Fandom Wank Lives!

bobafeis] 02:44am - We don't actually know if this is plagiarism wank, unless someone out there is an internets lawyer

Here's some Project Runway plagiarism wank to go with the lovely vanity pub and author wank. I hope it goes without saying that there might be a spoiler or two for the finale, but I'll say it anyway: There are spoilers for the finale in this post.

Project Runway "villain" and finalist Irina had a shirt in her final Bryant Park collection that has all the reasons she loves New York written on it. Oh, wait. Those aren't the reasons she loves New York, those are the reasons that someone who wrote a famous New York Magazine article loves New York. And this is the same girl who was going to feature ~~Coney~~ Conney Island artwork in the collection until she was told that it would be copyright infringement? And NY Mag says that she didn't ask permission? And I don't even have to tell you that this isn't going to end well, do I?

And then ( spoileriffic things happen! And so does wank. )

(47 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Thursday
November 19

[

jkefka] 07:54pm - Harlequin vanity bodice-ripping wank! (Even more awesome than it sounds)

Hang on to your hats, kids, this one's a doozy in several parts. To start off, you might want to catch up on

agilebrit's clairvoyantwank writeup. Clairvoyant indeed! To sum up, romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises teamed up with a publisher called ASI solutions to form Harlequin Horizons, a vanity press. Romance Writers of America promptly revoked Harlequin's "recognized publisher" status.

And now for a wank in several parts, involving a goodly number of awesome people in addition to a wanking Cast of Thousands (tm):

( Part 1: PubRants )

( Part deux: various forums )

( Part Three: SBTB, and Nora Fucking Roberts )

( Part the last: The NEW YORKER?! )

And finally, THIS JUST IN from PubRants. Watch that post for further ~~fappery~~ developments! Notably, Harlequin has decided to dissociate the "Harlequin" name from their vanity publishing rig in response to the RWA slamming them, and the MWA has weighed in. ETA: And the wank has matured nicely! Here's a couple comments of note: Anon #1, Anon #2, "Harlequin, were not stupid" [sic].

And here come the ETAS!
#1: SFWA tweets a heads-up, and the glorious katamari of wank rolls on!

#2: Coutesy of

magnolia_mama, Lee Goldberg drops his two cents from the MWA soapbox. In a shocking turn of events, he seems to be making a cogent, reasonable argument. My world is rocked.

#3:

annathepiper links us to SFWA's statement, which is possibly the strongest yet! For a snippet:

...Further, SFWA believes that work published with Harlequin Horizons may injure writing careers by associating authors’ names with small sales levels reflected by the imprint’s lack of distribution, as well as its emphasis upon income received from writers and not readers....Until such time as Harlequin changes course, and returns to a model of legitimately working with authors instead of charging authors for publishing services, SFWA has no choice but to be absolutely clear that NO titles from ANY Harlequin imprint will be counted as qualifying for membership in SFWA. Further, Harlequin should be on notice that while the rules of our annual Nebula Award do not expressly prohibit self-published titles from winning, it is highly unlikely that our membership would ever nominate or vote for a work that was published in this manner....SFWA does not believe that changing the name of the imprint, or in some other way attempting to disguise the relationship to Harlequin, changes the intention, and calls on Harlequin to do the right thing by immediately discontinuing this imprint and returning to doing business as an advance and royalty paying publisher.

Count on the pew-pew lasers genre to bring the burn!

#4: Found by

pariforma, someone named Jackie Kessler has an excellent (and amusing) summary of the whole mess on their blog. The pricing breakdown (with reference links to the Harlequin price-sheets themselves) is particularly well-done.

#5, which should be like #3 but I missed it the first time: via

lady_ganesh, Mr. Scalzi has spoken. Does anyone else smell something...burning?

( Too Hot (and big) For Your Flist )

Mmm, PR barbecue. As a bonus, there's a lovely herd of teal deer in the comments, including some truly lovely wanking by one Diana Peterfreund and a few others. Scroll on through, it's a good time.

