Apparently, these guys don’t want women to write science fiction
From The Daily Dot:
A conversation on a science-fiction forum this week revealed a section of the community that’s teeming with indignation about recent attempts to make the genre more progressive.
Just when readers thought the dust had settled on last week’s debate about “political correctness” in sci-fi publishing, a group of highly influential writers spent the past few days lamenting the rise of increasingly vocal women and minorities in their community. The discussion happened on a list-serv threadwhere the participants apparently thought no one would notice them—at least until they remembered all their posts were public.
Predictably, a new Tumblr is posting excerpts from the conversation, presumably as a way of highlighting just how real the problems with sexism and discrimination in speculative publishing really are. And spoiler alert: It’s not pretty.
. . . .
This isn’t a new debate. Last year the editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) newsletter resigned over widespread allegations of sexism. From numerous harassment incidents at sci-fi cons, to a systemic lack of diversity, to major uphill battles for women and writers of color for representation in all areas of the sci-fi publishing industry, tensions between the “old guard” of white male sci-fi publishing and the new diverse community who wants more progressive media are rapidly coming to a boil.
The new thread offers a glimpse into how systemic the divide really is. Fodera is the associate director of contracts for Macmillan, one of the industry’s largest publishers. He callsKowal, who is a Hugo-award-winning author, “an unperson… no one you should have heard of.” Then he goes on to compare her to an aggressive dog:
“Oh, I know she has no power over me. Still, I get agitated when I think about her. There was a lot of good I could have done for SFWA, and she was a primary factor in my not being able to do it… In a way, it’s like my reaction to dogs… My brain kept saying ‘it’s a service dog; they’re well-trained; he won’t hurt you,’ but my body wanted nothing more than to dump my bowels and flee…”
Link to the rest at The Daily Dot
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“but my body wanted nothing more than to dump my bowels and flee…”
Depends
I’m so glad I put down my tea before I read your comment.
He resigned? GOOD.
And MRK is an unperson, nobody we should have heard of? I don’t even read sci-fi that heavily and I’ve heard of her PLENTY. Because she’s one of the best in her genre.
Somebody’s grapes are sour.
I believe it was a she, actually.
I’m pretty sure the editor of the SFWA Bulletin was a woman.
She was, yes.
My wife writes SF. Since we self-publish, she can ignore the sexism aspect of gatekeepers. What a relief, by the sounds of it.
As long as she wears floor-length dresses. Remember that.
And stays well away from the gropy hands of Harlan Ellison.
I would pass that on, but I might not live out the day.
Oh thou generation of knee-length wearing Pharisees, hypocrites!
(Sincerely, I think some of these super frothy types in the SFWA need counseling, badly. I feel almost sorry for them, except for how they cast me as the enemy and are therefore kind of dangerous for me.)
Mary Robinette Kowal was wearing floor-length dresses to awards ceremonies (since formal gowns tend to be floor-length). However, they had necklines. And were – gasp – form-fitting.
I guess only a burqua would have been appropriate.
Apparently, even those are “slutty” by Seth Fodera’s standards.
WOW.
First off, I know who MRK is, and I’ve never read anything that she’s written. She’s an integral part of the Writing Excuses podcast, and I follow her on Twitter.
Secondly, this dude is just proving her right with the rampant misogyny. The cracks about her wardrobe, specifically when she’s wearing period-accurate stuff? One of the pictures “… with her legs exposed … made her somewhat attractive?” A well-trained service dog?
Thirdly, I would love for this clown to say something like this to her face in a public place, specifically with some large, non-jagoffs present (ideally, me).
Unreal.
For all those who might say misogyny is dead… :/
This is Fodera, right? I’d call him Fedora, but that would tempt me to think of him as a hat. An a**hat.
The best part is “made her somewhat attractive.” The eternal challenge for women. You’re not really worth paying attention to unless you’re sexy. If you’re not sexy, you’re ugly and just wish you could get a man. If you are sexy, you can’t be taken seriously, because you’re um… sexy? And if you’re sexy, you’re just using it to get ahead, and kinda scary because you have power over, and infuriate some (not all!) men because they can’t have you because you’re sexy and then if you’re not sexy you’re not worth paying attention to but then if you are…
This comment has bewitched me, body and soul.
Yep. Sums it up very attractively.
Ha!
