Future of our Fandom

[Keep Looking]

In reply to Jitter Vulpes and Thorny (and Catbirds, you posted while I was writing this but I think you got a good point going):

When Minna makes works in the future, I do think we should have a space on here to discuss them: there will probably be people here who read them and are going to want to talk about it - whether that be through a critical lens, or just to appreciate the artwork. Completely detaching this space from her new works, whatever they may turn out to be, doesn't sound like a reasonable move.

However (and this is not implying that this has been suggested, as far as I can tell it hasn't) I don't think we should promote the forum towards the fanbase of Minna's new works. If they come across SSSS from reading a newer work of Minna's, and enjoy the story and find the forum from there, I see no problem with having them here as long as they're willing to listen, think critically and be respectful. And if there are people here who find enjoyment in Minna's new works for whatever reason, they have a right to hold that opinion and express it. However, given the state of the comments section on Lovely People and the general demographic of people who tend to be attracted towards that kind of genre/topic, I would personally feel quite apprehensive towards the prospect of having a flood of people praising Minna and her new works entering the forum when we've done so much work towards creating an inclusive environment where we can deconstruct and critically engage with her works and her apparent ideologies, and explain the things about her works that upset us without guilt-tripping people for enjoying them or getting dunked on for criticizing the author.

[Róisín]

Keep Looking makes a good summary. I am inclined to discuss rather than promote new work if it turns out toxic and hateful, but would like to maintain the civility, cultural and religious tolerance and basic decency that have so far been a valued feature of this board. And remember, courtesy does not mean supine submission. It is quite possible to firmly defend our position of supporting personal and religious freedom while not descending into screaming insults.

I would like to do the reread from the beginning, both for the treasure trove of the old comments and for the insight we will gain into the old pages, not to mention spotting or having other members point out the many, many bits of foreshadowing in the old pages - those were always great fun!

[Tarnagh]

I think everyone is on the right track with what they've been suggesting for Minna's new works.

There shouldn't be a direct link to the new works to these forums, but if the new audience finds these forums through perusal of her older works that's fine as long as they're willing to be civil.

I think it's sad that we're already bracing for the idea that they're likely not going to be very civil. Perhaps, at least not at first, for those who wish to stay. That's the reality though, isn't it? An audience that is going to enjoy works like LP and what is likely to be the content of Minna's work going forward is not typically someone that will be happy in an environment like what you've all created here over the course of years. I'm new, so I can say it that way. YOU - all you "old-timers" of the forums - have created this wonderfully diverse space full of so many talented people that it still boggles my mind. To see that infiltrated by people who are so narrow they can look through a keyhole with both eyes is just a devastating thought to me.

Perhaps any new work Minna does could be listed under "Minna's New Work critique/discussion" as a way to indicate in advance that this site isn't going to just rubber stamp whatever Minna does. I don't know. Praise Bast I'm not an admin, is all I know.

I think I've already said this but I'm gonna say it again (for emphasis of course and not because I'm senile) - I'm also fully on board with a re-read and discussion starting from the beginning.

[Raaffiie]

I'm certainly not opposed to a re-read; there seem to be quite a few people who want to do this, and I might well join in. But I hope this group doesn't entirely turn back in time and only circle around on where SSSS has been. I'd like to also see us open out and find additional work, by additional artists, which we can discuss.

That's kind of why I was reluctant to the idea of a full-on reread, really... I'm all for looking back and deconstructing old pages, but to me a reread feels too much like trying to go back in time. Not that I'm really opposed to it either, it just means that I personally won't be joining in.

[Vulpes]

thorny and catbirds both brought up good points about the risks of having a board devoted to whatever new work Minna does. Keep's idea to not actively promoting this space on her new works is a good one, and was actually my assumption of how things would work. I'm of two minds now: on the one hand (or mind?), if there's a board devoted to the critical dissection of the new work, will anybody use it? People who dislike the new direction probably won't be reading, so they can't exactly critique it; people who like it would be less likely to be highly critical and it could turn into a little corner of this otherwise pretty tolerant space where some toxic ideas get sincere discussion. And that could be a big problem, and put far too much pressure on our wonderful mods. But on the other hand/mind, it seems like sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling lalala I can't hear you to ignore the existence of whatever she does next. Argh, I'm bad at these complex ethical issues! Mostly I worry about the sanity of the mods, which tips me towards ignoring the new work, but then I worry that's problematic... and there I go into the spiral again!  :'D

