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Fandom sharing and privacy
Let's just. Anyway, it's March now! March again.
I am officially on the federal grand jury now. The 'alternate' thing lasted less than a week, somebody else managed to weasel out really fast. I can't really talk about it though! So that's going to be a big thing in my life for the next year+ that I can't talk about. (I think it's going to be a good experience though, I'm glad I could do it, and for all the long commitment much less stress than a petit jury.)
Let's talk about not talking about things instaed!
I had the impression that - at least in my DW-y corner of fandom - there was a pretty standard ethic of respecting other people's level of comfort with being public about their fanstuff, and that I was more or less aligned with it. But I keep stumbling over things and going 'oh…. I guess that's not as universal as I thought.' So I've been meaning to talk about this anyway.
I had to sort of codify my own ethical feelings on this a bit when I did the big recs project! What was my line on stuff it was OK to rec and not OK to rec? When am I 'breaking privacy' vs. 'bringing light to a forgotten work'?
What I basically worked out for myself was:
1. If it's up somewhere on the internet that is public and that the author presumably consented for it to be there, and there is nothing on that specific site asking that it not be shared, I will happily link to it, recommend it, or talk about it publicly. This includes things like AO3, Open Doors imports to AO3, personal websites, old handcoded archives, and unlocked social media. (This also includes Tumblr, even if the OP is deleted, if you posted on Tumblr you knew it would be out of your control after the first reblog.)
2. If it's up somewhere on the internet but only on sites that are sort of public but that the author did not explicitly consent to (like wayback, various other sites that let you archive a copy of a site, or unauthorized uploads or reposts) I will talk about it publicly, possibly in enough detail to make it possible for other people to find it, but I will not link to it. If someone can hunt it up on wayback themself, they presumably have some context as to why it isn't available anymore, but posting an actual wayback link seems like actively refuting the author's control of their own work. The exception is if I know for a fact the author does not want it shared, and then I will treat it as locked. I will never deliberately get a fanwork put on any public archive, including wayback, if it is not already there, without the creator's consent.
3. If it's up on the internet but only under lock, including AO3 lock, I will not talk about or rec it anywhere public, unless the author has given explicit permission. I assume if it's locked they don't want a casual google to turn up even its existence. I may still vaguely reference its existence, but not in a way where someone who didn't have access to the lock could connect it to a specific title or creator. Unless the author has requested a higher level of privacy I will still talk about it, rec it, or link it under lock or in a private chat or at a con etc if I feel like the people in the lock can get access and share my feelings on fandom privacy (which is part of why I'm trying to get a handle on other people's feelings…)
4. If it's up publicly but with a request not to share (like disabling the share button on AO3), I will treat it like it's locked.
5. If it's not up on the internet at all, I will happily pass around scans or downloads in private or in person. I will not post links to them in public unless the creator has okay'd it, and whether I will talk about them in detail or mention the existence of scans or downloads in public depends on what I know about the history of the thing.
6. If something is not online anywhere I can access and I am aware the creator has requested that this come down and not be shared, I will honor it in public, and mention the request if it's being discussed in private. (If the creator has left other requests I try to honor those too.)
7. I will not publicly repost anyone else's fanwork, beyond the headers and a sentence or two/tiny thumbnail, without their permission.
8. I will happily read, hunt down, or save a private copy of anything with no guilt whatsoever. Me reading and hoarding it is different than telling all the admiring bog!
ETA 9. This all assumes I am posting (even if it's publicly googleable) to a mostly-fannish audience and in the context of the fandom gift economy. If I'm posting on a forum about truck repair, standards will be different. And if you're taking out of the gift economy - if I'm talking to a professional reporter, or if it's going into an academic paper for a pay journal and/or someone's career advancement - it's out the window and you get permission from effing *everybody* before you talk about them. 'I want you to share' is not the same as 'I give you permission to exploit for your own gain'. (Meanwhile, if you have sold publishing rights to a work for money, it goes in the 'pro writer' ethical category and not the 'fanworks' one.)
The lines between these sometimes get wobbly, especially with older works - if it's locked on AO3 but still up on a defunct archive where you can't contact the admins, does it count as public with the author's consent? Is something like oocities or an automated mailing list archive in the Open Doors category or the Wayback category? If it's locked now but it wasn't until recently and it's had a big effect on the fandom while it was public, do I treat it the same as always locked? Is there a distinction between passing around old zines and passing around CC .pdfs? Does sharing a huge zipped compilation of many files without a googleable index count as sharing a file publicly? But I can make a call on the merits on most of those and I usually feel ok with what I decide.
The one exception I would make is if there's libel afoot - if someone is spreading harmful or malicious lies that can be defanged by, say, posting a wayback link, that's a different situation. (I still wouldn't break lock though. There might be a line where I'd intentionally break lock but if so I can't think of one? Maybe if someone was plotting like, actual physical assault. Otherwise I'm more likely to just get myself locked out.) Just plain 'it's for the historical record' is never good enough.
(I do of course also sometimes mess up and not notice that something is locked or post an old link that I didn't realize had come down, but we're only human, mostly.)
