FanFare series and "ownership"
August 21, 2014 12:48 PM - Subscribe

A number of shows on FanFare have one primary poster, sometimes with a change of hands, while others are very much community efforts. To some people feel there is there any unspoken FanFare norm, or is this things getting settled?

For examples, JHarris has posted every episode of Last Week Tonight, while The Prisoner re-watches were initially posted by DevilsAdvocate and then taken up by thesmallmachine, and the eight episodes of The Leftovers have been posted by 7 different people.
posted by filthy light thief (34 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
My feeling is this: there should be a clear line of communication within each movie club (or TV club, like The Prisoner), so if someone drops the ball, the FanFare post can still get posted on time.

So, one person "at the top", the organizer of that club, that oversees the posts: they post as well as delegate some posts as they desire, or as people express an interest in posting. The organizer would keep track of who has volunteered for what, and sort things out like posting dates.

I think the danger of, say, JHarris' dealio is that - it puts all the eggs into one basket. Ideally there would be a Backup JHarris so if he (she?) gets sick, has an emergency, or whatever, they can MeMail Backup JHarris who would then post in lieu.

Not sure I'm using in lieu correctly. But anyway - the worst situation is where someone gets gung-ho, and says they will post, and then doesn't. It's very disappointing and I think sort of reflects poorly on FanFare, making it more of a Mickey Mouse operation. (Red Dwarf reference there.)

What do other folks think?

(I'd also like organizer(s) of series of posts (like movie clubs) to be clearly titled on the wiki as a matter of course.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:01 PM on August 21, 2014


I meant to say, the organizer would also be the person in charge of updating the wiki, or they would find a volunteer within their group to assign that duty to.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:03 PM on August 21, 2014


I would welcome others posting Aldnoah.Zero episodes - I don't feel I have "ownership." I think in this particular situation this is a series watched by only a small number of people on MetaFilter, and I've decided I'd rather have posts go up on a regular schedule than wait for somebody else to make them and perhaps give the impression the show has been dropped.

My feeling is that shows with only a small core viewership, or small number of people aware that it's on FanFare, are more likely to have one primary poster.
posted by needled at 1:45 PM on August 21, 2014


I've updated the wiki re: Who Wednesday (not that there was much updating to be done)
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:46 PM on August 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


I didn't really expect that I'd be starting every "Masters of Sex" thread once I finished posting all of the S1 episodes to catch up with S2. There is something kind of amusingly eponysterical about my username for that show, and no one else has submitted one ahead of me so far, so, I'm just going to keep at it. I've never edited a wiki, so, my plan for when I'm going to be very delayed in watching/posting (like next weekend when I'm away at Dragoncon, whee!) I'll just mention it in the comments that someone else needs to post if they want the thread submitted right after the premiere.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:26 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


With Mad Men (and I think we were one of the first to get traction on a rewatch), we started talking about it in a first-watch show thread and then a group of us talked offline to set the schedule for the rewatch. We currently have two of us who have volunteered to do the postings, which are set for twice a week (we each currently have an "assigned" day), with the assumption that we will contact the other person or put in a request in the most recent thread if we need a sub.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:12 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Maybe there is an emerging unspoken norm, but it's far too early for such things to be unspoken, so thanks for asking.

So, one person "at the top", the organizer of that club, that oversees the posts: they post as well as delegate some posts as they desire, or as people express an interest in posting. The organizer would keep track of who has volunteered for what, and sort things out like posting dates.

Phew, joseph conrad is fully awesome, that sounds like SO much work! I think you're right though and people should be mindful of it when initiating a rewatch. I won't grumble (too much) about abandoned shows. No harm in a few false starts—things getting settled, as filthy light thief said. There were bound to be adjustments needed after launching FF with two of the most talked about shows on TV. It's difficult to sustain interest without the full power of the internet buzz machine.

As far as norms, Sweetie Darling and the Mad Men crew have the right idea with assigned days of the week. I see the necessity of that now. One post per person per week, that's reasonable. Thoughts of whether or not to post can be an unwelcome source of low-level anxiety, for me anyways. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night thinking about FanFare!

