something for the LOONs to tear apart...

blpurdom at yahoo.com blpurdom at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 9 11:44:21 UTC 2001


I'm not an official member of LOON, but here are some things I 
noticed about the newbie guide:

It's spelled "canon" not "cannon"

It's PC to say Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone (not to be U.S.A.-
centric)

Only the first sentence of the definition of FANFIC is necessary

Under SHIPPER, you should probably put the word SHIPS in quotes 
("ships") then you might put a parenthetic explanation immediately 
after (relationships) so that people understand the origin of the 
term (every so often I see newbies on various lists ask about
this).

In the mailing list section, you should mention the web-only option 
on many mailing lists (esp. Yahoo lists).  It is NOT a given that you 
will have a mailbox full of stuff if you sign up for Harry Potter 
mailing lists if you check the messages on the websites exclusively. 
Extra mail accounts are unneccessary.  You mentioned the advantage of 
using message boards being that messages are sorted by thread in 
chronological order; the websites for discussion groups can function 
like message boards if you go into the messages section
and click on the thread option.

A couple of typos in the netiquette section:  you left the "s" off 
of "James;" it's Incantatum (there's only an "i" at the 
beginning); "possibility" is misspelled; and the first instance of 
Lily is spelled "lilly." 

Potter on the net...like "canon," "fanon" has only two n's, not three.

You might remind people (they actually forget, I've found) that 
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, 
Sirius Black and James Potter. It's also worth a mention right after 
that this is usually abbreviated "MWPP" in fandom when identifying 
fics featuring folks from that group or era.

You might not want to let your biases show by only saying Snape has 
been connected romantically to Lily (I seem to see just as many 
Snape/Sirius and Snape/James fics) and by saying "Death Eaters have 
become inexplicably popular."  Be fair; leave out 
the "inexplicably."  

Explanation of fanfic: the word is "interpretation" 
not "interpritation." Also, speak of the Potter universe, not potter.
Your introduction to slash comes off as somewhat biased against it, 
even though you say you enjoy it.  I recommend you drop the "no one 
is sure why it's popular" phrase. 

You might also want to have links to other sites with good fanfic 
like FictionAlley.org.

Does this qualify me to be a member of LOON?  I never thought of even 
considering it before, but I'm sure that this qualifies as extremely 
nitpicky.

You obviously did a lot of work to create this!  Should be very 
helpful to newbies.

--Barb









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