Blooper reel: We, uh, may have played a part in crashing SBTB for a while there. please don't kill meeeee

#6: Zoe Winters continues her wanking in the comments of an article at the Examiner. Thanks

dreamworld!

(163 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Wednesday
November 18

[

damien] 02:18pm - Get your Satanic wank out of my distro!
mood: Mystified

Background: Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux. Think of it as a version of Linux like you have Windows XP, Vista, Me, 95, etc. Some people created Ubuntun Christian Edition, which annoyed some members of the Ubuntu community who didn't see why a special religious-based distribution was needed but it was mostly a polite argument. Then, in retaliation, Ubuntu Satanic Edition was created.

Cue wank.

Not from the Christians, though! The wank was all provided by a Satanist called HHS and another Satanist who called himself 'friend of HHS', both of whom popped up in the comments box and kept a running argument going with several different people until he randomly disppeared.

Most of it is under the cut, because it's long and takes place over years, but here are a few highlights to whet your appetite, both from him and people who were arguing with him.

HHS starts off with saying "This is very insulting to my religion. I really don’t think you should misuse the Lord’s name like that.

Richard M. Stallman, who is responsible for GNU and Linux, is a jewish psychopath who does not deserve to come near Hell. We do not want to be associated with him or anything made by this communist who never bathes and eats his own hair."

People get confused and think he's a Christian who's objecting to Linux SE. Cue HHS exploding and warning them "It’s very unclever to go against the Lord and dishonour Him and His people. When you die and meet Satan, just try calling Him “jesus boy” too and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I assume that you two are Jews because they call everyone Christian who aren’t Jews or Muslims."

( All hail LINUX -- I mean, Satan/Cthulhu/Flying Spaghetti Monster/God/Allah/[insert deity or pantheon of choice here!] )

(93 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Tuesday
November 17

[

tetradecimal] 09:01pm - Back off, man, I'm a scientist!

From wank_report:
Genevieve Koski, writing for the A.V. Club, offers her opinion on a recent screening of Ghostbusters for Better Late Than Never, the feature in which authors who never experienced some element of the pop culture of the past go back and review it with the jaded eyes of the present. Her opinion, of course, is negative.

( Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. )
...I don't have to warn for Ghostbusters spoilers, do I?

(374 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Wednesday
November 11

[

reeve] 08:23am - Activision and Infinity Ward Hate PC Gamers

There was a time when all the first-person shooter fanboys were hot for Modern Warfare 2. That was before it was announced that the PC version wouldn't support dedicated servers, and players would instead be stuck having to use a matchmaking system. According to the Joystiq piece: Even without a doctorate in PC gaming affairs, it's easy to see how this fact would upset someone (or some community) who drops a wad of cash every month on renting a private server. Also preturbed by this news are fans of modded game modes and custom maps -- both of which would be unlikely under the IWNet framework.

( PC gamers are not amused. )

(33 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Tuesday
November 10

[

twinno] 02:22pm - Go Puck yourself: Glee wank.

Glee, by its very definition, is about opening yourself up to joy. That, or it refers to a new television show that follows a high school glee club, made up of a bunch of mismatched students.

The wank revolves around an ongoing Glee Club Survivor poll, in which members of

gleeclub vote off their least-favorite characters one round at a time, so that their favorite will be the last one standing. Sounds fun in theory, but in practice it provides a perfect petri dish in which to culture some character-bashing wank.

One character in particular is getting more heat than everyone else.

( Cut for the crazy. )

Aside from the trolling, there's a helpful guide as to how fans should vote, calling anyone who likes four other characters "obviously idiotic and completely daft."

So who's going to win? Mischa Collins, of course. Because wank always comes back to Supernatural.

Some extra credit reading: this wank apparently started in a now-deleted post on

gleeclub, which led to the creation of

glee_meta. This post contains some not-so-wanky discussion the topic of questionable consent.

(328 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Monday
November 9

[

sheep] 11:41pm - X-Factor? How about WTF-Factor!

For those who are wondering, the X-Factor is like American Idol, only in Britain.

