(1) TAKEDOWN. The New York Post tells how “Accountant embezzled $3.4M from famed literary agency”.
A Manhattan accountant cooked the books at a prestigious literary agency that represents top writers, including “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk, bilking its clients of millions and leaving the company on the brink of bankruptcy, according to legal papers.
Darin Webb, 47, faces 20 years in jail on wire-fraud charges for embezzling $3.4 million from storied Manhattan agency Donadio & Olson, according to a recently unsealed federal criminal complaint.
Although the agency, which also represents the estates of “Godfather” writer Mario Puzo and radio legend Studs Terkel, was not named in court papers, a lawyer representing the firm confirmed to The Post that Donadio & Olson was the subject of the alleged theft.
…The stolen money — allegedly lifted between January 2011 and March of this year — was earmarked for author royalties and advances, the complaint says.
But the theft could be exponentially more, a source told The Post, noting that a forensic accountant is combing through Donadio & Olson’s books all the way back to 2001, Webb’s first year at the agency.
He allegedly fessed up to the theft in March in a videotaped interview with company executives and their attorneys at the agency’s Chelsea office, saying he filed monthly financial reports that “contained false and fraudulent representations in order to accomplish the theft and evade detection,” the complaint states.
Webb was arrested May 15 by the FBI and is out on $200,000 bail.
The Guardian reports on a celebrity victim: “Chuck Palahniuk ‘close to broke’ as agent’s accountant faces fraud charges”.
Palahniuk – one of many starry authors represented by the firm, including the estates of Mario Puzo and Studs Terkel – said his income had dwindled for several years. He had blamed multiple factors, including piracy and problems at his publisher, for the decline in earnings.
More recently, Palahniuk said, “the trickle of my income stopped” and payments for titles including Fight Club 2 “never seemed to arrive”. He wondered if the money had been stolen, but told himself he “had to be crazy” – until the news broke.
“All the royalties and advance monies and film-option payments that had accumulated in my author’s account in New York, or had been delayed somewhere in the banking pipeline, [were] gone. Poof. I can’t even guess how much income. Someone confessed on video he’d been stealing. I wasn’t crazy,” wrote Palahniuk in a statement on his website.
The novelist said that “this chain of events leaves me close to broke”, but that he had found himself to be “rich … with friends and readers who’ve rushed to my rescue”.
“On the minus side, the legal process will be long and offers an iffy reward. On the plus side, I’m not crazy. Nor am I alone,” added the author.
(2) WISCON. Sophygurl, a Tumblr blogger, was present at a controversial WisCon panel and has written an account of what she heard: “WisCon 42 panel The Desire for Killable Bodies in SFF”. The post begins –
This is going to serve as my panel write-up for this panel, but it also a copy of what I wrote as a report to the Safety team about the panel. I am posting this on DreamWidth and Tumblr and will be linking to Twitter and Facebook. Please feel free to link elsewhere. This should all be public knowledge, imo.
For anyone who doesn’t know – this panel included a panelist who ended up talking about the importance of sympathizing with Nazis. This is obviously not the kind of thing you expect to find at an intersectional feminist convention. It was upsetting and disturbing. Most of the panel was actually very interesting and even funny, and I appreciated what the other two panelists had to say. I even appreciated *some* of what the panelist in question had to say. All of this was overshadowed by the awful things she said, however.
(3) BRANDON SANDERSON WARNS FANX. Utah author Brandon Sanderson has raised his voice against “Harassment at FanX”. (For background, see “FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention Sharply Criticized for Handling of Anti-harassment Complaint”.)
I don’t normally discuss charged issues on my social media, but I do find harassment at science fiction conventions a topic that is very important to discuss. It is also very relevant to my fans, as conventions are often how they interact with me.
Recently, Salt Lake City’s biggest media convention (FanX, formerly called Salt Lake Comic Con) has made some troubling missteps. First, it grossly mishandled harassment claims—then it doubled down on its mistakes, bungling interactions with voices that have called for reform.
