One Last Comment regarding ManderFail

[aearwen2]

Considering the recent silence from the fellow who kicked up a hornet's nest by purchasing the Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction Archive site on the sly (apparently the deal went through in April and it took until July for either the former owner or the new owner to come clean about it) I've not said much myself about the issue lately.

One of the really good things that happens when someone comes in an blunders about in a manner that makes all the LOTR fandom angry (very politely so, in this case) is that someone will write something so spectacular that it deserves rebroadcast. For me, this was when caras_galadhon wrote her A Love Letter to LOTR. In this letter, written from the perspective of a fandom insider, I found everything that I have ever felt or thought about fandom spelled out with passion and clarity.

However, comma...



I am thinking that our Saru-Mander friend has figured out that he's in deep doo-doo with those whose words he'd hoped to turn into a commodity that he could personally profit from aren't cooperating. LOTRFF site numbers have been dropping since the announcement, and the archive has lost about sixty (60) authors, a thousand (1000) stories, and over twelve MILLION words. Watching the numbers (because I'm a geek and actually have the numbers tracked day by day) is like watching a tire with a slow leak gradually go flat.

Yes, he's gone silent; but fandom hasn't – not by a long shot! Elf, over on DW, has assembled an impressive page of linkspam, for any interested in reading the whole debaucle from the start: ManderFail, a.k.a. Fanlib redux.

The entire kerfluffle has made me seriously reconsider my activity at The Pit of Voles FFN. Yes, I realized a long time ago (and while involved with another fandom entirely) that FFN had ads to generate revenue. I consistently turned them OFF. But because it was BIG, I gravitated towards it. I "walked away" once, years ago, leaving my stories in place but no longer actively posting, when the Document Manager refused to let me access my own works for days on end, in the process, telling me I wasn't authorized to do what I wished. When I became involved in LOTR fandom, FFN was my point of entry, although I soon branched out to find that there were other good archives up and running.

I'm going to be pulling out of FFN now, entirely - both my LOTR stuff as well as the stuff I wrote for The Pretender and other fandoms. I have created another Yolasite archive for myself to put that stuff up, and will leave a note in my profiles (both of them) at FFN redirecting folks there. But other than reading, I'm done with FFN and all ad-poisoned archives, done with advertisers telling the archive owners what kind of content they can or cannot host, dealing with submission software that is so darned persnicketty that it won't recognize many of the section-dividers in favor of using it's own lines, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

So bravo, Mr. Mander. You and your attitude, best illustrated by the kind of avatar/picture you use to identify yourself online, have made me change my spots as a fanfiction writer. I will only deal with private archives from now on. You and your stench of commercialism and the overwhelming drive to make money, money, money have finally hit my tolerance limit.

I don't know whether to thank you or curse you, Keith Mander. I tend toward the latter, frankly...

Comments

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I looked to see if you had joined us over at Faerie yet. Come, my friend, join us. It's a perfect venue for you and you'll have lots of friends there. The interface is easy. Please...... (I can bow and beg in LOTRO to you if necessary - LOL).

- Erulisse (one L)

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of coming to Faerie. Unfortunately, for this pen name I need an archive that takes all fandoms. I've written for some pretty obscure ones.

At the moment, all of my time is taken up by posting all of the stories under my other pen name at AO3 and on a new Dreamwidth account.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I wish you would come over to Faerie, Randy. I don't know about other places you post, but I do know that you would be very welcome.

- Erulisse (one L)

[aearwen2.livejournal.com]

I AM registered there - just haven't gotten around to posting anything yet.

We'll see how much energy I have for re-uploading stuff after I finish the Yolasite for my ancient Pretender/Carnivále fics. I was VERY active in The Pretender fandom for a number of years, and have well over a million words' worth of stuff to create pages for.

I put a single story on AO3 last nite. The UI isn't as transparent as I'd like, but pulling the HTML from an LJ edit screen seemed to work just fine (provided I cut the lj-cuts out.)

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I haven't done anything with AO3 yet, although they sent me an invite code. I currently post to my LJ account, MPPT, SWG and Faerie, plus if it is a challenge fic, it goes to the challenge as well. I also keep a copy of everything in my own file on my computer. It starts to be overkill after a while, and I'm still hoping that I'll be accepted onto SoA at some point. I have a lot of friends who post there and I would feel fairly comfortable with it, as long as I stayed within a G or PG rating. I'll have to wait and see on that one.

- Erulisse (one L)

[nierielraina.livejournal.com]

SoA is VERY overrated. ;P

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I won't disagree with you, it is. It also is the first site where I started reading FF from, and it is still one of my favorite places to read from. So with all of the negatives, I still would like to be accepted there. Silly...I know.

Of course she won't accept me, or at least hasn't yet, so it may be moot anyway :-)

- Erulisse (one L)

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

Pulling out of FFN would leave me in a bad spot -- mostly because as a forum owner and very occasional bestower of constructive criticism, a published story right on the sit gives people a glimpse at one's writing abilities.

