Hmm, I think you have entirely misconstrued what I said. Pasting up people's commentary that is hidden behind password protection and in violation of an agreement, and then shrugging and saying "Well, there's no such thing as a private discussion on the Internet" is a Bad Thing.
If you doubt me, I'd be happy to post the content of any number of elements from IM convos I've had, not with you, but about you, to my ridiculously popular blog.
And by elements, of course, I mean the things that will make you look bad. And since these are private IM logs, I certainly won't be able to link to the whole thing to grant it all a level of context.
Moles did a bad thing, plain and simple. As bad as a public grope at an awards ceremony? Surely not. But "hey, it's the Internet" isn't much different than "Hey, if you really didn't want me in your apartment, you should have gotten a deadbolt that I couldn't pop open with my debit card" or, "Hey, if you didn't want the world to know what you really think of your old friends, you should have asked me before we chatted at WFC whether I had a tape recorder in my pocket."
The point I was making was simply that SFWA is in no way an elite organization. Anyone who puts a tiny bit of effort into it can join and be privvy to the discussions therein. SF fandom and elements of prodom, existing as it does in a turgid miasma of Asperger's Syndrome, is prone to people seeing themselves as the hapless victims of the Popular Lunch Table in the high school of life, but the defensive babble of the fundamentally immature doesn't make elitism an established fact.
Oops, sorry. I did misconstrue, and deleted to re-post once I realized that.
I agree that privacy on the Internet should be possible, and I'll concede that David was probably unwise to do what he did. Part of me is quite glad he did, though. In any case, the amount of sputtering and self-importance that's followed is far more distasteful to me.
Yes, and if someone snuck a look into your medicine cabinet because hey, they're not locked, and you responded by spending the next year screaming out it, that would also be likely more distasteful than the initial lookie-loo.
But it wouldn't erase the initial invasion, and a lot of rhetoric surrounding the response to the pastes has just been moo-cow moronics. "They're talking about having their privacy violated instead of the boob grope!" Yeah, and? It also occured, didn't it?
Personally, I'm more than capable of talking about two things at once. I don't know why its so difficult for one of the most intelligent (if their self-congratulations are to be believed) demographics around.
Oh, media-fandom is so very instructive to this particular kerfuffle! It pleases me and appalls me at the same time.
The "popular lunch table" syndrome you describe is called Snacky's Law, and has a long history among my kind.
The exposure of private conversation, that pertains to a public inquiry, that is a violation but in many ways seems vital to the community -- it happens now and then in media-fandom, less often now than previously. And every time, it is a violation, and some people do see it as necessary, and that conflict persists.
> SFWA is in no way an elite organization
Well, it wasn't a "secret Yahoogroup of pros" list whose privacy was violated, was it? In the sense that it attracts pros, and keeps out those who can't leap their (admittedly low) barrier to entry, it's somewhat elite. And, I suspect that there's an increasing blending of behaviors between media-fandom and SF-lit, whereby, on the internet, SF-lit people pick up the publicness and community-policing of media-fandom. I can totally see (though roll my eyes at) newbies being furious at the very idea that there's a private list they're not allowed to join! Conspiracy!!
I can see there are reasons to have a closed vocational list. It makes sense. But I can also see that cultures, especially internet-based cultures, resent the everliving hell out of closed spaces.
Indeed, but cultures resent the hell out of lots of things, like uppity women or people of different religions, or people who bathe too often or not frequently enough, or race-mixing, etc.
The real question for this small part of the discussion is whether or not showing some private comments in public sans permission led to greater positive results than negative. I tend to think not. At least one person was quoted so poorly as to have the theme of her comments inverted. This was not purposeful, but such things are inevitable when one takes snippets from conversations.
AND the comments were then taken down anyway, on request. So, if you happen to have enough of a life to go out on a Friday night, you missed the commentary anyway, but only heard how evil and horrible and awful it all was second- and third-hand. There's a smidge of elitism there, isn't there? People In The Know get to know, people for whom online existence doesn't revolve around certain blogs miss it.
It was a violation of privacy in order to encourage a public shaming, and it was rather arbitary and fumbling in its execution.
I don't know -- I'm not used to judging an event based on its usefulness outcome. It happened; some people cheered at bald speech and others frowned at context and privacy; that's all the judgement I can get out of it. I can guarantee that on the internet, it will happen again, and maybe the furor will be bigger next time, or smaller.
The only redress I've seen on the internet for quoting out of context is the quoted person reposting a whole conversation, possibly with analytical exegesis, to make clear what was meant. Kind of closing the barn door after the horse has gone, but, it can salvage a reputation.
> AND the comments were then taken down anyway, on request.