Some authors I respect deeply have composed an open letter to FanX, calling for them to do better—and I have co-signed it. Many of these authors have spoken better about this specific issue than I can, and I encourage you all to read what they have said. I believe that conventions like these (alongside the smaller literary conventions that were so instrumental in my road to publication) are important parts of our community—and it is essential that they provide a place where victims are not silenced and harassment is not tolerated.
For now, I am still scheduled to appear at FanX this fall. My team and I have been evaluating whether or not this is a position we can still take—and it will greatly depend on how FanX responds to this letter in the next few weeks. I will keep you informed of our decision—and if I do decide to bow out of FanX, I will try to schedule some replacement signings instead.
(4) OPEN LETTER. The “Open Letter to FanX” that Sanderson refers to calls on the convention to do the following thigs:
One: In a public statement, and without disclosing her name, apologize to the victim who filed the sexual harassment report for disclosing their private report to the media without their knowledge or consent. Admit that the victim’s trust was violated, and promise future attendees who may report incidents that they will never undergo the same scrutiny or mishandling. Assure everyone that all reports will be heard, evaluated, and confidential. Keep the victims’ names confidential at all times.
Two: Hire a professional with experience writing, implementing, and upholding sexual harassment policies. Clarify the consequences for breaking the policy and reiterate that those consequences will be upheld. Removal and banishment from the conference should be among those ramifications.
Three: Address harassment complaints quickly. The past complaint was filed in October, and the complaint was not investigated until January. This shows a lack of concern and a reluctance to address the situation, as well as disregard for the seriousness of the issue.
Four: Recognize that trust is earned not through words, policies, and statements, but by a proven track record of implementation and action over time.
It’s signed by Robison Wells, Shannon Hale, Bree Despain, Emily R. King, Ally Condie, and Dean Hale, and co-signed by Brandon Sanderson, Maureen Johnson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Annette Lyon, Mette Harrison, J. R. Johansson, Jessica Day George, Courtney Alameda, Lindsey Leavitt, and Sarah M. Eden.
(5) BOMB DISPOSAL. The Washington Post’s Steven Zeitchik, in “How Disney could get Star Wars back on track”, says the relative failure of Solo at the box office shows that Disney will have to take steps to make Star Wars films more appealing, including spacing them out more, making them edgier, and not releasing Star Wars films in May or June.
Fewer movies. Five months is not a long time for Star Wars to be away. Certainly it’s not the year that stretched between the previous three movies, or the 10 years between the last of the George Lucas movies and “The Force Awakens” in 2015. With Marvel that seems to help — releases in quick succession enhance one another. But with Star Wars, seen less as the rapid-fire sequel, novelty and absence may be the key to the game. Disney could do better by going back to the 12-month spacing — or even longer.
Why it’s tricky: This sounds good to fans. The problem is it doesn’t sound good to Wall Street or Disney financial executives. Star Wars movies are such juggernauts that Disney wants to cash in whenever it can. Waiting that long doesn’t help in that bid. Disney and Lucasfilm are encountering a major paradox here. Modern Hollywood says when you have successes you should replicate them early and often. But making Star Wars movies early and often may make them less successful.
(6) SOLO ACT. Guess who’s writing the tie-in? “’Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Novelization Coming In September 4th, Written By Mur Lafferty”.
The Solo novelization is continuing the trend that The Last Jedi novelization started of being released several months after the film. Previously the novelizations have been released closer to the films theatrical releases. The original and prequel novelizations were released before the films, while The Force Awakens and Rogue One adaptations were released as e-books the same day as the film and as hardcovers shortly thereafter.
(7) SFWA STUFF. Security protocols may have been breached….
I feel you are overly careless with the @SFWA Top Sekrit Plans for Total World Domination.
— Cat Rambo (@Catrambo) May 29, 2018
(8) BIG BOX STORE. Adweek reports “Amazon Is Driving Around a Jurassic-Sized Box, and You Can Ask Alexa What’s Inside”. (Registration required to read full article.)