Maybe it's also a case of don't ask, don't tell. As long as Xing (or whoever owns the place now) doesn't brag like a jackass on his blog about making all kinds of money, I can assume the ad revenue just goes to pay the costs of providing that huge archive for our stories. From the look of things it sure doesn't go into shiny site improvement to attract new traffic to make even more money.

Are you at Open Scrolls? That archive hosts some discreet ads too, and again, I assumed it was to pay the bills rather than make the admins rich.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

You're right about Open Scrolls. The ads and Amazon Associate button and the direct donations from some of us site members don't begin to defray the costs of keeping the site running. The admins aren't getting rich off our stuff. The attempts there to fund the site probably sit a little better with members because Do and Robbie are also fans. They write stories and reviews and hang out in the forums and generally fangirl/fanboy all over the place.

[aearwen2.livejournal.com]

I have some stuff up at OSA, but I've forgotten all my login info; and getting it back again - after the hassle of having inadvertantly registered twice the last time - isn't a process I look forward to in the least. The "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude of the admins there at the time was so horrid and abusive that I've honestly not truly forgiven them. They treated me like dirt and/or a cyber-terrorist when I made a simple mistake that would have been uncovered had they simply asked me a few questions first. One doesn't forget stuff like that.

To be honest, I can't trust them not to throw another fit about my forgetting things and/or giving me more hassle than I want to deal with just to get my info back. They/ve already put a sour taste in my mouth that hasn't gone away, and probably never will.

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

Is it a big no-no to have two accounts there? It's probably my least favorite archive because of the BB-coding, which means I have to prepare TWO coded files for copy/pasting

[nierielraina.livejournal.com]

Yes, they will note your IP addy and if you sign up for TWO accounts with the same IP without telling them and explaining why first, they will ban you. And if you try to talk to them about it, they get nasty! That is my least favorite place to post. In fact, it's one I'll probably pull my work from as I don't like having to format twice either.

[nierielraina.livejournal.com]

Your login is your pen name (at OSA that's simply Aearwen) and there is a lost password recovery link in the login area. You shouldn't have to communicated with the snippy admins to get it. ;P

[nierielraina.livejournal.com]

Me thinks you confused the sale of the Twilight archive back in April with the sale of LOTRFF which took place end of June. Unless I missed something...

Don't blame you for leaving. I just get too many reviews at FFN to leave, or I'd have left long ago. Same with SoA. I should probably try to overcome the need for reviews, but I NEED those!!! *whimper*

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

My Yola site is where the definitive version of all my stories is. I stay at ff.net as I've a lot of readers there and they are open about their ads.It was the underhandedness at LOTRfanfic which angered me, that the new owner wanted to profit from our stories not just cover costs and no one was consulted if they objected or not.

[randy-o.livejournal.com]

If you take the time to read this gentleman's blog (and I use the word 'gentleman' loosely) you'll see that he doesn't care what kind of content draws traffic to his websites. He just wants people to come so they can click on the ads and the click-throughs. If there's not enough traffic and not enough income from the site it will end up being sold again. That seems to have been the fate of one site where you could learn how to repair your no-wax floors if you had used the wrong cleaner on them.

So why fansites? Well, they are what he called 'evergreen' with new material being added constantly to bring in an audience, and Lord of the Rings is about to experience a resurgence in interest with the release of The Hobbit movies. The problem is, I don't think he fully understood the implications of making a profit off a site that was purely for fanfiction.

There was a reason for all the underhandedness --most business deals are done that way to prevent competing offers. Or in this case, someone warning Adora that this was a bad idea.

[caras-galadhon.livejournal.com]

apparently the deal went through in April and it took until July for either the former owner or the new owner to come clean about it
Good lord, really? It makes you wonder if one or both of them knew there might be a strong reaction, then. Either that, or they're just slow to get the ball rolling.

[aearwen2.livejournal.com]

I suspect Adora had suspicions that the nature of his intentions would come clear the moment they opened their mouths about the sale. She might have been desperate for the money to get out of debt - I certainly have felt that kind of desperation myself - but knew that the way in which he presented himself elsewhere wasn't going to fly with the fandom. She put it off as long as she could; I'd be willing to bet good green she put off spilling the beans until HE wouldn't let it go any longer...

But then, I'm a suspicious person... :-D

[mevrian.livejournal.com]

I get the impression this guy just wanted to make money from a fanfiction site and didn't reckon with the fans' reaction. As the letter says, Tolkien fandom isn't new. It's also keenly aware of how thin of a line it walks with the Tolkien Estate. We all know that it wouldn't take much to lose our playgrounds/archives/communities to a C&D campaign by the Tolkien Estate. We really, really make an effort to stay off the radar, and along comes this individual with dollar signs in his eyes threatening to bring the whole thing down around our ears. He wouldn't care. He'd take it as a business write off and move on. It's the fans who would be the really big losers.

This is on top of the idea of someone making money from other peoples' (the authors) efforts, especially when those authors never intended to make any money to begin with.

The whole thing just leaves people with a sour taste in their mouths.