(no subject)

[wook77]

I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible. As Fandom Wank has made mention of this, I will respond.



Below is the timeline, proof and correspondence regarding the sockpuppeting of eeyore9990 as argyle_the_sock.

April 1, 2008: hd_worldcup posts Riptide by a currently anon author. coffeejunkii posts a review. The moderation team screens this review within 2 minutes of posting. I, personally, contact the author to discuss the review. The author responds (email quoted verbatim and with permission):

OK, see, my first impulse is to say hey, go ahead and unscreen, I'm a big girl and I knew when I made the ending ambiguous that some people would really, really hate it. In a way I'm even kind of perversely pleased by the comment, because I'm not sure I've ever gotten a review that was scathing but intelligent - I've mostly just had reviews that were variations of "eew gross hary would never kiss malfyo thats disgustign" ;)

The moderation team unscreens the comment per the author's request. coffeejunkii and I email back and forth to discuss the review. All three parties agree that a conversation after the reveal will be best.

April 8th, 2008: argyle_the_sock on IJ makes a post entitled "How to Comment on a Piece of Fanwork Without Transplanting Your Arse to the Top of Your Head, or How NOT to be an Asshat".

April 9th, 2008: Multiple people email me about this sock. Trap is set to capture IP address of the sock. Screencap of IP logging: here. argyle_the_sock deletes the post and replaces it with "mission accomplished" message. No screen captures of the original post exist.

April 10th(a): I investigate the IP address of the sock against a list of suggested identities. Disqualify all but one.

April 10th (b): eeyore9990 discusses, in iulia_linnea's meta post responding to the original argyle_the_sock post, how she did not pay attention to the contents of the post. Instead, she found herself impressed with the blockquotes.

April 11th(a): I email the person whose IP matched the sock's. This person is eeyore9990 Screencaps of this email in multiple parts (**Please note that the emails have been edited to remove the names of people/communities not involved in this situation. I have kept the names of those that have posted about either this situation or the reviewing at the hd_worldcup. All posts mentioned were, at one time, public**):

First Email
Request for more time
eeyore's response
My Response

April 11th, 2008 (b): Attached to the emails from eeyore9990 is a supposed copy of the post. I have uploaded this post to here. The redacted parts are as originally sent to me. The section that eeyore9990 redacted is the part detailing how coffeejunkii is an asshat.

April 16th, 2008: I received a request for an update as to the status of eeyore9990's fic from a teammate. I refused to discuss it with this person per the terms of my agreement with eeyore9990. Capture.

April 17th, 2008: eeyore9990 emailed me to discuss the status of her fic. I reminded her of the agreement. Capture.

May 4th, 2008: An anonymouse posts a fandom secret concerning the same situation using similar verbiage to the rant from argyle_the_sock. No proof exists that this secret was submitted by eeyore9990. (Link to post: here including an exchange by anonymice below.

Current: Before completing this post, I emailed the author of Riptide for permission to quote her verbatim. When I did so, I received the following response:

Yes, by all means, use whatever you want. Hopefully it'll defuse things a bit…

And no, this definitely did not sour me to the experience. I'd love to participate in an event like this again, assuming RL allows me to. And you can quote that too if you'd like :)

We, the mods, have held to our end of the bargain. We have not discussed this situation with anyone other than those directly involved. I have my suspicions as to how oulangi received her information as to the identity of the sock but they are just that, suspicions. Regardless of where the information came from, there is now fallout from the wanking sockpuppet and, thus, the agreement is null and void.

As for the ramifications to Team EWE, the mods do not want to punish the team for the behaviour of one of their members. It is completely unfair to them as they had no input to the situation. Thus - eeyore9990's story will remain for voting purposes so as not to negatively affect the rest of her teammates. At the conclusion of the games, her story will be removed from the website and the communities. It will also be removed from the official registry of works produced. Her banning will stand.

Comments

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I understand that there has been a violation, that is for the moderators to deal with. Just because someone has fed oulangi the particulars of this situation doesn't mean that wook and other needs to publish private emails and scan posts that are none of our business. They should handle it with a miniumum of fuss. Ban her, take her story down. Fine. All legitimate actions. On the assumption that all this dialogue between all three parties was confidential (between the mods, coffeejunki, and eeyore), then the posting of this material here was a violation of privacy at the very least. This is not affecting her team, the only person is it affecting is her. And I for one don't think that any correspondence between her and the mods is any of my business. And, frankly, I don't think it's any of yours. Even if you guys are on the same team (which I don't know and I don't care). If it doesn't affect anyone stats, then it should have been kept quiet. IF the mods felt that they had to address oulangi's post, then it could have been mentioned in the hd-worldcup com, mentioning no names, saying it had been dealt with. The fact that fandom-wank had has access and published all this shit is not the point. It's about managing information in a professional and considerate manner. What shit fandom-wanks wants to post is fandom-wank's business. I don't like the way this is comning down at all. I DESPISE sock puppets, but I also despise this sort of public roasting. It's none of our business, F. It's their business to handle this sort of thing, OFFLINE.