Every Sunday is the sing-offs between the two acts with the lowest votes, and this Sunday's sing-off has caused much wank! But this wank has been brewing for a while.

Introducing the Jedward twins, or more precisely John and Edward, who have infected a good chunk of Britain with a bad case of Train Wreck Syndrome.

In the beginning, there was some hate due to their antics at bootcamp. Then there were accusations of Louis only putting them through because they are Irish. Simon Cowell expressed on numerous occasions that he thought they were ridiculous, that they shouldn't have been put through and that they are awful.

But the weeks went by and they gained a bit of a cult following, but they also gained some hate.

( Read more... )

(48 wanks | kerfluffle!)

[

snacky] 03:11pm - Spoilers: as always, very serious business

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS FOR EVERY SINGLE BIT OF MEDIA PRODUCED SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME IN THE COMMENTS. SPOILERPHOBES, BEWARE!

Over in fanficrants, auburnmaven posts a rant about being spoiled for an anime series by reading the summary of a fic. Discussion ensues.

The highlight is this thread, featuring noracharles (My point is, I think it's perfectly reasonable and doable to want to avoid spoilers, and to therefore stay away from places where spoilers are likely to be found. In smaller fandoms it can be difficult, but that's life.) and feywood (That's life? Oh that's the lamest excuse ever. "I'm sorry, we'll have to chop your hand off, but that's life." "I'm sorry, you'll have to warn for spoilers till perpetuity, but that's life.").

(467 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Wednesday
November 4

[

tetradecimal] 07:52am - Hideo Kojima to judge Twilight fanart contest

Just a light wanky snack.

Facts:
(1) Hideo Kojima is the creator of the Metal Gear Solid series.
(2) He is a fan of Twilight.
(3) He will be in ur Pixiv, judging ur Twilight fanart. Also, winner gets an autographed copy of MGS4: Guns of the Patriots.

( Metal Gear fans: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO )

ETA: ONTD post. Thanks to:

vitalitat.

(117 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Saturday
October 31

[

istaerlus] 08:43pm - I refuse to return your stolen tablet until you buy me a better one

Over on FurAffinity Kitara makes a journal about the theft of her tablet (the original journal is on the bottom half and the update is on the top half). She says she lent it to Recca_se_li and it was then either stolen by Razr or Recca lent it to Razr. Either way Razr refuses to answer any of Kitara's emails or text messages on the subject. Kitara then updates same journal (top half) when she manages to contact Razrs roomate/master/girlfriend/sockpuppet knowstobite. Knowstobite insists that the tablet was given to Razrs by Recca as a parting gift and that he will only return it once Kitara gives him another tablet of same or better quality.

Recca says Razrs has also stolen from him and owes him money

ICEman goes on Heidi patrol and internet lawyers

Kitara posts another journal where she shares a conversation she had with Knowstobite The conversation is tl;dr but the gist of it is Knowstobite thinks Razr has done nothing wrong by willfully accepting and keeping property he knows is stolen and again insists Kitara sends a new tablet to Razrs before she receives the original back.

Knowstobite shows up to share her two cents

Knowstobite also posted a journal on the subject of the tablet
The edited version
Screen caps thanks to Nightfurson of the original version in which knowstobite tries to raise money to buy Razr a new tablet.

Screen capt comments from Knowstobite's first journal where we find out Razr just made over $200 dollars on a commission and can easily buy himself a new tablet with that money.
the furbuy auction (half a NSFW picture)

At some point Recca also started taking donation money to buy Kitara a new tablet even though Kitara explicitly said she doesn't want a new one, she wants her old one back for sentimental value. Questions are raised as to what happens to the donation money after Kitara receives her old tablet back. Unfortunately I can't find the original post where Recca says this, just a comment referring to it.

There is much internet lawyering throughout.

ETA: There appears to be a happy ending after all Kitara posts a new journal saying she got the tablet back.

(156 wanks | kerfluffle!)

[

galateus] 09:23am - This wank based on true events. [now with baleetion]

I read the strangest rant today. How strange you say? So strange no one can agree just whether it's even a rant at all!

