I'm not the only one who feels that way and none of the people I know who do are anti-McShep on principle so it isn't that bias.

We want to make the best newsletter possible and are willing and happy to accept constructive criticism about how to improve the newsletter. If you don't have the time yourself, perhaps you could pass this on to your friends, and maybe one of them can help us out.

[saeva.livejournal.com]

See, now there's contradicting information. You say you "missed" two icon communities -- THE two big icon posting communities for the fandom in question, which is a weird thing to miss but okay. Only then you say that many of your editors watch the comms themselves (but not part of sga_reader) so obviously you didn't "miss" them, you just didn't include them on sga_reader.

And mamoru says that editors *don't* use what they personally watch, on their flists, to collect links, so the fact the editors may or may not have stargate_icons on their flists has nothing to do with the newsletter.

Which adds up to: you're aware of the communities but chose not to include them to sga_reader and when this comes to light accidentally you claim you "missed" them.

You see how it doesn't seem to really add up?

I wasn't interested in making accusations and I'm still not. Running a newsletter is time consuming and difficult, something I'm well aware of, and things are going to fall through the cracks. Given the tastes of the editors things are naturally going to fall through certain cracks more than other ones, which is not an accusation so much as how brains work. You notice what you're interested in more.

To clear up where I seemed to be contradictory, I'll say here:

I think that the best thing for the fandom, as it grows, is for a newsletter to be run through the McShep OTPers focusing on that ship (because of the sheer amount of volume) and a separate one dealing with the other stuff. The non-McShep meta, non-McShep fic, non-McShep graphics. That would be ideal to me because as the fandom grows larger and a newsletter gets more difficult to maintain it's going to be the smaller factions which suffer neglect first (and reasonably so, because a newsletter should appeal to as wide an audience as possible).

In lieu of that happening (since I don't see it happening unless a group of multishippers, who tend to feel unwelcome in this fandom in the first place, step up and make a separate newsletter), then I'd like a more intergrated newsletter, yes. Or at least one where the categorization seems to make sense.

To use my own examples, I posted a fic to sga_flashfic which was labelled "John Sheppard." It ended up in fanfic uncategorized for reasons I don't understand. In the same period of time, you were watching teylafen (according to your reader list) and I did a fic for the ficathon which was labelled, on the masterlist, as gen. It also ended up in fanfic uncategorized, for reasons I don't understand.

Both times a gen/character fic, which was labelled as such, ended up in fanfic uncategorized.

That's the sort of thing that has me confused, honestly, right there. I didn't mean to make a fight of this. I'm not accusing you. I'm just pointing out what I noticed and have been noticing. That's all.

- Andrea.

[trobadora]

I'm sorry if it wasn't clear - the reading journal is the basis for the newsletter, but that doesn't mean we don't put in things we see elsewhere. What comes from elsewhere is just a bonus, though, and there's no system behind including anything else. But since there is some overlap between the reading list and our personal flists we don't always remember where we saw what. That's what I figure must have happened with the icon comms - we did obviously miss putting those comms on the reading journal, but didn't notice because we see them elsewhere.

As for mislabeling things, sometimes we make mistakes, and the one labeled "gen" certainly shouldn't have ended up anywhere but under "gen"! I'm truly sorry. The other, if I understand you right, wasn't labeled gen, but only gave a character name. It could still have been het or slash, just focused on Sheppard and not a specific pairing - I've certainly seen that before. Please understand we're very reluctant to make guesses about what an author might have meant when it's not completely clear to us.

And personally, I wouldn't like restricted newsletters like you're suggesting. Never seeing what happened in the rest of fandom? I don't want to be secluded like that, and I suspect separate newsletters would only give the impression that there were two (or more) mutually exclusive sides of fandom that didn't talk to each other, even more than the separate communities already do. That's just my own preference, though - if enough people want separate newsletters, I'm sure as the fandom grows someone will step up and make some.

[saeva.livejournal.com]

I only prefer the idea of a separate newsletter because of the issue of volume -- not because I think they should be separated. I will, personally, read anything that strikes my interest, regardless of main character, pairing, etc. so I use the McShep links as much as the other links.

I come from the HP fandom where, though it took much wanking, they sort of came to a balance about such things and so that's influencing me a lot. The existence of multiple letters in HP doesn't create a sense of exclusion, just cleans things up a bit so it's easier to find the information you want. In the same manner, two newsletter posts a day: one with McShep, one with everything else, would serve the exact same purpose.

But I can see how you wouldn't want that, because it might encourage some people, especially OTPers, to stick only to their own tastes and ignore everything else. I get what you mean about segration, I really do, just coming from HP that's not where my mind went.

I'll also admit that up until now I didn't find any of the editors very approachable as we don't run in the same circles and you *seemed* to be heavily pushing the e-mail option (one I, and apparently others, are not comfortable with).

That being said, with the inclusion of stargate and atlantis_icons on the reader list I'm actually quite satisified, if only because it's nice to feel I've been listened to and that you are approachable. I imagine it really was just an oversight of accident and one that's been causing me some frustration for awhile; I only wish I'd spoken up sooner and less accidentally. (I really was only making some observations; they weren't intended as allegations.)

To Trin, sorry about this mess on your LJ. I tend to say things that I don't realize will be significant until far too late.

