Protective Measures: Avoiding Awkward Podfic Situations

[podmod]

For the most part, podficcers and authors get along pretty well but there have always been the occasional situations where things don't go as smoothly. Maybe an author doesn't get podfic, has been rude or hurtful in their response to a request for permission to podfic. Maybe they asked for something unusual when giving their permission, such as a

Comments

[shinetheway]

Hi! No, you didn't upset me, and I thought you phrased your post beautifully, tired or not--I just thought you were eloquently arguing FOR exactly what it turns out that you're AGAINST. :) Which just goes to show how strong your argument was. So for every time you used the first person and I used the second person in response, let's just make it about the third person? Because I think we're in agreement on many things, just arguing different perspectives on it.

I understand what you mean about not wanting to blacklist authors or have someone's reputation turn a single uninformed decision made weeks/months/years ago, a single event becoming a permanent weight around someone's neck. Having been a newbie author, I definitely didn't know podfic from a hole in the ground getting started--I'm not even sure I'd ever HEARD podfic until maybe four or five years ago--and I don't know what I would have said if someone had asked to podfic me back when I was really getting started.

That said, so far that isn't what I've seen being posted on this list, and I honestly have faith that most fans aren't going to name someone to this list unless they've been well and truly burned in some way and genuinely want to prevent someone else from having that experience. Cesca seems to mostly have an attitude towards podfic as more "audiobooks" separate from independant artistic transformation which might or might not bother people, and maya is apparently trying to scrub the net clean of her fic which is...well, probably not gonna happen but I respect her right to try, but everyone else listed seems rather hardcore and there is a decent chance a newbie podficcer might in all innocence ask a question and get an answer back like this gem. And the thing that started this off was someone demanding a sample to audition from a podficcer seeking permission, and then rejecting the sample once she'd heard it. Which, no. Ugh.

I don't think that a list like this is inherently abusive, although like any list it's all about how it's handled. I think the mods have done a good job at explaining the very delicate nuance of what they're trying to convey, not so much a DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON alert for the listed people so much as...an allergy notice on the ingredients list. [grins] Delicious, delicious Snickers goodness! (May contain nuts.) (lol) They aren't trying to warn anyone off anyone except the blanket-no people, they're just trying to make sure that everyone has access to the full suite of information available to the community to make a good faith decision.

Finally, I'm sorry that I misunderstood what you wrote about permission. I thought that you changing permission referred to the last bit, after you talked about entering into discussions with a pod artist, so I assumed you meant revoking permission once a podfic was underway. I can see where you were going with it, and I actually agree with that line of argument that a person shouldn't be penalized for making one good-faith decision that contradicts another good-faith decision made weeks/months/years prior. I guess I'm tired too, if I missed that. It's getting near midnight here and I should know better than to post when I'm yawning. :)

[starrylizard]

I still feel rather uncomfortable, though I can see what the list is meant to be and I realise there are altruistic motives behind it. I'm uncomfortable at the possibility for abuse and the highly subjective nature of what could be considered a bad response. I see this morning that there has already been quite a bit of discussion on the DW version of this post, so I'll leave it be though. I should probably say that the post above yours mine was the one that got me thinking, but maybe the mods won't list that individual based on that post?

As an aside, the post you linked me to... it's angry, but fair enough. Why pod something if you don't hear back from the author with a yes? If she went back on an earlier permission she'd given, that'd be different, but the author doesn't even swear in that post. Anyway, I don't want to know the back story, even if I take it that post started this list. That author should be on a "NO PODFIC" list. That already exists though. This is a very different list to that.

I'll whisper "caution" and glide into the night like a ninja.

(Sorry for edits: Still asleep this morning apparently. O_o)

[arwen_lune]

Yeah, I get that that's not an awesome reaction to get from an author, but to my eyes it's firm, and irritated with people who have ignored her. Not angry or abusive.

[starrylizard]

And it also looks like it could have easily been avoided.

[nikojen]

Yep, this.

I find it kinda ironic that we've got cesperanza on the list for archiving people's work without permission, but then at least two of the others are clearly speaking from a place of having been burned by someone recording their work (and thus archiving it) without explicit permission, but they get put on the "hostile" list instead of just logging them as "blanket no" and moving on.

I'm sure most of these authors have little enough regard for the podfic community that being put on some list isn't going to cause any sleepless nights, and I know it's increasingly the "official" stance that author's don't have a right to feel violated if someone records them without permission, but but I don't feel comfortable with it at all.

[starrylizard]

uh huh.

[shinetheway]

Okay, fine, you make a very good point. And I agree that we can debate people who deserve to be on the list and don't deserve to be on the list. We can say that the person who rants about people posting without her permission but then it turns out that when people ask for her permission she ignores them--so does she care? does she not care? if she cared she'd just say "no", right?--we can say she deserves to be on a list but this other author doesn't. That's fine.

The reason it's fine is because this is a list on a LJ community post, and therefore neither carved into granite not branded onto the forehead of every affected person. People can go on the list. People can come off the list. Anyone on the blanket-yes list can with a single email get them removed from blanket-yes and put onto blanket-no. (And vice versa, for that matter.) Anyone who's on this list as being potentially troublesome to deal with can, if they so choose, change whatever policy or approach is causing them to be treated so cautiously. Cesca can in a single instant remove herself from this list by not archiving people anymore. Done!

Back in the day, fen created lists of authors who refused to put warnings on their fic. It wasn't done to punish, it wasn't done to shame, it was done to provide some sort of warning when the then-culture of authorial discretion didn't yet require them--a "readers beware, here be (potential) dragons" that made sure a reader who wanted warnings knew who to avoid in the event that a writer hadn't made her anti-warning stance clear.

I haven't seen one of those lists for years, because the culture has changed so much that they aren't really needed anymore. God knows I don't remember who was on them, although I certainly cared at the time. This is a long game we're playing here, and the baby steps we take towards respect and civility (fully respecting an author's right to be Not Okay with podfic, and NOT respecting an author's right to be a jackass about it) will have payoffs in the long run. I'm willing to have a list that makes a few people uncomfortable now, in the hope that we'll have a future community where such a list is completely unnecessary.

[shinetheway]

I have no particular horse in this race (I have blanket permission to podfic etc. and no regrets, but I also don't process audio fiction very well in general, so I don't listen to it, either), but I just want to point out that there's been a lot of discussion of how anxiety-inducing asking authors for permission is for podficcers--which is valid--but I definitely know authors who are deeply uncomfortable with podfic who find saying "thanks but no thanks, I'm not comfortable with that" equally anxiety-inducing. And it's true they could have a blanket no policy (although I've found I still get asked permission for translations and occasionally podfic despite having a blanket yes policy), but regardless, I think "anxiety" is often a reason authors might not respond to requests.

The question of how much anyone in fandom is entitled to have their anxiety triggers carefully worked around by everyone else, especially when people's anxieties come into conflict is a question everyone's going to have a different answer to. But podficcers aren't the only fans who are anxious, and saying 'no' can be just as hard as asking for permission.