I was thinking about the idea of a group re-read, and liking it more and more. The comments section was mostly devoted to speculation about plot twists, and although there has certainly been some more subtle discussion here, it's scattered. Re-reading anything always leads to new discoveries about what it means to you, or what you thought the author was getting at (although in this case we need to be careful not to start looking for "clues" about the development of Minna's current ideas), and many here have re-read many times already. I'd be very interested in what new insights people have come to, and it seems to me the best way to do that in an organized way is to re-read as a group.

One suggestion for a re-read: maybe not do it page-by-page, but in small chunks. For example, in the prologue, the story of each group could be a chunk, and we could spend a week or so on each. Chapters might need to be broken up, some of them are pretty long!

[Róisín]

Maybe we could also add other comics that have many fans among folk here, such as Girl Genius and Freefall?

[Raaffiie]

I could add Wilde Life to that list, I've seen some overlap there as well. I know there's already a webcomics thread in the General Discussion, but maybe it would be an idea to make a list of webcomics to discuss and have a comic-of-the-week like thread?

[thegreyarea]

thorny and catbirds both brought up good points about the risks of having a board devoted to whatever new work Minna does. Keep's idea to not actively promoting this space on her new works is a good one, and was actually my assumption of how things would work. I'm of two minds now: on the one hand (or mind?), if there's a board devoted to the critical dissection of the new work, will anybody use it? People who dislike the new direction probably won't be reading, so they can't exactly critique it; people who like it would be less likely to be highly critical and it could turn into a little corner of this otherwise pretty tolerant space where some toxic ideas get sincere discussion. And that could be a big problem, and put far too much pressure on our wonderful mods. But on the other hand/mind, it seems like sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling lalala I can't hear you to ignore the existence of whatever she does next. Argh, I'm bad at these complex ethical issues! Mostly I worry about the sanity of the mods, which tips me towards ignoring the new work, but then I worry that's problematic... and there I go into the spiral again!  :'D

I also agree on the "not actively promoting" part. The topic is complex, and the mods sanity is something we must weight. However the fact is that, even among all the controversy, our LP thread remained more or less tolerant and respectful, which might indicate that threads focused on Minna's future works could also function the way we wish.
Taking Róisín's suggestion on adding threads for other works (comics and, why not, other media), I feel tempted to treat Minna's future works just like any other*, because we should gradualy move our center of gravity out of Minna's works / SSSS towards the comunity itself, a Forum in line with the original meaning of the word.
Around that Forum we may very well keep a temple for SSSS, and gradually add other temples, like the one we have for ARTD. Yet the central space should remain free and open, as our "About Anything" already is (and that may lead, one day, to a change in name).

* I mean to consider and discuss the work by its merits, and not because it comes from Minna.

Raaffiie's suggestion about a comic-of-the-week (perhaps not restricted to "comic") is also interesting, and could work with the existence of other comic's threads as a weekly prompt for artistic creation, invitating us to know better other "worlds". I for one just brushed Girl Genious and Wilde Life, and never read Freefall. If Freefall is the comic of next week I may give it a try.

[thorny]

But on the other hand/mind, it seems like sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling lalala I can't hear you to ignore the existence of whatever she does next.

We're already ignoring the existence of thousands of other artworks -- we can't possibly discuss everything.

I don't think we have to absolutely ignore the existence of whatever Minna does next. But, depending on what it is, I don't see any need for us to focus on it, either.

  (although in this case we need to be careful not to start looking for "clues" about the development of Minna's current ideas)

Some of that's probably bound to happen. While I think we need to try not to read such things in when they're not there, I don't think we should try to ban all such discussion.

I know there's already a webcomics thread in the General Discussion, but maybe it would be an idea to make a list of webcomics to discuss and have a comic-of-the-week like thread?

I think that would be a good start -- whether we'd want to stay with 'comic-of-the-week' (or month), or to eventually settle on a couple for a continuing focus, would probably become clearer with time.