My hat's off to anyone who covers a show single-handedly. Actually, my hat's off to anyone who posts, whether owning an entire series or just picking up a thread here and there.
posted by Lorin at 8:51 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Every time I think about this stuff it's immediately after posting an episode, thus preventing me from posting in Talk, so double thanks.
posted by Lorin at 8:58 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I guess I feel a certain ownership over the West Wing, as I loooooooove the show and have little meta-commentaries and jokes in the tags that I'm sure no one but me cares about. Since it's a re-watch, and doesn't seem very high traffic now that the series is off Amazon Prime, I sort of feel like if I miss my posting day it can wait 'til the next posting day.. but maybe I'm just being selfish.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:17 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't personally mind the West Wing threads so this isn't intended as a criticism of anybody in particular (I love the show, too!), but yeah, I feel like there's a certain degree of selfishness at play in some of the rewatch threads. Especially if the activity level is low and yet new episodes keep getting posted. Presumably the site is only going to host one rewatch thread per series (double posts?), so there's some selfishness in closing the door to future participants, or alternately, forcing them to take their rewatch discussions to (still open?) threads posted way back in 2014. I don't know whether that's a bad thing necessarily, or if it's just a neutral reality of how FanFare is being structured.

It's difficult to sustain interest without the full power of the internet buzz machine.

I think there's a demographic issue that's larger. I've posted two threads for Big Brother and there doesn't seem to be much interest. Now, 7 million people are watching, the show is consistently winning its timeslots, and there are tons of websites and blogs and Twitter devotees, so lack of buzz isn't the problem. My guess is it's just demographics. Lots of people are watching, but those aren't the people who are here.
posted by cribcage at 9:36 AM on August 23, 2014


I don't know whether that's a bad thing necessarily, or if it's just a neutral reality of how FanFare is being structured.

Yeah, I think there is a separate and equally important discussion to be had about how many rewatches can be held simultaneously in a satisfying way. It was something that came up in the last MeTa in which many people noted the sheer volume of posts. I don't know what's to be done about that, if anything, but a voluntary dialing back of posts is one possibility. Again, not a criticism, just idle speculation.
posted by Lorin at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2014


Also, I don't mean to neglect the counterargument: that while it would be great to leave something like West Wing rewatchings to a more timely audience (say, when either Sorkin or Sheen passes away), the best bet to ensuring that FanFare even exists when that day comes (hopefully far off) is to post different threads now and try to get people interested and participating.

I'm not sure either argument persuades me enough to take a side. It's just, as Lorin said, some of the bumpiness of figuring out how the new site will or should work.
posted by cribcage at 1:44 PM on August 23, 2014


I was thinking about the slow discussion development on most movie FanFare threads today (or at least, a lot of them) and I'm guessing that the threads are missing an element of urgency. For instance, on the front page of MetaFilter, there's more of a sense of "comment now, because this thread will grow stale" and it generates a lot of comments, whereas there's just this thick syrup of timelessness on FanFare that slows down activity.

Combined the above element with lower traffic, and it means that some discussion threads are absolutely glacial. I got very, very lucky on my unannounced Untouchables thread, in hindsight.

I think it's a problem because if there's no "buzz" about FanFare amongst MetaFilter users, I don't see how the site can keep a decent level of discussion going, like there is on the front page.

Anyways I guess that's a separate issue and I don't mean to derail, just picking up a bit on cribcage's comments.

Phew, joseph conrad is fully awesome, that sounds like SO much work!

:D Yes it does, doesn't it? I think it probably varies by each "organizer / initiator" how much work (and time) they're ready to devote to it.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:46 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think it's a problem because if there's no "buzz" about FanFare amongst MetaFilter users

I'm seeing this too: there's a good vocal core of FanFare posters and commenters, but I'm worried that it does not have much visibility on Metafilter as a whole. There's a risk it becomes another Metafilter Music: an enclave, deeply loved by its users, but almost unknown to the rest of Metafilter.

I'm not sure how to improve this as a user, other than taking care to link to FanFare from MeFi and Ask threads when it's appropriate -- for a recent example, recommended Fringe and linked to the FanFare show page for the in-progress rewatch.