What are your lines? Have you ever worked out exactly where they are?
p.s. if somebody decides it's a good idea to repost this or its comments in full to fanlore I will come to your house, go into your dreams, and remove your sense of irony with a rusty spoon
I am officially on the federal grand jury now. The 'alternate' thing lasted less than a week, somebody else managed to weasel out really fast. I can't really talk about it though! So that's going to be a big thing in my life for the next year+ that I can't talk about. (I think it's going to be a good experience though, I'm glad I could do it, and for all the long commitment much less stress than a petit jury.)
Let's talk about not talking about things instaed!
I had the impression that - at least in my DW-y corner of fandom - there was a pretty standard ethic of respecting other people's level of comfort with being public about their fanstuff, and that I was more or less aligned with it. But I keep stumbling over things and going 'oh…. I guess that's not as universal as I thought.' So I've been meaning to talk about this anyway.
I had to sort of codify my own ethical feelings on this a bit when I did the big recs project! What was my line on stuff it was OK to rec and not OK to rec? When am I 'breaking privacy' vs. 'bringing light to a forgotten work'?
What I basically worked out for myself was:
1. If it's up somewhere on the internet that is public and that the author presumably consented for it to be there, and there is nothing on that specific site asking that it not be shared, I will happily link to it, recommend it, or talk about it publicly. This includes things like AO3, Open Doors imports to AO3, personal websites, old handcoded archives, and unlocked social media. (This also includes Tumblr, even if the OP is deleted, if you posted on Tumblr you knew it would be out of your control after the first reblog.)
2. If it's up somewhere on the internet but only on sites that are sort of public but that the author did not explicitly consent to (like wayback, various other sites that let you archive a copy of a site, or unauthorized uploads or reposts) I will talk about it publicly, possibly in enough detail to make it possible for other people to find it, but I will not link to it. If someone can hunt it up on wayback themself, they presumably have some context as to why it isn't available anymore, but posting an actual wayback link seems like actively refuting the author's control of their own work. The exception is if I know for a fact the author does not want it shared, and then I will treat it as locked. I will never deliberately get a fanwork put on any public archive, including wayback, if it is not already there, without the creator's consent.
3. If it's up on the internet but only under lock, including AO3 lock, I will not talk about or rec it anywhere public, unless the author has given explicit permission. I assume if it's locked they don't want a casual google to turn up even its existence. I may still vaguely reference its existence, but not in a way where someone who didn't have access to the lock could connect it to a specific title or creator. Unless the author has requested a higher level of privacy I will still talk about it, rec it, or link it under lock or in a private chat or at a con etc if I feel like the people in the lock can get access and share my feelings on fandom privacy (which is part of why I'm trying to get a handle on other people's feelings…)
4. If it's up publicly but with a request not to share (like disabling the share button on AO3), I will treat it like it's locked.
5. If it's not up on the internet at all, I will happily pass around scans or downloads in private or in person. I will not post links to them in public unless the creator has okay'd it, and whether I will talk about them in detail or mention the existence of scans or downloads in public depends on what I know about the history of the thing.
6. If something is not online anywhere I can access and I am aware the creator has requested that this come down and not be shared, I will honor it in public, and mention the request if it's being discussed in private. (If the creator has left other requests I try to honor those too.)
7. I will not publicly repost anyone else's fanwork, beyond the headers and a sentence or two/tiny thumbnail, without their permission.
8. I will happily read, hunt down, or save a private copy of anything with no guilt whatsoever. Me reading and hoarding it is different than telling all the admiring bog!
ETA 9. This all assumes I am posting (even if it's publicly googleable) to a mostly-fannish audience and in the context of the fandom gift economy. If I'm posting on a forum about truck repair, standards will be different. And if you're taking out of the gift economy - if I'm talking to a professional reporter, or if it's going into an academic paper for a pay journal and/or someone's career advancement - it's out the window and you get permission from effing *everybody* before you talk about them. 'I want you to share' is not the same as 'I give you permission to exploit for your own gain'. (Meanwhile, if you have sold publishing rights to a work for money, it goes in the 'pro writer' ethical category and not the 'fanworks' one.)
The lines between these sometimes get wobbly, especially with older works - if it's locked on AO3 but still up on a defunct archive where you can't contact the admins, does it count as public with the author's consent? Is something like oocities or an automated mailing list archive in the Open Doors category or the Wayback category? If it's locked now but it wasn't until recently and it's had a big effect on the fandom while it was public, do I treat it the same as always locked? Is there a distinction between passing around old zines and passing around CC .pdfs? Does sharing a huge zipped compilation of many files without a googleable index count as sharing a file publicly? But I can make a call on the merits on most of those and I usually feel ok with what I decide.
The one exception I would make is if there's libel afoot - if someone is spreading harmful or malicious lies that can be defanged by, say, posting a wayback link, that's a different situation. (I still wouldn't break lock though. There might be a line where I'd intentionally break lock but if so I can't think of one? Maybe if someone was plotting like, actual physical assault. Otherwise I'm more likely to just get myself locked out.) Just plain 'it's for the historical record' is never good enough.
(I do of course also sometimes mess up and not notice that something is locked or post an old link that I didn't realize had come down, but we're only human, mostly.)
What are your lines? Have you ever worked out exactly where they are?
p.s. if somebody decides it's a good idea to repost this or its comments in full to fanlore I will come to your house, go into your dreams, and remove your sense of irony with a rusty spoon
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