Oh, Boy, My First Wank...
As I am involved in the thread, I suppose this could also go to i_wank, but I am not the one doing the principle wanking.

It's PernWank!



Cheryl, an ex-admin at the now-defunct Official Anne McCaffrey forums, which finally imploded beneath the weight of its own splooge, posts a SFWA article about the ongoing conflict between Austin Leatherworks and Anne McCaffrey's agents. The article is lacking some important details, which are available elsewhere but this does not stop some Blind Loyalists from immediately declaring Austin in the wrong. A classic example is Bronze_Dragonrider's reply:

Do whatever it takes to get this guy in line!!! He doesn't DESERVE a renewed contract, he broke the rules and should be punished for it. It disgusts me that he'd so blatantly overstep the boundaries and risk ALL the fan's enjoyment in the recent leeway of Pern fandom.

Myself (Anareth) and Kugai attempt to sound rational.

And then mikesdragon arrives. Let the real wankage begin.

Mike opens with a fairly rationaly post:

As usual, it looks like everyone's jumping on the bandwagon without looking at both sides. Mr. Austin has posted a new Questions & Answers page on his site too, apparently in response to SFWA's article, which actually looks to me like they're libeling him. But I'm no lawyer thank goodness.
I went to GenCon too, from what Mr. Austin told me, he's semi-retireing to be able to work on more items like the Pern stuff. I've got two of his Weyr Badges and would love to build up a whole set. Beautiful stuff.
Personally, I don't understand why Anne's people had to go all lawyer on him when he was, and looks to me like still is, perfectly willing to work things out.
JMHO.
Mike

Jax tries to dodge. Bronze_Dragonrider tries to backpedal. Priscilla decides to take a swipe at the quality of the items in question. Mike makes a few more posts, all reasonable, and then in comes Platinum:

Not bein cheeky here, but do you have a vested interest in Austin and his sales? It's jus that you seem to be extremely Pro Austin, and it makes me wonder a little. Sure if you think it's unfair, post about it, but it jus strikes me as funny, once again, that you joined soon after this was posted and have only posted here.... I for one, being not that interested in his stuff and not having a vested interest, am more worried about the impact that this could have on people being able to create their own Pern related things/costumes/pictures, and may I add we have some VERY talented artists here, who I think could do just as good (if not better than) Austin, but I digress...


jjmouse and Sassie take another swipe at the quality of the goods (which are quite nice, btw.) Sassie also mocks Austin's net-savvy or lack thereof in an equally unrelated snipe.

Calla makes another attempt to drag the thread back to the realms of reason, but nothing doing.

mikesdragon replies again and explains to Platinum that he has been lurking, because so far none of the 'inane babble' (a fair cop, as a perusal of the boards will demonstrate) has 'peaked' his interest, points out that it's a bit rude to be calling Austin's work junk, and then the shit hits the fan.

Platinum points out that his calling Sassie and jjmouse trolls is 'pot, kettle.' Xhack starts the peaked versus piqued debate. Some of Us (Anareth, Shazza's Back, Ian) try to stay somewhere near the topic, but that's a lost cause. Cheryl accuses mikesdragon again of being a shill for Austin.

And then Hans, the ex-host of this and the old official site, joins the fray, making it personal. And flat-out calling mikesdragon a troll.

(Grey Bear and Kugai again attempt to inject on-topicness and rationality into the thread, but it's a lost cause at this point.)

Leahiniowa, another host, leaps in, both on the now-pointlessly-drawn-out grammer question and on the subject of mikesdragon's troll/non-trollness, despite admitting she doesn't have any idea about the situation.

Hans corrects mikesdragon about mikesdragon's own old user name. And calls him a troll again.

DaMoodyMom points out that mikesdragon was sounding rational until he was dogpiled by the Blind Loyalists. Nightshade backs her up. Leahiniowa makes a random and bizarre comment about flies and sugar and passive-aggressively snipes at Debby. Jax demonstrates what I can only assume is denial with this statement:

Noone here is saying Steve Austin is wrong and Anne McCaffrey is right,

And the thread dissolves further from there.

Someone remind me why I'm in this fandom again?