Fan works and media classification

I am not sure if this is the best title for this thread because I know the issue encompasses more than just this particular subject but I guess I'll go with it for now.

Anyways, in this ATT thread, a question raised regarding how we should organize WebVideo.Dragon Ball Z Abridged^note  and by extension other "abridged" works within trope example lists. As mentioned on the linked ATT thread, this question has been asked multiple times in the past but we never reached a definitive answer.

I said that in my opinion, they belong in web video folder because they are under that namespace and I thought Fan Works were for miscellaneous and big fan work projects (when they aren't merged with Fan Fics). However, it was pointed out that Administrivia.Namespace states that WebVideo/ is for live action series only which obviously excludes abridged series based on animation (which makes up the majority of we have on the The Abridged Series index). So, does that mean that they should be in the Web Animation/ namespace? Youtube Poop and YTP's with their own pages in the Web Animation/ namespace even though they are also works that borrow elements preexisting footage so that might be another inconsistency but as we already know, our namespace classification system is a mess.

As an aside, I know I could have brought this up on the Media Namespace sticky thread but I thought it would be best to have a centralized discussion on this issue. I don't know if the thread will go anywhere or if anything will ever get resolved but let's see...

EDIT: I changed the title from "Web Video/ and Web Animation/ classification of fan works/abridged series" to "Fan Works media classification" to match the flow of conversation.

Edited by MacronNotes on May 19th 2022 at 2:32:16 PM

I don't really have an opinion on the Namespace issue but I personally think that all types of fan-made content should go in the Fan Works media category. The internet and society as a whole tend to recognize fan-made content separately from original content and many communities tend to get very uncomfortable with lumping Fan Works in with official media. We don't do that anywhere else on the site either Fan Works are always listed separately so I don't see why it should be different for Media Categories. The Fan Works media category exists for that very reason and this completely defeats its purpose.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 19th 2022 at 10:27:43 AM

1. Since all derivative works naturally have a medium, I'd opt to either not put works under Fan Works folder if they can fit other media category, or always put derivative works into Fan Works.

2. There's an inconsistency between the namespace and the index page.

From Web Video:

These are indexed as "Web Original — Fan Works — Fanvid". Yet all The Abridged Series are namespaced as Web Video/. These are neither Web Video Series (which also says it's for live-action) or Web Animation.

We may need a new namespace for Fan Vid works.

Edited by Amonimus on May 19th 2022 at 8:57:36 PM

I would like to fully understand why exactly you think they shouldn't be indexed under Fan Works if we are to suddenly say they aren't Fan Works under this situation that would defeat the entire purpose of the Fan Works category's existence. To separate fan-made content from official content, the fact that fan-made content can come in many different forms shouldn't really matter.

I did not say they shouldn't be indexed under Fan Works, I'm talking about folders in trope examples.

I've questioned why out of all distribution mediums, at Media Categories, Fan Works is the only one that really isn't a medium. Maybe my understanding of what is considered Media here is lacking, at least I know that Western Animation and Animation can't be merged because it's just too much to handle without 2.0.

I think an issue here is we're saying fan works or derivative works, but what we actually mean is 'works that violate copyright law'. Otherwise, we'd also have to include things like The Order of the Stick (Dungeons and Dragons fan comic), every modern adaptation of works in the public domain like Sherlock Holmes or Dracula, every Shakespeare play adaptation, etc. in the Fan Works folder.

And with that in mind, is 'works that violate copyright law' a distinct enough group to warrant lumping them together by that instead of medium? Personally, I don't think so. Things should just be sorted by namespace; it'd be less confusing for everyone.

Saying that it should only not be done under Media Categories feels like a distinction without a difference to me, if we are doing it in one part of the wiki we should do it on all of it no exceptions. If we were to go by this rule of thinking then Fanfic should be placed in the Literature Media Category but I know nobody is going to advocate doing that. Western Animation is actually a good example it's not a medium either but we separate it due to how the culture treats it and the same could apply to Fan Works.

It has always seemed weird to me that written Fanfic gets an entire separate namespace, while other forms of fanworks don't.

I would honestly personally rather all forms of fanfiction get their own namespace depending on the medium or just merged into a single FanWork/ namepsace.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 19th 2022 at 11:27:08 AM

"if we are doing it in one part of the wiki we should do it on all of it no exceptions", well, yes? I'd put Fanfics under Literature and merge Western Animation with Animation if I had power and server access, personally.

We have 44 media Namespaces, yet 25 acknowledged folders at Media Categories. Also, we list Web Serial Novel as Literature. This needs a revision since it's quite a mess, but that's beyond this topic.

I like the idea of having FanWork/ namespace, it would solve the concern quicker.

Edited by Amonimus on May 19th 2022 at 9:30:45 PM

Fanfics get their own namespace/folder because our media classification system is as much about commonality of fanbases and interests of readers as it is about actual mediums. People that want to read about classic literature or even official novels set in an Expanded Universe probably would throw fanfics in a Fan Work Ghetto and don't necessarily want to read about trope examples from them, even if they'd tolerate the exact same work with the Serial Numbers Filed Off. If there's a case to be made for video or game fanworks to be placed in their "proper" medium folder rather than under Fan Works it's that, in the former case, Web Video fanbases are probably more tolerant of fanworks as an art form and more inclined to read and follow them to begin with, while in the latter case, there's not as much distinction between a fangame based on an existing IP and a completely original game that may well be by the same creative team.

As for The Abridged Series, most fan works are trying to build on the original work in some way, either by telling their own story within the existing setting or in an Alternate Universe, and often expect the reader/viewer to be familiar with the original work. Abridged series, on the other hand, are just parodies of the original work, often retelling the original work with tongue planted firmly in cheek. This arguably makes them, in a way, more "original" than what we normally consider to be fan works, with more in common with Mystery Science Theater 3000 than the typical fanfic.

