Michela Ecks' FF.net Resignation Letter

Open Letter
Title:	Michela Ecks' FF.net Resignation Letter
From:	Michela Ecks
Addressed To:	everyone
Date(s):	January 8, 2001
Medium:	online
Fandom:	multi
Topic:	Fanfiction.net,
External Links:	here, Archived version
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In 2001, Michela Ecks posted a letter of resignation to many message boards at Fanfiction.net.

It is one example of a fandom flounce.

Excerpts

Writers University is gone. At this time, it has been removed from FanFiction.Net after careful discussion and deliberation with the Writers University Advisor, Haven and Meimi. This has been a hard decision for me to make and hurts me deeply. I did not want this situation to come to this but at this time, I cannot take the added stress, will not tolerate the continued abuse and hypocrisy of several people on staff, be belittled, put down and have my work and the work of Haven minimized.

This situation has been brewing for a while and will come as little surprise to Steven, Xing, Cairnsy, Meimi, Prima, Michele and others. This topic has been discussed often. For my own sanity and mental health, they knew I had to leave. For the sake of Writers University, they knew I had to leave. I was backed into a corner. There was no way out.

I sincerely apologize to those who visit Writers University. I value the wisdom of many of those who e-mailed me with articles, suggestion, terminology, and offers to beta read or help. You all mean the world to me.

Why am I sharing this information with you? I thought LONG and hard before deciding to draft and post this note. I wish to be associated with people are nice, open and honest. I wish to be associated with a quality product. I feel that you all have the right to know why I am doing what I am doing. I think you should be aware of the quality of person that helps to run this site. Why am I leaving? At this point, I cannot take the abuse, pettiness, lies and hypocrisy of Steve and Michele Savage. I cannot take being put down. I cannot STAND AT ALL my friends being put down. What follows is a point by point problem of some of the bigger problems I have faced.

One of the things I demand from my friends and associates is honesty. I try to be as honest with my friends and associates as possible. I expect that same behavior in return. I have been repeatedly lied to by Steven Savage. I do not tolerate liars. I will NOT be associated with liars. Steven was directly confronted several times by myself and by others on staff in regards to his future plans for the CEC. Most recently, he was confronted about his plans for the CEC. He lied or deliberately mislead Cairnsy about his plans. (He LIED or DELIBERATLY mislead some one on his OWN staff.) The incident with The Voice cannot be forgiven. You DO NOT LIE. You do not lie if you are going to be caught. You do not lie if you are not going to be caught. You just don't lie. Steven lied to me when I asked him about this. Steven may as well have lied to Haven and Meimi by deliberately NOT telling them what he was doing. (Lies of omission are lies.) This was not the first lie Steven has told me. Another example of a lie Steven has told me is that he told me Xing told him to REMOVE and UNSUBSCRIBE Haven from the staff list. I asked Xing about this and he said he DID NOT tell Steven to do this. When we tried to work our problems out last night with a group chat, Steven LIED and said he was sick and going to bed. An hour after he said he was supposed to be in bed, he was sending e-mail to the staff list. Sick MY ASS. What the hell is the problem Steven? Can't you just say the damned truth? Do not lie to me. Do not lie to others. Do not lie to staff. I don't think that one of Steven's Taoist principles advocates lying. The middle road does not involve lying Steven. I don't tolerate it. There are other examples of it. No need to go further into this subject other than to let you know that I do NOT associate myself with liars.

Steven, Fish and Michele made the insinuation that I was overly emotional and that my immaturity got in the way of running Writers University. Despite this, I have yet to see ANY of them offer to help, offer SOLUTIONS to the problems or to alleviate the situation that brought out my "over emotional" tendencies. Why is this? I think its because they can't cut it. If it has gotten in my way of running Writers University, I beg of them, I implore of them, to find one person who has had contact with me in regards to Writers University who has found me to be over emotional in my response. I CHALLENGE these three to create a site similar to Writers University and to do it well. I challenge them to create such a site and not have moments of frustration where the actions of others do not frustrate them and cause an emotional reaction. What's that I hear? It's crickets chirping in the wind. Come on you three. Put up or shut up. If you have a problem with the way I handle things, say so. Give me examples, incidents. Run the damned site. Warning though, maintaining QUALITY content and getting new QUALITY content takes a bitch load of time. Handling individual e-mails often numbering twenty plus every morning on top of htmling contacts, challenges, flames, over 20 club material, beta readers and other submissions take TIME and EFFORT and a shit load more maturity than ANY of you have demonstrated. I've seen you all take criticism. You don't handle it well. You ignore it. You turn the tables around and insult the other person. You just don't handle it. Maturity my ass. What a bunch of hypocrites. With the investment I put in to this project time was, I deserve some emotional moments. Don't you have them? I know Steven does. He told me so in a discussion on AIM while he was complaining about Michele being on the rag and how that was causing him stress and making him edgy. He allowed himself to be emotional in how he dealt with that but he doesn't allow me the same courtesy? What a hypocrite. What a bleeping hypocrite.

What will happen to Writers University now? Haven and I are going to take about a week or two off. We are going to get lives. After all, I have five more free hours a day in which to do stuff. After that break and during that break, Haven and I are going shopping for a server to host Writers University. Xing has said to us that the domain is ours and that he will give it to us when we are ready to move. I thank him deeply for that. I thank him for the opportunity to create Writers University and for having the opportunity to work with some people who I learned to have a deep respect for. I hope to continue my association with these people after this situation ends. Writers University will be back.

Fan Comments

(Laura) had been asking for my advice with a battle she was having with Steven Savage and Xing over at Fanfiction.net. Because I wasn't sure what it was even about, I simply told her not to do anything rash (like she was prone to do) and that because I had to go to the grocery store, I was willing to help her when I got back but I didn't have time for it right at that moment.

[snipped]

Fast forward not more than two hours later when I got home and imagine my surprise to come to find she had gone ahead and posted some raving napalm fest over at FF.N complete with my name in the opening sentence saying that I supported her 100%. I can still recall having to email Xing and Steven apologizing.....for something I had nothing to do with.