The fact of the matter is this: in most fandoms outside of Twilight, the majority of high-quality fanfiction is posted outside of Fanfiction.net. That is not to say that fic posted to FFn is necessarily bad, or that fic posted to other venues is necessarily good. The real fact of the matter is that there is no surefire way to glance at a URL and tell whether a fic is good.
But the truth is that any fic writer who has come to THG from a path other than Twilight probably isn't posting their work to FFn as a primary source, so if you're not exploring the Hunger Games fic posted to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, and AO3, you're missing out on some of the highest-quality, best-written fic that the fandom has to offer.
And that is where del.icio.us comes in.
Ah, del.icio.us. It's not just what Katniss would say upon sampling Peeta's cheese buns, it is the most useful fandom resource for fic fans... ever. I MEAN EVER. It's like a global Favorites list, an international Memories page, and a universal rec list all in one. And it couldn't be easier to use!
So what is it?
According to Fanlore,
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to save, tag, manage and share bookmarks from a centralized source. A significant aspect of the site is that, like many Web 2.0 sites, its tags are user-generated, non-hierarchical, and uncontrolled. Users create and apply their own tags in one step, and they can apply as many tags as they like to each bookmark.
Fannish Uses of Delicious
Fans who use Delicious use it to save fandom-related links or meta and find recommendations for fannish reading material. Some fans maintain multiple accounts; others might throw fannish and non-fannish bookmarks into one account. The following is a list of major fannish uses of the site:Looking at tag clouds also allows statistics-minded fans to analyse fannish trends, as well as discover new content.
- Bookmarking favorite fanworks on their personal accounts
- Creating and maintaining their own tags (hours of fun!), using either shared fannish vocabulary or their own system
- Maintaining an easy-to-update rec list for self, friends, fandom at large, and/or specific communities and projects. Delicious is well suited for themed rec list.
- Keeping track of links for a fandom newsletter community
- Providing a searchable archive for Kink Meme prompts and fics.
- Sifting through a trusted reccer's delicious tags for fanworks to consume.
- Browsing or subscribing to site tags related to certain fandoms, pairings, genres, or other fannish keywords. The number of users who have bookmarked a given webpage displays prominently and can be an indication of its value; using the "popular" function in particular serves as an automatically generated rec list.
- Searching for your own name so you can see how many people have bookmarked your posts or stories and what they're saying about you.
- Other searches?
What does that really mean? It means that any time someone saves a Katniss/Peeta fanfic to their bookmarks on del.icio.us, it gets tallied and added to the universal databank of awesome Katniss/Peeta fics for you to peruse, choose, and consume with some lovely lamb stew. It doesn't matter whether the fic is hosted at FFn, LJ, AO3, DW, a privately hosted site, WHEREVER: if the link is saved to del.icio.us, it gets tallied. And you can tag them and categorize your links however best suits you, so there are no restrictions to the ways you can search for and rec fic.
The del.icio.us account for Nighlock Recs is located here: http://www.delicious.com/nightlockrecs -- it's pretty sparse so far since my fellow Nightlock rec bloggers have largely stuck to FFn for recs, so if you want a more complete example of how a delicious account for THG fandom would look, you are more than welcome to check out mine: http://www.delicious.com/aimmyarrowshigh/fandom%3Athehungergames
See the little blue numbers at the right-hand side of the recs? That is the tally of how many people have saved the fic. The more people save the fic, the higher the number and the darker the shade of blue.
Since THG fandom hasn't discovered the wonder of del.icio.us fully yet, the highest-rated THG fics are in the 20s and low 30s for the number of tallies. But for thriving, fic-heavy fandoms that understand the true power of a delicious account (like Merlin, The Social Network, or Supernatural)?
Imagine logging in and seeing a new fic with 200+ bookmarks.
AUTOMATIC WIN. YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD 'CAUSE EVERYONE ALREADY LOVES IT.