Yet another childish drama involving SFWA, SFWA members, and the sci-fi publishing establishment? Geez, when is this crap going to end? The sexism is just unconscionable, and the constant infighting is tearing the community apart.
I used to view membership in SFWA as a major career goal. Now, I want to stay as far away from that toxic blend of childish personalities as possible.
Thank goodness for self-publishing.
As a SFWA member myself, I find the “constant infighting” pretty easy to ignore. It’s really just a small group of noisemakers, mostly online. The business meetings I’ve attended have been very civilized, and the SFWA suite at the major cons likewise (and a nice refuge from some of the noisier party rooms *cough* Tor *cough*).
Many sf/f writers came up through fandom, and arguing has always been a popular sport amongst fans. This is probably true of any kind of fans, but sf/f fans tend to be more literate than, say, sports fans, so it appears in online discussions (or back in the day, fanzine lettercols) rather than fistfights. Doesn’t mean some of them aren’t childish jerks, but it’s not as many as you might think.
Sorry, but SFWA does not compare at all well to say the RWA. Comparing it to sports fans isn’t even close to a valid comparison. It is supposed to be a professional organization.
Never said it did. As writers’ organizations go, RWA is (from what I’ve heard, I’m not a member) way out in front of whoever is in second place (and that ain’t SFWA, although we aspire to better). Good for them. They’ve also got nearly 6 times as many members (and 6 times the dues income) as SFWA.
That said, what does “supposed to be a professional organization” mean? Are there official rules somewhere? SFWA only allows in those who have made a certain level of pro sales, so by that definition it’s at least “professional”. (And yes, they’re working on guidelines for self-pubbed sales.)
Maybe romance fans don’t get into sometimes-heated discussions (are there even romance fan conventions)? It’s not that I approve of jerkish behaviour, but I think it looks bigger from the outside because that’s what gets the focus.
The fan-author connection in SF goes back a long way. Nearly half the 20 attendees at the world’s first sf con in 1937 were or later became authors. (And as an example of their love to argue, even today you’ll find disagreement as to whether that one, in Leeds, was really the first “world” sf convention or whether a later con in the US was. Personal bias: my dad helped organize the former.) This doesn’t excuse the behavior of a few idiots, but it might help explain why it seems more prevalent amongst SF/F writers than say Romance or Mystery. We don’t have a problem arguing in public.
The RWA has plenty of kerfluffles, because that’s what people do. We are fractious as a species.
I’ll warrant they are a bit less sex/gender based, but they’ve had some serious quarrels about racial representation, what certain “types” of authors are “allowed” to write, and in particular the ghettoization of African American authors on the “African American shelf,” regardless of the actual content of their books. There are many strong, strong reasons why romance writers have been THE pioneers in going off on their own into self-publishing and ebooks.
I do believe certain members of the SWFA when they say that these guys are outliers and the organization as a whole is a strong, inclusive, beneficial place to be, but I won’t lie — these shouting matches that keep leaking out sometimes make it very difficult for me to believe in my first paragraph, second sentence up there. It’s no longer a big goal of mine to get in.
To go off on a slight tangent, the ghettoization of which you speak annoys the heck out of those of us who actively strive to include persons of color in our books, to show a diverse and heterogenous world of the future, only to find ourselves relegated to an irrelevant genre. You don’t have to be African American to be treated like one; all you have to do is put an African American (or Native American, or Asian American, or African-Lunar!) protagonist in a novel, and voila! You are a “minority writer”.
/rant
There’s something odd about the assumption that light skintoned Americans will not buy and read fiction that includes other than light skintoned protagonists. From the complaints on writer blogs about publishers whitewashing their protagonists for the cover this is a really widespread assumption in traditional publishing companies. I wonder what data has them so convinced that such a huge portion of the readership is racist.
That’s exactly why romance writers pretty much led the indie charge.
It was a serious problem especially in interracial romance. (Caveat — when I followed this situation specifically, it was around 2007-2009, for one, and for two, I don’t write or read much romance on my own, although I have copyedited a great deal of romance.)
It was a serious problem at the time that authors (going through traditional publishing) who were white were more readily able to get their books put onto the general romance shelf when writing IR, thus getting the actual exposure, whereas black (specifically African American — black British writers, for example, were not being cordoned off in this way) writers were being put on that one special shelf in the back with Octavia Butler*, Tony Morrison, James Baldwin, Zane, and the memoirs of Barack Obama, along with all the other books that had nothing whatsoever in common but the race of the author. One woman documented a lawsuit — I’d have to dig it up; it may have been vice versa, but I believe it was the company suing her — to make her change her white characters to black ones to match her race (and their marketing category).
