Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
  

The time now is Mon Nov 18, 2024 1:53 pm
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)		 View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Slender Man Mythos
Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Moderators: ChildOfAtom, Cougar Draven, DavFlamerock, Dixie_Wolf, ndemeter
View previous topicView next topic
Page 2 of 3 [40 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3 Next
Author Message
redherring
Unfettered


Joined: 04 Dec 2010
Posts: 469
Location: NJ

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
anerisinaction wrote:
ectobandit wrote:
DaLadybugMan wrote:
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?


Yeah, because the people running those blogs totally owe it to you, right? Rolling Eyes


I don't know. I run a lot of RPGs and as a GM I do feel I owe it to the players to make sure they have access to game materials even after I stop running the game/answer questions/etc. They helped make it what it is, and without them I wouldn't have been able to run anything.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that when so many other blogs/stories/people are dependant on what they post that we ask them to leave it up, or at least provide access to the information. Though they may have created it, through the players and other PMs they helped make a huge collaborative story, and removing their section is really isolating for newbies/unfair to people who relied on it to tell their story/other aspects of the game/etc.

I'll never get to read about Core Theory, which everyone references constantly (or used to, but still) because the blog is down. I really feel like I missed out. I'm supportive of the whole "creators don't need to obey the whims of their fans", but this is more than creator/fan relationship. This is, at least in part, a GM/player relationship. And as a player, I feel I own a part of the mythos. Maybe that's wrong, but I think that sense of contribution is what keeps people coming back, is what makes people post, is what makes us want to see how it ends.


Yeah, this.

I agree that, to a certain degree, the author does (and should) have control over his or her story and how it plays out, and I suppose if the narrative calls for something along the lines of a purging of previous information, if it's backed up well enough by the narrative I don't see why they can't do that and it's fine for all parties (even if it's kind of annoying and easily avoided as many have mentioned).

What bothers me is the idea that 'Oh well they don't owe you anything.' Actually, yeah, they kind of do. I liken deleting an entire blog's worth of narrative (or channel's worth of YouTube videos) to letting somebody read a book once then burning all copies of it so it cannot be read again, or watching a play and after its performance destroying all of the scripts and props so it can not be seen or performed again, or destroying all DVD/film copies of a motion picture for the same reason. If I see a movie and tell a friend about it, and they don't get around to seeing it right away and it happens to go out of theatres, it doesn't stop existing. Same if I share about a book or graphic novel or television show. If the author destroyed all evidence that the media existed and said it was for 'narrative purposes' you'd be kind of pissed off too. Do they have the right to do that? Yeah. But it's incredibly bad practice as an author to do that when the reason you create the media is to entertain and engage your audience.

ARGs are, at their core, performance art to some extent, so there is an element where they are best experienced as they happen. That shouldn't mean others cannot enjoy the experience in their own way as well, though. The PMs are performers, but also authors, and even if it's not a rule that they have to preserve their creations for us (especially if it costs money, which 99.9% of these blogs do not since they exist on free hosting) it's considerate to your audience (which is kind of the whole reason behind getting into doing something in this genre, or any creative media for that matter) to allow them to continue enjoying the story even after it's finished.

tl;dr ARG/narrative blog authors sort of do owe it to their audiences to keep their works after the game/story is completed, even if they don't necessarily have to do so. It's bad practice as an author to not do so.

Edit: And just so I set the record straight and don't start a flame war here for no reason, I'm not saying it has to stay up on the original blog or channel or website if the author really feels it has to 'go', whether financially or narratively. But there are MANY ways to preserve these things in terms of archives, and I can guarantee a plethora of people on here would be willing to help in keeping track of all the mythos.
_________________
http://ryan.lelache.net

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:02 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Watson
Unfettered

Joined: 30 Jan 2010
Posts: 373
Location: AM I BROKEN?!

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
ectobandit wrote:
DaLadybugMan wrote:
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?


Yeah, because the people running those blogs totally owe it to you, right? Rolling Eyes

This. I'm going to come off as snarky and rude here, but as a writer I feel I don't owe my audience jackshit. I don't write for my audience, I write because I feel I have a story worth telling and I'm going to tell it how it is meant to be told, not how someone else wants it to be told. To me, giving in to that sense of entitlement that an audience member has, is being a weak-willed storyteller.

