NB
I was taught at Halt Abuse that the best way to keep drama out of my life is to ban the drama-mongers and not get into arguments with people - just ban them if they cause trouble for me.
Well, I brought that teaching into other areas of my online life, but trying to be subtle about it backfired spectacularly: I've gained a new hater and... I'll be ( Read more... )
Wendy, with all due respect, I think that this sentence illustrates why people have a problem with your actions.
You are not giving prizes to anyone. You are providing a forum where other people can nominate and select those whom they believe should win prizes.
At least this was what I--and I think I am safe in assuming many other people in this fandom--believed to be the purpose behind your awards.
I will not participate in fannish activities where the group is not an entity apart from the people in charge. That invites hurt feelings, drama, and wank every time, as this incident evidences. And if you look at the groups and programs that are widely respected in this fandom, you will see that it is universally their policy to welcome anyone who wants to play as long as they play by that group's rules. Drama on other sites or the owner's/mods' feelings on that person have no place in that. Say you nominate an author for the MEFAs with whom Marta has had a disagreement. She's the administrator of the awards. How would you feel if she didn't allow your nomination to stand based on that disagreement? That's how a lot of people feel right now after the revelation that your awards that are "open to all" are, in fact, only open to people whom you like or regard neutrally.
Of course, Marta would not do that. That is why the MEFAs are well-respected and thrive in a fandom that has seen awards crash and burn. Neither would Anglachel bar someone she didn't like from posting on HASA or Dreamflower ban someone with whom she disagreed on MPTT or I kick someone off of SWG because they pissed me off in an unrelated venue. In fact, I can attest that there are people who are on SWG with whom I disagree strongly, a few whom I actively dislike, yet they are as welcome there as my friends are.
You are welcome to run your sites however you choose, of course. However, I think you'll find that the politicking and wankery that hold so many people's attention on ff.net aren't going to go over as well in the rest of the Tolkien fandom.
Now you can blacklist me too.
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I'm beginning to see the other side, but I can't see a way out of where I'm at. I'm trapped. If I just cave in, what happens then? I want to find a way out of this that will stand and be considered acceptable. If the answer is to state clearly that I'll only accept nominations for those I regard neutrally, I'll gladly do so. No problem.
I can't argue with you, I just don't know how to get out of this in a reasonable way. If I just cave in, will that shut down the wank? Will it? If it does, I will.
It's occurred to me to make this a fully subjective thing, which I didn't want to do, but I don't really like the thought of doing that. What can I do?
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Of course, it's your group. I don't like to tell people how to run their groups because different things work for different people, and variety is the spice of fandom. :) Neither do I know the full story of what has transpired among all of you since I don't frequent ff.net any more.
But I do think you hit the proverbial nail on the head with respect to transparency. If some people are excluded, at least be up front about it and let people make their decision from the start as to whether or not they want to participate. People will still complain, but people always complain. People complain to me about how I run SWG. My reply: "*shrug* If you want to invest the time and money that I have into building something comparable, then be my guest. I don't have to be the only game in town."
Anyway, that's my two cents worth of devalued U.S. currency.
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I'm the bad guy anyway.
//Of course, it's your group. I don't like to tell people how to run their groups because different things work for different people, and variety is the spice of fandom. :) Neither do I know the full story of what has transpired among all of you since I don't frequent ff.net any more.//
That's for the best.
//But I do think you hit the proverbial nail on the head with respect to transparency. If some people are excluded, at least be up front about it and let people make their decision from the start as to whether or not they want to participate. People will still complain, but people always complain. People complain to me about how I run SWG. My reply: "*shrug* If you want to invest the time and money that I have into building something comparable, then be my guest. I don't have to be the only game in town."//
I've never had a problem with the way you run SWG. I think you do a great job, to be honest. I'm taking your advice; it's the right way to go. Thank you for being a friend to me at a time when it's unpopular to be one.
//Anyway, that's my two cents worth of devalued U.S. currency.//
It's worth a million dollars to me!!
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Whe you say: It's occurred to me to make this a fully subjective thing...
Any sort of writing award is by its very nature subjective. There's no way around that. Some people adore James Joyce and think he was a brilliant novelist, others can't stand him. That's the nature of the beast. Judging creative writing is largely going to be based on the judges opinion of the story and/or the author in question.
