Apologia
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Apologia |
| Creator: | The Divine Adoratrice |
| Date(s): | 1998, perhaps 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | The Sentinel |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Apologia |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Apologia is a meta essay by The Divine Adoratrice.
It addresses their decision to unsub from the SXF, a Sentinel slash mailing list. "It wasn't an easy decision for me. I posted a brief explanation to the list when I unsubbed, but I'd like to use this space to explain my feelings and reasons in more depth."
Some Topics Discussed
- SXF and Senad
- flaming, complaining to ISPs in order to get other fans TOSed
- privacy issues regarding personal emails
- mailing list culture, the tenuous boundaries of personal and public
- The Sentinel
- domestic discipline
Excerpts
Background:
It all started, as so many situations in TS fandom do these days, with corporal punishment (CP) stories. One author -- hell, I'd meant to keep all names out of this, but it'll get too confusing and by this time, everyone knows who was involved anyway. Saraid has been flaming several CP authors, to the extent of threatening to go to their ISPs. No surprise there... [snipped] ...
Eventually, one of the authors she'd been flaming, by the name of Mallory, decided to take the matter first to the admins and then to the Senad list as a whole. Mallory is, it seems, a non-native English speaker/newbie who'd just posted her first story, and who was merely curious about the translation of some of the expressions used in the flame. At least that's her story, and she's sticking to it. The expected chaos ensued. Now, I haven't been on Senad for a long time, but that doesn't mean I'm off the grapevine. It wasn't long before people I was corresponding with started talking about the latest furor. I read some forwarded Senad posts and frankly, I expected the situation to blow over like it always had before.
But then the admins decided to unsub Saraid from Senad, and they announced a new policy....
The Policy:
In a nutshell, the new policy is this: if one listmember feels that they've been flamed, they can forward the relevant emails or chat logs to the list admins, who will then determine if the flamer should be unsubbed.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?
On the surface, yes. After all, we're all theoretically opposed to flaming. And being reported to your ISP can chill the heart of anyone who writes slash. I know. It happened to me, back when I dared to say that the combination of Fox Mulder and Tim Bayliss didn't make my heart go pittapat. Yeah, I survived it and I'm still with the same ISP. But that was one conversation that I really could have lived without.
People have asked why any reasonable person would oppose this policy. It's because once you go beneath the surface, it raises a lot of uncomfortable possibilities.
First of all, there's the possibility of forged flames. Yes, the admins said that wouldn't be a problem because they'd try to get both sides of the story. The question is, how can you conclusively prove that you didn't write something? One of the first things they teach you in logic class is this: you cannot prove a negative. And I've had demonstrations of just how easy it is to forge headers. If the admins are inclined to dislike someone (and they're as human as the rest of us) could they be dispassionate enough to look at the evidence on all sides? What if someone for a reputation for being a jerk is falsely accused? Or, on the other hand, what if someone thinks, "You know... I don't like Susie Slasher, and neither does anyone else. So I'll flame her until she quits and then deny everything."
Second, there are a lot of fans who equate disagreements with flames. The admins say that they don't want to get bogged down in petty squabbles. The problem is, no one likes to hear their disputes or conflicts dismissed as "petty squabbles." It's kind of like, oh, I don't know, saying that someone who objects to the new policy is just having a "temper tantrum." It belittles something that feels very important to the people involved. What's a crisis to me might be a petty annoyance to someone watching. Inevitably, there will be people who come to expect the admins to make rulings on every difference of opinion. That'll eat up too much of their time.
Then, of course, there's the whole privacy issue. Personally, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me if the official policy is that private email has no place on the list, but the admins feel it's their place to read that same email if it's forwarded just to them.
Finally, and to my mind most importantly, this can only have a negative effect on the way listmembers relate to one another. After all, there's not much room between reporting someone to their ISP because you object to what they write, and passing private correspondence to a list admin because you want to get them kicked off the list. It's net-copping, no matter how you look at it or how pure you think your motives are.
It'll inevitably create an atmosphere of distrust. I want everyone reading this to answer the following question as honestly as possible: have you ever said something unkind about another fan in private correspondence? Trashed someone in a chatroom? Called someone an idiot in an email message to a friend? Lost your temper and sent a message you regretted five minutes later? Fan friendships can be tenuous things; your buddy of last week might very well become your opponent next month. The admins have taken the position that there is no fundamental right to privacy among listmembers. We're now facing a situation where fans will start scouring messages they've saved (and I know people who save everything they read or write) looking for ammunition against people they're feuding with.
Why I left:
As I said above, this wasn't an easy decision for me. But after a lot of thought, I concluded that this decision has such profoundly dangerous potential that I had to make a statement. The only thing I could come up with that expressed just how deeply this worried me was, yes, drastic. I unsubbed from SXF.
Now, I've had a few questions about this.
Do I expect anyone to do the same? No, of course not. This was a decision that I came to after a lot of thought. I don't expect anyone to follow my reasoning -- and I have friends who agree with the policy and who think it's a good idea. I respect their views, and they respect mine. After all, there's a vast gulf between disagreement and disrespect.
Am I leaving the fandom? Again, of course not. I was writing TS fic before either SXF or Senad were formed, and I won't forget why I love the characters just because I'm no longer affiliated with a certain list. They're an important part of the fandom, but it's nonsense to say that they are the fandom. The stories I've written to this point will remain on the SXF archive, and any new stories will be posted to this page.