Feedback: Should we open up to other Whedon projects?

[yourlibrarian]

Back when we were going to open Classic Recs I got a question about whether we might also include recs for Dollhouse. As both Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible are rather limited run series with comparatively small fandoms, it seemed to me that buffyversetop5 could well provide a home for such recs without significantly changing the nature of the community. Of course, other fandoms have always made an appearance in recs for crossovers, but I think it's safe to say there's a good bit of overlap in fans of various Whedon projects, as well as actors, writers, etc.

So while the question was specifically about Dollhouse, I wanted to ask how people feel about including recs for Whedon projects in general? With a second installment of Dr. Horrible forthcoming next year, as well as various other one-off projects, becoming a general Whedonverse recs community might make more sense than adding some but not all projects.

Comments

[annegables.livejournal.com]

I think it would be in keeping with the attitude of this fandom to include all work by Joss Whedon. It might become very difficult in the future to decide where to draw the line as Joss seems to be quite prolific!

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I vote yea to including the entire Joss!verse. I doubt there will be tons of Toy Story slash, but I wouldn't have a problem if there was. (Was that a bunny?)

[deird1]

Toy Story slash!

*suddenly and inexplicably WANTS*

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Thirded!

[ruuger]

There is, in fact, at least one very good Toy Story slash story around - To Infinity by leyenn - though unfortunately not from 2009 despite what the date at the page says, so it's not eligible for buffyversetop5 :D

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I agree with everyone else--I vote yay.

[xlivvielockex.livejournal.com]

The more, the merrier. *thumbs up!*

[athenamuze.livejournal.com]

YES!!!!

[draconin.livejournal.com]

I vote yes. If people aren't interested in a particular fandom no-one's forcing them to click on a link! :-)

I do wonder, however, if the addition of multiple new fandoms is going to mean that the tags list is going to get totally out of hand? Perhaps someone with far better coding skills than I have could create a page that has the tags displayed in a more organised fashion? ie by fandom or something similar.

[yourlibrarian]

One of the things I've long wished for is the ability to do combination tag searches. So you could search for "firefly" + "time travel" for example, or whatever sort of story by fandom. Or, if nothing else, we could have journal searching implemented on LJ like we have at DW, so one could search all entries for particular terms.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

If you're not already aware, I discovered a while ago that you can do multiple searches in a sense by separating the tags with a comma.

Thus ...buffyversetop5/tag/amy,angel will return all the entries that have tags of either amy OR angel. However, there doesn't seem to be a way built into LJ to do an "AND" style search that would return only entries that have BOTH tags.

You can also do a word/phrase search within the community by using LJSeek.com. I'm not sure whether this is an independent site or an LJ service but it's possible to embed their search engine in your site header so that you can search on words or phrases only within your site. Check out the header on my recs site (http://community.livejournal.com/draclinks/) for an example; try searching on (say) "dream" to see it in action. It's not ideal but workable. If you're interested in doing this here and not sure how to, just yell. It's very simple in my journal style but I'm not sure how easy it would be in others such as yours. I think you could do the same in your links area though I'm not sure.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, without the AND feature it's not all that helpful (at least for the search type in question). I didn't realize LJ Seek could be imbeded, that seems helpful! Isn't it limited timewise, though? As in it will only search going back a year or so?

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Isn't it limited timewise, though? As in it will only search going back a year or so?

Ah, you're right! I just tested with a word in a posting from 2007 and it didn't find it. Damn. I think when I first added it to the site I only had entries going back less than 12 months and so never realised.

If you do decide to use it, the trick is to embed the code from LJSeek's site in a place that allows html code - only some areas will allow you to embed a form. I did it in the box they provide for you to enter code for a counter. If it's there (it's not in all styles), you'll find it in the main Style customisation page, under "Additional Options". Look for "If you have an external web counter, you can enter the HTML for it here". I would imagine that other places will work too. I stopped looking once I found that this one worked.

I also edited the code from LJSeek slightly so that the resulting search box was smaller and only searched in the rec site.

[yourlibrarian]

I think for a lot of communities even the limited-time search would be valuable. Given that we're only open a short time each year though, I'm not sure it would add a lot to just scrolling through a few pages of posts (especially since people might overlook the fact that it's date-dependent and would assume something's not here when it actually is). If we had a lot more activity though it would certainly be worth doing.