OP replies to requests to clarify, a few times, while a brave idealist attempts first contact, before realizing only a sucker would try to breach such impenetrable walls of WTF.

A random potshot at someone's fic-writing skills prompts the best simile ever.

The more persistent commenters dig through the layers of Bizarro-talk until they uncover the truth: OP is... 'anti-criticism'?

PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE SMILEYS.

And shattered idealism is shattered.

ETA: aslongasitlasts has studied the people of FFR. He's like a magic 8-ball, in a way.

And wank_report has some too.

ETA2: Modly intervention. But he wants to be banned. No, really.

ETA s'more: Post got blanked and F-locked. Comm membership is open, though.

The ETA Apocalypse Now: Comments are being baleeted at random, and the original post is replaced by the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's the final troll blowout, people.

ETA Captain Obvious:: Oh, so that's what started it. Taunting the mod, and then deleting comments (A no-no in ffr^2). He's banned now, but you wouldn't know because the mod comment that said that is... deleted!

ETA Cry For Justice: There are 409 Google caches of the wank still with pre-baleetion comments. Saving the ones I can before they update.

(156 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Monday
October 26

[

anarchicq] 01:15pm - This wanklet was brought to you by the letters T & A...
mood: Righteous

Caution: There are some NSFW links in the forums.

So!
A while ago on the ToughPigs forum, there was discussion about American Apparel making Sesame Street shirts.

Most of the comments were "...huh..."

One such shirt was, as I call it, Big Metro Bird. Then most of the comments became "...ew." followed by a rousing chorus of "hipster douches!"

One poster asks how this is any worse than this Miss Piggy center-fold. (Yes, you read that right.)

So, ToughPigs bloggers look around while the forum talks about the merits of Sex Sells and how America just have to get over Naked Boobies. Finally ToughPigs comes across an ad featuring a girl with her snootchie hanging out, while wearing a Sesame Street T-shirt. They blog, with some scathing words to American Apparel.

And then, it turns out Sesame Street, in fact, did NOT agree to do this team up with AA, even though the spokespeople for AA insisted that they did...

Comments are generally amusing and shocked (Shocked!) and of the "My childhood!" variety.

(86 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Friday
October 23

[

tetradecimal] 03:14pm - DON'T. TELL. CHIIBIUSA. TO. CALM. DOWN.

C&P'd from wank_report:

"The original post was deleted, but there's caps a'plenty at sf_drama. These are probably the most complete: http://pics.livejournal.com/halrenna/pic/000e0zr0

So. chiibiusa, co-mod of sm_secrets, announces in sailormoonfans that she's thinking of shutting down the comm (at least temporarily, but possibly for good), because there aren't enough secrets being submitted, and she's tired of it. The first commenter, tenchichan, suggests that chiibiusa needs to calm down.

DON'T. TELL. CHIIBIUSA. TO. CALM. DOWN.

Cue raeg, increasingly incoherent responses, a small amount of "OMG don't leave us we love you!" fangirling, and some sighs from people who thought their comm had outgrown this shit.

Then the whole thing hits sf_drama: http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/2556609.html?page=1#comments

Bringing chiibiusa with it: http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/2556609.html?thread=404234945#t404234945

She is STILL replying to comments left on the sf_d post, as well as randomly friending comm members. There are rumors of a post waiting in the sf_d mod queue, presumably telling us all how gullible we are for falling for her trolling, and how we've all been lol!pwnd! There's been a few comments from people who claim to know her and say that this is really unlike her, so it's possible that this is all leading up to the classic "I GOT HACKED!" defense."

ETA! Chiibiusa flounces: "i amno longer updating this journal from now until ever. and 'ever' is subjective is until i am ready to open it back up again."

Aptly, she's back for more. I guess in the recession, the exchange rate for 'ever' is approximately 45 minutes.

ETA 2: Oh, lordy, more posts. Courtesy of

sistrelwood.

ETA 3: *facepalm* First rule of fight club, y'all.

(221 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Monday
October 19

[

gusty] 07:25pm - Mods behaving badly.