The last time we noticed Amazon driving around a giant box, the mysterious delivery turned out to be a Nissan Versa. But this time, perhaps it’s something a bit more … carnivorous?
(9) COMICS SECTION.
- Chip Hitchcock thinks those penguin prognosticators might be right about what’s coming: Arctic Circle Cartoons.
- Not sure whether I should thank Chip for also making sure I didn’t miss a horrible pop-culture pun at Bliss.
(10) THE DIRECTOR VANISHES. Comics shop owner Cliff Biggers showed this photo to his Facebook friends.
UPS employees like Alfred Hitchcock so much that they opened our package, tore open the action figure packaging, stole the figure, and then re-taped the box and sent it to us.
(11) LISTEN UP. The Parsec Awards Steering Committee is accepting nominations for the 2018 Parsec Awards through June 15 – submit nominations here.
Any material released between May 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018 is eligible for the 2018 awards. Material released needs to be free for download and released via a mechanism that allows for subscriptions. Thus, YouTube, Facebook, etc.. series are eligible.
If you are a podcaster or author, please feel free to nominate your own podcast or story. It is one way we know that your contact information filled is correct.
(12) KEEPING SCORE AT HOME. Seanan McGuire, in the area for ConCarolinas this weekend, took time to rate Ursula Vernon’s cats. Start the thread here —
CAT #1: Smoky. Bluepoint Siamese. Loves love. Does not like to be picked up. Practically perfect in every way. A+.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) May 30, 2018
(13) THE LAW & ANN LECKIE. A little known fact (in some quarters).
https://twitter.com/ann_leckie/status/1000128319474536448
(14) SPEAKING OF WHOM. Joe Sherry launches his Nerds of a Feather post series with “Reading the Hugos: Novel”:
Provenance: This is a novel which took a while to settle out from under the weight of unfair expectations that I placed on it. Once it did, I was able to engage more fully with Leckie’s story of truth, lies, and cultural identity. Provenance is a strong novel in its own right, and in the end, I appreciated Leckie’s light touch in how she connected it to the larger Ancillary universe.
It’s just that when we look back on Leckie’s career in twenty years, I suspect Provenance will be viewed as minor Leckie. It’s good, please don’t take this the wrong way, but the Ancillary trilogy was a major accomplishment and Provenance is “just” a very good book. I appreciated how Provenance pushed me to think about historical documents and relics, how their perception of importance could override the truth they should represent. There’s great stuff to chew on here
(15) SOLO REVIEW. And Nerds of a Feather contributor Dean E. S. Richard sounds relieved as much as anything in “Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story”.
The good news: it doesn’t suck! I mean, there’s some forgettable stuff, and Han Solo isn’t, like, Han Solo, but if you’re willing to watch it for the sake of itself and not expect Harrison Ford, it’s fine. It tries a little too hard for quips, and his against-odds/I-don’t-actually-have-a-plan moments come across a little forced, but, again, we’re measuring this against complete disaster, so I’ll take it.
(16) SIPS OF CEASELESS. Charles Payseur comments in “Quick Sips – Beneath Ceaseless Skies #252” —
Competition can bring out the worst in people, but as this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies proves, it can also bring out the best. Both stories this issue are about races, and magical ones at that, featuring women who find themselves squaring off against their lovers (former or current) for the chance to win a great prize. In both stories, though, the actual prize might not matter as much as the competition itself, as the thrill of the race. Because when these characters are faced with what they’d do if they won, the results are…interesting. It’s a wonderfully fun pair of stories, expertly paired, and I’ll stop yammering on in introduction and just get to the reviews!
(17) THE ORIGINS DEBACLE GOES ANOTHER ROUND. According to Larry Correia, who was dropped as a GoH of Origins Game Fair two weeks ago, “Origins sent out yet ANOTHER message about me, and my response” [Internet Archive link].
