(no subject)

[noracharles]

I'm one of the editors of the White Collar Roundup - I collect the White Collar content posted to dreamwidth.

That's how I first came across the comm then called fanspastic. The name offended me, and I hated linking to content on a comm like that, but I want our newsletter to be inclusive, and I'll link to everything regardless of my personal feelings about its authors.

Now the comm has been renamed to fangasmic, which is a huge improvement! Thank you mark for taking care of that before renaming is officially possible.

I went to look at the comm, thinking the mods might just be ignorant, and maybe it's not a horrible place after all. LOL, wrong.

Is using the word "spaz" in the mod post explaining the rename supposed to be ironic, and do the mods think that it is therefore funny?

Comments

[carolyn_claire]

I'm one of the people who grew up not aware that "spaz" was ableist or that the term was even referencing any real condition, or ever had. I had a big "Really? OMG!" moment when I did learn--I mean, it was complete ignorance, not even of the "it used to mean that, but no one uses it that way or means that, anymore"--I really had no idea, had never made the connection. I would have winced and said, hey, um, not a good idea if they'd asked me, but they don't know me, and apparently the people who they do know happened to be as ignorant of the origins of the term as I used to be, so I get where they're coming from with both the ignorance and the explanation for it. The mod who insists that changing the name because it's offensive when they're a community who's all about not worrying about what's offensive is still standing at the abandoned clue bus stop, not understanding that this really isn't an example of the kind of "we don't care if fen find us offensive" attitude that they probably set out to embrace, but maybe she'll pick it up, eventually. Some of us take more educating than others.

I went through a whole thing with my choice of name for The Cuttingboard and people feeling that my choice of name indicated malice and pure evol on my part and deciding to have nothing to do with the comm because of it. Not the same thing, being inadvertently ableist and being whatever I was being, but I have a little sympathy, for the one clueless mod, anyway. I'm going to watch for a while and see if I feel they deserve shunning based on more than their error with their comm name (and the issues that one mod seems to still be having. If they repeat, then I'll know better what kind of person she actually is.)

[zvi]

What was people's issue with the name of the cuttingboard? Or did they just feel it indicated a general "out to get authors" attitude?

[carolyn_claire]

Yes, that. There were so many people who were shocked and appalled by the very idea of a fic discussion comm that didn't ask authors if it was okay to discuss their stories, beforehand, or insist on only nice things being said, or whatever (I was astonished at that, myself, having spent so many years on HCA-L and Prospect-L) who were looking for evidence that it was all a tool of the devil, meant for hurting authors, and they thought the name was an indicator that this was going to be a "shredding" com. Even someone I knew who hosted a discussion of the comm--the only one I took part in, I mostly stood back and let it all go on without me, otherwise--felt that the name MUST indicate malice toward authors on my/our part. (Part of the problem was that some were convinced that I was part of an evil cabal that hated another cabal and that we were all in on the comm's creation as a tool to get them, OMG! Which was never true, it was all me and only me, but it's the atmosphere the comm was being birthed into.) So, yeah. I must be out to dissect authors! Look at that evil name! Really, it was just one of several name ideas I had, and then I found this little graphic with beautiful colors that made a great icon and color pallete for the comm, but try to tell people who (want to) think you're satan incarnate that. So comm names and the controversy they can engender mostly amuse me, now.