Talk:Science fiction fandom/Archive 1

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Re: Gafiate
I think fannish jargon deserves a whole article of its own, with perhaps the most common terms (gafiate, fan/fen, sercon) mentioned here.

Anyone game to start this? PKM 21:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, I found some good links and started it myself. See Fanspeak

Re: Spelling
Jack Speer's name was Speer, not Spear. Somebody helpfully "corrected" it recently.--Orange Mike 19:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

T-shirt history
I have the 1984 "Cthulhu for President" t-shirt from Chaosium. Actually, as memory serves, I attended a Cthulhu campaign rally, either in 1984 or 1988, at GenCon. Supporters were chanting the candidate's name. It was kind of odd. Avt tor 18:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Authors, editors, screenwriters, and artists connected to fandom
Do we really need this category? It reeks of bragging, a thing not needed since so large a percentage of SF professionals have come out of fandom. -- Orange Mike 01:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The category doesn't bother me, but the list doesn't make sense. Straczynski and Gernsbach, for example, were connected to fandom after they started writing, while Carr and Ellison were fans first. Bloch attended many sf conventions and palled around with Bob Tucker (who should be on the list), so I don't mind his inclusion. Either make the category more specific fans-to-pros or drop it. And make it less LA-centric. Baron Dave Romm 13:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I killed the sucker. -- Orange Mike 14:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

"a" vs. "the" in the opening sentence
Hi, I was the one who changed it the first time. The reason I did it was to point out that not all fans of science fiction/fantasy belong to the particular community of SF Fandom described by this page. For example, I definitely don't, but I still consider myself to be a fan of sff books/tv shows/movies/etc. I read it, I watch it, I discuss it with various communities of people. The people I discuss it with are also not fans in the sense of what this page describes. We don't identify into the whole subculture with the history and filk music and all that.

From a slightly larger view, I regularly read John Scalzi's Whatever blog. Recently, due to his nomination for a Hugo under "fan writer", the distinction between community-of-fans vs. fans-but-not-in-the-specific-community came up.

It became clear to me as I followed along to the discussion that there are communities of sff fans, and there is a specific community of sff fans, and because we all share the same vocabulary to refer to ourselves, it gets confusing. I wanted to make the distinction clearer.

Please explain how I am misguided. Nerwen 20:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This, as you may know, is a long standing debate. Not all sf fans are in sf fandom, and sf fandom comprises people with many interests and sf might not be one of them.  Nonetheless, just because Jane Spelunker is an sf fan and discusses science fiction in spelunking fanzines doesn't make the spelunking community "a" community of sf fans.  (I use this example from the various spelunking fanzines I saw in the 70s.)  To be honest, I don't have strong feelings either way.  Still, sf fandom is "the" community for discussing sf and related topics.  Anyone who wants to discuss sf is more than welcome to have whatever conversation they like in whatever venue is at hand.  But if you want to hang out with others who specifically got together for the purpose, sf fandom is the place.


 * To further muddy the issue, fandom itself is splintered seven ways from Sunday (which is a lot of ways). My (mild) preference is to make sf fandom "the" umbrella term for the disparate but related communities.


 * I hope this makes sense. Baron Dave Romm 22:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I understand what you're trying to say, but what I meant was that there are multiple sff communities. Not that there are communities focused on other hobbies (e.g. spelunking) who also discuss sff. Other actual sff communities that are not "the" community that this page talks about, and they aren't necessarily related to each other. Some of them don't even know about the particular one described in this article. I only know about it peripherally, after having followed the discussion I mentioned above. And speaking for myself, I find it annoying to be lumped in with a community that I don't identify with and have no particular interest in joining (no offense to the people in it, I'm sure they're all very nice people).
 * Take John Scalzi as an example. He's a sci-fi writer, he talks to other sci-fi writers and editors and publishers in the industry, he writes about sci-fi on his blog (as well as things not sci-fi; but based on your comments above this wouldn't disqualify him from being a "fan" in the community you mean), and he's doing whatever else it is that apparently qualifies him to be nominated for a Hugo as a "fan writer." Yet there are people who question whether he is a "fan." And when they question it, what they mean is that he is not a part of a particular community of fans that have a history, culture, etc. with each other. Read the LJ entry that he links to in the entry I linked to above.
 * Nerwen 22:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Scalzi goes to sf bookstores and is nominated for a Fan Hugo. I don't know who those other people are, but he's a fan.  When people like Harlan Ellison say they're not fans (or sf writers), especially when they say this at cons, we usually just nod and let them talk.  Again, the definition of a fan is broad, and sf fan communities (including the fantasy branches) are all related.  Some more peripherally than others.  There is no sharp dividing line between "fan" and "not-fan", and I think "a" community can survive even when some members don't share the swing set with those on the other side of the playground. Baron Dave Romm 18:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * See, you're still seeing it as all one big community. I don't see it that way at all. I see lots of communities that are separate from each other, don't know each other, and shouldn't have to all be classified together. It's not one big playground. It's lots of playgrounds far apart from each other, and what we have in common is that we all have swing sets on them. And I don't see why your particular playground is "the" place to discuss all things SF when I've been playing on other playgrounds perfectly fine without ever having to come into contact with yours. Yes, your playground is really huge, and is notable enough to get a Wikipedia article. But it doesn't make it the only one.


