Mock. Mockmockmock. Mockity-mock-mock

2:29am: "How would it benefit us in any way?"
I kind of debated about splitting this off, but... well, the other entry's kind of overflowing with ETAs now, and... you'll see.

Now on Leaky, Questions and Answers with WB and RDR Books. The main thing people should probably see: the bit about the "critical essays," because on the previous wank, people stated multiple times that no contributors, to anyone's knowledge, had been approached about their essays going into a book.

Contributors to the Lexicon may be interested to learn that "[t]he book contains critical analysis from 'Steven Vander Ark and his staff.' When asked what he meant by critical analysis Mr. Harris said, 'You can go to the site and read the articles. I’m not going to itemize them for you.' Questioned further he said 'the book was typeset directly from the site,' and that it was word-for-word taken from the web site."

I don't think this is how it works: ( how would it benefit us in any way? )

Someone's misrepresenting something, although which side that may be is not necessarily clear at this point: ( You’re saying that they bore false witness in that document. )

And the gist of the answer that they will be answering, apparently, is this: "It’s RDR’s position that the Lexicon did not need permission to do work on the book."

Also, most commenters on the entry are starting to side with JKR and WB, although there are still holdouts: ( If you don’t, then you are being a hypocrite )


By the way, perhaps the most important statements from WB's side of things:

WB doesn’t feel this is an issue of first amendment rights, and that there are unequivocally no rights owed to the Lexicon for a timeline deriving from the rights of others.

There is no intention to have this suit apply to other fan endeavors such as web sites, wizard rock, etc.

ETA 1, via mrs_bombastic: RDR Books has expanded its page on the Lexicon, and... well:

Summarizing Ms. Nelson's view, one reporter wrote that Warner's "cease and desist letters constituted an attempt to open a dialogue." How could that be?

This is obviously a contradiction in terms. It reminds of a statement made by General Leslie Groves when he was asked if the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was leading to lingering deaths of tens of thousands of civilian[s].

ETA 2, via sheep: The Lexicon book on Amazon UK, with a cover very in keeping with the adult HP cover style over there (Exhibit A).

ETA 3, via pyratejenni: One of the essay contributors speaks. And no, she was not asked or notified.

ETA 4: calliope14 is told that her essay isn't in the book: "Now, while I'm glad that means (supposedly) that he's not ripping off the fen like he's ripping off JKR, it means that there is even LESS original material in the book than there would have been if he included them." This directly contradicts what RDR last said.

ETA 5: soleta_nf remembers something interesting: "I saw Steve Vander Ark speak at a Harry Potter conference in Ottawa in 2004. He said then that his real reason for starting the lexicon was that he knew JKR would be publishing an encyclopedia someday, and he hoped that, by having already created one, he would be the person she approached to help her with it. All I can think now is that he found out she was planning to publish the encyclopedia on her own, and he thought, 'Screw that.' And is now trying to cash in on the pay day he's been expecting for years now."

Not only that, but vorpal_blade remembers something even more damning: "By the time Prophecy rolled around, he was telling his audience (at the con) that Jo didn't know her world as well as the fans did and that they owned it now, not her. Oh, and the epilogue sucked, he said." Now with video!

This is getting to the point where... I'm just reporting what people are saying happened, y'all. I don't have video or audio evidence of any of this. PLEASE DON'T SUBPOENA FANDOM WANK, WB.

ETA 6: The reference to Hiroshima has been removed. NOT SO FAST, RDR.

10:38pm: Paranormawank. AKA TAPS has Changed and they are teh MEAN!
Ah I have been away from f_w for some time due to my life being teh busy suck, so I'm not sure if there has been Ghost Hunters wank posted lately, but since most of this pertains to the Halloween live show I doubt it repeats anything from before.

I ventured over to the Sci-Fi forums to see what happened in the wee hours of the Halloween live broadcast because due to my having to work at unseemly hours I only got to watch until 11pm and wished to catch up on anything important that happened before Wed. Instead I seemed to have walked into Ghost Hunters wank central.

Apparently two of the female investigators were rude while training one of the contest contestants during the live broadcast which is brought up here, here, here, here and in apparently deleted comments, here and in a radio broadcast to come, here and in a petition!, and so on.

Added onto that there seem to be a lot of people upset that the forum is getting too critical of TAPS, and a lot of people upset that ZOMG TAPS has changed! And let us all down with their changedness! (Which personally makes me LOL) and that Jason has become some kind of message board dictator? Here, here, and other places I'm too tired to read.

The text of all this includes possible sock puppetlyness, evil cows and other weighted remarks, for serious English majors, for serious investigators, for serious Wiccans, for serious teachers (and other for serious things!), tl;dr thoughts on yaoi Ghost Hunters, ageism, and the American military. Phew.

( Highlights perhaps... )

And so on and so on till the end of Ghost Hunting time. And all I wanted was to know if they caught anything on camera after I went to bed.