I *hope* the situation has evolved significantly since then! But it did drive a lot of those writers to the indie world, more power to them
*ARGH I remember hunting for an Octavia Butler book for about half an hour in the Sci Fi section of a Borders once, only to be told that she’d been put on that Special Shelf in the Back…logical in what way??
SFWA membership was a goal of mine for years as well. Now, my lack of interest isn’t so much about the turmoil as it is about the benefits of the organization to someone who self-publishes.
One of the reasons behind SFWA’s recent re-incorporation was to make it easier (or even possible) to provide health coverage to members. That may or may not be a concern for you.
Traditionally, for obvious reasons, SFWA’s focus has been on the issues of trad-published writers (ditto for other WAs). That’s changing as more of the membership goes hybrid and the rules are changed to qualify solely-self-published authors.
It will be interesting to see how it turns out as the professional needs and concerns of the solely-self-published might be very different from the same for the hybrid and trad-pubbed.
I will admit I’m not hopeful in the short run. The informational page SFWA offers on self-publishing is not indicative of what I’d like to see from a professional organization that wants to be attractive to the self-published.
There’s no way I would refer a writer serious about self-publishing to that as a resource.
ETA: I do, however, routinely refer folks to Writer Beware–whose efforts I would support directly, were that an option.
I know quite a few writers in SFWA, and have for many years, so I understand its purpose and (some of) its direction. I could qualify for “Associate” membership (WoTF & Cicada sales*). I’ve nothing against the organization as it stands. But I just don’t have a reason to join right now, and I suspect it’ll be some time before the reason is there.
*Actually, I could qualify for Active if I had a way to dig up the old Speculon contract.
Well, to be eligible to be a member of SFWA, you’re required to have a certain number of “professional” story publications. So you can expect they’d have a bias against self-publishing.
As I said, I know and have known SFWA members for many years. An increasing number of their members are hybrids, and I’m aware of the conversations regarding opening the membership to (certain) solely-self-published writers. Heck, the person who runs Writer Beware via SFWA, Victoria Strauss, is an advisor for ALLi. The organization isn’t against self-publishing, and it’s requirements harken back to the time when the self-publishing options of today simply didn’t exist.
That’s not my issue. I’m stating SFWA doesn’t currently offer much to the self-published, and its public information on self-publishing (aside from Strauss’ awesome work) isn’t promising if they want to one day attract successful self-publishers.
In the long term, they’ll get there. In the short term… eh. Which is too bad, since self-published writers are becoming an increasingly influential part of the reader’s experience of the genre.
I wonder if they were able to offer health care coverage. I understand that Obamacare outlawed coverage that crossed state lines because you had to go through the local exchanges.
Actually, this isn’t a SFWA thing.
Although that discussion occurred under a topic header called “SFWA,” it occurred on a public forum in SFF.NET which is not owned or controlled by SFWA. (And since it’s a completely public forum, not a private one, I assume this wasn’t even webspace rented by SFWA.)
Fodera is not a SFWA member. Several of the other most-active participants in the discussion are not SFWA members.
My take is that it’s not a SFWA matter. It’s ill-advised public spew of a non-member in a forum that SFWA does not own or manage.
Perhaps. But there’s been so much high drama involving SFWA in the past year or so that it’s frankly hard to follow it all. And if SFWA as an organization ceased to exist, this sff.net discussion about SFWA would cease to exist as well.
Frankly, it seems to me like SFWA is a sinking ship. Even if they did admit indies, I wouldn’t want in at this point. I’d much rather see it die and a new organization rise to take its place.
” if SFWA as an organization ceased to exist, this sff.net discussion about SFWA would cease to exist as well.”
SNARF!!
I looked at the sff.net discussion in question today, and they’re (AGAIN) debating what happened in the Stanislau Lem controversy in SFWA… which was FORTY YEARS AGO.
And you think that people on sff.net would cease fighting about SFWA =in our lifetime= if SFWA ceased to exist tomorrow? ROFL!
See, but the thing is no one wants to make that organization. People have been wistfully considering the concept of a new author’s association for either indies, or SF/F writers (or both), but for some reason this organization hasn’t coalesced.
