you embarrass yourselves
Summed up best here: http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/3095660.html?style=mine
Basically one of the larger Harry Potter fanfic archive decided to apply for a charity grant of $25,000.
Do I even need to express how disgusting I find such actions?! They are competing to edge out other entries such as No-Kill shelters, centers for abused women, resources for poor children, and so forth. They can try to pretend they aren't actively denying one of these groups funding, but if they do win, that means one of those groups has to lose. And sadly a lot of those groups don't have a dedicated fanbase of Harry Potter fans to vote vote vote!
Look, my domain hosts a fanfiction archive but I do that out of my pocket and if I couldn't afford it, if the site was active I would ask contributors for donations, but the underlying theme would be that writing fanfiction is a HOBBY and that perspective needs to be kept! I've always been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of using fanfiction to generate any source of funds, even when they are used purely for site-upkeep. Especially now that there are a number of places to host one's fanfiction for free, like Livejournal or Fanfiction.net, etc. I love writing fanfiction and there can be such beauty in the fics I read of others, but some people take that too far and confuse "I love doing this" with "I deserve to do this" which is ridiculous.
I urge people to go to the Pepsi Refresh site and vote for a cause OTHER than the FictionAlley one, not just because using charity to pay for server costs is deplorable, but their rational that the money will go towards "educational purposes" is disgustingly dishonest. They are trying to claim that having a site where people offer to beta a fic counts as educational. Please, pull the other leg, it's got bells on it!
The leaders of this site already know what people have been saying and have dismissed the objections rather casually, which makes me doubly enraged. They knew it wasn't kosher and they went and did it anyway! RRRR!!
As a fanfic writer and reader, I reject their sense of entitlement, I reject their lack of ethics, and I think they set a terrible example of fanfic fans in general. We are SO MUCH BETTER than this!
ETA: Someone bought a clue and they've decided to pull out of the challenge, thank goodness! It only took a huge dose of fandom outrage for someone to do the right thing, sheesh.
~Sunhawk
Basically one of the larger Harry Potter fanfic archive decided to apply for a charity grant of $25,000.
Do I even need to express how disgusting I find such actions?! They are competing to edge out other entries such as No-Kill shelters, centers for abused women, resources for poor children, and so forth. They can try to pretend they aren't actively denying one of these groups funding, but if they do win, that means one of those groups has to lose. And sadly a lot of those groups don't have a dedicated fanbase of Harry Potter fans to vote vote vote!
Look, my domain hosts a fanfiction archive but I do that out of my pocket and if I couldn't afford it, if the site was active I would ask contributors for donations, but the underlying theme would be that writing fanfiction is a HOBBY and that perspective needs to be kept! I've always been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of using fanfiction to generate any source of funds, even when they are used purely for site-upkeep. Especially now that there are a number of places to host one's fanfiction for free, like Livejournal or Fanfiction.net, etc. I love writing fanfiction and there can be such beauty in the fics I read of others, but some people take that too far and confuse "I love doing this" with "I deserve to do this" which is ridiculous.
I urge people to go to the Pepsi Refresh site and vote for a cause OTHER than the FictionAlley one, not just because using charity to pay for server costs is deplorable, but their rational that the money will go towards "educational purposes" is disgustingly dishonest. They are trying to claim that having a site where people offer to beta a fic counts as educational. Please, pull the other leg, it's got bells on it!
The leaders of this site already know what people have been saying and have dismissed the objections rather casually, which makes me doubly enraged. They knew it wasn't kosher and they went and did it anyway! RRRR!!
As a fanfic writer and reader, I reject their sense of entitlement, I reject their lack of ethics, and I think they set a terrible example of fanfic fans in general. We are SO MUCH BETTER than this!
ETA: Someone bought a clue and they've decided to pull out of the challenge, thank goodness! It only took a huge dose of fandom outrage for someone to do the right thing, sheesh.
~Sunhawk