Your mention of counters also makes me wish we had a simple (and visible) statistics package for communities as well.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

I'm hopeful that the new "MyStats" page will eventually be extended to communities too. I think it's the logical extension. It doesn't make it visible on your community page of course, although it would be easy to put a link to it.

I don't know if you checked out deird1's link to the still_grrr site? I'd not seen it before and I very much like their feature of "tag bundles". Really neat. Shame we don't have something similar here.

[yourlibrarian]

I did and it seems useful, although I won't be able to look into it until next week.

[deird1]

I'd not seen it before

You hadn't? *glares* Mutter-mutter-why-don't-people-read-my-announcements-about-these-things-grumble-mutter...

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Ummm... oops? ::cowers:: *g*

It's now in my bookmark folder called "To Be Checked Out". Now that I'm on holidays I'm finally getting to make some inroads on doing the checking out.

[deird1]

Okay, you're forgiven.

*offers vegemite*

[draconin.livejournal.com]

'Fraid I'm a Promite guy! :-)

I always get amused at the faces that non-Aussies pull when you introduce them to the stuff. Mind you, in fairness to them, I think most times they get given bread that's got too much on it. Even I find it hard to take the slathering on that some people do!

[deird1]

Maybe we should have a delicious account?

Like this one...

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

I think its a good idea...

[angelswilliam.livejournal.com]

I'd really would rather you didn't. It seems to me like every other community that was once limited to Buffyverse/Angelverse has, so it would be really nice to have one that's just about those to so there's nothing to sift through.

Frankly, it really rankles with me that all the award communities are opening themselves up to SPN just because a lot of the BTVS/ATS fans are now fans of that show because now all the SPN stuff is winning the awards.

And, I may be alone in this, but I've never taken to any of the other Jossverse shows. I tried watching Firefly, but I couldn't get into it. Dollhouse just looked way too creepy for my tastes, so I didn't even try to watch it. I thought Dr. Horrible was a movie, never saw ads for it, and didn't even know it was a Joss project.

The only BTVS/ATS-related show I'm at all interested in is Bones, and that's not a Whedonverse show. It just has David Boreanaz in it. I also like Torchwood; but again, the only association with BTVS/ATS is one of the vets was in the show, and then only 3 episodes.

So, to make a short story long, my answer is no, I would not like to add any other Whedonverse shows. I'm sure I'll be vastly outvoted, though. *sigh*
========================================================================
Yep. Completely out-voted. Frick.

[deird1]

Frankly, it really rankles with me that all the award communities are opening themselves up to SPN just because a lot of the BTVS/ATS fans are now fans of that show because now all the SPN stuff is winning the awards.

Yeah, I don't get that. I keep seeing awards sites that are "only stuff from the Buffyverse - unless it's SPN"... which is kinda missing the point.

[yourlibrarian]

Ok, let's keep it civil folks. No need to bash anyone else's fandom here.

[angelswilliam.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't realize that was bashing. I'll delete it.

[ladycallie.livejournal.com]

I would love to see Joss's other shows included!

[shapinglight]

I'm going to vote no, despite the fact that I like Dollhouse very much, or at least suggest that the comm just restricts itself to Joss's TV work.

As one of the posters above said, the purely Buffyverse sites/comms are becoming fewer and further between and diluting this one even more (because must admit, I didn't like Firefly being included either)strikes me as the thin end of the wedge.

[vikingprincess]

perhaps the solution is to have different rec times for other jossverses, in much the same way recs of older stories are separated from recs for stories in the past year?

[crevanfox.livejournal.com]

seconded

[shapinglight]

Thirded.

[duh-i-read.livejournal.com]

I like this idea a lot.

I'm on board for anything that allows for other Jossverse recs in this comm.

[deird1]

I like this idea.

[angelswilliam.livejournal.com]

I could go for this! Then I'll know when to ignore the posts! *gasp* Did I say that? Naughty fingers! Naughty fingers!

[vikingprincess]

ROFL, you did! but it seemed to me like a compromise that might work...

[vikingprincess]

and as far as tagging goes, maybe there could be just one per additional 'verse? (show/movie/e-musical title, perhaps?)