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

It's about managing information in a professional and considerate manner.
Yeah, I understand where you're coming from with that, though I don't agree that "professionalism" is something you can expect from a happy funtimes fandom fest. This isn't Wall Street. Consideration, on the other hand, I can definitely get behind. But me, I think what eeyore did was really fucking shitty. People doing things like that and getting away with it does affect fandom as a place I inhabit, not even to mention that what she did was aimed against a friend of mine.

So yeah, in a way it is my business, and yours too, because we are a part of fandom, and I don't know about you, but I don't want behaviour of this sort swept under the rug and hushed-up so that people think it's okay to behave in this fashion because no one will ever say a word out of "consideration" or "professionalism".

I don't think people who create sockpuppets in order to hurt other people actually deserve any consideration; that's what it comes down to, for me. eeyore created a sockpuppet, attempted to pretend it wasn't her sockpuppet when discussion about the sockpuppet's inflammatory post started, and then, when told in no uncertain terms that she'd be outed if she continued in this fashion, she ... continued in that fashion. No one was stopping her from making the "How Not To Be An Asshat" post in her own journal under her own name -- Riptide wasn't even from her team, so there could be no accusations of partisanship. Instead, she behaved appallingly and then she lied about it. If you think that sort of shit should be swept under the rug, power to you. I don't agree.

[oulangi.livejournal.com]

I (obviously) disagree.

It's worth noting that people feeding me particulars of this wank were NOT here, and given the tenor of the info when it came my way, very likely second and third degrees of separation from Eeyore's flist.

This information came to me in pieces, and I sought confirmation from various sources. In fact, I had ALL of the information in this post already. If I had it - a person not particularly friendly with Eeyore et.al., I think it's fair to assume many other people had or had seen conveniently edited/abridged versions. What Wook did IMo - and sorry for speaking for you, I'll shut up now - was create absolute clarity in a wanky situation. There can be no hiding behind, and she threatened me and my friends if I didn't do what she said ZOMG or any other willful misinterpretations being passed around under flock. In a situation like this I think she did the right thing.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I don't care how you got your information; my beef isn't with fandom wank. My concerns are as follows:

(1) it is clear from the material posted here that these were assumed to be confidential emails and correspondence and now all of a sudden everyone has access to these emails. That is a breach of confidentiality as far as I am concerned. I also question the wisdom of someone saying, well, we're going to air all your dirty linen if you don't stop. This put the mods in a lose-lose situation. She fucks up again, no problem. All they had to do was make an announcement on the COMMUNITY's LJ THAT CURRENTLY EXISTS that this fic has been withdrawn because the participant broke some serious rules. And that it wouldn't affect the count. We could certainly deduce that eeyore did somethign BAD. Fangirls aren't stupid. Win win. Miscreant punished. Fic taken down. Faith re-established in mod as they handled it in a low-key manner, as opposed to this public airing of all grievances, which are, again, NOT OUR BUSINESS.

(2) this "outing" occurred where the moderator of a community acting as the mod of this community informed the community OUTSIDE the community in her personal LJ that these actions were being taken against a member of the community.

There is a blurring of lines here that makes me very uncomfortable. Is this a community or not? Or is this just an extension of wook's journal?

What Wook did IMo - and sorry for speaking for you, I'll shut up now - was create absolute clarity in a wanky situation.

You know, I don't need "clarity." I think what eeyore did was *majorly* skanky. I am not defending it. In no way shape or form. All I need to know is that eeyore fucked up, her fic was pulled, and her team wasn't hurt. End of story. That's all that needed to be conveyed to the community. What do you think we gain by knowing all these details? Can we salivate now that all the winks, winks, and nudges that people pass to each other in cryptic asides in their LJs are now "known." We now have an AHA! We are now in on the "joke?" Sorry, doesn't float my boat. I still maintain that it could have been handled in a much more discreet fashion without all this hey, hey, over hear! Major wank. Get it while it's hot.

So, yeah, we disagree in a major way. I am not comfortable with the way this was handled. Not at all.

[oulangi.livejournal.com]

I really cannot get into this without compromising sources, except to ask, what confidentiality is owed when the person who created the mess is quietly spinning it into something entirely different to cover their ass? Whether this journal or that one is the correct venue (and I'm confused why this post should be in a comm rather than here - what actual difference does it make?), the end is the same.

I think I agree with the ultimatum idea that it was a bad deal to begin with. I understand the logic- why make her team suffer for her misdeed, but it basically put the mods in an impossible situation. Once Eeyore started talking, the leaks were inevitable, and the HD mods had to fix it - as best they could. And while you might not have needed clarity - the mud was in the water, I think it's reasonable for the mods to take this action.

[wook77.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of problems with your premise (1).

I stated that all the information would come out quite clearly in my first email to eeyore. That right there sets up, from the beginning, that I would be releasing the contents of the emails if the terms that she later agreed to were not followed.

Problem number two that I have is that she agreed to that term. She knew that if the wanking continued, she would have her information released. I released it as I said I would.