A question of manners

[jhetley]

Been a bunch of nonsense back and forth, both in private SFWA internet discussion groups and in a (non-LJ) blog, about copying and posting stuff in a public place -- that blog -- that was spoken (written) in a private group*.

As far as I'm concerned, this represented a _major_ violation of good manners. Totally boorish. The person took "private" conversations -- ignore questions of Internet security, of which there remains damned little -- and published them. Private conversations in which he did not even take part. As far as I can recall or discover, the person had _never_ taken part in conversations in that group. A lurker.

Two, three hundred years ago, the person would have been challenged to about a dozen duels.

*SFWA members only, password required.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

People, male and female, characterized the behaviour in a range from legally assault and sexual assault (depending on jurisdiction) to a boorish bit of attempted slapstick inappropriate for an audience that included children. To the best of my memory, nobody, male or female, actually defended He Who Must Not Be Named. People, male and female, -- who had been present -- said they didn't see the alleged offense. Etc. Etc.

I spoke up, off toward the prosecutable assault end of the spectrum, and _I_ am not the most articulate person ever.

As far as fury in the ranks goes, what part of "private" don't you understand? What reasonable expectation do you have of reading comments in a members-only SFWA group?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

what part of "private" don't you understand?

I understand that people who post there expect that their remarks won't be carried into the world, just as they would in any e-mail conversation. And I understand their hurt.

However, nothing that involves a second person is ensured to be enshrined in privacy; heck, nothing you write _on your own computer_ is - computers get stolen and hacked into, after all. Something that is shared with hundreds of people, well...

Violation of privacy is a two-edged sword. I'm against anyone - my government, my ISP, my boss - tapping my phone messages, or reading my e-mail, for instance. Yet I acknowledge that there are situations where tapping the phone or reading the e-mail of _someone_ can save lives and is in the public interest.

This conversation does not fall quite into that category. But while the readership is censored, just how restricted is it? Can anyone who writes there expect their legitimate readers not to talk to their friends in fandom about it? Particularly if it's a case of 'I've heard so-and-so say something, but I can't remember in which forum?'

I think this is a slightly grey area, and my moral outrage depends on a number of things, among them the content of the comments. If - and I'm not alleging that was the case, just that it could happen - someone posts in the private forum a vastly differing opinion than they do in public, and not just on a trivial matter like a book or a fellow author, but on one that matters, such as sexual discrimination and powerplay, then I think the public - fandom, in this case - might have a right to know.

I think in this case the poster's judgement was - by what I hear about the discussion from third parties - flawed, but I admire his conviction in putting his money where his mouth is to uncover what he sees as a great injustice.

And some of the fury - ok, a lot - seems to stem from the feeling that the establishment more or less appears to accept the behavior as 'it wasn't ok, but xx will be xx'. That's not good enough. If they're discussing it behind closed doors, fine, but it would be nice to see a bit more of it in the open. pnh put it distinctly: 'It wasn't ok, and it wasn't funny.'

We need more of that.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"...I admire his conviction in putting his money where his mouth is..."

And I repeat, he didn't speak up _there_. In my eyes, that moves it from "courage" to "coward and poltroon" territory.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I think they're two different issues, and my writerly imagination fails me in thinking why he *woulnd't* speak up if he was outraged - what were they going to do? Rip him to pieces?

The people in question found his blog quick enough, and were a great deal more scathing than they probably would have been otherwise. (I've met Jane Yolen, and she's *nice*), so if it was cowardice, it backfired.