Oh, god. Jane, you and I have been friends for more than twenty years, but I have to respond to this.
The reason a decent person is polite to call center employees is not just that they are reading a script; it's because they are human beings, and decent people are not mean to people who have not been mean to them first. Astolat is not a call center drone, no, but she's not a CEO, either; she's a fan putting a ton of work into making Yuletide happen. And she had done nothing wrong; you were unwarrantedly rude, and thus in the wrong, to respond as you did.
You didn't read the yuletide_admin LJ, and therefore missed important information. (A preview of which had already been announced on yuletide_admin in October.) The yuletide website says specifically, "while the Yuletide challenge itself is website-based, the planning and discussion relating to it takes place on Livejournal. . . . All news and official announcements are posted to the Yuletide_Admin community." You chose not to read that community (or follow either its RSS or Atom feed) for -- judging from the timestamps on astolat's post in question and on your response to it -- at least ten days. (And I know perfectly well how much work it is to read a site you otherwise have no reason to visit; I've been doing so ever since you opened your GJ and then IJ, because I wanted to keep up with you.) The appropriate public response to learning that you missed important information is "oh crap; I’m sorry, I missed that, and I'm afraid I need to withdraw my signup," not swearing at one of the people doing the work.
You've also repeated once again the claim that the OTW "exclude[d] non-LJ fans from participation." We've gone round on this one before, and I say again: I do not know how you can say that. Yes, before the OTW's website was set up and fully functional, comments were generally enabled only on the LJ incarnation of the news blog. That was a stopgap measure to make it possible for the people setting up the org to track conversations. Centralizing comments on LJ absolutely had its drawbacks, and it absolutely made it harder (not impossible) for people without an LJ to participate in those discussions. No one has ever denied that; certainly I haven't. But ever since the OTW site went fully live more than a year ago, the org has been completely independent of LJ, though news posts are mirrored to LJ as they are to multiple other locations. No OTW business is conducted on LJ. You don't need an LJ account to read OTW news, or AO3 news, or to use the archive, the wiki, or any other OTW project. You don't need an LJ to volunteer for the org. I cannot imagine what OTW function you think is restricted to those having LJs, and I ask you to either name one, or stop saying one exists. Because it's not true.
(Disclosure: I'm a member of the OTW's Development and Membership Committee, but I'm speaking here only for myself.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-01-05 02:37 am (UTC)The reason a decent person is polite to call center employees is not just that they are reading a script; it's because they are human beings, and decent people are not mean to people who have not been mean to them first. Astolat is not a call center drone, no, but she's not a CEO, either; she's a fan putting a ton of work into making Yuletide happen. And she had done nothing wrong; you were unwarrantedly rude, and thus in the wrong, to respond as you did.
You didn't read the yuletide_admin LJ, and therefore missed important information. (A preview of which had already been announced on yuletide_admin in October.) The yuletide website says specifically, "while the Yuletide challenge itself is website-based, the planning and discussion relating to it takes place on Livejournal. . . . All news and official announcements are posted to the Yuletide_Admin community." You chose not to read that community (or follow either its RSS or Atom feed) for -- judging from the timestamps on astolat's post in question and on your response to it -- at least ten days. (And I know perfectly well how much work it is to read a site you otherwise have no reason to visit; I've been doing so ever since you opened your GJ and then IJ, because I wanted to keep up with you.) The appropriate public response to learning that you missed important information is "oh crap; I’m sorry, I missed that, and I'm afraid I need to withdraw my signup," not swearing at one of the people doing the work.
You've also repeated once again the claim that the OTW "exclude[d] non-LJ fans from participation." We've gone round on this one before, and I say again: I do not know how you can say that. Yes, before the OTW's website was set up and fully functional, comments were generally enabled only on the LJ incarnation of the news blog. That was a stopgap measure to make it possible for the people setting up the org to track conversations. Centralizing comments on LJ absolutely had its drawbacks, and it absolutely made it harder (not impossible) for people without an LJ to participate in those discussions. No one has ever denied that; certainly I haven't. But ever since the OTW site went fully live more than a year ago, the org has been completely independent of LJ, though news posts are mirrored to LJ as they are to multiple other locations. No OTW business is conducted on LJ. You don't need an LJ account to read OTW news, or AO3 news, or to use the archive, the wiki, or any other OTW project. You don't need an LJ to volunteer for the org. I cannot imagine what OTW function you think is restricted to those having LJs, and I ask you to either name one, or stop saying one exists. Because it's not true.
(Disclosure: I'm a member of the OTW's Development and Membership Committee, but I'm speaking here only for myself.)