In today's WDW update, you included the following statement:

In addition, the official fan site for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is nearing launch.

What exactly makes a fan site "official"? I've never heard of Disney officially endorsing any fan sites before. In fact, in yesterday's L.A. Times article (the one that quoted Alex extensively), Disney's spokesperson pretty much stated outright that they don't.

I suspect the owners of that site are using the word "official" without any actual meaning...

-Jeff

No, they are indeed "official," but I can't say any more until they do.

"Official" = owned and operated by Disney. Officially authorized by Disney to be called "POTC Fan site." Moderated heavily by Disney. Think Simpson's "Re-Ned-ucation."

Disney's spokesperson pretty much stated outright that they don't. Actually, what he said is that Disney does not comment on other people's Web sites. Which I find to be hysterically funny coming from that particular person, for reasons I can't post.

AVP

Actually, what he said is that Disney does not comment on other people's Web sites. Which I find to be hysterically funny coming from that particular person, for reasons I can't post.
We'll just chortle to ourselves on this one.

OK, I've gotten clearance from the folks at the site to pass this along:

Thanks for asking about that "official" designation. We've had a few folks we're working with (outside affiliates) ask us the same thing.

Disney is beginning to work with fans in a more active way, and because of our past work with them in an unofficial capacity (see next two paragraphs), they've agreed to let us be the official fan site for the Pirates franchise. That does indeed mean that we will be watched closely by Disney, and we are aware of that fact just as we were during our "unofficial Mansion fan" status.

I'm attaching two documents [Mark's note: I'll post one of them, the press release, on the News forum]that might help explain who we are and why we've been given the OK to use the phrase "official fan site." I think the strongest reason is what we were able to do independent of the studio for "The Haunted Mansion" with a high degree of professionalism and virtually no budget. We brought a LOT of attention to their project simply because we were rabid fans of the attraction.

That venture (although not bearing the "official fan site" name) did not cast Disney's decisions in a positive light all the time. There was much public discussion concerning how Eddie Murphy was going to ruin the film, or how Jennifer Tilly was the wrong choice for Leota, or that the Nelly rap number over the end credits was inappropriate. Some of it got quite heated and ugly, as strong opinions do. None of it was censored, and in fact Disney never contacted us to ask us to take any action whatsoever.

Disney will have its own official site with its own content. We want to establish that we are the point Disney has chosen to distribute materials through to other fan sites, not that we are the only outlet, or unreachable. Just that we have the ear of the mouse and the ear of the fans and have shown in the past that while everything that's said isn't going to be pretty (filmmaking rarely is) we can be depended on to be professional, thorough, as accurate as journalistically possible and as unbiased as we can possibly be. As a professional writer and editor, I take that last sentence very
seriously.

A few highlights, just as a recap:

1) We are not being paid by Disney to build, run or maintain this site.
It's all out of our own pockets.
2) The design, server space, and bandwidth are ours.
3) We are independent. Among the things we'll have is a public message forum, and we don't intend to monitor it so that only "happy shiny faces" are heard. We have written our own Terms of Use (without outside help) and will not take action on a post unless it clearly violates our TOU.
4) It's a major, major thing to me that we not be studio shills, and that we maintain a high degree of independence editorially.

Essentially, by us agreeing to be the "official fan site," we have the assurance that the Studio won't come after us and shut us down for using their images or content, nor will they try to control what news we publish that we may have gotten from sources outside of the company.

I hope that helps explain the distinction between "official site" and "official fan site."

Thanks for providing the more detailed information, Mark.

-Jeff

He has the terms of use - but what about the terms of the agreement between his site and Disney. I am not saying he's lying - but I would venture a guess that being able to be called official, that gives you access to some pre-release stuff (trailers?) - similar to the One Ring for LOTR and the Star Wars franchises. Those fan sites are awesome - and they do allow some negative banter - but I have yet to see any kind of commentary from Site owners on the negative side.

So - it may not be a shill - but we know who helps with buttering the bread....

If you look at the unofficial site for Haunted Mansion, it'll give you an idea of what they're going to be doing for Pirates.

If you look at the unofficial site for Haunted Mansion, it'll give you an idea of what they're going to be doing for Pirates.

Do you mean dooombuggies.com? If it's the same they already had a ride site (tellnotales.com). I love the work - and they get a lot of artwork from the artists at Disneyexperience.com So - the movie site should be excellent.

a nice, happy Internet family.

if it's a different site - can I get the URL? thanks.

Yeah, it was the movie section (http://www.doombuggies.com/film.htm) of doombuggies.com.