Disclaimer problems at FA/Schnoogle.

[jlh]

Okay, I'm going to try to make this as low-wank as I possibly can. I have my written comps in less than two weeks and I honestly don't have much time, energy, or brain space to spend on this.

As many of you know, a little while ago FA changed fic databases—switched servers or something; I don't remember exactly what they did technically. Apparently there is a bug in the display of the Author Notes and Disclaimers at FA; this notice is displayed when you look at your story management page. I would hope that good faith will keep the searchers away, but given the current state of things I am incredibly pessimistic. By the way, anonymous comments are screened and IP addresses logged on this journal.

ETA: Sorry everyone. No one being around and having my exam looming is making me intensely paranoid. I am probably going to wander off until after I get back from vacation. See you in September. If anything is important please email me.

Comments

[theoblack.livejournal.com]

hey Clio. I was wondering. Have you ever written any fiction (not fan fic)? To date I myself have written on play, started like two things and wrote two fics and have only showed the one play to people.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

ha, I was just commenting on your entry!

I never wrote fiction until I started writing fanfic. When I was younger I didn't think I could write fiction. It seemed like people who wrote were like Cassie or Jaida, and had been writing stories since they were six or something, and it wasn't something you could start doing at the ripe old age of 16 or 19. However, I've been writing critical essays forever, you know, the kind of media criticism that I put on my journal all the time. At one point I thought about trying to be a movie critic but I think academia is probably more my speed. My creative outlet when I was in school was singing and playing music.

I have one very short original erotic story, but I've been writing erotica since I was about 14. Most of it is lost now because it was pretty silly, and though I didn't know what it was at the time, it was typical teenage self-insertion boy band fanfic about me, my friend and Duran Duran.

I think writing a play is very cool though!

[scrabble.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's necessary to attribute the chapter titles to Beatles songs. For one, it's obvious, and two, you see this sort of thing in in published fiction frequently. As well as published music, come to think - there's a song somewhere called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, for instance, and a book called You Know You Should Be Glad.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You'd think it was obvious, but I'm just waiting for someone to say, "But not everyone knows the Beatles, wibble." Because that is what is going around. And given that the plagiarism has moved on to Heidi and Ebony, I'd rather not leave anything undone.

It's a mess, is what it is.

[scrabble.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have clearly missed some scandal here.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

The latest multi-part expose at bad_penny is about Cassie and plagiarism. Go read it; this isn't just about the Pamela Dean thing but also anything she quoted from anyplace.

Meanwhile many posts have been written talking about plagiarism and what needs to be disclaimed and what doesn't. While most people have landed in the middle, around what I believe, which is that stray quotes should be disclaimed with the source in the author notes at the top or bottom of the fic, some are saying that any allusion to any source other than the canon of the fanfic should be disclaimed because the writer can't assume that anyone knows their Hitchcock/Beatles/Poe.

Last night the expose moved on to Heidi and Ebony. It also called for MLA-style citations which I don't think anyone is making at this time. While the mod said "To get an expose like this or msscribe's, a person actually has to have done something ethically or legally wrong. Just being an idiot, arrogant, or saying things people don't like will not cut it," (http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/11176.html?thread=2940072#t2940072) one cannot help but wonder who is deciding what is "ethically wrong," given that there are plenty of people in this fandom who think that comma splices, for example, are a criminal offense.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Just resubmit your fic, and put the additional disclaimers at the top or bottom of the file itself, rather than using the buggy form. The beauty of the new system (although yes, flawed in some ways) is that you can fix a lot of problems yourself this way.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

This entry wasn't about criticizing the form. In all honesty this entry was about covering my ass before the vultures descend, and warning others who, like me, felt safe because they'd put in their disclaimers in the first place. However, I don't have time to find the html files and put things into them and put them in the queue until at least after my exam, and two weeks plus ten days equals too long for these people I'm sure, who would assign nefarious reasons for my delay rather than that I have a very important exam coming up.

Also, do disclaimers at the bottom still count these days? Apparently they're now calling for MLA citations. Bummer that my school calls for Chicago.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Ah, I thought you were saying that you felt stuck with the broken disclaimers, since you didn't want to bother anyone to fix them. So I was just pointing out that this is something you can fix yourself, by reuploading your stories with the disclaimers in-file, not in-form.

Also, do disclaimers at the bottom still count these days?

Uh, count how? I can't think why they wouldn't.

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, I'd only read the first few parts of the plagiarism thing on bad_penny, mainly because I actually think it got a bit boring. The author could have made the entire case in about one page -- there's nothing to prove. That issue's been discussed in fandom for five years, it's not like this is some huge expose. But now I'm going back and reading it, and it's really aggravating me for one reason: I cannot agree with this assumption that seems to be at the core of the author's argument, which is that it is not acceptable to incorporate other works into your fanfiction. I am with her that specific quotes should be documented thoroughly in the disclaimer -- though, like you, I'm in the center on that one; I don't think any reference (not quoted) needs to be documented, and I also understand that people can miss some of them, and that's because they're human -- but I dislike the idea that to use other quotes, even with documentation, is wrong. That's what she seems to be implying. And I utterly disagree, because
I feel the very idea of fanfiction implies that we can mix universes and have some fun, because we are freed from the restraints that govern traditional fiction. And her whole "WE MUST HAVE MLA-STYLE CITATIONS!" thing I just cannot agree with.

And yeah, your warning doesn't really apply to me, but thanks for the general heads-up nonetheless.

(And I'm sorry if you'd rather I hadn't addressed the wank on this post, I know you generally try to stay out of wank, so you can delete or screen this comment if you'd like. It was just my general impressions on a certain part of it.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it wasn't Avocado/white_serpent who made the MLA remark, but pyrate jenni. Though it is still deeply, deeply silly.

I know you generally try to stay out of wank

You know, it's funny. I do, and because of that very, very strange things happen when my friends get wanked, which I may or may not post about at some point. But it's nice to know that people notice. ^_^ Anyway, don't worry about it; I certainly brought the wank into this post, by posting.

[tartpants.livejournal.com]

Good luck on your comp exams, dear!