I feel tempted to treat Minna's future works just like any other*, because we should gradualy move our center of gravity out of Minna's works / SSSS towards the comunity itself, a Forum in line with the original meaning of the word.
Around that Forum we may very well keep a temple for SSSS, and gradually add other temples, like the one we have for ARTD. Yet the central space should remain free and open

I like that a lot.

[Jitter]

Oh yes indeed! Not promoting! What I mean is that people who DO abide by our Forum rules must not be made feel unwelcome because they like LP or anything else. We currently have valued members here who are OK with LP or even like it, and I most certainly wouldn't want the discussion about the future or any other reason turn them away!

Yes, it's very sad to have to brace for potential influx of not-polite readers... oh the world these days! On the other hand, I'm not finding the likelihood very high. Just this LP episode had a flood of people on the Disqus comments AND Minna specifically directed people here to discuss, and still we have done extremely well in the LP thread and generally. In fact as far as I'm aware we didn't get any of the loud zealots who took over the Disqus for a while to wander here (while we did get an influx of new great members!).

If Minna goes off into the realm of Christian net spaces completely, it seems likely she won't be linking the SSSSForum on her new comic pages. LP doesn't link to SSSS, while (unfortunately) the opposite seems to be true ad infinitum. So, as things stand now, I find it unlikely there will be huge problems for us. Hopefully I'm not wrong on this!

Also I very much like grey's idea - the expected future works could get treated just like any other work that is not SSSS. We don't need to discuss and analyze anything just because it was produced by Minna. If something (whether by Minna or some of the other works we may be exploring) then becomes very popular among the Forumites and keeps spawning new good threads, we can consider whether that needs a dedicated board in the future.

With this in mind, and also to draw together the potential other comics / stories / creators we may try to expand on, would it perhaps be good to make a new board for Other Stories? And then discussions about SSSS and ARtD (and CoH, if that gets some attention in the future still) would stay in their own boards and everything else about comics, tv-shows, movies, books etc. would go to the Other Stories board.
It would likely be easier to open separate threads for e.g. separate comics. The current Webcomics discussion is basically a list of "this is a good webcomic" because with the forum structure you can't really keep discussions running about several different titles in one thread. We could move some of the currently open threads (books, videogames, the LP thread, webcomics at least) into that board to get it jump-started. Do you think this would be a good idea?

If yes, then should that board go under "About the comics" or "About anything"? Either has its merits. And if we do come to the conclusion that such a new board would be a good idea, we'd have to make sure it's feasible. But considering how we just recently got the new Politics board (another huge success of polite discussion) I guess it's not extremely work-intensive to create one. @Feartheviolas (oh no! I have all this time read "feather - violas" but it's fear-the-violas! Sorry!) you have the final say in this?

Oh and on the over-politeness I definitely agree. I'm not suggesting we should tolerate intolerance, let alone hateful behavior. We don't need or want to accommodate anyone who doesn't accommodate us and our rules. I don't know how strict the actual moderation policy has needed to be in the past, but the tools exist to defend the Forum if needed.

[Róisín]

Good points, Jitter. May I suggest ‘About Other Creative Works’ or some such names? And I agree also about including other Minna works as we would those by any artists. I think the concept worth a try at least, and the Forumites do seem to be quite civilised folk so far. I think, and hope, that we can handle this.

[Gwenno]

Thank you Jitter for your post there - you took the words right from my mouth

Bit busy right now so I'll have to be concise in my many thoughts 

There have been many comments so far citing their worry for the mods mental wellbeing and workload as one reason for not allowing a space in the forum to discuss Minna's new works. While I appreciate the sentiment, in practicality, if we are aware that we will need additional moderation, we can promote new moderators. The reason why we have so few moderators on our team (and why we were a little swamped with LP) was that we generally haven't needed more and this was unexpected. If we decide to create a new board for people who enjoy Minna's other works we'd probably bring on more moderators (possibly to be specifically in charge of that board?). And don't worry, if people don't follow the forum rules, and start posting bigoted or hateful comments anywhere on the forum they will be thrown out, the same as we're doing now.

