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This is a topic I think about constantly in my work. There are tons of ethical and practical questions that arise from this status quo.
Where should the role of IP stewardship fall?
The fandom? The creators? The publishers? The owners?
There are no clear-cut answers, either. https://twitter.com/GailSimone/status/1304831678045585408
Where should the role of IP stewardship fall?
The fandom? The creators? The publishers? The owners?
There are no clear-cut answers, either. https://twitter.com/GailSimone/status/1304831678045585408
What muddies the waters is the fact that no fan wiki work is compensated. People do it purely out of passion. The only party that directly benefits is Fandom-dot-com/Wikia, a venture capital backed startup trying to monetize crowdsourced pop culture info repositories.
It doesn't help that English Wikipedia has often arbitrary standards for "relevance" to maintain a wiki page dedicated to pop culture. (Meanwhile, Japanese Wikipedia has an entire page devoted to Minovsky particles and their physics.)
In addition to the question of "Who SHOULD be an IP's steward?", there's also the question of "Who's QUALIFIED to be an IP's steward?" Some companies don't keep their facts straight (often due to changing creators, another reality). Some fan wikis mistranslate key pieces of info.
In a perfect world you'd have a dedicated archivist figure for active IPs. But where would such a figure's responsibilities begin and end, in a multimedia landscape where IPs are often licensed to multiple different companies at once, for projects of varying length and size?
These questions are all extremely open-ended, and I'm not sure public discourse is the most healthy way to address them, considering how topics like these often get hijacked by people looking to sow discontent among fandoms. But it's a topic I personally enjoy exploring.
Caleb Cook, the translator of a number of high-profile Shonen Jump properties like My Hero Academia, points out here that he has to maintain his own exhaustive set of notes on his own time because fan wiki info sourcing can often be pretty questionable. https://twitter.com/CDCubed/status/1304949522439700480?s=20
Here's another point: What are the legalities of info storage/reproduction? It's a grey area that varies by nation. (For another example, JP wikis tend to never post official licensed images and stick to pure text. Are there legal reasons for this?) https://twitter.com/HappyKoromaru/status/1304949263307288576?s=20
One translator I discussed this with raised this question: What happens if Fandom/Wikia goes under and stops hosting entirely? Does that info get lost? Does it get frozen on the Internet Archive? What about updates? Should fandoms put all their eggs in one venture capital basket?
Thanks for the clarification! On that note, none of what I'm saying here means that companies DON'T maintain their own internal info repositories. Some do! https://twitter.com/CDCubed/status/1304959614409089025?s=20
A few things here:
1) Owners change.
2) It's not always a matter of disrespect. It can be some combination of foresight and logistical challenges. Creators are extremely busy people.
3) What works for a small/new IP might not scale up for a big/old one. https://twitter.com/Medrzec71/status/1304966490257489920?s=20
1) Owners change.
2) It's not always a matter of disrespect. It can be some combination of foresight and logistical challenges. Creators are extremely busy people.
3) What works for a small/new IP might not scale up for a big/old one. https://twitter.com/Medrzec71/status/1304966490257489920?s=20
I just realized I inadvertently described juggernaut IPs (ie, Gundam, Star Wars) as Great Old Ones.
I'm okay with this parallel.
I'm okay with this parallel.
Here's the other, more uncomfortable downside to reliance on crowdsourced info. When people are aware that their info is relied upon by outside parties, they can manipulate it to suit their own ends. https://twitter.com/cait_and_switch/status/1304840304625938432?s=20
On the other hand, fan wikis can often compile fascinating repositories of information in one handy place without having to dig through random sites. For example, the JoJo fan wiki has an exhaustive article about CLAMP in Wonderland's JoJo fanfiction. https://jojo.fandom.com/wiki/Clamp_in_Wonderland