I am writing for myself, and allowing an audience in by choice. If they do not like the direction the story takes, oh well. They can watch or read something else. If they do like where the story goes and they're willing to join me as I tell the tale, awesome! I'll be glad to continue the story for their sake and mine. I'm not writing for whiny assholes who feel entitled to any fraction of the story I am writing and allowing them to follow.

I liken this kind of attitude to someone who stops watching a show just because a character they like develops in a way they don't approve of. So what? The story has a life of its own and I admire writers who have the balls to write it the way it needs to be written instead of giving in to the pressure of 'well what will the audience think of this?' As a writer, I can attest to having felt that a story needs to go a certain direction, whether the writer likes it or not.

As for the whole, 'this is more of an ARG situation', no, it's not. This medium isn't exclusive to this story and even if it were, you still wouldn't be entitled to running the GM's game the way the GM wants to run it.

tl;dr- Stop whining because no one owes you shit. This sense of entitlement attitude annoys me. Hence rant.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:12 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
anerisinaction
Boot


Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Posts: 67
Location: Hiding, UK

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Watson wrote:
As for the whole, 'this is more of an ARG situation', no, it's not. This medium isn't exclusive to this story and even if it were, you still wouldn't be entitled to running the GM's game the way the GM wants to run it.


Is ending it and then removing it so no one can appreciate your work "running a game"? Because while I agree with you 100000% on the actual content of a game, (few things annoy me more than when people disagree with well written character development) I disagree about what you do when it's over.

If people participate, are they not entitled to their participation in a game?

Though I think the conflict here stems from who we think owns the game; if you view the creators as having exclusive rights to the material generated, you're going to find this annoying. if you think the players have some say in what happens to the story they generate, you're not.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:19 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Watson
Unfettered

Joined: 30 Jan 2010
Posts: 373
Location: AM I BROKEN?!

 		I'd say if the creator presents option A for the players, and has conclusions 1, 2, and 3 set up in place as reactions to player choices, then the creator still has free reign over this material. The story is all his or her's. The choices made by the players are their own, and nothing more. They simply get to watch the result of their own actions as it impacts the story. However, when it comes to the deletion of a blog, I think it depends on the circumstance.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:23 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
redherring
Unfettered


Joined: 04 Dec 2010
Posts: 469
Location: NJ

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
anerisinaction wrote:
Watson wrote:
As for the whole, 'this is more of an ARG situation', no, it's not. This medium isn't exclusive to this story and even if it were, you still wouldn't be entitled to running the GM's game the way the GM wants to run it.


Is ending it and then removing it so no one can appreciate your work "running a game"? Because while I agree with you 100000% on the actual content of a game, (few things annoy me more than when people disagree with well written character development) I disagree about what you do when it's over.

If people participate, are they not entitled to their participation in a game?

Though I think the conflict here stems from who we think owns the game; if you view the creators as having exclusive rights to the material generated, you're going to find this annoying. if you think the players have some say in what happens to the story they generate, you're not.


I honestly just read this entire argument in web forum back-and-forth jabbering as it occurred over on the Wizards of the Coast forums in '06 (this argument being about author's rights and responsibilities, etc.) (link: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75894/19961454/Tokenism?pg=1) (It starts several pages in, goes on for what feels like forever with ultimately nobody really 'winning' the argument).

As an author, you're entitled to your work, Watson. So is every blog, vlog, and game author. And filmmaker. And visual artist. Et cetera. If it's gonna get down to semantics, then no, you don't "owe" your audience anything. It's just a courtesy to your audience, and how you choose to regard them or respect their continued interest in your story.* There are definitely two flip sides to this argument about authorship*, though: those who feel authors should only author because they want to do it with disregard for their potential audience(s), and those who feel authors consider their audiences when they create something. I think it honestly isn't so black and white, and that an author really should create something because they want to, but also because they want others to enjoy it as well. Posing it as 'one or the other, no compromise' would sort of be a middle finger to authors, who go into what they do for a variety of reasons.

