MEFAs - the end of an era (or some such)

[oloriel]

dawn_felagund has summed up pretty much exactly what I think about the topic, so I am - hurrah! - no longer feeling the need to put my thoughts into words. I'll merely quote her:

Let's be frank, folks. If critique of a policy, no matter how heated, was what caused a fandom institution to close its doors, then it wasn't long for the world anyway. I say this as an admin and, again, with the recognition that you have to expect these kinds of problems, and you either deal or you don't. There's certainly nothing wrong with reaching the point where you can't or won't deal anymore, but pretending like an otherwise healthy and thriving fandom institution came suddenly crashing to the ground because of a critique over a ratings policy would be laughably ridiculous if I hadn't seen so much finger-pointing to this effect.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. Signed a dozen times.
(Her full, thoughtful and intelligent entry can be found here. It says everything I might want to say on the matter - only better, and providing background explanation I wouldn't even have thought of.)

(Actually, I might want to say more on the matter, but that would leave the territory of reasonable and diplomatic discourse. So I shall hold my tongue. Unless anything comes up in the comments to this entry here, of course. ;))

Comments

[satismagic.livejournal.com]

I'm still horrified at how much hatred got launched at the volunteers over a matter that could easily have been resolved.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's upsetting, yes, but not all that surprising. Everything we do in the fandom is a work of love - as Dawn put it, many of us consider some corner of the fandom or other their online home - so any change feels like a big thing. If, then, people are concerned about something and feel that their initial attempts to "resolve" things are getting ignored, brushed aside or downright scorned - for whatever reason; I'm talking about feelings here, after all, not about facts - tempers quickly run high... then the first alerts show up on fandom_wank, and then the tourists and trolls get in.

Frankly, though, I don't think the matter could have been easily resolved - not this year, not under the given circumstances. If there had been an easy resolution, things wouldn't have gotten out of control so fast.

This isn't to justify the anonymous attacks etc. - just to explain that the way I understood it, matters were rather more complicated.