The truth is it’s not all that easy to throw together a writer’s organization. I think SFWA has its issues, but I’m beginning to feel like amending them is going to be a lot easier than coming up with something from scratch. And there’s still a lot of good coming out of the organization. It’s just that the bad stuff makes for more fun news, so that’s what people pay attention to.
It’s very frustrating for those of us who are trying to do something about it, and who are on the inside of the organization and see that it’s really not that hideous, to constantly hear it dismissed. If SFWA’s needs to be replaced, great! Someone set that up so I can join. But I think a complete lack of a SF/F writers’ association would create a void that a lot of people would miss.
From the inside, SFWA is nowhere near so turbulent. If it had been, I would have left, but I appear to still be there, quietly working on the self-publishing committee.
This came from the associate director of contracts for Macmillan? And these people call themselves professionals. Unbelievable.
Oh, yes. My favorite was his assertion that, since he worked in a publisher’s legal department, folks should be concerned about being sued for libel.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/02/16/a-note-to-sean-fodera/
Go go Gadget Streisand Effect!
Some people just don’t know when to stop. *shakes her head*
If I weren’t already married, I’d marry Scalzi for that.
Here’s Scalzi’s response to Fodera saying that he’s going to sue not only Scalzi for linking to this article, but also another 1,200 people who shared it.
Prepare yourself, PG. Lawsuit’s a-comin’!
Edit: Damn you, Blair!
Hey, two links are better than one. Or… something.
I keep waiting for somebody to sue me. I used to have a lot of fun when I was a litigator and miss that.
Plus, it would provide a nearly endless stream of blog content.
The popehat is willing to coordinate pro bono represemtation just in case a lawsuit does arise,.
http://www.popehat.com/2014/02/17/science-fiction-community-generates-this-weekends-bufoonish-defamation-threat/
Ah! Popehat is running again? Good. They crashed earlier, that post was getting so much traffic.
And this about a field that was invented by a woman (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus).
MRK is not only a Hugo winner, but also a winner of the John W. Campbell award for best new writer, and a nominee for the Nebula Award (the SFWA award), and did a phenomenal job while on the board of SFWA. (Disclaimer, she is also a friend of mine.)
The “old guard of white male sci-fi publishing” is something of a myth, too, unless you’re going back over 50 years. I’ll mention a few names: Toni Weisskopf (publisher and editor of Baen Books), Betsy Mitchell (until recently VP and editor-in-chief at Del Rey Books/Random House), Sheila Williams (editor of Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine for the past decade), Betsy Wollheim, (publisher and editor of DAW Books), and of course Kris Rusch (editor The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction back when, among others).
“A section of the community that’s teeming with indignation”. Yeah, if you can call a handful of disgruntled curmudgeons “a section”. That said, SFWA has a long and colorful history of quasi-political infighting. (What else would you expect? It’s made up of science-fiction (and fantasy) writers; argument is our national sport!)
Too bad there isn’t a way to bypass all of this, write what you want, and go directly to the reader. Imagine if you could even keep your intellectual property rights and maybe make money doing it? No, that would be science fiction. It would require some kind of technical whiz bang stuff that no one would believe in.
Maybe some day; after all, science fiction writers and readers invent the future.
To name a few: Ursula Le Guin. Andre Norton. Kate Wilhelm. C.L. Moore. Zenna Henderson. C. J. Cherryh. Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Mary Shelley.
More at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Women_science_fiction_and_fantasy_writers&pageuntil=Polack%2C+GillianGillian+Polack#mw-pages
I figured someone would rattle of a list of female sf writers, that’s why I focused on editors/publishers. Thanks for that link though, I hadn’t seen it.
(And that list is just some of those who have their own Wikipedia entry (they left off Carrie Vaughn, for example). Given a few of minutes thought I could add couple of dozen both indie and trad published who aren’t quite there yet.)
I’m grabbing my e-reader and shopping right now. Thanks.
Might I add : Lindsay Buroker. Elisabeth Vonarburg (but was she ever translated?). MCA Hogarth. Anne McCaffrey. Catherine Asaro. Lois McMaster Bujold.
How about keeping the list rolling here?
N.K. Jemison, Barabra Hambly, Diana Paxson, Mercedes Lackey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Tanith Lee, C.J. Cherryh,…
PC Hodgell. Sharon Lee. Robin McKinley. JK Rowling.