In all honesty, considering that this thread was started as a response to Slenderblogs and not to authors of media in general and as a whole, I won't keep dwelling on that subject since it's really a no-win anyway (although if anyone wants to discuss it further outside this thread, I'd be happy to PM.) Just saw before I submitted this that you point out that 'deletion of a blog... depends on the circumstance'. I think we can all agree on that (maybe not some, but I'm willing to agree on it anyway Razz ). I think it's courteous to the mythos, the audience, and the community at large for authors of these blogs to keep archives (or allow archives) of their stories so that they can be enjoyed past the end date of the story and referenced for more "academic" (I use the term loosely) reasons in relation to the mythos of Slenderman.

Edit: Asterisk'd where I added in something because I totally mind-farted and forgot to complete a thought. Sounded really dumb when I re-read it.
_________________
http://ryan.lelache.net

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:40 am
Last edited by redherring on Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:47 am; edited 2 times in total
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
awakeasaurusrex
Entrenched


Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Posts: 1099

 		On what the creators of Slendyblogs do and don't owe us, some thoughts:

- Sure, it's your blog and nobody can stop you deleting it if you want to. That doesn't mean we can't call it a dick move to dangle a story we like in front of us and then snatch it away suddenly. If you were going to disappear the blog anyway, what's the point of publishing it in the first place? Either give people access to it or don't. At the end of the day, maybe you don't owe the audience anything. The audience don't owe you anything either.

- These days, almost no Slendyblog is an island. Any blog which gets even halfway successful will soon have overt and sly references to it made in other slendyblogs. In fact, two of the blogs cited in the OP which did the whole disappearing act thing were fairly central members of the particular set of Slenderblogs that were doing Core Theory, and were fairly active in promoting the use of Core Theory in Slenderblogs. If you've not only allowed people to build on the foundation you've established, but positively encouraged them to, it's kind of dickish to then snatch that foundation away from them.

- Just because you're doing this shit for free doesn't mean you're above criticism. The fact is that disappearing your blog makes it inaccessible to anyone who wanted to reread the thing, or wanted to read it for the first time. Wiping it and then starting again is just plain irritating for people who are following your active blog but who might not have caught the early entries. These are both things which I think it's legitimate for people to criticise because they're decisions which have a negative impact on their enjoyment of what you've produced.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:43 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
redherring
Unfettered


Joined: 04 Dec 2010
Posts: 469
Location: NJ
awakeasaurusrex wrote:
On what the creators of Slendyblogs do and don't owe us, some thoughts:

- Sure, it's your blog and nobody can stop you deleting it if you want to. That doesn't mean we can't call it a dick move to dangle a story we like in front of us and then snatch it away suddenly. If you were going to disappear the blog anyway, what's the point of publishing it in the first place? Either give people access to it or don't. At the end of the day, maybe you don't owe the audience anything. The audience don't owe you anything either.

- These days, almost no Slendyblog is an island. Any blog which gets even halfway successful will soon have overt and sly references to it made in other slendyblogs. In fact, two of the blogs cited in the OP which did the whole disappearing act thing were fairly central members of the particular set of Slenderblogs that were doing Core Theory, and were fairly active in promoting the use of Core Theory in Slenderblogs. If you've not only allowed people to build on the foundation you've established, but positively encouraged them to, it's kind of dickish to then snatch that foundation away from them.

- Just because you're doing this shit for free doesn't mean you're above criticism. The fact is that disappearing your blog makes it inaccessible to anyone who wanted to reread the thing, or wanted to read it for the first time. Wiping it and then starting again is just plain irritating for people who are following your active blog but who might not have caught the early entries. These are both things which I think it's legitimate for people to criticise because they're decisions which have a negative impact on their enjoyment of what you've produced.


Thanks for making a much more concise and eloquent case than I did, awake. Embarassed My whole last two posts feel a tad silly now, hah.
_________________
http://ryan.lelache.net

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:45 am
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
anerisinaction
Boot


Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Posts: 67
Location: Hiding, UK
awakeasaurusrex wrote:
On what the creators of Slendyblogs do and don't owe us, some thoughts:

- Sure, it's your blog and nobody can stop you deleting it if you want to. That doesn't mean we can't call it a dick move to dangle a story we like in front of us and then snatch it away suddenly. If you were going to disappear the blog anyway, what's the point of publishing it in the first place? Either give people access to it or don't. At the end of the day, maybe you don't owe the audience anything. The audience don't owe you anything either.