On the FurAffinity forums Techiewolf makes a post asking if they could help with the coding of the site. For years now, the site has been promising the arrival of a brand new version of the site's coding called 'Ferrox'. 'Ferrox' could be considered sort of a Duke Nukem Forever thing, as very little progress seems to have been made (if any) and there's no definite release date. The user is informed that any coding help needed would be towards 'Ferrox' rather than the site's current code. All goes fairly uneventfully until Vitae (a former mod) comments: "I wouldn't bother trying to help, every time someone does try they're just shunned and tossed into the garbage at the end."

Mod Tsawolf, who also is a coder for the site, doesn't like this sentiment one bit. So he decides to make a post allowing users to decide what Vitae's punishment should be via poll:

Hello, everyone! It's tsawolf, your (second) favorite mainsite ops nerd! You're probably wondering exactly what the hell this thread is all about - and for good reason! A user posted a thread asking how they could help out with the mainsite coding. Several people were helpful, some were... not so much.

(quotes Vitae's post here)

When I read this, I became a sad techie. FurAffinity loves when people help out! Rather than have the administration punish Vitae unilaterally, like we normally would, I decided to do something a little more... fitting. Since Vitae was complaining about how useless helping out is, I decided to put their punishment in your hands. Directly above me, there are several poll options. Whichever poll option has the most votes at the end of tomorrow (that is, 00:43 Wednesday, EDT) will be Vitae's punishment. Feel free to suggest your own in the thread as well!

Some folks jump right on the bandwagon and start suggesting punishments. Others, however, aren't too thrilled at the idea of someone being called out and punished for having an opinion.

LadyMissie: "Someone stated an opinion? Holy mother of FUCK. You have some serious butthurt. God damn."
blackfuredfox: "welcome to life. this is how things function in life with EVERYTHING. after awhile you stop giving a shit and join in.

And some people are just there for the laughs:

Brazen: "Permanently change his username/title to Lord Sillynipples, and his avatar to a pair of cartoon boobs wearing tophats and monocles."

Takumi_L:"Man I failed a test today but I told my professor that there was some SRS furry drama on the internet so he passed me."

And finally, mod Carenath expresses their opinion of people upset by the post:"Okay, so we have established, that you guys have absolutely nothing better to do, you all win 9000 internets *roll eyes*"

It's interesting to note that for a brief period the thread was closed, and then reopened, the reason for which was never mentioned.

ETA: On Tsawolf's user page, LeoMidori asks: "Excuse me, I know I'm not a moderator or anything, but is this really the appropriate way to act? This is public humiliation."

Tsawolf replies: "As I explained in the thread you linked, the punishment (or rather, the decision thereof) fits the crime. It can hardly be considered public humiliation when the user chose to make the post in the first place! :)"

(131 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Monday
October 12

[

lady_ganesh] 08:54pm - Icons, as you know, are serious business.

Thanks to the mouse on

wank_report.

smallblackangel posts a rant to

bad_rpers_suck, as you do.

Yes, my character IS using the default layout for his LJ. Why? Because he doesn't give a fuck about the specific layout his online journal that he won't really use much anyway has. No, I will not make it "prettier" because you feel as if my lack of SUPERSPESHULAWESOME layout makes it seem as if I don't "care" even though I just spent two hours filling out your term paper length application.

A perfectly cromulent rant!

The trouble comes in the comments, where

puzzley, who is-- this is important to note, mostly agreeing with the OP, says:

However, if you were playing from those old games where the characters are 2D sprites and thus not very expressive at all, it's understandable that they'd ask you to turn to doujinshi for better faces.

And smallblackangel says:

Icons are not important.

...that's about it.

Things go pretty asplodey from there.

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

Honestly, RPing without prose is what I consider lazy shit. The beginning of comment spam caused a serious downturn of RP on LJ.

First off. You, sir/madam (meaning puzzley, lest anyone get confused) are coming off as either a) Batshit crazy b) lazy as hell c) horrifically uninformed or d) a Troll. I'm not quite sure which.

