Weekly Vote & Drama-que!

[aggienaut]

   It's that time of the week! LJ Idol polls are up, and that means its also time for my weekly drama-que (polls will be closed already by our usual time of Sat morning). So throw some OMG-weiners and WTF-burgers on the grill, crack open a nice cold can of STFU and pull up a chair!

[Poll #1359752]
See also my homegame entry: Dream Home

Recommendations
   As before, the standard of recommendations is not "what entries are well written enough that someone with a feeling of civic duty to vote for meritious idol entries will be impressed" but rather "what entries are good enough that the uninterested blog bystander (blogstander?) will find it a worthwhile read?" These two things are very different standards
   Every week idolists like to fall over themselves going on about how great EVERYONE was and its so hard to decide who NOT to vote for. I'll give it to you straight, I have the opposite problem. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of really great entries. If this was short story idol I'd be falling over myself to recommend Darkprism's entry. And on pure merit I think Alexpgp's entry is, as always, flawless -- but I can't honestly tell the uninterested reader that there's enough of interest to them in it to make it worth my recommending it to them (but if you're even slightly less than entirely uninterested, it really is a good entry).
   Basically, if you're bored and want to read some good entries, there are indeed a number of good entries. But you have to be in the mood for something more than five pages or an entry that might not interest you personally but is written impressively well.

   But I can recommend...
1. superhappytime's entry: The Best Thing...

Weekly Drama-Que
   Okay. I was wrong. I spoke too soon. I'll admit it.
   Last week I noted that there had heretofore been no drama of any note. Almost immediately after, shit started to go down.

   Someone posted on sf_drama urging people to vote for everyone but RM. And apparently readers of the community did indeed take the advice, and everyone else in idol rocketed up past rm. What's more, a lot of the SF Drama commenters seemed to recognize and dislike her from past dramatic episodes.
   Since then there has been some kvetching about what a deplorable occurance this was. I disagree.
   When feeling criticized, rm frequently notes that she believes people don't like her because she has a huge friends list that votes for her, and that this is fair (and the dislike unfounded) because her huge friends list really is only representative of that a lot of people outside of Idol like her writing. I completely agree with this sentiment (it helps that I have 451 friends-of so that reasoning allows me to feel awesome myself). However I disagree with the first part: in "why I don't like RM" I haven't really heard "because she has a big friends list that votes for her."
   But just like its totally fair for people to bring in people who like their writing outside idol to come vote for them, the flip side of that exact same coin is that it follows then that its totally fair for people who DISLIKE someone based on their writing outside idol to vote against them. Writing, or behaviour, apparently, and I think that's entirely legitimate. Apparently rm managed to make herself disliked by a large portion of the blogosphere by her past actions.
   One thing I've enjoyed about LJ Idol is all the existential discussions that it's caused people to have about what makes good writing, what deserves to be voted for. Really everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I think most people vote for writing that looks like any kind of good writing. As I've noted, I look for writing that would appeal to the casual reader of blogs -- I believe awareness of audience is fundamentally important. I think if "LJ Idol" aspires to be more than just a small backwater community, if it aspires to actually be, literally, LJ Idol, it is important that votes ARE allowed to be effected by people's influence (positive or negative) outside of the community itself. Additionally, being a citizen of the blogosphere is more than just being a good writer, and if someone has made enemies through a previous reign of banning/deletion/freezing-of-comments terror, I think thats a wholly legitimate reason to vote against them.

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I really, really think that your line "Apparently [info]rm managed to make herself disliked by a large portion of the blogosphere by her past actions."> doesn't come close to the entire story. If we are going to hew to the mantra of there being two sides to every story, then I feel compelled to point out that the particular section of the blogosphere complaining about getting banned from her journal and freezing comment threads were banned and frozen because of the incredible slurs and personal attacks they were throwing around in her journal as well as harassing other people commenting in her journal.

Other Side

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Duly noted. I don't actual know anything about that except what I'm gathering now. I will say, however, that it still fits under the category of "past actions" because one way or another those people came to dislike her (possibly before she had to ban/delete/freeze them then). Thanks for the heads up on that though.

Re: Other Side

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

So it's okay for these folks to hate her and try to get her voted out of something that doesn't have anything to do with them because she banned them due to the fact they were calling her names like tranny faggot because of her user icon? Are you serious?

Re: Other Side

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

If its true its entirely because of her icon well then thats deplorable. I have more faith in people than that, however, and I know from personal experience she can come off as self-righteous and condescending. And yes, if people in LJ dislike her and don't want her to be LJ Idol for reasons other than official entries to LJ Idol, I think its legitimate. If people want to call it Gary's Writing Contest Idol then maybe the situation would be different.

Re: Other Side

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I witnessed that entire LJ Advisory board race up close and personal, and I can say there was an extreme amount of "deplorable" behavior happening then. The people who were banned weren't the ones trying to have discussion or banned because they had a different viewpoint or didn't like her tone. She bent over backwards trying to walk a line that allowed people who disagreed their voice in her journal. I think it is wrong to characterize it as a "reign of banning/deletion/freezing-of-comments terror." Banning people and freezing threads was an absolute last resort.

Re: Other Side

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

::nod::

Additionally it should be noted that my "reign of banning/deletion/freezing-of-comments terror" is in a paragraph that doesn't mention RM. I'm about to leave my house but I'll contemplate ways to further disconnect that comment from seeming to directly refer to her. Thanks for your feedback.

Re: Other Side

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

She had the *audacity* to run for the position of LJ user rep against a known troll. The troll's supporters that came into her personal journal and were immensely derogatory towards her and her supporters are the ones that got banned.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

...except that it began with her deleting legitimate questions in the election community.