I'd like to see FanFare posts and comments appearing on the Popular Favorites -- which is supposed to be "all sites" but which never seems to contain anything from Music or FanFare or Projects. I'd like to see them the in the Popular Posts / Popular Comments RSS feeds; ditto. Maybe there's some weighting that needs to be applied such that posts/comments on the smaller subsites need proportionally fewer favorites to promote onto the Popular page/feeds?

I'd like to see FanFare posts picked for Best of Metafilter / the sidebar if there's some standout post or discussion. (I'd like the sidebar to pick out a lot more content in general, but that's a different issue.)

I'd like the Metafilter podcast to cover Fanfare alongside the other subsites. (And come to that I'd like the podcast to cover Music better than "when cortex remembers it, otherwise slap one track on the end and call it done"; but that also is a different issue.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:05 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've been wondering about this regarding Star Trek. Mathowie had announced that he was going to post an episode a week on Saturdays, then posted the first one early Saturday morning.

But then the second week, nothing, until Benway posted the second episode sometime in the evening. I hadn't seen anything from Mathowie saying he wasn't going to post episodes anymore, and I didn't want to step on any toes, so I just kept waiting; I assumed that Benway was basically doing the same, and finally gave up and took matters into his own hands nearly 13 hours after the time of the post the week before.

Then the next two weeks, Benway posted again, not quite as early as the first week had been posted, but still significantly earlier than the second week, so I took that as confirmation that the second week he had been waiting for Mathowie, but eventually gave up on that, and didn't bother waiting for Mathowie the third (or fourth) week.

Then last week, Benway again, but this time late at night again. Again, I was waiting rather than posting it myself because I didn't want to step on any toes.

And now today, it's late at night again, I've been waiting, and I don't want to step on any toes, but no post so far.

I'm not complaining; I just am trying to say I don't know what the etiquette is. I feel like it would be more conducive to conversation if the post was available basically all day on the day that it's scheduled for, but I feel like I might be stepping on toes if I just do it myself, so I wind up just waiting and waiting.

My personal opinion is that in any given week whoever sees that it's not there yet should just post it. And I'd be willing to do that myself, at least much of the time, but not without knowing the etiquette.
posted by Flunkie at 6:44 PM on August 23, 2014


I don't know that I'm keen on "it was due today and isn't up yet so I'll post it." Some people make more involved FanFare posts -- JHarris's Last Week Tonight posts are the obvious extreme example, and joseph conrad's Popeye post today hits a nice middle-ground of discussion-starter plus some background. Give 'em a chance to post it, I say.

But if a scheduled post is running over a day late -- certainly seems OK to me to send a quick "you gonna post?" MeMail.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:59 PM on August 23, 2014


(Why thank you.)

I don't know that I'm keen on "it was due today and isn't up yet so I'll post it."

Seconding. I think if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, you could get a situation where - say, to make it ALL ABOUT ME - I've been working hard on a post, and someone else beats me to the punch and goes ahead and POSTS on the damn movie without checking to see if someone else has been developing something.

There needs to be a way to communicate to people if someone's dropped the ball, or what.

Hence, my comment upthread about having a hierarchical structure, not some amorphous whoever-feels-like-it non-structure.

(Or a quick MeMail - "you gonna post?" as WHAD,K points out directly above.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:11 PM on August 23, 2014


It seems to me that any hard work done on a post could easily be made into a comment instead. I don't really see why the post proper has to be anything but a pro forma place for discussion, and I don't really see why a great comment can't be part of that discussion.

But whatever. Like I said, I don't want to step on toes, and it seems from these comments like toes might be stepped on, so I won't do anything.
posted by Flunkie at 7:21 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


It seems to me that any hard work done on a post could easily be made into a comment instead.

I have said this before and do agree to some extent. FanFare made fig leaf posts on the blue a thing of the past, but then you can't give MeFites a new place to post and not expect a bunch of witty, well-crafted posts to spring up.