At Monster Hunter Nation he cites this as the text of Origins’ Executive Director John Ward’s message to educate vendors about the social media uproar following the “disinvitation.”
Good afternoon Exhibitors,
We are a few weeks away from Origins and the anticipation is building!
Things are looking great for this year’s show. The Exhibit Hall is officially sold out and badges are currently trending 15% above pre-registration numbers from 2017.
We have taken a brief hiatus from social media but are fully prepared to continue promoting the show and its exhibitors starting this week. Before we begin communicating through social, there are a few things we wanted to bring to your attention.
Some individuals have rallied online with plans to harass companies exhibiting at the show—this is in response to the disinviting of Larry Correia as a guest at Origins.
To provide you with some background: our original decision to invite Larry as a guest at Origins was simple—he’s a successful author, has been a guest at other conventions in previous years, and any one that knows him knows that he is big into gaming.
Unfortunately, we were not aware of Mr. Correia’s online presence and following. Upon further research we found an abundance of confrontational discourse and polarizing behavior online.
We have nothing against Larry as a person or as a professional, but we have seen the drama that follows him, and we do not want that at Origins.
As an exhibitor at Origins, we wanted you to be aware of the general MO of the group we are explaining:
Company pages are inundated with comments and negative rankings
Employers and publishers are contacted
Messages with keywords regarding to the show are targetedTime has passed, and things have calmed down, but we should all still be aware of these potential behaviors. If you receive any threats or libel regarding you or your company, please send them to John Ward.
Thank you for your support. Good luck with the final preparations for the show!
Correia explains that he actually believes vendors should be left alone. Except for the ones that deserve what’s happening to them, that is.
My only comments during this entire debacle concerning the vendors was that they should be left alone. The vendors are just small businessmen trying to have a good sales weekend, and they have nothing to do with the incompetence of John Ward. I’ve specifically gone out of my way to say that to my fans on multiple occasions.
The only vendors I’ve seen animosity directed at were the ones who specifically went out of their way to virtue signal on Twitter about how booting me for having the wrong opinions was So Brave. And that’s a short and very specific list who did that usual social media thing where they decided to throw punches, and then cry about getting punched back afterwards.
But hey, toss that out there. The important thing is that everyone knows Origins is the real victim here.
(18) GAME LOSES STEAM. Who thought this was a good idea? “School shooting game Active Shooter pulled by Steam”.
A game pitched as a “school shooting simulation” has been ditched from Steam’s online store ahead of release.
The title had been criticised by parents of real-life school shooting victims, and an online petition opposing its launch had attracted more than 180,000 signatures.
Steam’s owner, Valve, said it had dropped the game because its developer had a history of bad behaviour.
But the individual named has denied involvement.
Active Shooter came to prominence after the BBC revealed that an anti-gun violence charity had described it as “appalling” last week.
CNN subsequently reported that the families of two students killed in February’s high school attack in Parkland, Florida had described the game as being “despicable” and “horrific”.
(19) LE GUIN FILM. I’ve linked to the trailer before, but here’s a new Bustle post about the project: “This Ursula K. Le Guin Documentary Reveals How Much The Author Struggled To Write Women In Sci-Fi”.
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, a new documentary by Arwen Curry about the life and legacy of the late author, explores Le Guin’s long career as a pioneer in speculative fiction, including the role of feminism in her work and the struggles she faced teaching herself how to write women into her novels. In the film, which Curry worked on with the author for 10 years, Le Guin admits that “from my own cultural upbringing, I couldn’t go down deep and come up with a woman wizard.” According to the author, she had been “a woman pretending to think like a man,” a behavior she had to unlearn before she could create some of her best work.
As Le Guin tells Curry in the film:
“I had to rethink my entire approach to writing fiction … it was important to think about privilege and power and domination, in terms of gender, which was something science fiction and fantasy had not done. All I changed is the point of view. All of a sudden we are seeing Earthsea … from the point of view of the powerless.”
