Diagon Lemmy - A Harry Potter-themed Lemmy Server is now live (before you block me instantly, please hear me out)
Harry Potter Fandoms will be a part of the Fediverse one way or the other. It’s better to shape this development rather than being overwhelmed by it.
Harry Potter Fandoms are a huge opportunity for the Fediverse. Look at what the collaboration of Lego and Disney brought to Fortnite. People want to spend time in places, in which they feel familiar and welcomed. I'm not saying collaborating with big companies here, what I'm saying is: the Fediverse needs to be filled with life and we have to use that opportunity first, before others do.
Don't throw the opinions of J.K. Rowling and its fandom in one bucket. It’s one of the biggest in the world, there is a broad range of opinions and people.
The Fediverse needs more projects that immediately make sense to people. Projects that you tell a person about, and they say: "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." Mastodon in comparison to Twitter was such a thing: its billionaire proof. Everybody gets why that's a good thing. A better, more open place to build Harry Potter fan sites could be another.
The project (including other places like this that may follow) could also become another attractive place on the Fediverse for the open-source community. Who wouldn’t be excited to help build the world of Harry Potter?
All of this is of course up for discussion. I'm a very stubborn person but I'm also able to listen ;)
Edit: I removed "queer friendly" from the description. Its not a claim that I can fully uphold anyways. Instead, it has a no tolerancy policy against transphobia, which is more clear and probably easier to enforce.
You're allowed to like a story you grew up with as a child and also dislike its bigot author, they're not mutually exclusive. Talking about Harry Potter doesn't give Rowling magical transphobe powers; Voldemort logic doesn't work in real life. The rightsholders have already taken great strides to distance the HP property from Rowling and adopt it to be more inclusive in spite of her TERF bullshit. It's not a hate crime to like a story about child wizards anymore.
If people want to geek out about some books or movies they like, they should be allowed to do so without the insinuation that they're by default enabling transphobia or something. But the beauty of the Fediverse is that your community has just as much right to exist as any other, so as long as you can maintain a healthy, hate-free community that isn't posting a bunch of pro-Rowling bullshit, I say go for it. Anyone who would block your instance for merely existing probably isn't worth your time, anyway.
Divorcing the author from the work is rather challenging when that author is a living billionaire who makes money whenever you buy any kind of merchandise of their work. While pirating their trademarks without paying is in principle harmless, the moment you cross over into, say, paying money for Harry Potter Lego or Harry Potter Fortnite skins, you are then immediately funding the author's hate campaigns
The instance name is clever, but I think you will find the concept embarrassing in hindsight. I would recommend not doubling down on the cognitive dissonance
love this! i'm trans and honestly harry potter was such a big reason why i'm still here. it was one of the only things i loved when i was still in the closet and between starkid, leaky, and pottercast, it resulted in making some amazing friends. fuck rowling but i'll never forget harry potter <3
harry potter is the trio and the fandom not the author
The crass may say "don't hate the player, hate the game", but a more accurate way to get the point across is that one can indeed separate the content from the creator and should not be judged for it.
Jewish people can watch Disney movies and not have to consider that Walt Disney was a huge anti-semite and a terrible human being.
People use Linux and don't even care that Torvolds is no stranger to controversy himself.
It's OK to like a story and not like the person who wrote it.
I'm sorry, but as a cis heterosexual man who has trans friends and has turned away from all things Harry Potter and JK Rowling in utter disgust, this strikes me as attempting to ignore the obvious transphobia of the TERF author in the hope of keeping your head in the sand and residing in a place of nostalgia solely because transgendered people aren't the majority.
I get your desire to grow the Fediverse, but if you want to create a community around a fandom, perhaps you should choose a piece of media that embraces inclusion rather than one that is simply popular?
Stop looking into your past fandoms with nostalgic rose tinted glasses, acknowledge that you can't have Hogwartz without the hatred, and find media that is straight up more inclusive.
When you say "queer friendly", are you, the admin of the instance, gender diverse and thus directly impacted by Rowling's transphobia? Because that's the only voice that I'm open to hearing "queer friendly" from when it comes to Potter and Rowling.
If you're not impacted by her bigotry, you have no place claiming that it's queer friendly, whilst actively refusing to engage with the reality of her transphobia.
Honestly, it’s not even about JK Rowling, the actual Harry Potter series has very poor values in general, and the world is quite poorly written. Not something I’d want to promote to other people or children regardless of Rowling’s nonsense. The books turned me off very much as a kid though the movies are much more palatable. It’s just a really mean series.
The responses in this thread highlight my point. If you don't have explicit rules to stop that shit in its tracks (which you don't), you aren't queer friendly, because queer folk can't exist there without being told that transphobia is fine actually, as long as you like the person doing it.
I'm neither an HP fan nor queer so take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt.
I think that the idea is mostly good, but don't underestimate the amount of work necessary to keep your instance safe. Make sure to have admins online 24/7, that they're all on the same page regarding rule enforcement, consult often the queer community on stuff that matters, and make sure that it's part of your admin team.
The main thing that I believe that you need to watch out for is users lacking discernment. They'll come in two "flavours": the ones trying to sell JK Rowling's transphobia, and the ones trying to sell hate against the fanbase.
Also, I'm not sure but I think that "no tolerance towards transphobia" sounds easier to enforce than "queer-friendly". The goal is the same, the difference is less subjectivity. (In general it's better to approach rules and their enforcement as objectively as possible.)
Hey, Good Luck with your endeavors. Beware of mob brigading and "canceling" you. There is already !harrypotter@literature.cafe
Make sure you have at least one or two moderators with additional technical sysadmin that will keep the instance up.
I think the biggest challenge at the start will be keeping community alive. I know from experience that if you are the only person posting it is disheartening, and it leads to very fast burnout.
Does this include discussion of Rowlings current work like Bad Blood?
I ask because it gets to the core of why "separate art from artist" can't apply when you are promoting the works of active bigots. Reading Poe or Seuss harms no one, but starting a community to promote upcoming projects from a bigots, such as the TV show or the games.
It feels HP fans want to have their cake and eat it to, you can't be a trans ally AND be promoting the works of someone who uses that capital to actively harm trans folk. Which is why so many trans people are asking you to stop.
Best of Luck to you. I find that a creator is indelibly linked to their creation, while they are still living (and their beliefs definitely color it long after they are dead). So, while Rowling draws breath, I endeavor to give her neither profit nor advertising. I do absolutely understand the draw that the fandom has, despite the very problematic aspects of the setting - I'm not going to shit on what people enjoy, though I think that acknowledging the problematic is important.
More than anything, I see that there are a lot of extremely creative people in the fandom. This is easy to prove. You just need to look at all of the cosplayers over the years that have made their own costumes from scratch. I hope that some channel that creative energy into making something better and more inclusive (that doesn't fund hate against trans people).
How much of every 1$ spent on HP merchandise makes it to to Rowling's pocket? Because there is a big difference between being a patron at a business and consuming a narrative product. Further, do you think it's the billionaire that you're affecting with your choice? Or the thousands of employees that will be laid off in a heartbeat before said billionaire loses a single dime?