So ownership is definitely at least to some extent a thing. Because of all the permutations there's no hope for overarching guidelines but I see three common scenarios: one person holding it down, a committee doing their thing, and then all the rest in that weird grey area. Ownership in a way is a know-it-when-you-see-it thing. Even with Mad Men, before the advent of Talk, it was obvious someone was keeping those posts going like clockwork. It's the grey area that leads to thoughts like Flunkie's about Star Trek or mine about Arrested Development. I imagine a lot of shows in that frustrating grey area will go dormant, and that's OK. Maybe later there can be an inactive flag.

Taking the lead with organization is probably the quickest way to put one's mind at ease about a show. Counter-intuitive to someone like me who has dedicated their life to avoiding responsibility.
posted by Lorin at 7:48 PM on August 23, 2014


I imagine a lot of shows in that frustrating grey area will go dormant, and that's OK.
It's not so clear to me that "that's OK". I mean, of course in the grand scheme of things it's at most a minor thing, so sure, it's OK in that sense. But ignoring that extremely broad sense, "it will go dormant, and that's OK" seems more appropriate to "it went dormant because few people were really interested in discussing it". That doesn't seem to be the case here. At least not with Star Trek - it seems relatively popular in terms of number of comments at least; presuming it goes dormant, it seems more like "it went dormant because people wanted to discuss it but didn't want to offend anybody who might theoretically be working on some special snowflake post that they couldn't bear to post as a comment instead of as a post proper". And, at least to me, that would seem more like "that's a shame" rather than "that's OK".
posted by Flunkie at 7:58 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I imagine a lot of shows in that frustrating gray area—without the benefit of a little organization—will go dormant, and that's OK.
posted by Lorin at 8:31 PM on August 23, 2014


Let's put aside the question of okayness. I can relate to what you posted about Star Trek because they are the same questions I asked myself while tapping my foot waiting for Arrested Development posts to appear. Questions of informal ownership can be answered. Memails can be sent. Talk posts specific to a show can be started. A great show need not languish. I guess that was my point. Shows in that weird grey area WILL go dormant, but they don't have to.
posted by Lorin at 8:45 PM on August 23, 2014


and curse this US spellchecker for gaslighting me wrt the spelling of grey. or gray. or whatever.
posted by Lorin at 8:46 PM on August 23, 2014


Does it really matter who makes the post? My feeling is, if the post isn't there and you want to discuss the show, why not just make the post yourself? The more interesting part is the discussion, right? I guess I'm not really seeing what practical difference it makes.
posted by whir at 9:05 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I disagree with the idea that re-watches should be 'saved' for some unspecified future date so that future commenters don't have to go to an existing thread. That was one of the things I loved about the TWoP forum posts for shows, you could go all the way back to when it aired and see reactions and still have commentary. And where's the line going to be then? If you don't have any comments in your last three posts, should you stop posting new threads? What if people are waiting to get to episodes they want to talk about?

I think it's also worth noting that it's August and people are just starting to get back from summer trips and whatnot.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:29 PM on August 23, 2014


Ownership of threads is a longstanding disagreement on MetaFilter, and FanFare exacerbates the problem because of its serial nature.

If you don't have any comments in your last three posts, should you stop posting new threads?

Speaking only for myself? Yes. There doesn't seem to be much interest in discussing Big Brother, so I'm probably done posting threads. Maybe somebody else will, and/or maybe I'll post a finale thread, but otherwise no. Everybody can make their own decision but yes, I feel like it's appropriate to stop spamming the site with threads if the level of interest isn't there. This entire website (MetaFilter & Co) is about sharing stuff with people. If it's just for the person posting, then the usual refrain is GYOB.

What if people are waiting to get to episodes they want to talk about?

Then they can post those threads right now. There's no rule that in order to discuss episode 21, we must first have 20 previous threads. I'm currently watching season 2 of House of Cards. The show isn't on FanFare yet. When I'm caught up, I'd be curious to see if people want to discuss it here. I'm not going to post 26 threads. I would plan to just post one for the season 2 finale where anybody can discuss everything that's aired so far.
posted by cribcage at 9:37 PM on August 23, 2014


I would plan to just post one for the season 2 finale where anybody can discuss everything that's aired so far.

I don't want to be a drag but there was talk about doing that for season 2 of The Wire and it was shut down. (I didn't see the actual post by carsonb so I don't know if there was something in particular that made it unacceptable.) Single season posts are at the top of my wishlist.