(20) BIG HERO 6 THE SERIES. Coming to a Disney Channel near you. (Which means not very close to me, but maybe to you.)
Hiro, Baymax and the Big Hero 6 team are back and ready to save San Fransokyo! Big Hero 6 The Series premieres Saturday, June 9 at 9A on Disney Channel. The adventure continues for 14-year-old tech genius Hiro and his compassionate, cutting-edge robot Baymax. If dealing with the academic pressure of being the new kid at the prestigious San Fransokyo Institute of Technology weren’t enough, it’s off campus where things really get tricky. Hiro and Baymax, along with their friends Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Go Go and Fred, unite to form the legendary superhero team Big Hero 6, protecting their city from a colorful array of scientifically-enhanced villains intent on creating chaos and mayhem!
(21) EXPANSE. Already linked in comments, but let the Scroll Record reflect: “It’s official: Amazon has saved The Expanse”. The Verge story says —
It’s official: The Expanse has been saved. After the Syfy Channel canceled The Expanse earlier this month, Alcon Entertainment has confirmed that Amazon will pick up the show for a fourth season, after after outcry from the show’s fans.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Andrew Porter, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, IanP, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]
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First!
(10) reminds me a little of that time around 1977 when I sent my AZAPA contrib to the OE’s street address in Phoenix, and had two digits of the ZIP code transposed, resulting in the envelope being sent to the Dead Letter Office (in San Francisco, per the stamped notice), and finally back to my return address. Somewhere along the way, somebody took the papers out, tore them in half, and put them back in.
By coincidence, my zine included a complaint about the slowness and carelessness of the Postal Service in their recent job performance. (Way to win me over, guys! You really convinced me of something.)
The Scroll with the Pixel Tattoo
I spent today driving around back roads with Seanan, collecting turtles. You have not seen the face of joy until you have seen a woman with a lap full of turtles.
Turtles were safely returned to their homes, farther away from the roads they had been intent on crossing.
Yes, one of them was a snapping turtle.
Click!
Clickity
I see Larry Correia is continuing to spin the tale that he’s never responsible for his own confrontational and abusive behavior online. It’s always other people who made him say and do these things.
This email from John Ward confirms that Correia’s long history of hurling online abuse at people, which has cultivated a following on his blog of people who are spurred to act the same way, caught up with him.
Conventions should think twice before making Correia a part of their event. He brings an angry fan base with him and is prone to using his online presence to stoke that anger in pursuit of a right-wing culture war. He’ll even invent a grievance to promote himself, as he did when he turned being nominated for Campbell Award into a multi-year campaign to burn down Worldcon and the Hugo Awards.
Origins made the right call rescinding his guest of honor invite.
(1): I really wish people would stop using ‘exponentially’ to mean ‘a lot’.
/petpeeve
(2) ::sigh::
This is like a train crash of interpretations. One side is hearing, “But don’t Nazis deserve respect and dignity too!”; the other is hearing, “Killing hordes of faceless minions is morally abhorrent… unless they’re Nazis; then mow ’em all down.”
Hypothetically, there are places and people that could have that conversation and come out the stronger for it. But a convention panel is probably not that place, and it looks like all the participants arrived at this very volatile topic entirely unprepared (and very explicitly pushed towards that topic by audience members, it seems).
None of which is to criticize people from complaining, or the convention’s response — “I didn’t mean to speak on this topic”, “We didn’t anticipate this,” and “This incident may have several contributing factors”, do not detract an iota from “harm was done” and “responsible action is required.”
I do hope, though, that people at large remember to distinguish between this case, vs. other panel takeovers, which were overtly hostile and an entirely different situation.