We didn't really see that with the LP thread, however, despite the mess over in the comic comments, and Minna's encouragement that people come over to the forum to discuss it. On that note, I'd also like to point out that the people who enjoy LP and Minna's new works aren't the monsters they are being portrayed as here. Some are already active members of the forum, and others are newcomers who have been nothing but courteous in their posts here. However, because the vast majority of people posting about LP here have been criticising it, they haven't had space here to discuss and develop from the comic in a fun way as we've done with SSSS and aRTD. I don't know what Minna's new work will be, but working with a default assumption that anyone who likes it or wants to discuss its contents wouldn't uphold our community values and follow our rules isn't a good way to start our discussion of the future.

[Sc0ut]

I could add Wilde Life to that list, I've seen some overlap there as well. I know there's already a webcomics thread in the General Discussion, but maybe it would be an idea to make a list of webcomics to discuss and have a comic-of-the-week like thread?

I love this idea! The way I see it working is to have individual threads for each of the comic-of-the week, on a board specifically for this "project". Someone (not the same person I imagine, people can volunteer for their favourite comics obviously) will make a thread introducing the comic, and why they like it. Everyone is invited to read it and share their impressions, and link to fanart or fanfic if they create them. We should of course encourage people to also experience their appreciation in the webcomic's comment section if it has one.

I can imagine some threads remaining alive even after their week has ended, and becoming favourites in the community, and others not. The reason I'm so excited about it is because webcomics are such a great way to slowly build up relationships with strangers: we all meet periodically, experience the same thing (the comic) and then react to it in its comments. We have an icebreaker and a starting point to build other discussions off of. It could be a decent distraction, if not replacement, for the fact that a lot of us are now put off from interacting with the SSSS comment section, but we still want to experience community in this manner.

[SkyWhalePod]

I second (third?) a comic-of-the-week thread (or threads, I think that's what Sc0ut is proposing), and I waaaaaay second Wilde Life! It's my #2 comic after SSSS. Incredible character development and storytelling, good humor, great art, and I know for sure that Pascalle is a respectful and kind person.

About the re-read: I agree that just one page at a time is glacial pacing. Maybe two- or three-page chunks is better. Or, sure, at first we could break the prologue into larger chunks, nationality by nationality, to cover it more quickly. Maybe a couple of people could be in charge of making those posts, and each person chooses a day of the week they're in charge of do to the posting? Or we could have a rolling thing where each week/month/some chunk of time, a different person volunteers to announce the current page/s? I would be happy to volunteer for either. I'm picturing maybe . . . Wednesdays and Saturdays, to sort of offset the MWThF update schedule Minna has going on?

Gwenno is right, we shouldn't calibrate ourselves to assume the worst of people who like LP and whatever Minna creates next. Number one, we have no idea what that next thing will be like! Some of us are apprehensive, which is completely reasonable, but we shouldn't make decisions right now about the unknown. Number two, we didn't all have the same feelings about LP. Those of us who liked it are, of course, still absolutely welcome here and should be able to discuss their feelings/impressions/inspirations just like everyone else. I think it would be counter to the values of this community if we didn't provide a space for people to explore their appreciation for LP (and possible future works) without feeling shut down. We should trust each other, and trust the mods.

I'm open to Jitter's Other Stories/About Other Creative Works board. I think a lot of us have a lot of beloved things to share, and if we're to include discussions about LP and Minna's future works, the bare minimum would be to create a thread for each of those. They would fit nicely in an "And here's other stuff that we like to share with each other and discuss" board. And if we need to expand or shift around again, we can do that. The decisions we make here, while important, aren't permanent.

I feel like I should ask: For people reading this thread who liked LP, would you like to have a space to explore what you liked about it? I don't want to put words in anyone's mouths. I also don't want to make anyone feel called out if they don't feel comfortable saying that they did like it (it's still a contentious issue after all). Just, it feels weird making suggestions on behalf of LP-appreciators without asking you directly.

[Mirasol]

I´m very busy right now so I sadly don´t really have the time to join the discussion, so for now I´ll just say, I´m in.

I really enjoy being a part of this wonderful community and it has grown to mean a lot to me over the past year. You people are awesome and I enjoy being around you, so I´ll stay. I hope to continue sharing art and stories, we´ll see whether still as fan-content for SSSS (I would still like to finish my Kitty-AU, once my motivation comes back...) or just other things.
(And someone still has to spy on the squirrels to find the secret ingredient, right? )

I like the idea of "Comic/creative work of the week", the re-read sounds interesting too.