And the one comment in the flood that actually makes sense:

It's all about personal preference. I'm reading all this and seeing a nice little divide--people who prefer the quick, reactionary style that LJ RPers have mostly adopted, and the more formally written style of most forums. That's where the argument lies--icons are nearly essential to one style, and frivolous to the other.

Including dictionary quotations, smallblackangel shouting "Fallacy!" like the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast shouting "Intervention!" last week, and the TOTAL ABUSE OF ALL CAPS.

(334 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Sunday
October 11

[

mariem_1] 06:46pm - The Wizarding World is a cult full of narcissists

Remember the last HP wank - Hermione Granger - Voldemort in the making? Here we have Episode II.

The OP in the previous wank

terri_testing wrote a fanfic about Dumbledore's childhood. People in the comments started to argue with each other and wankery ensued.

marionros, who during the previous wank diagnosed Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, the Twins, James and Sirius as psychopaths, insisted that Harry, Hermione and Dumbledore have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Lily also has NPD.

And what the heck, so does JKR herself.

My issues, let me show you them.

Snape is a victim of narcissist.

Hermione isn't intelligent and she has bad studying skills.

Pureblood prejudice is probably justified.

James was ever so evil.

JKR doesn't know Neville like I do.

Why did students hate Snape for insulting them? My teachers insulted me and I loved them!

Harry is like a suicide bomber and Dumbledore is like Osama bin Laden.

The whole Wizarding World is a cult, Dumbledore is a cult leader and Harry and Hermione are completely brainwashed.

Because of the Marauders' bullying Snape suffered from PTSD like Vietnam veteran, which justifies his treatment of Harry.

Snape was pressured into joining the Death Eaters.

You call my argument sick, but you find me hot!

(456 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Wednesday
October 7

[

platedlizard] 08:24pm - Wil Wheaton vs. A Pirate: Clash of the Internets

You'll have to excuse me. I decided that I wanted a Dvorak keyboard instead of a Qwerty keyboard and I am basically relearning how to type.

From Clairvoyantwank.

Someone posts a pirated download of Wil Wheaton's audiobook Just a Geek. Wil finds out and is Not Happy.

( an open letter to the guy put the just a geek audiobook on his website for people to steal. )

No word yet from Lee Goldburg, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

(222 wanks | kerfluffle!)

[

dhole] 12:20am - Banned from Octocon!

Before I get started, a disclaimer: The closest connection I have to Irish fandom is that I've flown over bits of Ireland from time to time. And, when I was a kid, I saw a lot of commercials for Lucky Charms. So I'm probably going to be missing a few subtleties. Also, this is something that happened recently, and recently . . . recently isn't really the decade that I'm best at.

With that said, it seems that there's a guy named Pádraig Ó Méalóid. Who's active in Irish con-going fandom. Or at least, he's active in large parts of Irish con-going fandom. But not Octocon, the Irish National Convention, which is going to be held next weekend. You see Pádraig got a letter the other day, that went a little something like this:

Hello,

I'm writing on behalf of the 2009 Octocon Committee. I am the Co-Chair.

Due to your behaviour at the convention some time ago and your online behaviour earlier this year we have come to the unfortunate decision to ban you from this convention. We believe that your attitude towards us has been far to aggressive both online and in the past at the convention.

This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final.

We are deeply saddened by this as this is the first time a committee has had to ban someone. We will of course will refund your money; if you reply to me with your address I will forward this onto you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Nichola Hannigan

Now, if you're like me, you look at a letter like that, and think "she probably meant 'far too aggressive'." Also, you'd find that third paragraph amusingly repetitive. (I have to warn you, if that was actually your reaction, you're going to want to lay some tarp around your work area, as one of the links that comes later is going to make your head explode. And that's hard to clean up.)

And, if you're someone like Pádraig, you'll go ahead and post the letter to your livejournal. I mean, I'd have done that as well, but with far more mockery.

