Yes, this is exactly it! I remember a time when you had some kind of rudimentary social network: say, Yahoo! Groups or LiveJournal. And people took the array of basic features they offered, configured and utilized them in different combinations, and came up with functional fandom spaces. They were not as slick and user-friendly as sites and apps today, but they got the job done.
But they required a level of problem-solving to repurpose them from their intended use to turn them into fandom archives, events, and projects. And people got pretty innovative in what they were able to do with a bare minimum of simple tools, and once you saw someone do something on their list or LJ, suddenly you knew it was possible to do on yours, and you dove under the hood to figure out how (or just asked ... so much of my knowledge has come from teaching myself, experimenting, or mentorship from more experienced people, and as archives are disappearing, so are the people who very visibly have those skills, and I worry the mentorship opportunities are fading as well and will make it harder to reestablish community archives, even if that is something people want).
With that, though, users also knew that they'd have to take the time to learn not just the rules but the culture of specific places, and as tech becomes user-friendly to the point that you expect to open a site or app and be able to use it without having to consult any directions or help files, the expectation that a new user learn how to use a particular community (or the culture of that community ... our number-one issue on the SWG's Discord, for instance, is people who rampage in like the proverbial bull in a china shop, treating the community like Tumblr or Twitter when we have very intentionally spent 17 years cultivating the exact opposite culture ... but gods help us if we have to sit back and take a few minutes to notice how things are done before plunging in!)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosecarmine
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-10 04:42 pm (UTC)But they required a level of problem-solving to repurpose them from their intended use to turn them into fandom archives, events, and projects. And people got pretty innovative in what they were able to do with a bare minimum of simple tools, and once you saw someone do something on their list or LJ, suddenly you knew it was possible to do on yours, and you dove under the hood to figure out how (or just asked ... so much of my knowledge has come from teaching myself, experimenting, or mentorship from more experienced people, and as archives are disappearing, so are the people who very visibly have those skills, and I worry the mentorship opportunities are fading as well and will make it harder to reestablish community archives, even if that is something people want).
With that, though, users also knew that they'd have to take the time to learn not just the rules but the culture of specific places, and as tech becomes user-friendly to the point that you expect to open a site or app and be able to use it without having to consult any directions or help files, the expectation that a new user learn how to use a particular community (or the culture of that community ... our number-one issue on the SWG's Discord, for instance, is people who rampage in like the proverbial bull in a china shop, treating the community like Tumblr or Twitter when we have very intentionally spent 17 years cultivating the exact opposite culture ... but gods help us if we have to sit back and take a few minutes to notice how things are done before plunging in!)