ci5hq Resignation

[przed]

Those of you not in Pros fandom can safely ignore this.

To those of you in Pros, I am, reluctantly, resigning as co-mod of ci5hq. (I would have done this days ago, but for the fact that I've been sick as a dog since Thursday.)

In part, this is because as the mom of a rapidly growing little girl with increasing personal and professional demands on my energy, I've been realizing I have less time than ever to devote to fannish pursuits. I need only to work on things that bring me joy, and increasingly that is not ci5hq.

Primarily, however, this comes down my now former co-mod's decision to move to using prosficspoilers for warnings on the community. I have two main issues with this choice.

First is the fact that in spite of her much vaunted respect for other fans, byslantedlight did not show the same respect to me, and made this change without either consulting whether I agreed with this decision or even informing me of this change in policy on the comm. I am similarly making my decision without consulting her.

Second is the fact that I most emphatically do not agree with this change. Forcing users of the comm to post warnings and spoilers to a separate community is unworkable and onerous. Unworkable, because in spite of the mod's assertion to the contrary, providing only a link to the prosficspoilers comm in the original posting will mean that the specific warnings for that story will swiftly become lost in the spoilers community. Onerous, because to make it all workable the original poster will have to create their own post in the spoiler comm, then link back to it, a layer of effort that seems to me completely unnecessary when simply putting a warning at the end of the story or posting, under a cut would seem to meet the requirements of most members of the community. Creating this new layer seems to add no value except perhaps sparing the sensibilities of the very few (2 out of 35 respondents on a poll byslantedlight conducted herself) who are offended by the very existence of warnings. And I say that as someone who doesn't feel the need for warnings herself, but can respect that others do.

That it has come to me making this decision saddens me, because in large part I helped create ci5hq in response to the arbitrary, draconian, and inconsistently applied posting rules of the former mod of the_safehouse. To see similarly arbitrary rules on a community I helped create causes me great dismay, and I cannot any longer remain as a mod.

I will also not be posting on any other comm that has this policy, which means I will no longer be posting on the_safehouse.

Increasingly it has become clear to me that the only truly friendly LJ comm in Pros fandom is teaandswissroll. The mods there are welcoming to all Pros fans, and do not impose arbitrary, unworkable, or unnecessary rules. teaandswissroll is definitely becoming my de facto home base for Pros on LJ.

I have made a number of friends in Pros fandom. I hope I will continue to be friends with many of you. But if any of you feel you need to remove me from your flist in light of this decision, I completely understand.

Take care everyone.

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sorry to hear this - and surprised to hear so many sudden opinions on the topic, as the question was raised several times to elicit member's opinions before deciding to make the change. The discussions etc are:
18th May 2010 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/132122.html) (post that raised the issue yet again)
18th May 2010 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/132602.html) (comments closed as I was away, but you could certainly have emailed me about it all)
27th May 2010 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/133524.html)
31st May 2010 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/133814.html)

There were additional discussions:
22nd August 2007 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/36087.html) (the poll that you mention)
24th August 2007 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/36787.html)
26th February 2009 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/81137.html)
27th June 2009 (http://community.livejournal.com/ci5hq/102772.html)

You didn't participate in any of these discussions, nor did you offer an opinion by simply clicking on the poll you quote back in 2007, nor have you ever contacted me privately about these things. I'm afraid I was under the impression that it wasn't an issue that interested you.

You additionally did email me a few years ago, when I was was contacting you and the other co-mod re: every suggested change I was making at CI5hq, and said that I didn't need to do so in the future unless it was some major change - you trusted my judgement. You could certainly argue that changing the policy on spoilers is a major change - but as I've said, your apparent disinterest in the subject made me feel more as if you wouldn't see it that way.

You've rather misinterpreted the poll, by the way - 2/35 (5.7%) people said they wanted no information at all, but actually 13/35 (37%) people said they didn't need to know about "distressing content" (ie, "warnings") - a not inconsiderable proportion, and I think it's reasonable to cater to those people as well as those who do want warnings.

teaandswissroll I believe insists on all warnings being up front in the header where everyone is forced to see them, so you may well be happier there if that's what you require. But again I am surprised to see that you feel so strongly about it, since you've never expressed these opinions in posts where we've asked for them, or to me as a co-mod.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're confused by the proposed system - perhaps it wasn't explained clearly, but I do wish you'd asked at the time rather than afterwards. The author of a story doesn't have to do anything, if they don't want to. It's entirely up to people who want spoilers to put that information up at Prosficspoilers - whether it's the mod herself or members of the comm, or an author if they wish to do so. This means that people who believe in spoilers can work together to find/create them for a fic, and those who don't believe in them aren't forced to include them if they want to participate in the comm (eg, as they are at Teaandswissroll). This is all about finding a compromise, not forcing a single belief on anyone who takes part in the comm. There will be a time lag as the spoiler comm starts out, but the more people help out, then the smaller that lag will be.

and do not impose arbitrary, unworkable, or unnecessary rules.
As with anything, there's more than one opinion about what is arbitrary, unworkable or unnecessary - and perhaps the time to have mentioned your issues with my (active) modding of this comm was any time since its creation in 2006? I would have welcomed some input from my co-mods, I appreciated that "real life" prevented them from doing so - but considering you've never objected in any way to what I've done so far, you'll excuse me for being somewhat surprised at your vehemence in this post.

I note the number of comments you're receiving in agreement about the new policy - but again I note that very few of those people contributed to any of the recent posts about warnings or even to other posts and discussions at CI5hq, which I'm sorry about. It was always a public discussion, in which opinions were solicited and welcomed. A comm is only what its members make of it - things have been decided via comments made by those members who cared enough to participate.