I think it's also worth noting that it's August and people are just starting to get back from summer trips and whatnot.

Definitely. Also, summer is just the worst for TV. I know we're mostly talking classic shows here, but I think when the fall season starts, things will shift. Doing more with ... more.
posted by Lorin at 10:05 PM on August 23, 2014


No drag. I don't think that comment conflicts with what I'd be proposing to do. Matt wants threads to exist for single episodes, not multiples. I don't read that as him saying that in order to post episode 26, you must first climb the 25-step mountain. That said, I wasn't raising the suggestion to ask permission; I'd just post and if the mods feel it's inappropriate, that's what the queue is for. If anybody wants to steal my thunder on that one, go for it.
posted by cribcage at 10:28 PM on August 23, 2014


I think there are four distinct categories of posts on FanFare: newly aired episodes, rewatching old shows, first watches of old shows, and movies, and I think that they justify a range of details in the posts, with the least for new shows, to the most for movies.

With that, I think anyone should feel like they could make the next post in a series, and for new shows, they don't need to do anything more than get the episode title and number right, and write or copy a half-decent summary. Lengthier posts are nice, but even that isn't necessary in my eyes, because this is a venue to discuss the episode or movie at hand, with the assumption that everyone is already familiar with the content.

Movies and old shows are different in that there might need to be some coaxing done to get people to watch the material, so joseph conrad is fully awesome's post reminded everyone of what they had experienced, or painted a better picture of the movie than a short synopsis, and JHarris' details on Last Week Tonight provide reminders of what people saw, or give them reasons to see the episode.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 AM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Last Week Tonight falls into your "newly aired episodes" category. But JHarris's epic LWT posts are very much an outlier; most "new episode" posts are simply a sentence or two of synopsis to kick off the comments.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:42 AM on August 24, 2014


Damn you, you outlying piece of datum! (A line from John Oliver's character on Community, not actually damning anyone.)

I want to say anything that discourages posting is probably bad. I don't think a sense of ownership is necessarily bad; if the posts are being made regularly, great! But if that same sense prevents people from posting and discussing in a timely fashion, not so great.

Organization could be simple as designating days of the week and a preferred source of synopsis (cut and paste from Netflix, or whatever) and done. Post freely. It's nice to be able to do so without feeling like you're assuming ownership.
posted by Lorin at 10:11 AM on August 24, 2014


I don't want to be a drag but there was talk about doing that for season 2 of The Wire and it was shut down. (I didn't see the actual post by carsonb so I don't know if there was something in particular that made it unacceptable.) Single season posts are at the top of my wishlist.

It's a shame, too, because most of the meaningful discussion of Orange Is The New Black ended up in the Season 2 finale thread.
posted by donajo at 5:05 PM on August 25, 2014


I love posting MST3K episodes, but it's a substantial amount of work to do that. That's mostly my own fault: while the post itself is short, the recap I make in comments has ballooned in size. I could probably go back to posting them again if I learned to limit that stuff.

Still though, I don't think I "own" either MST3K or Last Week Tonight, although I admit, if I posted one and saw someone had beaten me by a few minutes, it'd be a little annoying -- but mostly because, hey, it's nice not to duplicate work. Also I'm not sure how FanFare would handle such collisions, or if one of the two posts would be deleted, automatically or via moderator, or fail to go up.
posted by JHarris at 3:39 PM on August 26, 2014


Then last week, Benway again, but this time late at night again. Again, I was waiting rather than posting it myself because I didn't want to step on any toes.

Yeah sorry about that I was out of town and had to post later than normal. The post was tied up in moderation for several hours, which I e-mailed about and Cortex eventually got it up.

By the way, I have posted this week's episode, it is in moderation right now, but it will come up eventually.

After mathowie posted the first episode, you are correct Flunkie that I waited and waited for the next post and finally decided to just post something. At his point I have just sort of run with the posting, but would welcome anyone else who would like to jump in. I just wanted to make sure the episode was posted on Saturday and keep the series rolling.
posted by Benway at 11:53 AM on August 30, 2014


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