Also to Trin: Do you know the stereotype that slashers are better organized because they had to be? SGA is a fandom that has collected a lot -- a LOT -- of old school slashers, people who were around for The Sentinel and Star Trek: The Next Generation and earlier shows where you hid the slash and you organized yourself because no one else would.

So, in part, if these slashers are the ones organizing things that's who's being collected as well in organized events (reel_sga might not be organized by old school slashers but... it's the sort of thing that would be). Combine that with the dominance (relatively) of the McShep ship -- SGA isn't quite a one ship fandom but it's a One Huge Ship and a Few Big Ships and everyone else as a fandom -- and you have your answer, I think.

It's just a matter of who's there to organize and what they're organizing, you know?

- Andrea.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about how we do our work each day so I would just like to clear up some of the misconceptions you might have:

- The editors link a) what they see
We link what is being posted in any of the big communities across the board. None of us use their personal friendslist when searching for stuff to include (which doesn't mean that we never include anything that we so on our friendslists but as editors we solely rely on out reading journal which again, you can find here: http://sga-reader.livejournal.com/profile

-b) what's sent to them.
Very much true.

-or, rather, e-mailed, which makes people less likely to do it than if they could just link in comments like with [info]metafandom
Actually, I find it difficult to understand why many people seem to find it easier writing a comment than an email but since this has been brought to our attention before we have allowed comments for a very long time now.

-And because of that McShep stuff especially gets put up immediately and in logical places, whereas the "het" stuff is across the board.
This is simply incorrect. We put up the stuff when we see it posted on the communities and solely rely on the pairing information porvided by the author.

-or put into "fanfic uncategorized" when it was het or uncategorized when it was gen.
If no pairing information is given we will put the fic into the uncategoried section. This happens to McKay/Sheppard fic without label as much as it does to any other.
It might come as a surprise that a)we can't read everything we link and b)we might even have made mistakes before. In these cases we fix whatever is being pointed out to us as soon as we have the time.

-the editors don't seem to go out of their way to make it anything but what they see on their flists
This is simply *not* correct and I have to point out that whatever your intention behind making that claim, I feel its a disrespect of all the hard work we put into creating something as neutral and diverse as possible.

Believe me, if we would not go out of our way every single day to include stuff that is not on our friendslist the newsletter would be much shorter than it is now.

-The delays, the lack of branching out into the het communities that, you know, do exist in fairly significant numbers.
We would be grateful if you could just send us a list of all the important het communities we are apparently missing on our reading journal so that we will be able to provide a better service to the community at large.

-The fact that if you icon Teyla and other characters (not John, Rodney, or John/Rodney) more often than not, even if you do a LOT of SGA graphics, your posts tend to be overlooked.
I would really be interested in knowing where you get that impression because I am actually not a very graphic savy person and most of the time don't even really look at any of the icons we are linking (as there are so many of them many days).

[anjak-j.livejournal.com]

I feel compelled to stand up for the newsletter here, since I did once consider volunteering to help with it, but was ultimately unable. The amount of work that goes into that for people to actually have the cheek to complain about it...I'd like to say it's unbelievable, but this is SGA as a fandom...

The claims that are being made about bias are quite simply untrue. There will always be more McShep posts, quite simply because there is a hell of a lot more of it out there. And to be fair, the people creating it can only pull in that which they know about - if people don't post their stuff to comms in their reading list, and people don't actually promote their comms, how the hell are they supposed to find things? Quite simply, if you want your shit out there for all to read / view, then get it out there in places where it will be seen.

As someone who runs a general art comm for SGA, I've never had a problem with the coverage our community gets from the newsletter. They get our challenges up pretty much in the next available letter and have even made the members aware of the banners being posted up.

[zyna-kat.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't know it was a recletter.

It isn't. It links to all the stories they find (or are reported), good or bad. If het fans feel as though they're being underrepresented, then perhaps they should step up and contact the folks behind the newsletter.

The SGA newsletter tries to be very egalitarian, and, imo, it succeeds. Is it possible SGA_newsletter is biased? Sure. It's also possible that the people complaining about the newsletter bias are just as biased in their own view.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Actually you seem to have a better understanding of what the newsletter does than one or two of our regular readers seem to have. :)

We don't rec anything, we just link what's there.

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd like to point out that the only reason for why we have a seperate category for McKay/Sheppard is a practical one. The sheer amount of McKay/Sheppard stories that are being posted any given day onto the communities we read (which includes all het, gen and slash communities we could find) is simply so much larger than *any* other pairing in the fandom. In order to keep the newsletter reader friendly we simply had to seperate the McKay/Sheppard slash from all else.

As soon as we will find any other pairing with even half as many stories a day we will of course also include a special area just for that pairing.

Also, we are everything but a reclist. Most days each editor can read not even everything within the pairing they are interested in nor would we have the time to actually create a reclist of everything that is in fandom.

We do try every single time we do the newsletter to be as diverse as the postings to the 136 communities we read each day allow us to be.

[veracity]

To respond a bit from the other. I completely understand, and as I said, I'm coming from the HP fandom, where the newsletters felt more like a circle jerk more than a service. It makes sense to separate the McKay/Sheppard than the other, it's just a matter of a first look at the newsletter and being new to fandom. That was a bit disconcerting for the first weeks, but once I had been in fandom for that time, I figured out why it was done that way.