 * You've mentioned that you don't have any strong feeling either way. Well, I do. And I still want to know how it's "misguided" to not want to be lumped in with a group of people that I have nothing to do with. We don't share history or culture or anything else that members of a discrete "community" are generally defined to share. I don't know any of the names of the historical figures listed here, nor any of the fanzines. I don't go to cons. I don't know anything about filk music (which is what led me here in the first place; I spend time categorizing songs out of Category:Songs, and there were some filk songs in there). I don't identify as a member of that community, and the people in the community are highly unlikely to identify me as a member of it.
 * I just want the page to acknowledge that there is more than one community of science fiction fans. Putting it as "a" at the top would do it; otherwise it would involve getting a lot more wordy about it in a section somewhere farther down.
 * Nerwen 04:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC).
 * I went ahead and changed it back again. I really hope it stays. I believe I've made my point to the best of my ability, and hope someone else can see where I'm coming from too. The online world is chock full of communities of sci-fi fans that have nothing to do with the "SF Fandom" that arose out of cons and fanzines. But this is as far as I want to spend arguing over it, so I won't change it back anymore after this. Thanks for your consideration. Nerwen 02:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Galaxy Quest
Doesn't Galaxy Quest deserve mention in the 'In Fiction' section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.122.211.215 (talk) 10:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

"Figures in the history of fandom"
List as listed was very LA-centric. IMO, should a list like this exist, it should be a list of people known for their contributions outside their own local community or their own special interest (i.e. just being a fanzine editor doesn't cut it). There are a lot of pros here known mainly for being pros. I think many people's contributions are going unacknowledged, while many others are well below the usual threshold of notability. Avt tor 20:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Historically, "being a fanzine editor" (or at least a major fanzine editor) was for a long time the very definition of an important figure in fandom. This remained true until the mid-1960s. -- Orange Mike 00:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Avt tor 18:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to think this list needs some work. Some suggestions: 1) no red links - if a person is important to fandom they should have a Wikipedia page of their own; 2) add country and main activity to each name, eg "John Bangsund - Australian fanzine editor"; 3) move the list to two columns, it's getting a bit unwieldy at this length in one. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * A couple of those Swedish names in particular are central to the history of their local branch of fandom, but don't have a lot of English-language sources. A redlink can be a warning that we lack an article we need, rather than a flag of non-notability. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  21:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point. I wouldn't like to see the number of redlinked names grow too large however.  And maybe the idea of a short description I mentioned above might make their inclusion a little more obvious. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 23:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

See also?
Why was the link to Anime and manga fandom removed from this section? It seemd relevant enough to me... (I hope I got the capitalisation right...people are always messing around with it) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanatherandom (talk • contribs) 17:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Figures in the history of fandom
This list seems problematic: how on Earth is it ever going to be not arbitrary in regards to the selection? What's the point of a long list of somewhat random prominent science fiction fans? And why not simply use a category instead? /Julle (talk) 12:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All lists and categories are a smidgen problematic. The intention is to provide the reader with names of persons who have played a prominent role in fandom, so that they can click and see how Forry Ackerman or Bob Tucker or Insert_BNF_Name_Here influenced the field. Roger Ebert, for example, is a fan well-known to mundanes; but he had little influence on fandom itself. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  18:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do understand the point. But it's still exactly the thing we have categories – which aren't as problematic, as they're somewhat less arbitrary, don't have to worry about the number of names and don't include red links – for. /Julle (talk) 16:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And to continue my argument, how do you decide who's to be included and who's not? To give an example, the list include two red links to Swedish fans who don't have articles on (the often slightly more inclusive) Swedish Wikipedia, where they probably wouldn't be considered notable. Of course, both have had important roles in the history of Swedish fandom, but then again, so have at least a dozen others. And then you add Finnish fandom, and Norwegian, not to speak of the much bigger German and French and ... /Julle (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Or, put another way: is it a viable solution to have dozens of persons from each smaller local fandom? How are we supposed to decide who makes the list? With the help of what sources? /Julle (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)