I have a wikipedia page! *beams*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.C.A._Hogarth
Sarah Hoyt, Kate Paulk, Amanda Greene. You know, those guys who don’t want women writing SF.
C.J. Cherryh and many other women referenced in this thread have signed the petition objecting to SFWA’s latest little excursion into political correctness, in the search for a new editor for the SFWA Bulletin. This is a much bigger deal than anything on sff.net. So I would opine that the sff.net discussion is being brought up by the usual tools as a distraction.
SFWA keeps rewarding some very mean, nasty members of fandom for some very mean, nasty actions bent on excluding everybody not part of the in-clique. Every time this is pointed out, some scapegoat is found. Men are found to be sexist or homophobic, women are found to be racist or gender traitors, and readers are obviously ignorant pigs for reading books by such enemies of humanity and the people.
As usual in fannish wankmobs, some “nice” people will be left alone to work — as long as they are useful, and until it is their turn to become convenient scapegoats. Then, with nobody left doing actual work instead of wanking, the group will implode. Either someone will announce a reconstruction, or the group will fade into memory. (Nebulas are useful publicity, so probably SFWA will be rescued and reconstructed.)
Obviously, CJ is just another one of those guys.
This fellow could use some good counsel- not just legal but also psychological. Some deep fears of dogs and women going on there. Most people don’t have the sudden urge to fill their pants and run away when they see a blind man and his guide dog… or a woman writing Science Fiction.
Well, I doubt he wants my advice. I think he’s getting an earful already. The power of words to lift up or demolish (or smack yourself upside your head)
I believe Macmillan, who employs Fodera, also publishes some of MRK books, so in effect Fodera was bad-mouthing a client of his employer on a public forum. Seem likes that would be a easy (and stupid) way to lose employment in the publishing industry.
I see that Sean Fodera has declared he’s going to sue the author of the above article -and- everyone who shared the link. (Gee whiz, brace yourself PG!) He claims he has a case for libel, and he cites his position in MacMillan’s contracts department as proof that He Knows What He Is Talking About.
I note that this Assoc Contracts Mgr’s belief that he has grounds here to sue the Daily Dot author (and 1200+ other people) for libel… sure explains a lot to me about my own experiences and the experiences of my various colleagues in dealing with that particular contracts department.
Zingo, Laura.
This threat has now won an award: http://www.popehat.com/2014/02/17/science-fiction-community-generates-this-weekends-bufoonish-defamation-threat/
M.A. wrote: “Seem likes that would be a easy (and stupid) way to lose employment in the publishing industry.”
In publishing, where standards of professionalism are very random and uneven, whether an incident like this will even be treated as a misstep–let alone as a serious matter–depends a lot on the company and its internal culture.
At some houses, a contracts manager publicly denigrating a contracted author would definitely be treated as a serious matter. But certainly not at all of them. (And I don’t think MRK’s house is in the “definitely treated as a serious matter” column.)
Speaking of Scalzi, here he discusses the issue itself, vis a vis a link to a blog post by MRK about the matter. Some fiiiiine snark there.
Darn it! I blew my fun money this week on David Gaughran and t-shirts. Putting MRK on the list for the next payday.
My admiration for her started when she headed up a fundraiser for terminally ill SFF writer Jay Lake, all on her own time.
I just don’t see the point of articles like this. Anyone who thinks that there are no great SF female authors are so ignorant that their opinions are not worth noticing.
And anyone who has never read Mary Robinette Kowal’s work, or Bujold, or Nina Kiriki Hoffman, or Kris Rusch, or Connie Willis or Catherine Asaro to name a few great living female science fiction writers and who enters this debate just isn’t playing with a full deck of cards.
We’re not in the 1950′s now, time for a new debate.
Another example of why I stay out of so many internet arguments.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
Bazinga!
I haven’t followed this from the beginning (except for the flap over the cover art, and the three old farts being unprofessional about a woman editor), but what’s funny to me is that I’m scanning the excerpts and a lot of them don’t seem bad. Since they’re present as individual snippets, presented out of context, by themselves they’re comments I would agree with (mostly).
For example:
“The Bulletin editor was the first and most unfair victim. It was the then president who failed to do his oversight job. A simple, “This is not a good idea. Let’s do something else.” would have solved the problem.”
“I’m of the complete opinion that nothing of value has ever come out of Twitter or FB that wouldn’t have come out of other normal modes of electronic communication with much lower signal to noise ratios.”