- These days, almost no Slendyblog is an island. Any blog which gets even halfway successful will soon have overt and sly references to it made in other slendyblogs. In fact, two of the blogs cited in the OP which did the whole disappearing act thing were fairly central members of the particular set of Slenderblogs that were doing Core Theory, and were fairly active in promoting the use of Core Theory in Slenderblogs. If you've not only allowed people to build on the foundation you've established, but positively encouraged them to, it's kind of dickish to then snatch that foundation away from them.

- Just because you're doing this shit for free doesn't mean you're above criticism. The fact is that disappearing your blog makes it inaccessible to anyone who wanted to reread the thing, or wanted to read it for the first time. Wiping it and then starting again is just plain irritating for people who are following your active blog but who might not have caught the early entries. These are both things which I think it's legitimate for people to criticise because they're decisions which have a negative impact on their enjoyment of what you've produced.


Yes, this. God this. /thread

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:55 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Pepz
Boot

Joined: 05 Jan 2011
Posts: 24

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Watson wrote:
ectobandit wrote:
DaLadybugMan wrote:
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?


Yeah, because the people running those blogs totally owe it to you, right? Rolling Eyes

This. I'm going to come off as snarky and rude here, but as a writer I feel I don't owe my audience jackshit. I don't write for my audience, I write because I feel I have a story worth telling and I'm going to tell it how it is meant to be told, not how someone else wants it to be told. To me, giving in to that sense of entitlement that an audience member has, is being a weak-willed storyteller.

I am writing for myself, and allowing an audience in by choice. If they do not like the direction the story takes, oh well. They can watch or read something else. If they do like where the story goes and they're willing to join me as I tell the tale, awesome! I'll be glad to continue the story for their sake and mine. I'm not writing for whiny assholes who feel entitled to any fraction of the story I am writing and allowing them to follow.

I liken this kind of attitude to someone who stops watching a show just because a character they like develops in a way they don't approve of. So what? The story has a life of its own and I admire writers who have the balls to write it the way it needs to be written instead of giving in to the pressure of 'well what will the audience think of this?' As a writer, I can attest to having felt that a story needs to go a certain direction, whether the writer likes it or not.

As for the whole, 'this is more of an ARG situation', no, it's not. This medium isn't exclusive to this story and even if it were, you still wouldn't be entitled to running the GM's game the way the GM wants to run it.

tl;dr- Stop whining because no one owes you shit. This sense of entitlement attitude annoys me. Hence rant.


As a student of literature this really strikes me as an outdated opinion on the topic. In literature, it used to be true that the author was God on all matters related to their works. If you had a question about the setting or story, whatever the author claimed the answer to be was true, even if no readers were able to read it that way on their own.

In the past couple of decennia this center of attention has shifted away from the author, has had a pause at the novel itself and is now shifting to the interaction between reader and novel. Anything that springs forward after someone reads a novel is canon to them ( the reader). The chemistry between the reader and the novel is unique between them and the author has no more authority over his works than the people who've read it.

As a writer, you should know that one of the most rewarding aspects of having your stories read is how people tell you how they experienced it.
What DaLadyBugMan is asking for is a chance to experience some of the older works in this still growing genre, and others are asking for a chance to re-experience the older works, feel that same old chemistry.

This discussion isn't about a fan-base's right to influence a story, that right is the author's completely. What the OP is asking for is to leave the older works intact so others can enjoy them as well. And I don't think he is wrong in asking that much.

Pablo Picasso burned his older works to keep warm. Although, we can now be happy that he lived and made even better ones, he robbed the world of the chance to see how he got where he was. And that will be an eternal loss to all.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:00 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
xcqThieves
Veteran


Joined: 19 Mar 2011
Posts: 123
Location: Drifting in D

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Watson wrote:
I am writing for myself


Notepad, please.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:13 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
Watson
Unfettered

Joined: 30 Jan 2010
Posts: 373
Location: AM I BROKEN?!

