Science fiction fandom began in the 1930s, when readers of the pulp magazines began to write to each other. While fandom can be a very loose association, its members identify with fandom and with each other, and communicate with many other fans.
Fancyclopedia 3 is a collective enterprise of all of fandom. Based on the previous works by Jack Speer (Fancyclopedia 1), Dick Eney (Fancyclopedia 2), and Rich Brown, it is written by fans who want to contribute.
Like Wikipedia, Fancyclopedia is edited by its users. Your editors do their best to maintain a common style and presentation. And like Wikipedia, all fans are free to contribute and edit topics, suggest authors, and argue with the editors on matters of content, style or presentation. Make your changes — don't wait for permission! (And we're going to be less anal than Wikipedia, so hopefully it will be less frustrating to contribute!)
Please register. Registration requires approval by the editors, but we plan to be open and inclusive. We will not, however, allow anonymous editing, and wish to avoid spammers. If you are not known to the editors, please help by giving us the name of another fan who can identify you to us. Once we know who you are, you will be free to contribute as you like, editing and adding articles.
To join, follow the instructions here: How to Join.
Like most encyclopedias, Fancyclopedia contains articles on people, events and organizations. It has a Fanzines category. It contains a glossary of fanspeak which is referenced by any articles using fannish terms (we started using rich brown's glossary (Dr. Gafia's Dictionary)).
People: Biographies of important fans and their achievements and exploits.
Events: History — the happenings which shaped fandom (or are just interesting).
Conventions: Big, small and in-between.
Organizations: Fan clubs, including city clubs, apas, online lists, etc.
Fanzines: Influential or focal fanzines or fannish websites.
We've seeded Fancy 3 with the articles from Fancyclopedia 1 and Fancyclopedia 2, identified as such, Dr Gafia's Dictionary, and many new short articles and stubs. We've also pulled a lot of great information from Rich Lynch's notes towards a history of the 60s. We depend on your contributions; get busy and write something. Go ahead and add credits for anything you contribute.
We're adding material as quickly as we can, but we're particularly in need of articles (even if no more than stubs) on fanzines, fans, clubs, and conventions. But general articles are fine, historical essays, whatever!
Editing is quick and easy and requires no arcane knowledge of HTML.
Articles should be relevant to science fiction fandom as such. While comix fandom, animé, and the Society for Creative Anachronism (as examples) arose from science fiction fandom, they are now largely independent. Articles on other fandoms should note their relationships with science fiction fandom and provide links to sites concerned with those fandoms.
You can view recent updates and additions at any time by clicking on "Recent changes" in the menu on the right side of most pages.
Fancyclopedia 3 was edited by Jim Caughran through the end of 2010 and is presently edited by Mark Olson.