I didn't find performance nearly as bad as she did, and I don't think delaying for two weeks would actually have helped, but this was a sensible, concrete suggestion.
Yeah, it seemed like a few people had a really hard time getting in for a *much* longer time than others-- I don't know if that has to do with specific types of internet connections, or what. Maybe it would have made sense to delay Yuletide a bit, but I got the impression that most of the "fixes" the mods & coders deployed were things that got worked out on the fly, seeing what worked & what didn't under battlefield conditions, and not things that they already had in mind and just didn't have time to fully implement pre-Yuletide. I could be wrong about that, but since Yuletide wasn't even 100% inaccessible for a full 24 hours, it doesn't seem like delaying for even three days would've been a good trade-off, let alone two weeks.
I've seen a lot of people commenting that you shouldn't be required to have a solution in order to offer critique. This is a great point when the situation actually is a critic being met with: "Come back when you've written a bestseller/famous fic/blah blah prizewinning work of literary fiction!"
Yeah, I said this over on executrix's post: if the criticism is, "In your story you say London is the capital of France. You should change that to Paris," then it's not reasonable to respond, "Oh yeah!? Well, you can't criticize me because you're not an author!" The criticism is correct and most importantly, the suggestion is constructive.
But if the criticism is "Your story is Andy/Tina and it should be Andy/Carlos because I hate Andy/Tina and I really want to read Andy/Carlos!!!" then it is actually quite reasonable to respond, "Um, nothing's stopping *you* from writing Andy/Carlos if you want it so much. So maybe if you want that you SHOULD do it yourself."
So, seriously, yeah. There are times when "Put up or shut up" is a fair response. If your argument is "The archive should not have moved, because now I can't participate any more, and that's not fair, because I love Yuletide so much," then I want to hear a another suggestion, some other realistic option besides moving. Otherwise just face up to facts: if you are never going to participate in Yuletide on the AO3, then you never would have participated in Yuletide again *anyway*, because it wouldn't have happened, the end.
(Even people who can't participate now because the archive as a whole isn't 18+ -- well, that does suck, but at least they'll be able to read the stories in future years, which wouldn't otherwise have existed.)
That's what really gets me about that whole part of the wankstorm/discussion: the reframing of useless suggestions and paranoia as either "critique" or people "just expressing their feelings". (No, you're not. Not when your "feelings" consist of being in denial about matters of fact. The being angry part is your feelings. The thinking the mods are lying part isn't.) Argh.
Yeah, there's a really strong implication in a lot of posts that loving something a lot gives you some kind of ownership stake in it, or at least entitles you to *keep* having it given to you on a silver platter. (A lot of these people talk about Yuletide in the passive voice-- "Yuletide *is* the biggest challenge evar, Yuletide *is* an important fannish community event," you know, like nobody actually *worked* to make Yuletide happen, like nobody actually put time/effort/money into it-- no, Yuletide just kind of *happens* naturally.)
Anyway, it surprises me, because no one would take this "but I love it, so you have to keep doing it for me" argument seriously for a second if it was directed at an individual fan, demanding that they continue to update an abandoned WiP, or that they shouldn't leave this fandom and go to that other fandom, or that they should stop writing RPS, or whatever. It all comes down to the same thing: no, you're not entitled to make other people do stuff for you, no matter how much you like their work and no matter how much free stuff they've given you in the past.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 12:16 pm (UTC)I didn't find performance nearly as bad as she did, and I don't think delaying for two weeks would actually have helped, but this was a sensible, concrete suggestion.
Yeah, it seemed like a few people had a really hard time getting in for a *much* longer time than others-- I don't know if that has to do with specific types of internet connections, or what. Maybe it would have made sense to delay Yuletide a bit, but I got the impression that most of the "fixes" the mods & coders deployed were things that got worked out on the fly, seeing what worked & what didn't under battlefield conditions, and not things that they already had in mind and just didn't have time to fully implement pre-Yuletide. I could be wrong about that, but since Yuletide wasn't even 100% inaccessible for a full 24 hours, it doesn't seem like delaying for even three days would've been a good trade-off, let alone two weeks.
I've seen a lot of people commenting that you shouldn't be required to have a solution in order to offer critique. This is a great point when the situation actually is a critic being met with: "Come back when you've written a bestseller/famous fic/blah blah prizewinning work of literary fiction!"
Yeah, I said this over on executrix's post: if the criticism is, "In your story you say London is the capital of France. You should change that to Paris," then it's not reasonable to respond, "Oh yeah!? Well, you can't criticize me because you're not an author!" The criticism is correct and most importantly, the suggestion is constructive.
But if the criticism is "Your story is Andy/Tina and it should be Andy/Carlos because I hate Andy/Tina and I really want to read Andy/Carlos!!!" then it is actually quite reasonable to respond, "Um, nothing's stopping *you* from writing Andy/Carlos if you want it so much. So maybe if you want that you SHOULD do it yourself."
So, seriously, yeah. There are times when "Put up or shut up" is a fair response. If your argument is "The archive should not have moved, because now I can't participate any more, and that's not fair, because I love Yuletide so much," then I want to hear a another suggestion, some other realistic option besides moving. Otherwise just face up to facts: if you are never going to participate in Yuletide on the AO3, then you never would have participated in Yuletide again *anyway*, because it wouldn't have happened, the end.
(Even people who can't participate now because the archive as a whole isn't 18+ -- well, that does suck, but at least they'll be able to read the stories in future years, which wouldn't otherwise have existed.)
That's what really gets me about that whole part of the wankstorm/discussion: the reframing of useless suggestions and paranoia as either "critique" or people "just expressing their feelings". (No, you're not. Not when your "feelings" consist of being in denial about matters of fact. The being angry part is your feelings. The thinking the mods are lying part isn't.) Argh.
Yeah, there's a really strong implication in a lot of posts that loving something a lot gives you some kind of ownership stake in it, or at least entitles you to *keep* having it given to you on a silver platter. (A lot of these people talk about Yuletide in the passive voice-- "Yuletide *is* the biggest challenge evar, Yuletide *is* an important fannish community event," you know, like nobody actually *worked* to make Yuletide happen, like nobody actually put time/effort/money into it-- no, Yuletide just kind of *happens* naturally.)
Anyway, it surprises me, because no one would take this "but I love it, so you have to keep doing it for me" argument seriously for a second if it was directed at an individual fan, demanding that they continue to update an abandoned WiP, or that they shouldn't leave this fandom and go to that other fandom, or that they should stop writing RPS, or whatever. It all comes down to the same thing: no, you're not entitled to make other people do stuff for you, no matter how much you like their work and no matter how much free stuff they've given you in the past.