Repeating Myself, with added eyerolling

[neadods]

There are now apparently six comms dedicated to critiquing the nominees for the Children of Time awards, so many run by sock puppets that the latest stakes its claim to fame specifically as the non-sock comm. (Why does CoT continue to soak up this nonsense? It's not like there are multiple comms SMOFing about calufrax recs.)


I'm going to take this opportunity to repeat myself: by openly posting reviews under my name, I have gotten work. Semi-professional work. (Reviewing the Evidence, I Love a Mystery Newsletter) Paying work. (Once Written, Firefox News) Even the stuff that doesn't pay in cash or goods (Unreality SF) is adding to my portfolio so I can get more work (and things are being negotiated for future lines).

Four years of negative reviews in Reviewing the Evidence, and I have yet to be spit on or run out of (or even shunned at) Malice Domestic or Bouchercon. It hasn't been six days since I looked a professional author right in the eyes and explained why I gave her next-to-latest book a partially negative review. Mary Stanton was amazingly cool about it. We had a long conversation about those points in her series and her plans.


So frankly y'all, I have LESS than no sympathy for anyone who thinks that they "have" to hide their identity to "honestly" give an opinion.

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

dude. cot_tossed did not stab anyone in the back... the worst cot_tossed stuff was directed at people because of grudges from before cot_tossed was ever formed, and it was simply being used as an excuse to attack certain individuals. but of course, that's probably also why some of the reviewers went anon in the first place

As I say in the comment above, I thought the phrase "more epic than anything Who has ever kicked up" made it clear that I was referring to Jundland Wastes at that moment. However, if I've read your comment right, you've just said that some reviewers used the anonymity of Tossed to take out personal grudges against other authors, which pretty much proves the point I'm making right there.

As does pointing out that what you've said under your own name isn't half as rough as what happened when anons got unmasked. That's what I've been saying since I knew about Tossed - that every other anon reviewing site caused epic wank and hard feelings, far moreso than saying an honest if negative opinion under your own name. Your own personal experience is also making my point.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

However, if I've read your comment right, you've just said that some reviewers used the anonymity of Tossed to take out personal grudges against other authors

wow. no, you read that about as wrong as possible, actually. i said other people took the opportunity to rake a few fans over the coals after those fans publicly stated they had been part of cot_tossed. the coal-rakers were just using those fans' involvement with cot_tossed as a convenient excuse to attack them. so, pretty much the exact opposite of what you're trying to make it look like i said.

As does pointing out that what you've said under your own name isn't half as rough as what happened when anons got unmasked.

like i said, i am not a BNF, and yet i still have managed to get a grudgey fanwriter who's following me across media. someone who is known to most of LJ fandom, giving their honest opinions of the show, fic, fandom, etc. is a hell of a lot more likely to get grudgey people following them around or attacking them. just because i wouldn't necessarily go anon personally to review fic doesn't mean that no one else could ever have a good reason to do so. i'm not a fan of all the anon stuff happening in fandom right now, but i'm not going to tell people that because i've experienced fandom in one way they're obliged to experience it that way too.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

pretty much the exact opposite of what you're trying to make it look like i said.

I'm not trying to deliberately twist your words; I'm saying what it looked like to me. "If I read it right"... and with clarification, I did not read it right.

However,
i'm not going to tell people that because i've experienced fandom in one way they're obliged to experience it that way too.

When I've watched history repeat itself in almost the exact same way for multiple decades and multiple fandoms, I've got good reason to say "all my experience says this is how it's going to end." At some point I'm going to have to find my first post when I found out about CoT Tossed because I accurately predicted then what would happen - and I was told I didn't understand fandom. Now that it has happened, I'm told I don't understand fandom. I'm predicting that if the other anonymous review communities have traffic they are also going to have identical meltdowns and hard feelings, which probably just goes to show that I'm the ego that ate Manhattan and expect everyone to dance to my tune because it's so obvious that I don't understand fandom.

The lesson I've always taken from this is that going anonymous is a really bad idea that will lead directly to a lot of hard feelings and harassment when the anon's identity is known. The lesson that I see being taken is that unmasking is a really bad idea that leads directly to a lot of hard feelings and harassment... which skips the weak point that identities can be outed as well as revealed. I've seen plenty of that too.

Whatever. I've seen routes to fans writing reviews that lead to a lot of pain and heartbreak. I've seen routes to fans writing reviews that lead to a lot of free stuff. I believe in stating opinions openly and taking whatever lumps come from that, so I have and I have. No one is obligated to agree with me or believe I know what I'm talking about.

Even when I say "X is going to happen" and it does.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to deliberately twist your words; I'm saying what it looked like to me. "If I read it right"... and with clarification, I did not read it right.

sorry, didn't mean to be snappy with my comment there, but i was. apologies. but i was confused how anyone who had actually read the cot_tossed reviews could think that they were being used as a way to take out grudges on the authors. the reviews were all really fair, even the ones i didn't agree with.

i remember the post you made when cot_tosed first opened up, saying that the anonymous reviewers would be found out and there would be a wankstorm. the thing is, no one "outed" anyone, the people who were unveiled chose to reveal themselves, and at least half the cot_tossed reviewers are still anon and i don't see how they won't remain so. cotafterdark has never been unveiled, and has never had wank attached. and i don't think anyone's going to care about these new anon comms and who's "really" writing the reviews, because i doubt any big names are involved. so i just don't see it as the wank as an inevitable consequence of the anonymity -- i do think it was related almost entirely to previous grudges against a couple of the people involved. obviously we're just going to continue to disagree about that point.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

obviously we're just going to continue to disagree about that point.

Agreed. :)