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
I suppose now that I look at it, my original response was rather heated and more targeted toward those who think writers of general fiction(read: anything not Slendy related) owe their readership something. I must concede that what makes the Slenderman mythos so magic and attention-grabbing is the ability of its community to mold it. So anything added to it leaves a permanenet mark, and anything taken away leaves a permanenet hole. Unless there's a legitimate story reason and it is going to be explained later down the road, or no one even remotely paid any attention to it, removing and deleting an entire blog is not called for.

Pepz wrote:

As a student of literature this really strikes me as an outdated opinion on the topic. In literature, it used to be true that the author was God on all matters related to their works. If you had a question about the setting or story, whatever the author claimed the answer to be was true, even if no readers were able to read it that way on their own.

In the past couple of decennia this center of attention has shifted away from the author, has had a pause at the novel itself and is now shifting to the interaction between reader and novel. Anything that springs forward after someone reads a novel is canon to them ( the reader). The chemistry between the reader and the novel is unique between them and the author has no more authority over his works than the people who've read it.

I don't understand, as this was essentially what I was saying to begin with. I'm sharing a vision with my readers, whomever they may be, and just like real life, we all perceive it differently. Whatever readers see or saw when reading is true for them, and whatever I saw when i was writing the story is what is true for me. You seem to give dominion to the reader's perception of the story over the writer's. Is that what you're getting at or am I misunderstanding?

Quote:
As a writer, you should know that one of the most rewarding aspects of having your stories read is how people tell you how they experienced it.

I agree with this. haha

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:00 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Guest
Guest


 		Blogs suck anyway.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:30 pm
 Back to top 
awakeasaurusrex
Entrenched


Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Posts: 1099

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Watson wrote:
I suppose now that I look at it, my original response was rather heated and more targeted toward those who think writers of general fiction(read: anything not Slendy related) owe their readership something. I must concede that what makes the Slenderman mythos so magic and attention-grabbing is the ability of its community to mold it. So anything added to it leaves a permanenet mark, and anything taken away leaves a permanenet hole. Unless there's a legitimate story reason and it is going to be explained later down the road, or no one even remotely paid any attention to it, removing and deleting an entire blog is not called for.

What would you make of the point I raised earlier, that if there's a legitimate story reason why a blog might be deleted, you can pretty much always cook up a legitimate story reason why a blog might not be deleted, and considering what you've already said authors really ought to err on the side of not deleting?

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:34 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
jarnaez
Boot

Joined: 28 Oct 2010
Posts: 35

 		I imagine those that get deleted more than likely get deleted out of dissatisfaction rather than malice. Joke blogs can stop being funny to the writer, maybe some aspect of the story just got way out of hand, and many other reasons can make you look at what you wrote and go "This is just bad now." I went through that with some of my amateur writings and just one day got rid of them. I hadn't touched them for a couple years, though people still looked and found the quality very shoddy and didn't want it as the most visible bit of my work, even as a hobby.

Now of course the most polite thing to do is let people know, but at the same time I don't feel that anyone is beholden to keep any blog up if they don't want to do it anymore. The final say lays with the creator, whether you like it or not, and I do not think the audience gets to override that.

I also don't buy the community argument as a fully solid reason for leaving everything up. Yes the community shapes it, but the community also has a habit of "forcing" the mention of other blogs and vlogs. Seeing the same people as commenters on many different blogs, offering up loads of other blogs to "help" out I think made an expectation that everything is considered in the reality of every blog everywhere. Even if someone wanted to make a stand alone blog, I'm not sure if it could last without screening comments which takes away fluid interaction.

Sorry for the bit of offtopic there, but at the end there should be a respectful relationship between writer and audience. In the end that they want to axe it, that's the author's prerogative but a warning for archival is the best way to go about it. It's important to look at audience's feelings but I also don't think they matter more than the author's satisfaction in the work.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 3:57 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Jsor
Decorated

Joined: 23 Mar 2011
Posts: 165

 		I think a valid solution would be to move the old posts to a private section, and then when the ARG concludes unprivatize them and add a node saying [these posts were deleted for a while]. Alternatively, move them to a separate, OOG-hacky blog that people can be instructed to go to first, but make clear that it's strictly OOG and for the reader, and the character has no recollection said posts exist (or whatever).

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:47 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 2 of 3 [40 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3 Next
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Slender Man Mythos
Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group