Horizon Fan Club's 1999 Discussion Regarding Adult Fanworks - read about it on Fanlore

“The year is 1999 and the publishers of a Blake’s 7 newsletter Horizon began discussing how to start cracking down on adult fanworks that fans had been creating for decades.

On October 7, 1999, Diane Gies, chair of the Blake’s 7 fan club, Horizon Fan Club, proposed a new policy for their two publications, Horizon Letterzine and Horizon Newsletter.

Fans often used the newsletter and letterzine to sell their fanzines, fan art, and other collections. The newsletter floated the idea that anyone advertising in their newsletter had to sign a statement that that they did not produce, or agent for others, any B7 fan fiction containing ‘adult’ artwork. The newsletter editors would decide what was explicit. Obviously no nudity, but the email also announced that they’d be side-eyeing any portraits that would look out of place in a PG rated zine or might cause anyone to think the characters might be getting..too intimate.

The newsletter would also refuse to advertise any convention with actor guests unless they too they confirmed in writing that there would be a ban on dealers selling adult B7 fiction with explicit art content. Even fanzines that had no art could not be openly displayed on the sales table, but had to be be hidden away. People would need to ask and nothing on the table could be marked “adult” because this would “create a knowledge that such things exist in the person passing by.”

The proposal also sought to remove any links on the fan club’s web page to sites with adult content (even sites with adult content warnings) or who themselves linked to sites with adult content.

This proposed change likely had to do with a lot of history, aka The Blake’s 7 Wars, as well as the club’s high profile with the powers that be’s close association with the club and the desire for “respectability.” It was also very much propelled by Gies’ personal and long-running dislike of slash fanworks.

One site Gies specifically discussed was Judith Proctor’s hermit.org site.

Although most of the mailing list discussions were vigorous,^[1] the proposal was not adopted.

For similar fan discussions, see Alt.startrek.creative Slash Wars (1997) and AO3 is open source (2016-18).”