From the perspective of an outsider looking in, it almost looks like you're setting yourself up to fail and not even recognizing it. If you want to set up an awards group where only people that you have no personal beef with are welcome - that's fine, that's your right. But you need to realize that doing so is going to be divisive by its very nature. You'll have some people who'll participate and be happy because they like you. You'll have some who previously regarded you neutrally who may be extremely wary of participating, because they don't know what will happen if they have a disagreement with you. And the people who don't like you are going to take it as one more piece of evidence that you're that bad guy who holds grudges.
You say to Dawn that 'I'm the bad guy anyway.' But you don't have to be. That's a choice that you're making. Including people that you believe have been nasty to you in the past (and I don't know what's happened there, because I don't hang out on ff.net) costs you absolutely nothing and makes you look like the bigger person, like the one who's capable of forgiving people, letting grudges go, and moving on.
And when you say you want some sort of 'concession' for 'caving in,' that just baffles me. What sort of concessions are you expecting to get? You're not as trapped as you think you are - the way out that you're looking for is to let the grudges go. Oscar Wilde once said, 'Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much.' Words to live by, IMO.
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You're not seeing what the problem is, and that's fine - it'd get really messy if you did.
If this fails because I want to keep abusive people out, so be it. I'll never let it be said that I looked the other way when someone was being hammered online because it wasn't on my sites and therefore not my problem. This is NOT just about me.
The concession I want is an end to the wank, altogether. If all of it stops everywhere in every way, this time next year I'll let everyone on, and you can hold me to that.
Believe it or not, I'm not the one with the grudge because I'm not the one who goes here, there and everywhere recruiting people to declare how awful the other lot are. I haven't named names in public, they have.
I can't get to that place where I'm above it all yet, but I can if I get a bit of help. Imagine trying to lift a bag of shopping with a cut, bleeding hand. That's how I feel. I can't lift it, SS. It hurts too much.
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For myself, as I've expressed privately, I'm not interested in participating in an archive or an awards where one ot the criteria is 'I have to at least regard you neutrally.' When I first started posting fic on one particular archive, the owner apparently regarded me neutrally. Two years and about a quarter of a million words of fic later, my posting privileges were summarily revoked beacuse the owner 'no longer felt comfortable' with my work. That's fine, it's her right - but it has left me unwilling to participate in an archive/awards where one of the criteria is that you have to at least regard me neutrally - because it's too much of a pain in the butt to go re-formatting a gazillion links.
Your site, your choice, but those are my two cents.
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Just so you know, if you ever want to be pushed out of my life and considered persona non grata, what you do is lie about or exaggerate complaints about me so that others turn against me. When I get a crowd of people I've never even heard of showing up to berate me, then they get others to join in too, you are solid gone. The End. Until that point, you can do pretty much what you like.
I've never in my life just turned on people. The ones I've got issues with "like to argue" and "see nothing wrong with stirring up a little drama to get attention." Not the kind of people I want to have dealings with.
If you ever see me out and about on forums or communities declaring that such-a-body is a bad person, hypocrite or anything else, hammer me. I'll totally deserve it. But I don't do things like that, and never will. I wouldn't sink so low.
I always try to resolve things with people, and it always works with those who are viscerally honest and willing to face up to things that make them uncomfortable. Sometimes that person is me. I will admit to being wrong.
In this case, I can't.
At least I'm being upfront and willing to compromise. I've been offered none.
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http://wendwriter.livejournal.com/107733.html#cutid1
Not a forum or a comm, but a public entry in your own journal in which you've essentially named names and called people out for being 'bad people.' Took me less than five minutes of looking to find this. If you're really trying to avoid drama and to keep things private, friends-lock is a wonderful thing.
Your journal, of course, so you're free to ignore that advice as well.
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Please note I recruited a sum total of zero people and not one single person went to them and did what you're doing now.
That's the point.
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I've got at least one dollar now, due to the amount of "two cents" being offered. I'd be really happy if everyone would just drop this and talk about something else. Can we do that?
You mentioned my having called people out, etc. When certain others do it, I get all this. When I do it, I get ignored. That's the way I like it, to be honest.
Anyone who rants about me and there's no consequence ain't a problem. It's when *everyone* gets involved I feel really picked on, even if they're being decent about it. It's the weight of numbers, you see.
I was annoyed at the number of people who assumed that merely disagreeing with me would get them blacklisted. I don't do that.
Now that we've established that I'm not accusing you of anything and that I'm not actively causing a problem for anyone while others are causing the curious and the well-meaning to trot in with their two cents, please can we change the subject?
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