(8) ObXKCD
So I read this tweet about (among other things) too many in-jokes creating an environment that’s not welcoming to new participants and I couldn’t help but think of this potential Scroll title:
“Dave Kyle Says You Can’t Scroll Here”
(I’ve only been to a handful of cons & it’s a challenging time if you don’t know people there. I do like a bunch of innovations cone implement to help make newbies feel more welcomed. I like the buddy Idea, I like the “ask me about…” on badges, I like the special panels for first timers, I also like (thanks to the interweb) that you can arrange to meet online friends in person at a con so you won’t be alone unless you want to be.)
Missed the edit window: …I do like a bunch of innovations cons implement…
21) Huzzah, I say huzzah!
Drat, now I’m going to have to get Prime.
(17) Sure Larry said don’t target the vendors but his friend John Ringo on Larry’s blog actively encouraged people to target the vendors (to be exact “So, yes, tell your fans to hit the vendors.”). Odd that Larry forgot about that but I know he dislikes it when people leave out the full context of what was said.
IanP: If you get Prime now, you’d also be eligible for Twitch Prime, and be able to stream Doctor Who for the next 28 days, basically all existent episodes of the first 8 Doctors (except for the first Doctor’s episodes that have already aired).
Soon Lee, gods, do I ever know it re: in jokes. I leapt into the deep end of this by making my first con at all the Spokane WorldCon, and then proceeding to start dating a previous WorldCon vice-chair / Capricon GoH,Chair,SMOF, etc… *that very weekend*.
So, yeah, dem in-jokes yo 🙂
@ PhilRM ” I really wish people would stop using ‘exponentially’ to mean ‘a lot’.”
Right!? And the mis-use seems to be getting worse and worse all the time.
::restrains self::
::but it’s SO HARD::
@Camestros: OK, but LC and Ringo are still two distinct people.
Maybe I needed to add the ;)?
Well absolutely they are and Larry is factually correct to say he only ever said to leave the vendors alone. Meanwhile John Ringo on Larry’s blog encouraged people to target the vendors- this is also factually correct AND relevant to the claims Origins made about subsequent events. Larry calls those claims “disingenuous”. It is disingenuous of Larry not to mention Ringo’s intervention in this.
Here is the point Larry was disputing:
“Some individuals have rallied online with plans to harass companies exhibiting at the show”
This is true and not just Random P Nettroll but a fellow author with a significant following and a large overlap in fans with Larry.
@Cliff: No, it is perfect and also perfectly calibrated to make my head explode
Ha ha! Cool 🙂
@rcade: “Conventions should think twice before making Correia a part of their event. He brings an angry fan base with him and is prone to using his online presence to stoke that anger in pursuit of a right-wing culture war.”
Agreed, except that I would expand this caveat to extend to other people who have similarly used outrage (of any slant) as a way to promote themselves and their brand. Yes, this would include many prominent Puppies, but also lefties who try the same crap from the other political pole, as well as similar extremists who champion different causes.
It’s not about their views in any of those cases. It’s about their willingness to weaponize them. Rabid lefties can be just as toxic for a con as rabid righties. In this, I not only agree with Origins in their stated goal of avoiding such polarizing drama in their choice of headliners, but I wonder if a clause providing such an “out” should become part of every con’s terms for inviting guests. I’m not sure how it should be worded, but I don’t think a basic requirement to disclose such drama would be out of line. (It may well be that the “problem children” would refuse to expose their scandals, but if so, that failure helps to backstop any action the con needs to take when they inevitably come to light.)
18) I have no words. Or at least none that would be printable here.
@ rcade: Exactly, and the same holds true for a lot of Puppy authors. It’s not so much the authors themselves that the cons need to worry about, it’s the string of potential stochastic terrorists they bring in their train. And yes, I consider non-lethal assault in such cases to be a form of terrorism. Burning crosses doesn’t kill anyone either.
@Lee: “18) I have no words.”
I knew there was another news item I wanted to address. Unfortunately, the words I have are “not unique.”