Many are the ways to retro-kerfuffle! When a post is being actively discussed, many people will take screen captures to be able to back up what they're responding to in case of deletion, alteration or lockage. It varies by local custom whether those screencaps are automatically made available, or only upon private request, but the idea is for the discussers to be able to prove they're not just whistling Dixie and knocking down straw men. Alternately, there is always Google cache, which ktempest discovered held an unaltered version of the post in question, as late as yesterday.
Well, I presume from the hints and allusions that Moles had a result in mind when it came to pasting the commentary, so it is at least useful to measure projected results against actual results.
If you doubt me, I'd be happy to post the content of any number of elements from IM convos I've had, not with you, but about you, to my ridiculously popular blog.
And by elements, of course, I mean the things that will make you look bad. And since these are private IM logs, I certainly won't be able to link to the whole thing to grant it all a level of context.
Moles did a bad thing, plain and simple. As bad as a public grope at an awards ceremony? Surely not. But "hey, it's the Internet" isn't much different than "Hey, if you really didn't want me in your apartment, you should have gotten a deadbolt that I couldn't pop open with my debit card" or, "Hey, if you didn't want the world to know what you really think of your old friends, you should have asked me before we chatted at WFC whether I had a tape recorder in my pocket."
The point I was making was simply that SFWA is in no way an elite organization. Anyone who puts a tiny bit of effort into it can join and be privvy to the discussions therein. SF fandom and elements of prodom, existing as it does in a turgid miasma of Asperger's Syndrome, is prone to people seeing themselves as the hapless victims of the Popular Lunch Table in the high school of life, but the defensive babble of the fundamentally immature doesn't make elitism an established fact.
Reply
I agree that privacy on the Internet should be possible, and I'll concede that David was probably unwise to do what he did. Part of me is quite glad he did, though. In any case, the amount of sputtering and self-importance that's followed is far more distasteful to me.
As far as SFWA, you'll get no argument here.
Reply
But it wouldn't erase the initial invasion, and a lot of rhetoric surrounding the response to the pastes has just been moo-cow moronics. "They're talking about having their privacy violated instead of the boob grope!" Yeah, and? It also occured, didn't it?
Personally, I'm more than capable of talking about two things at once. I don't know why its so difficult for one of the most intelligent (if their self-congratulations are to be believed) demographics around.
Reply
The "popular lunch table" syndrome you describe is called Snacky's Law, and has a long history among my kind.
The exposure of private conversation, that pertains to a public inquiry, that is a violation but in many ways seems vital to the community -- it happens now and then in media-fandom, less often now than previously. And every time, it is a violation, and some people do see it as necessary, and that conflict persists.
> SFWA is in no way an elite organization
Well, it wasn't a "secret Yahoogroup of pros" list whose privacy was violated, was it? In the sense that it attracts pros, and keeps out those who can't leap their (admittedly low) barrier to entry, it's somewhat elite. And, I suspect that there's an increasing blending of behaviors between media-fandom and SF-lit, whereby, on the internet, SF-lit people pick up the publicness and community-policing of media-fandom. I can totally see (though roll my eyes at) newbies being furious at the very idea that there's a private list they're not allowed to join! Conspiracy!!
I can see there are reasons to have a closed vocational list. It makes sense. But I can also see that cultures, especially internet-based cultures, resent the everliving hell out of closed spaces.
Reply
The real question for this small part of the discussion is whether or not showing some private comments in public sans permission led to greater positive results than negative. I tend to think not. At least one person was quoted so poorly as to have the theme of her comments inverted. This was not purposeful, but such things are inevitable when one takes snippets from conversations.
AND the comments were then taken down anyway, on request. So, if you happen to have enough of a life to go out on a Friday night, you missed the commentary anyway, but only heard how evil and horrible and awful it all was second- and third-hand. There's a smidge of elitism there, isn't there? People In The Know get to know, people for whom online existence doesn't revolve around certain blogs miss it.
It was a violation of privacy in order to encourage a public shaming, and it was rather arbitary and fumbling in its execution.
Reply
The only redress I've seen on the internet for quoting out of context is the quoted person reposting a whole conversation, possibly with analytical exegesis, to make clear what was meant. Kind of closing the barn door after the horse has gone, but, it can salvage a reputation.
> AND the comments were then taken down anyway, on request.
Many are the ways to retro-kerfuffle! When a post is being actively discussed, many people will take screen captures to be able to back up what they're responding to in case of deletion, alteration or lockage. It varies by local custom whether those screencaps are automatically made available, or only upon private request, but the idea is for the discussers to be able to prove they're not just whistling Dixie and knocking down straw men. Alternately, there is always Google cache, which ktempest discovered held an unaltered version of the post in question, as late as yesterday.
Reply
I'll try Google right now!
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment