This debate frustrates me because the comm isn't trying to do intellectually respectable criticism. I mean, it's *not* trying to be scholarly, so I think it falls down to say that it's doomed to fail to be scholarly. On the other hand, this was coming because of the nature of fandom and the fact that all parties simply cannot get what they all want.

(Witness the debate on concrit. People who want concrit benefit tremendously by making it the social standard; in that they glorify concrit and make it the thing that all writers want, and then people automatically work hard to leave concrit as a thank you note to the writers. Now, most people, I suspect, really find concrit a chore, and really do it solely to show their appreciation. In other words, they don't do it at all, or very little, for themselves, and they don't get much public recognition for it, especially when it's in email and not public at all. This is not the way many other fandom activities work. That's why it's so much uphill work to get them to do it. Because they're not doing it for themselves, they totally fail and waste their time if the recipient doesn't appreciate the concrit, and thus a lot of encouragement is needed.)