But Pádraig wasn't the only place in which this news was broken. Cheryl Morgan happened to mention it as well. To quote the seemingly innocuous paragraph:

In less good news my email is currently buzzing with the news that my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has apparently been banned from the convention. I know that Pádraig has been rather critical of the Octocon committee this year, and perhaps rather more aggressive about it than he should have been, but I know my fan history well enough to remember that banning people from conventions rarely ends well. The right way to deal with one’s critics is to prove them wrong by running a great event.

Comment 3 is by one James Brophy, who was, at that point, on the Octocon committee. And he's there to link to the convention's Code of Conduct, and defend the committee's decision. Against all challengers.

The first one he takes on is Pádraig. To his protestations of "I don't know what the hell they're talking about," James replies with "You turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release." Zing!

Then there's another challenger. Gary Farber replies in his own, inimitable fashion. And at great length. And other people agree with him. Also, Chris O'Shea points out that the code of conduct in question wasn't actually put up on the web last week, which is apparently after whatever happened that made them kick Pádraig out of the convention. It also is in the realm of possibility that the code went up after they sent the letter.

Chris concludes with:

Octocon’s PR has the ears of the world at the moment, it would be a good time to explain what is going on, because in the absence of such, things will only get worse.

James isn't going to take that lying down! In the next comment, he announces his resignation from the con committee, and comprehensively flips his shit. This is where the grammar induced head-explosions are going to start, by the way, as his language skills seem to go at the same time as his temper.

I'm not a hundred percent capable of parsing the claims in the post, but as I understand them, they more or less go as follows: a) Pádraig is a mean guy. b) Also, he says mean things, both to people, and about people. c) One time, he took some prints from a photographer that he shouldn't have.

Rather than do a play-by-play for the rest of the thread, I'll summarize. Gary makes fun of James's difficulties both with the English language and with logic. James explains that one of the lurkers who supports him isn't speaking up, because he's a writer, and fears that Cheryl Morgan will ruin his career. Cheryl gets upset at that, and bans James from her blog, until she's contacted by the guy in question. Which, rather surprisingly, she is, so she un-bans him. Various other members of the committee show up, not so much to explain their actions, as to explain that they wanted this to be kept private, and they are saddened that Pádraig has put his own interests above those of a convention which he's not allowed to attend.

As one might expect, there's some discussion about there elsewhere on the internet; the one bit that jumped out at me as providing useful data was a comment on lj which suggested that one of Pádraig's major sins was founding a convention that's been more successful than Octocon over the last decade or so.

And that's all I've got.

(352 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Tuesday
October 6

[

tetradecimal] 11:08am - I'm the King of the Wank!

This story brought to you by a lot of Farkers.

Hey, F_W, remember Jack Thompson? He's a longtime activist and former attorney, who has in the past expressed his disapproval of such injustices as rap music, radio shows, the ~~HOMOSEXUALS!~~ gays, the Pixelantes (?), moms, Dennis McCauley, ~~"culture war Pearl Harbor pigeons"~~ Japan, the wimmenz, video games, flowers, the Florida Bar Association, small letter "M"s, people who are not Real Men, and, of course, the Satan.

The Wank:
His latest icecapades involve Facebook. Specifically, one group on Facebook called "I Hate Jack Thompson", in which someone apparently posted, "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600".* Thompson responded by personally faxing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to have the postings removed. And comparing himself to Barack Obama.

( But wait, there's more! )

(159 wanks | kerfluffle!)

Monday
October 5

[

sepiamagpie] 03:29pm

Dearest little wankahs, what makes a perfect wank?

I'm not asking this because I'm trying to perfect a Get Wank Quick scheme*, though. Honest.

*Voodoo, not trolling.

(203 wanks | kerfluffle!)

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Wankity wank wank wank. Fandom is fucking funny. Wear your tinfoil hat at all times. Squidwarts 4 evah. OMG WTF LOL!1!!! Gandshat is my fandom_wank OTP. Don't feed the wankers. Domlijah colors are orange + yellow. My fandom is wankier than yours. BNF = Backus Naur Form. We're not bad, we're just drawn that way. Equal opportunity mockers. Wank will eat itself, over and over and over and over. Stop reading this and find something funny.