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frameacloudTrigger warnings: mention of vampire-related and werewolf-related crimes. Not graphic.
Summary: I’m deciding under what conditions I should list vampire-related crimes in the Otherkin Timeline. (Or werewolf-related crimes, etc.) In order to make that decision, I’m developing a clearer idea of the purposes of two of my projects, the Otherkin Timeline and the Otherkin News. I conclude that I should report on all current vampire-related crimes in the News, but only include crimes in the Timeline if those crimes eventually demonstrated a relationship with the communities.
In the latest update of the Otherkin Timeline, I chose to include a few vampire-related and werewolf-related crimes that happened during year 2011, even though those crimes haven’t demonstrated any relationship with the communities, so far as I’m aware. In my next phase of work on the Otherkin Timeline, I plan to start including the vampire community, about which I currently know very little. Based on what Belanger wrote in the Codex about how vampire-related crimes influenced the vampire community during the Nineties, I also intended to include the recent history of the vampire-related crimes.
However, in a comment on a previous post here, Merticus pointed out to me how the latter part of my plans would be inappropriate and impractical:
Merticus makes a good point, because including so many semi-related or unrelated events would definitely obscure and overwhelm the focus of the Timeline. I’ve previously tried to preserve the Timeline’s focus by discarding a variety other topics as being insufficiently related to its focus. For example, I didn’t list the release of every fantasy novel with elves in it on the off-chance that it might have been significant for elf-kin in some way unknown to me. (However, I did list a few role-playing games that demonstrated a sufficiently significant relationship with the otherkin community.) I also didn’t list the publication of any articles about clinical lycanthropy, since those are about a very rare and usually temporary psychological syndrome, not about a community, whereas the Timeline is meant to be a history of the communities. The majority of vampire-related crimes probably have a similarly insufficient relation to the Timeline’s focus on communities.
The purpose of Otherkin News is to report on all kinds of semi-related things-- including even fantasy novels, clinical lycanthropy, and all sorts of vampire-related crimes-- whereas the purpose of the Otherkin Timeline is to record only those events that eventually demonstrated a significant relationship with the communities. The News collects everything, on the off-chance it might be significant to us later, whereas the Timeline collects only those things that did prove to be significant to us later.
As such, it would be more efficient if I did this sort of compromise instead: I'll report on all current related crimes in Otherkin News, but only include related crimes in Otherkin Timeline if they really did turn out to have a significant impact on the community or involved community participants. This is my new decision for how to handle this issue.
Then I wouldn’t have to dig through the archives to list every single related crime in the Timeline, but in the News, I would still be able to keep track of current crimes, in case they do end up having influence on the community later.
The problem remains that I’d have to determine whether a related crime did have a significant relationship with or influence upon the communities. That might be sort of subjective in a lot of cases, so I’ll still need a lot of help figuring this one out. I’ve never been active in the vampire communities, so I’m not familiar with what has been significant for them.
Gentle reader, do you have further insights on how I can most efficiently and responsibly handle this issue?
- O. Scribner
Summary: I’m deciding under what conditions I should list vampire-related crimes in the Otherkin Timeline. (Or werewolf-related crimes, etc.) In order to make that decision, I’m developing a clearer idea of the purposes of two of my projects, the Otherkin Timeline and the Otherkin News. I conclude that I should report on all current vampire-related crimes in the News, but only include crimes in the Timeline if those crimes eventually demonstrated a relationship with the communities.
In the latest update of the Otherkin Timeline, I chose to include a few vampire-related and werewolf-related crimes that happened during year 2011, even though those crimes haven’t demonstrated any relationship with the communities, so far as I’m aware. In my next phase of work on the Otherkin Timeline, I plan to start including the vampire community, about which I currently know very little. Based on what Belanger wrote in the Codex about how vampire-related crimes influenced the vampire community during the Nineties, I also intended to include the recent history of the vampire-related crimes.
However, in a comment on a previous post here, Merticus pointed out to me how the latter part of my plans would be inappropriate and impractical:
“Including vampire-related crimes/incidents which don’t intersect the otherkin/therian/etc. community is going to be a massive undertaking and may pollute the intended purpose as far as the timeline you’ve compiled is concerned.”
Merticus makes a good point, because including so many semi-related or unrelated events would definitely obscure and overwhelm the focus of the Timeline. I’ve previously tried to preserve the Timeline’s focus by discarding a variety other topics as being insufficiently related to its focus. For example, I didn’t list the release of every fantasy novel with elves in it on the off-chance that it might have been significant for elf-kin in some way unknown to me. (However, I did list a few role-playing games that demonstrated a sufficiently significant relationship with the otherkin community.) I also didn’t list the publication of any articles about clinical lycanthropy, since those are about a very rare and usually temporary psychological syndrome, not about a community, whereas the Timeline is meant to be a history of the communities. The majority of vampire-related crimes probably have a similarly insufficient relation to the Timeline’s focus on communities.
The purpose of Otherkin News is to report on all kinds of semi-related things-- including even fantasy novels, clinical lycanthropy, and all sorts of vampire-related crimes-- whereas the purpose of the Otherkin Timeline is to record only those events that eventually demonstrated a significant relationship with the communities. The News collects everything, on the off-chance it might be significant to us later, whereas the Timeline collects only those things that did prove to be significant to us later.
As such, it would be more efficient if I did this sort of compromise instead: I'll report on all current related crimes in Otherkin News, but only include related crimes in Otherkin Timeline if they really did turn out to have a significant impact on the community or involved community participants. This is my new decision for how to handle this issue.
Then I wouldn’t have to dig through the archives to list every single related crime in the Timeline, but in the News, I would still be able to keep track of current crimes, in case they do end up having influence on the community later.
The problem remains that I’d have to determine whether a related crime did have a significant relationship with or influence upon the communities. That might be sort of subjective in a lot of cases, so I’ll still need a lot of help figuring this one out. I’ve never been active in the vampire communities, so I’m not familiar with what has been significant for them.
Gentle reader, do you have further insights on how I can most efficiently and responsibly handle this issue?
- O. Scribner
