Well, pandarus said she was calming down once she got the fact that it was only metadata over there, so.
And even though metadata "is always out there" and the internet is googlable, I don't think it's completely unwarranted for people to get worried when they realize that some data is hanging about in places that are not fandom spaces. To google "pandarus", you have to know her name. If the discourse about her podficcing is constrained to fandom spaces, people not-in-fandom have less chances to come across her name to begin with. But if her name is something you can stumble onto in places that have nothing to do with fandom, then it's a piece of data (added to track /titles/ on last.fm, it seems? which are possibly even more 'damning') that anyone can now find /and/ consequently use to google more.
As always, the fact that something is already possible theoretically in a small measure is not enough to dismiss, imo, the worries of people who don't want to see this measure grow exponentially. A multiplied risk is a greater risk, after all (odds are measure in percentages for a reason), and not everyone wants to be at increased risk of being discovered, not when they live in countries where fictional underage sex or the depiction of homosexual relationships is illegal, and not when they might well be kindergarten teachers in Minnesota.
Like I said, personally I'm not really worried (but sometimes I think my not being worried is more a symptom of my blitheness than of my realism). But I don't think it's silly to be worried in some way.
Even if you think 'it was already like that, you just didn't know it' - well, it's okay for people to become worried when they come into possession/awareness of more information about a situation. Perhaps some of them will change the way they weigh the risk of podficcing, who knows. In which case, despite my own opinions on the issue, I'll be glad that they were able to make a more informed decision. *shrugs*
I think people generally have a tendency to want to control information in unrealistic ways, and I think it makes them do all sorts of unreasonable things sometimes, either because they get overwrought about new knowledge or because they keep having to balance their expectations of privacy against reality.
Fandom is sadly very good at pretending (and making people believe) that it's possible to be out there, out here, and never have any data about your very existence and activity make it out into the world at large. I wish fandom in general was different about it because it strikes me as a dangerous belief.
But I don't let my wish blind me to the legitimate worries and shocks that people sometimes receive when things like this happen - I'm not without empathy for that situation. Maybe you don't feel it partly because you don't podfic, but like Jinjur explains so well in the post of hers I linked to yesterday, podficcing is an activity from the body, it feels even more closely related to who you are in real space than writing does. It feels more intimate, more exposing, more fraught. So to be more sensitive about it? Doesn't seem so odd to me. So. Yeah. Perhaps I'll be upset if people are disproportionately hysterical about it in a week, but in the meantime, the shocked reaction doesn't faze me much.
no subject
And even though metadata "is always out there" and the internet is googlable, I don't think it's completely unwarranted for people to get worried when they realize that some data is hanging about in places that are not fandom spaces. To google "pandarus", you have to know her name. If the discourse about her podficcing is constrained to fandom spaces, people not-in-fandom have less chances to come across her name to begin with. But if her name is something you can stumble onto in places that have nothing to do with fandom, then it's a piece of data (added to track /titles/ on last.fm, it seems? which are possibly even more 'damning') that anyone can now find /and/ consequently use to google more.
As always, the fact that something is already possible theoretically in a small measure is not enough to dismiss, imo, the worries of people who don't want to see this measure grow exponentially. A multiplied risk is a greater risk, after all (odds are measure in percentages for a reason), and not everyone wants to be at increased risk of being discovered, not when they live in countries where fictional underage sex or the depiction of homosexual relationships is illegal, and not when they might well be kindergarten teachers in Minnesota.
Like I said, personally I'm not really worried (but sometimes I think my not being worried is more a symptom of my blitheness than of my realism). But I don't think it's silly to be worried in some way.
Even if you think 'it was already like that, you just didn't know it' - well, it's okay for people to become worried when they come into possession/awareness of more information about a situation. Perhaps some of them will change the way they weigh the risk of podficcing, who knows. In which case, despite my own opinions on the issue, I'll be glad that they were able to make a more informed decision. *shrugs*
I think people generally have a tendency to want to control information in unrealistic ways, and I think it makes them do all sorts of unreasonable things sometimes, either because they get overwrought about new knowledge or because they keep having to balance their expectations of privacy against reality.
Fandom is sadly very good at pretending (and making people believe) that it's possible to be out there, out here, and never have any data about your very existence and activity make it out into the world at large. I wish fandom in general was different about it because it strikes me as a dangerous belief.
But I don't let my wish blind me to the legitimate worries and shocks that people sometimes receive when things like this happen - I'm not without empathy for that situation. Maybe you don't feel it partly because you don't podfic, but like Jinjur explains so well in the post of hers I linked to yesterday, podficcing is an activity from the body, it feels even more closely related to who you are in real space than writing does. It feels more intimate, more exposing, more fraught. So to be more sensitive about it? Doesn't seem so odd to me. So. Yeah. Perhaps I'll be upset if people are disproportionately hysterical about it in a week, but in the meantime, the shocked reaction doesn't faze me much.