Man, the gatekeeping is wild these days.

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

Well, as always I'll recommend our small existing community !harrypotter@literature.cafe

Literature.cafe is a lovely instance, Gabe the admin is a very nice person.

Good luck with your instance, I'll probably visit

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.

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.

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.

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.)

Sounds cool. I'm not a Harry Potter fan and certainly no fan of Rowling, but I'm really surprised that this is controversal.

How do you explain the Fediverse? You can find an instance you like. Harry Potter people can have theirs.

Look at what the collaboration of Lego and Disney brought to Fortnite.

I'm not sure if this is the example you want to follow

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.

Did this even went through?

Fuck this.

I personally think it’s a very bad idea and politics will catch up on you eventually. But whatever floats your boat.

I think this is a good idea and wish you all the best.

Moderation will be key of course, but the rules ( http://diagonlemmy.social/post/108 ) sound good.

At the same time, if somebody doesn't even want to think about HP, they can easily block the entire instance, no harm no foul.

it has a no tolerancy policy against transphobia

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.