And the Adam Yoshida award of the season goes to...

[bellatrys]

Big surprise, this:

via Tobias Buckell again, I see this a.m. that Sanders has:
1. Minitrued his 'pantiwadulous' insult to Yoon Ha Lee and Nora Jemisin, in keeping with his rep for doing this - apparently unaware that people who get reps for retconning their faux pas also get screencaps;

2. Has now decided that he's going to charge people $40 to

Comments

[fledgist]

Clearly Mr Sanders's knickers have got very twisted.

[bellatrys]

A bad case of self-inflicted Wedgieitis, indeed!

[fledgist]

Indeed!

[tekanji]

I hopped over to the Helix site to see if there was anyone on staff there who might care about how Sanders has pretty much wrecked their image. Then I saw how horribly unprofessional their staff page was.

I mean, like, seriously? Even without the whole Sanders debacle I would probably be wary of submitting to them. o.o;

[evilstorm]

Well...it's kind of dorky and cute, that page.

[tekanji]

Dorky and kind of cute for an amateur publication. Well, even then I would be suspect of a senior editor that billed themselves as a "Mean Old Bastard".

As a senior editor of an online magazine myself, I know just how important it is for senior editors, as the ones in charge, to maintain a professional persona at all times. Someone who bills themselves as a "Mean Old Bastard" is not projecting professionalism and maturity -- things that are fundamental to interacting with your staff and other contributors.

Not that I'm a published author or anything, but based on that page I probably would have given Helix a pass precisely because I would be worried that something like what happened would happen to me. "Mean Old Bastard" says, "I am fine with being an ass to people" not "trust me because I am professional and will treat you with respect".

[evilstorm]

Hm. Point.

[randwolf]

"You can't fight clouds."

"We're only made of water/The full moon gets us high"...

Legally, I think, this is a new situation; "unpublishing" rights. I wonder if there are written contracts involved?

[fridgepunk]

Actually I've got a sneaking suspicion that they've got the law on their side wrt to charging people for relinquishing relinquish the right to publish they have on people's work (which would go hand in hand with getting it "unpublished") - Strange Horizon's and Clarkesworld's terms and conditions would allow them to do this, because they buy the rights to the story, and reserve the right to change the terms and conditions at any time.

I'd imagine they'd even be within their rights to massively change a story's contents to make writers look bad - which is a level I hope Helix doesn't sink to next.

But on the flip side this is the sort of thing that essentially requires a mass boycott, girlcott and typing-monkey-cott by writers, readers and publishers to protect whatever passes for integrity among the community - its a definite abuse of the goodfaith that lies between publishers and writers, and puts Helix on par with those agents and vanity publishers who charge "reading" or "editing" fees.

oh, the law's irrelevant in this case

[bellatrys]

mostly, that is - it's looking like he could get burnt (again) by his own words, as his victims debate strategy even now. Like yhlee said up front, Helix has the technical *right* to hang on to their stories - another way in which pro SF polity & custom differs radically from amateur, I'm frankly rather shocked at the Refusal To Remove From Archive even more than the bigot eruptions, b/c not posting other people's stuff without permission is so deeply ingrained in the fannish ethic, it's right up there with plagiarism and probably even less controversial than RPF, I guess that's another thing we need to watch out for if any of us go pro - to remember that what we in the fanfic coms think of as The Rules don't apply, and the rules there are totally different, at the Old Folks' Table.

But regardless of that, the problem is simply that Sanders is destroying Helix in real time. Who is EVER going to allow him to post another story of theirs, now? The argument going on among the injured Helix authors, most of whom had no idea of Sanders' rep

Re: oh, the law's irrelevant in this case

[evilstorm]

I saw one poor bastard who was stuck with Helix because she wanted to honour contract, honour being the operative word. Very bad luck. Don't think anyone's coming back to it after this, though, no.

This is vile

[anonymous]

One of your best posts so far! Keep fighting the good fight.