I play a couple of ad-supported games on my iPad. In doing so, I’ve been shown quite a lot of ads for a sniper simulation game. In all of the ads, you get the sniper’s-eye-view through the scope as you locate your target (kidnapper, thief, whatever the killable body du jour happens to be, complete with helpful label), followed by an impossible-in-life view of the bullet speeding through the air toward its destination (complete with spinning motion), ending with the bloody splat before switching to the game’s title card, which shows the Heroic Sniper on a rooftop.
Keep in mind that the iOS app store is closed; apps and even updates to apps must be approved before they go live. This means that someone at Apple took positive action to approve this game. It’s not a case where the store is open, anyone can add a game to it, and someone has to act to remove it – precisely the reverse.
@Rev. Bob:: You get a similar sniper effect in Fallout 3 and 4.
@Rail:
Maybe so, but I was under the impression that the Fallout games were about more than shooting targets.
Hey, A scroll title credit!
3-4) I’ve seen a couple of community members say they were not going to FanX. Kudos to Brandon and company for their letter. We can only change and stop toxicity as a group.
6) Nice. Congrats to Mur.
@Redwombat. I hope none of them peed on you.
This is a bit worrisome:
European copyright law isn’t great, it could soon get a lot worse
EFF is not your typical sky-is-falling advocacy group that speaks from a position of ignorance; they have professional attorneys on staff whose job it is to evaluate proposed legislation. Sounds as if this could have a devastating effect on a number of very common applications of the Internet, including open-source applications, user-edited wikis, discussion of copyrighted material, and (of particular concern to F&SF authors and readers) fan-fiction.
@Rev. Bob: The story hangs together better than most, but it’s still a series of excuses to shoot something. But there’s enough precedent for that sort of scene in various first-person shooters that I’m not surprised it was approved.
@Jon F. Zeigler: Ugh. I was already pondering shutting down a fanfic forum that has mostly European users just because of the GDPR. This will definitely kill it.
/Godstalk
thirty-third
[click]
17: sure larry said don’t target the vendors…and then named a handful.
@OGH re @9: And here I thought you’d appreciate the trouble I took to find a usable link….
@Rev. Bob:
Instances? What I see is leftists generally not having an audience vocal enough to be trouble, but I’m not strongly connected to fannish news sources. I’ve seen excessive outrage (e.g., Kathryn Cramer’s attempt to tar Readercon with ageism, as discussed here), but not a connection to a brand.
RedWombat on May 30, 2018 at 8:02 pm said:
From a cursory Google Images search this seems to fail Rule 34.
@Rail:
At least for me, there’s a difference between “a game in which one shoots people (or zombies, demons, aliens, et al.) as part of a larger story” and “a game comprised entirely of shooting (whatever we decided on) in a collection of missions.”
The Fallout games appear to be the former. Shooting opponents is a way of clearing an obstacle that stands between you and the next piece of story. The app game I describe looks like the latter, where all you do is assassinate bad guys from a rooftop on the other side of town.
I’m not judging first-person shooters. I’ve played a lot of Doom (and its sequels), and that meant killing a ton of zombies and demons with everything from a chainsaw to a rocket launcher. Thing is, as gore-laden as those were, that puzzle/quest aspect was always there. Find the key cards, figure out the switch pattern that would open the door to the exit… maybe it wasn’t much of a plot, but it was there. It wasn’t Duck Hunt with human targets.
ETA, @Chip: “Instances? What I see is leftists generally not having an audience vocal enough to be trouble, but I’m not strongly connected to fannish news sources.”
RequiresHate comes to mind…
c4c
@Rev. Bob: I don’t really disagree, although my view of the Fallout games is colored by having an obsessed fan in the house who is probably on his 8th or 9th replay. I just think that the person who approved the game into the store probably didn’t see any real difference.
RequiresHate was also my first thought. There are people in the SFF world whose books/blogs/podcasts I still won’t touch because of their association with her.
@Jon F Zeigler
Ugh! That sounds both very chilling to speech and an enforcement nightmare in a globalized internet. Hope it goes down in flames.