She always glosses over that part.

Re: Other Side

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

And *this* is why it's pointless trying to 'win' on the internet. There are always two sides and anyone who wasn't there right from the start can't really take a fair stance because it's all he said/she said. And even if everything's still available to read, that assumes that people not directly involved care enough to go and do the research.

I think emo_snal makes a lot of good points. Short of there being a list of criteria which individual voters are supposed to take into account (and how would you police that?), I've seen enough from individual people talking about how they vote to know that everyone looks for different things when judging whether an entry deserves a vote. This isn't a straightforward writing competition. It's "LJ Idol." As I just said on another post, for me, LJ is all about networking. Whether somebody can write well helps in that it makes their posts easier for me to read when getting to know them, but that's secondary to whether they're an interesting person I want to get to know better. Since networking is an aspect of LJ, how well someone is able to do that is bound to play a part in LJ Idol. And I'm not surprised that former/current actions come round to bite some people on the backside, whether that's felt to be fair or not.

So the answer to the question as to whether it's OK for someone to get a campaign up against a contestant due to past disagreements is yes. It's perfectly within the confines of the competition and I don't see what could be done to prevent it - Gary spends more than enough time running things as it is. Whether it's morally OK is a different question. Personally, I think it's rather petty to hold grudges like that and for people completely uninvolved to jump on the bandwagon seems daft to say the least. It's not behaviour I can understand. But at the same time, from what I've read, the people that are doing this feel justified in their behaviour. Whether others agree that that justification is fair is a different matter.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, that, and I mean ... it's just common sense that people get to vote for or against whoever they like or dislike.

That's the nature of democracy. It's not really a fair and free vote if you tell people how they have to think or act, or what criteria they have to use, and it's really anti-democratic to suggest that someone's vote doesn't or shouldn't count because you don't like how they decided to cast it.

Yes, it's a writing competition. Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would read each and every entry and vote for the ones they found the most interesting, instead of voting for or against specific people.

That world does not exist. The best we can do with the one we have is try to ensure that each vote is free and unobstructed.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

A great deal of the drama-poop storm has to do with people having little understanding of past events. Most people who have a negative opinion or who criticize rm for banning people were neither involved nor present way back when to know the whens and why of the whole story.

Myself included.

It is extremely frustrating to see people jump on the hate wagon when, really, they have no blessed idea what the heck is going on.

That is, IMO, the foundation of the LJ Idol drama over the past week or so. People love drama, they jump on the bandwagon, and poof! You have a poop storm based on very little other than, "Waaah, I don't like so-and-so, you shouldn't either." Which is pretty much what I saw happening during the LJ Advisory drama - and is something said dramamongers bragged about, as in 'it's all about the LULZ,' which was bandied about quite a bit last year. And that brand of poop is something I personally have neither time nor patience for.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

I for one was both involved and present. I asked her a question in the election community--not her journal--about what she planned to recommend with regards to the abuse team. This was before the trolls invaded her journal. My default icon at the time was endorsing her opponent, and my question was deleted almost immediately.

I shrugged it off at the time, though, because it was clear pretty quickly that she was irrelevant in the election.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

The 'whole story' I refer to dates pre-LJ Advisory Council and the initial reason for banning people. When the LJ Advisory election arose, there was a lot of misunderstanding about why some folks had been banned.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. So she deleted my honest question because of some drama that happened long before I asked it and to which I wasn't a party.

Yeah, that's much better.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I don't know why she deleted your post. My point is that there's a hella lot of history and I include myself in the number of people that don't really know the whole story. It simply aggravates me that there are folk out there who will and do jump on the hate bandwagon without personal reason or understanding.

I grok that you have a personal gripe.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

If there were concrete reasons being given, then perhaps.

Posting that you dislike someone and everyone should vote for someone else is not the same thing.

Also, LJ Idol is purportedly a writing contest. Your personal axe to grind doesn't have a place here.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

If people are voting for reasons other than the writing, they're voting and participating in LJ Idol for the wrong reasons.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

But they're still voting. And their votes still count, just like anyone who votes only because their e-pal begged for votes.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Doing something for the wrong reason doesn't make the action right.

Re: Other Side

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

My point is that you don't really know who does and doesn't have a "personal gripe", so it's a bit silly to say that "[m]ost people who have a negative opinion or who criticize rm for banning people were neither involved nor present way back when to know the whens and why of the whole story."

If we're going purely on anecdata, which we seem to be doing, I'd say the exact opposite: most people--in fact, all of the people I know personally--who have a negative opinion formed that negative opinion from direct personal interaction with her.

Obviously, neither your statement nor mine is particularly well substantiated in any way that the other person can verify. You see why this is a problem?

Meanwhile, in my opinion the idea that a "hate bandwagon" exists merely serves to shore up what I perceive as her massive persecution complex.

Re: Other Side

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

What I've seen, personally, is an instance where someone has said, "I don't like RM, vote for so-and-so," and others have commented, "I don't know what's going on, but I voted against her anyway."

I saw this in the LJ Advisory Council elections, too - people acting badly and saying they were doing it 'for the lulz'.

I have no patience, time, or respect for that.

Again, I do get that there are people out there that have had negative interactions with RM, and people that she's had personal issues with. Welcome to the human condition! We don't all get along.

FWIW, while I've seen RM write about internet conflict, I have never seen her cry victim or say 'no one likes me because I'm popular', nor do I see a persecution complex.

[hardvice.livejournal.com]

This. Trolls don't operate in a vacuum. They're like sharks: they wait until they smell blood before they swarm in.

In this case, the drama was already well in place before the trolls descended on her journal, and it began with rm deleting any comments in the election community left by people with jameth icons, including legitimate questions, and crying "troll".