(As an aside, in light of the idiosyncrasies of our media classification system, how useful is the distinction between Web Video and Web Animation, at least in this day and age? It made more sense when web animation often took the form of Flash animations that were either self-hosted or hosted on sites like Newgrounds, but now it's all fed to the all-consuming YouTube, and with online audiences less susceptible to the Animation Age Ghetto or All Adult Animation Is South Park, there's not much distinction in audience or preferences. Frankly the splintering of the Web Original category happened right around the time the distinction between Web Video and Web Animation was losing whatever usefulness it might have had.)

That has basically never been my experience in the media community. Basically, every fandom is very against treating fan-made content the same as the original under any circumstances. This is especially true with Fan Games in my experience. Even if this doesn't apply to Web Video for some reason even though I have never seen those circles willing to tolerate fan-made content being put under the same banner as official works. There is other stuff like Fan Webcomics where much like Fanfiction people try and separate the official from the fan-made.

Yeah, the argument I've seen for separating fanfic is that people wouldn't want it next to legit books, especially for fanworks based on books. Okay, fine, whatever.

But what about web videos based on other web original content? Fan games based on other video games? Hell- Fanfic of fanfic? It definitely feels like there's a double standard here, or at least a massive oversight.

Yeah, that is essentially my point if that is the reason that people want it separated. And also adding on to that communities as a whole generally don't like Fan Works being grouped alongside original works in general. So I don't understand why we have this weird thing where we are sometimes only separating fanfic but leaving the rest scattered in whatever media category they are in.

We don't need to conform to what communities think, we have a few tropes that we didn't come up with but are defined differently here. What matters more is logic, convenience and consistency.

FanGames currently go as VideoGame/ and many as listed in Video Game trope folders.

Either we group all fan-content into Fan Works example categories and optionally move pages to FanWork/, or they're fine in their media of origin, that's the issue.

Edited by Amonimus on May 20th 2022 at 11:04:35 AM

Right, I don't care what we do, I just hate the inconsistency of it all.

Fan Games are more often listed in the Fan Works folder and are currently on the main Fan Works page, so I don't really see the point your making.

Grouping all Fan Works into the Fan Works media category would be much simpler and easier since that is what everyone thinks of when they are indexing a Fan Work of any kind. We would be following consistency by doing this as well since we list Fan Works separately literally everywhere else.

Let's face it we are never going to convince the wiki to list fanfics in the Literature media category so it would be better to remain consistent by grouping all fan-content in the Fan Works media category.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 20th 2022 at 1:15:22 AM

"are more often listed in the Fan Works" is not what I saw at brief glance, which is closely why the thread was made in the first place. Perhaps this needs a wick check.

"we are never going to convince the wiki", we've never tried as far as I know. I don't think there's anything to face yet if only 3-5 people have ever discussed it.

Edited by Amonimus on May 20th 2022 at 11:18:28 AM

It would be more accurate to say that "fan games are put in fan works folders on some pages and video game folders in others". I see enough people put fan games into video game folders (sometimes improperly indented under the source work even) to know that there is enough confusion to warrant it being addressed.

As for the Literature/Fanfic merge thing, I do know at least one person who's for the merger and I know that there are others that would support it as well. We just haven't had an in depth discussion about it (at least in recent years). I don't know how I feel about that but I do want more consistency. That said, I rather wait until 2.0 comes (if that happens) than have us make any major namespace decisions.

I am more interested in seeing if there's anything we can do about how The Abridged Series is namespaced because they are clearly in the wrong namespace (unless we decide to broaden our definition of Web Video) + it's a relatively smaller issue to solve in scale (going by the number of pages that would be affected).

Web Original is a lot of things and still widely used on trope pages, it would be easy to keep The Abridged Series wicks under "Web Original" folder and leave bigger fanworks/namespace discussions for later.

That seems to be the simplest solution for now.

If people are willing to support moving The Abridged Series out of Fan Works as policy and nothing else for now I might be okay with that due to the rather odd situation with these where they are more parodies rather than created for the fans.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 20th 2022 at 9:37:30 AM

For myself, I'm very much in favour of filing fan-works under their respective media-namespaces.

After all, a work isn't a fundamentally different thing for being made using elements that someone else created—a fan-fic is still a written story; a fan-game is still a video-game; a fan-song is still music; and so on.

It makes no good sense to me to separate "fan-fic" from "official work" in a wiki such as this.

I don't see a compelling reason to think that it's impossible.

As to communities ubiquitously wanting fan-works separated from official, I wonder whether that idea doesn't conflate two different things: On the one hand, a desire to know what is "official" or "canonical" as opposed to "fan-fic", and on the other hand, a desire to categorise "fan-fics" and "official works" as separate types of work.

The former I can very much see being true of fan-communities at large. The latter I'm dubious about.

And it seems to me that it's the latter that we're discussing here, not the former.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 20th 2022 at 9:37:35 PM

There have been multiple previous discussions on this topic. We should not keep bringing it up without referencing those discussions or we'll relitigate the same points every time.

"As to communities ubiquitously wanting fan-works separated from official, I wonder whether that idea doesn't conflate two different things: On the one hand, a desire to know what is "official" or "canonical" as opposed to "fan-fic", and on the other hand, a desire to categorise "fan-fics" and "official works" as separate types of work."

That too feels like a Distinction Without a Difference, if communities as a whole (which includes TV Tropes) want fanfic separated from canonical that would also apply when talking about what media categories apply. Even single Fan Work is based on something after all. The argument for separating Fanfic has always been people do not want official works listed alongside their fanfiction the same would be true, especially since things like Fan Games are often based on Video Games.