@Chip Hitchcock
I can’t think of any left leaning SFF authors that have weaponized their fan base quite the way some on the right have. Still, Requires Hate comes to mind. There are a couple others whose agressively boorish behavior on the net have put them on my do not buy list. At least one of those is well known as a do not mention their name online lest they appear.
(2) For anyone who doesn’t know – this panel included a panelist who ended up talking about the importance of sympathizing with Nazis. This is obviously not the kind of thing you expect to find at an intersectional feminist convention. It was upsetting and disturbing.
Yet after WWII as the U.S. occupied the former Nazi Germany and the facts about the Holocaust and other war crimes were well known, there was a general sentiment that the majority of Germans were misled by an evil regime, which is true. It doesn’t excuse their willingness to go to war or looking the other way, but sympathizing with them as people wasn’t verboten back then either.
Aw, but that means you may have missed w**l sw***terly’s reaction to WisCon….
@Rail, Stoic, Chip, et al.:
Regardless of particular lefty cases, it’s a good idea in general to make such a policy nonpartisan. RH’s supporters may not be as numerous, loud, or prone to action as Correia’s, but it’s possible that a liberal writer could put on the Extreme SJW Activist hat and try to mobilize the same sort of support from that branch of fandom as Correia gets from his.
I think asking whether the problem already exists implies the assumption that if it does not, it never will. That’s a bad approach, the same kind of thinking that says “we don’t need a Code of Conduct because we’ve never had any problems.” The wise concom attempts to anticipate and prevent problems, rather than waiting for an incident to happen and hoping that they can deal with it well enough that they don’t lose face by being unprepared for it.
Besides, it’s just plain better to write a policy that takes a stance against polarization of any kind than it is to write one that only prohibits right-wing turmoil. It’s easier, it’s smarter, it’s equitable right from the outset… and all of that is true regardless of whether we can point to an existing bad actor on the left.
I’m fine with blaming all sides when it is warranted, but I question whether it is here.
I see a lot of attacks coming against SF/F fandom and fan institutions from right wingers over a span of years. I don’t see that from the left. Nobody on the left ran a bloc voting campaign to destroy the Hugos. Nobody on the left is constantly ginning up us-vs-them political controversies to move books and get attention. Nobody on the left is engaging in the kind of hate rhetoric that Theodore Beale employs to promote his publishing house.
21) I’m very happy the series is getting saved, but I’m wondering what this will do to the distribution deals outside the US. Right now I have access to the show via CraveTV, a mediocre-at-best streaming service run by a cable company that just happens to have a decent collection of TV shows. (And one absolutely phenomenal original series, Letterkenney, which is by itself worth the cost of the service.) If CraveTV loses the distribution rights in favour of Amazon’s streaming service here in Canada I’ll have no legal way to watch it anymore, unless I violate my Amazon boycott, which has stood firm for 15 years now.
So, good for the show, bad for me, I guess.
@Rev Bob
I was, and am, totally in agreement with you. Sorry if it read different somehow. It’s the behavior that should be punished not the beliefs.
@James Davis Nicoll
My loss I’m sure 🙂
I do prefer it when a standard a group sets has to be met by all its members, including me, regardless of whether before the standard was set, they failed it.
@ rcade:
I seem to recall some people proposing “counter-slating” as a possibly-sane method, back in the early days of puppytime. It was, let’s say, met with enthusiastic “oh, hell, no, we ain’t going there!” (and, eventually, EPH).
And I stand by the fact that in the early days of various canines, my only problem with them was their obnoxious slating. Alas, as time has moved on, they have… changed behaviour (or, quite possibly, I have simply become more aware what was always there).
Re: Seanan and the lap full of turtles. I’d be leery about holding a turtle on my lap, myself. When those guys protest-pee, the volume can be impressive.
Only saw one box turtle on my way to work this morning. Stopped to help him across the road and discovered that he was one of that subset who frantically wave their legs instead of clamming-up when lifted.
The bigger excitement was finding one laying eggs in one of our flower beds earlier this week.