(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

[noracharles]

Yes. It is important that they explain the colloquial use of ableist terms, because anti-oppression activists are so insulated from and ignorant about the dominant culture.

Seriously though, you are right. It probably wasn't meant as an ironic or defiant gesture, and I just interpreted it like that because I was already feeling annoyed.

[zvi]

I'm not trying to excuse them, because I think including their editor-in-chief's angry disavowal negates 90% of the good they achieved by changing the name quickly but (a) explaining what you did wrong is a way for people to know that you actually understand where the problem lies and (b) their audience is not just the people who told them using spaz isn't cute, it's the other people who are as ignorant as they were about the etymology of spaz. It is, for lack of a less trite term, a teachable moment.

[noracharles]

I know, I'm sorry if I've been taking my crankiness out on you, that was not my intention!

You are right, it is a teachable moment, and I think that explaining why some people complained about the original name, and why the mods decided to change it is a good idea. I also totally understand the temptation to explain their intentions and thought processes, because I've been there!

I am privileged in many areas, and when I've stepped on someone's toes or shown my ass, it's important for my ego to tell everyone how I'm not a monster, I was just being ignorant or thoughtless.

But I think the mods should have resisted that temptation, and not tried to explain or excuse their behavior. We presumably all know they didn't do it to be cruel to people with disabilities, or they wouldn't have changed the name.

[carolyn_claire]

It could have been due to peer pressure, or to a desire to see their comm succeed that was greater than their a-holishness over the issue--it didn't have to mean that they were ignorant of what they'd done and were sorry (or, at least, one of them was) when they learned. I'm glad I know more of the inner workings of what happened, there, and what goes on in the mods minds; I'd rather be informed than not, and if I'm going to judge, I'd rather have a stronger basis for that judgment than want I think might have been going on. Because people make mistakes when they don't understand what's going on in other people's heads.

[noracharles]

That is true. I know that I personally am more in my comfort zone when people tell me what their opinion and perspective is, both on me and on the situation. I don't mind knowing that those people are people I have no wish to know, rather than just suspecting it.

But if their aim were to get along with people like me in an impersonal and polite way, as opposed to explaining themselves to people like me so that we might better understand each other, then they went about it the wrong way.

I was recently in a similar situation, where my modly interests and personal interests were in conflict. I decided after sleeping on it to vent my feelings to a friend in a private chat, and keep it out of the space I was moderating. I don't know if it was the right choice, but it was the choice that hurt the community less, and a choice I can live with.

I think the mods of fangasm put their personal interests above the interests of their comm when they chose to explain themselves. It may not be a bad or wrong choice, but it is a choice which limits their membership.

[carolyn_claire]

Then I guess my preference is a selfish one, too, because, for me, I'm glad I know more about what's going on, there, and I'm less concerned about the effects of the revelations on their comm. I see where you're coming from, though. I do know that, with The CB, I was always completely open about my thought processes and my reasons for doing things the way I did them, even though those ideas often weren't popular and cost the comm subscribers. I guess my feelings, as a comm owner, were centered on doing it my way and on doing it with people who wouldn't misunderstand, going in, who I was and what I was about and then object to how things were being done and try to cause trouble, later. I preferred like minds, you know? And maybe they do, too, in their own odd way.

[noracharles]

Ha, yes :-)

I do see the value of being open about yourself, so you can attract people you can stand to be around. I mostly agree with that choice.

[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.