“C.J. Cherryh over on Facebook has weighed in with the opinion that if SFWA members in good standing are not allowed to discuss all sides of an issue without being censored, then it is no longer a democratic organization.”
Again, I don’t know the context behind their remarks, but presenting it in this fashion does not make me want to join their cause, sign their petition or subscribe to their newsletter.
This does not excuse Fodera’s remarks, however. They’re beyond the pale and seriously unprofessional. But if the Tumblr excerpts were meant to recruit allies, they’re not making their case. What’s worse is that this is (supposedly) from pro writers; they should know better.
I’m puzzled by the article’s description of the people involved as “a group of highly influential writers.” That opening description that made me curious enough to find and read the discussion in question. And now my reaction is:
Huh???
The “Culture Wars” discussion that this article is reporting is on a public site. You can click on the link below to see a list of all the posts and people who posted. (If this link doesn’t take you to the list, then type “Culture Wars” into the “search sff.net headers” box.) http://webnews.sff.net/read
Although a couple of recognizable writer names appear every once in a while on that list, of the people really involved in the discussion and posting over and over, only one of them even has a writing career–Raymond Feist. So… “a group of highly influential writers?” Huh?
Apart from Feist, the other names (I googled them) appearing regularly in that discussion haven’t published in years, or have only published an occasional piece of short fiction in recent years.
So I’d call that a list of “former” or “semi-retired” writers, not “highly influential” ones. It also adds a whiff of sour grapes and jealousy to their denigrating comments about people like Scalzi, Hines, and Robinette, all of whom are currently writing and selling books, appearing as Guests of Honor at conventions, and winning awards. (Ditto the denigrating comments (ex. “an embarrassment”) the sff.net chatters make about writers who joined SFWA during Scalzi’s presidency–uh, you know, people who joined the writing organization on the basis of *recent/current* writing credentials.)
And if you read the whole discussion (which is smug, snide, venomous, and whiny, so I’m can’t recommend it), I don’t see how these people could be considered “highly influential” in SFWA, either, if that’s what the article meant. Because a number of them say that they dropped out of SFWA years ago and ARE NOT MEMBERS. Others are still members but indicate they haven’t been active in the organization for years.
So my conclusion, by the end of reading the whole “Culture Wars” discussion, is that these are not in any way “highly influential writers.”These are people who have marginalized themselves in terms of their writing careers and also in terms of their involvement with SFWA. but for whatever reason (time on their hands?), SFWA still holds their attention despite their decision to drop out of it entirely or to be inactive in it.
I don’t think these sff.net people behaved this badly on a public forum to attract attention (they appear to have assumed they were in a “safe” place and talking just among friends – though they don’t even appear to be friends, since they snipe at each other repeatedly during the discussion). But they do seem to be people who get attention (at least in the science fiction world) *only* if/when they behave badly in public.
Well, they call the SFWA a “highly influential” organization, too. If you call the Nebulas an influential award, maybe (and there’s doubt out there about a lot of awards, outside of the Nobel and Pulitzer). Otherwise, they’re about as effective as a wet paper bag, and these circular firing squads don’t help.
(That said, I am glad to see they’re providing a service in finding out who controls the literary estate of a lot of SF writers. Give ‘em credit for that.)
I read the thread, and several people on it said it was public. Reasonable conversation until near the end, then rampant paranoia. *shakes head*
It reminds me of very loud people on their cellphones getting miffed when people around them are laughing. Seriously, folks, if you’re going to discuss your son-in-law’s erectile dysfunction, don’t do it in the middle of the Barnes & Noble cafe.
Or at least pass the hat when you’re done.
I got the feeling that they expected that the forum was obscure enough that nobody would pay any attention to it. (Yeah, security through obscurity always works.)
To be fair, the brouhaha is actually conflated with another instance of someone reposting SFFnet content from one of the sff.private.* groups that is private. (This isn’t mentioned in the article linked above.) So their upset about that part could be taken as justified, at least somewhat.
Chris, I always assume that anything I put on the internet is public. Keeps me from Blogging While Intoxicated.
I couldn’t care less if the discussion was private. If you say it, you run the risk of it getting out. Someone’s cowardice doesn’t award them a right to never be called out.
People who say s****y things and then whine that the comments somehow got out are a particularly slimy form of lowlife.
“These guys” include, eg, Sarah Hoyt.