Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Mark of a Rat-Bastard

I've seen it before - a group of organizers threatening to stomp off over the horizon or force an event to be done "their way", and when nobody panics (and in fact someone steps forward to save the event) they do their level best to bully the community in question into compliance with either threats or actual bad acts to ruin said event - often using "trademark" as the baseball bat of choice to pummel their opponents.

In recent days I've observed, as a non-attendee semi-gun blogger, an unhappy post-script (in addition to the pre-event Registration tantrum) to the 2A Blog Bash. After a typically irreverent and generally positive podcast from ViciousCircle (the domain name SHOULD be a hint for the humor-impaired), a lengthy screed was posted that resulted in MANY comments.

(Oh? Broken link? We in the biz call that a "blatant act of cowardice in the face of disagreement" - you know, when the bulk of comments on your post logically dissent and dissect ones viewpoint, you proceed to act like an ass, and its easier to delete the entire post and comments than own up to ones errors and begin the necessary apologies and groveling).

And if y'all don't like I don't get the quotes exactly right, you shouldn't have been such a wuss and struck the post and comment thread - I'd have been happy to quote letter for letter, complete with links.

I initially commented on the blogpost in question with what I felt was a balanced, well-measured, contribution with a few gentle been-there, done-that hints. Then a line was crossed, and I pondered a bit...and this post emerged.

While there were PLENTY of errors, the most egregious, the one that persuaded me to write this post, was the vicious reply to PhlegmFatale's response offering to organize the 2010 Charottle 2A BlogBash (in the face of "Perhaps we just won't do this if folks don't like the exact way we do it" comment by one of the current organizers) displaying a level of selfish pettiness I rarely observe in the 2A Blogosphere (most folks involved are just too civilized) - an organizer replied with a variation on "I own the event name, you can't do it, screw you - I'll kill it before I'll let anyone else organize it".

This, to someone completely outside the dispute (phlegmmy), charitably offering to take over an event an organizer had just stated they were thinking about walking away from because it was *just too much trouble* and *people might not constantly lavish praise and refrain from all criticism*. If you can't take the heat, you have *no business* as an organizer.

A community event, to my view, belongs to the community - and one organizing group or another is permitted to do the event at said communities sufferance. Piss the given community off badly enough (or step aside), and a replacement organizer can and should spring up.

The 2A BlogBash is definitely a Community Event - that any one person or organizer volunteers to put it together (or help at it) is a fine/good/noble thing. But it does not imply any sort of moral ownership, and attempts to use trademark to bully others to prevent them creating/organizing successor or competitive events....reek of personal moral vileness, or one hell of an imitation thereof, in my opinion.

Playing "we own the name/concept" is nothing more and nothing less than the act of a bullying rat-bastard - and playing it with someone innocently stepping forward to pick up the slack right after you've flung your delicate wrist to your forehead and declaimed "It's just all too, too, much. You do not shower me with sufficient rose petals! You do not worship properly! I just can't bear it! Perhaps I should not do the event! See how you feel then, you ingrates!" is, if anything, worse.

I am not amused. I tend to expect better of folks in the 2A community, and have seldom been disappointed - and to some extent, thus the scale of my wrath.

I hope to visit the Charlotte 2010 NRA Convention, and hope there is a competing or successor 2A Blog Gathering with organizers not terminally thin-skinned, prone to precipitous and arbitrary action, and capable of respecting differing views and priorities. Ideally, organizers with a more positive attitude than "If you don't like the way we do it, y'all can just F*$k right off!"

This isn't the first time I've seen this kind of conduct, nor the first community I've observed it in. I note the vileness remains fairly constant.

Grouchily,

GC

16 comments:

Yuri Orlov said...

Dead on and honest. Good post GC!

Drang said...

Threatening to take all their marbles and go home is silly, considering that all the NRA has to do is find another gunblogger to run the "Gun Bloggers' Event at the NRA Convention."

And knowing that gun bloggers, not known for a great deal of restraint or interest in holding back, are the target audience, they should go out of the way to develop thick skins. (I mean, last year they had Tamara and RobertaX! At the same time!)

Too bad I missed it until after they'd pulled it like a bunch of leftists...

phlegmfatale said...

I appreciate what you've said here, G_C. Indeed, I meant no affront by my comment and did not in any way intend to impugn the efforts of previous organizers. I just thought they didn't want to do it any more. I'm disappointed someone would take what I said the wrong way, but I suppose once in defensive mode, I seemed the next likely place at which to strike.

I sort of thought they'd be relieved someone was offering to do the grunt work next time. I never imagined there were proprietary concerns with the event, and I wish them well in future efforts.

In the spirit of diversity, though, perhaps there should be more than one gunblogger party piggy backing the NRA convention. Let's put our heads together.

Roberta X said...

Oh, well said, Freethinker!

--And well-offered, Phlegmmie; I was taken aback at the reacton but decided it was best chalked up to exhaustion and frustration.

Given the degree of mistrust that once existed between the big, Old School NRA and the gun-blogosphere and the extent to which the last two 2ABBs have eroded that, I think Sebatian and Bitter have established a legacy that, given some time and distance from the overwhelming effort, they can look back on with pride, no matter what the future may hold.

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Gay_Cynic said...

Do we have any translators among us?

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