Fan the fanlib flames

No links, no free press.

I have spent too much time this evening (when not making quiches, mmm, quiche lorraine) surfing around the links to kerfuffles regarding fanlib.com. This is the brainchild of people with Too Much Money and not enough savvy about fandom, not in the slightest, no way. The ads are ludricous and obviously aimed at what they think is their target audience - ergo, I find them WEIRD and ODD and somewhat EWWWW. The TOS is in no way satisfactory to anyone who wants to feel safe - they assume, apparently, that there are no people with knowledge of publishing in fandom (wrong! there are published authors in fandom) or maybe they are hoping the Barnum Principle is in their favor (there’s a fool born every minute). Or maybe they’ll just think they can bluff through all the flack - and there is lots of flack flying about. My favorite volley is in Lizbee’s livejournal.

They show no clue about the internet culture - spamming people with invites to join their community, and being all reassuring and cuddly without saying anything to satisfy anyone’s concerns about the TOS. Thinking they can get snippy in public, which is, anywhere Google can reach you. And it reaches. LJ is only the best rumor mill online.

It’s gone up at Making Light (blog by editors at TOR) as one of those funny sorts of things that happen on teh intarwebs for us to poke with a stick and laugh at. And indeed it is.

I’ll stay over here in the corner, thanks, guys. Have fun with your three million dollar website and the few thousand angry fen you’ve pissed off - hope you have a great firewall, some of those wacky fen have mighty geek-fu and less funded sites have been hacked for less reason.