Rant: You Can't Shame a Puppy

[jeff_duntemann]

Really. You can't. Lord knows, we tried. But Dash just keeps trying to pee on the furniture, and if we hadn't discovered Pants for Dogs, the ottoman (at very least) would now be a total loss.

So I have to grin a rather sour grin to see people suggesting

Comments

[chris_gerrib]

I hope what follows comes of as "I can't believe Jeff is looking at the same thing I am" and not an angry attack. Because I'm not angry at you, and I'm certainly not standing up for some tribe of fandom.

Shaming is thug tactics. So saying that somebody did something wrong is being a thug?

There's this peculiar notion among some people that shame is the ultimate weapon, one that works every time, on everybody. Not I or anybody I know.

The people who then move up to take the vacated slots are more likely to be sympathetic to the Puppies. except we've seen who moves up - 2 of the 3 that moved up due to withdrawals were not Puppies. It's math - right now the Puppies are only 250 or so, and can only vote 5 places.

first we need to agree on what those depredations actually are, and no such agreement currently exists. well, actually, the general agreement is that the wrong was voting in a bloc such that 250 people (~20% of the voters) completely locked out the will of the other 80%.

broke no rules made fandom's Insider Alpha

[jeff_duntemann]

No, you don't sound angry, and I appreciate that. Attacking me wouldn't hurt me, and would only make me better-known. (I believe you read that entry too.)

Shaming is indeed thug tactics. Did you even read the essay? The people being shamed are not the SP organizers, but in fact the people who are on the slates, who had nothing to do with any of it, and I'm sure would very much like the recognition. The shamers are putting them in a horrible position: basically demanding that they refuse recognition that they may well have earned, in order to punish someone else

[kevinnickerson]

You have totally missed the point of public shaming. It's not to get that person to change. As you say, they're not going to change. It's to expose what they are to people who might otherwise align with them without fully realizing who they were really getting involved with.

[jeff_duntemann]

I've missed the point of absolutely nothing at all. Shaming is a thuggish power play designed to bring the vulnerable to heel. What you're talking about is slander. Plenty of that going on, too.

[madfilkentist]

You've named the thing that most gets to me. If people want to object to the Sad and Rabid Puppies' campaigns, fine. It's the ones who are sniping at the nominees, whether they had anything or not to do with creating the slate, who really annoy me.

What's called "shaming" these days should be called by its proper name, bullying.