Achivists HELP, please
Jodi Berls
If you have archived my story "The Five," please delete all copies of
both Book 1 and Book 2 as soon as possible.
Apparently that's the only way I can be sure parts of the story won't
be quoted in somebody's book or magazine, journal or newspaper
article. I had hoped not to have to do this, but I don't see any
option. I will deeply appreciate your cooperation in this matter, and
please believe that it has nothing to do with any individual archive
or archivist. Thanks.
--
Jodi Berls
jwb...@mindspring.com
I get paid to ask stupid questions.
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <3320e84...@news.mindspring.com> on 3/7/97,
jwb...@mindspring.com wrote:
> If you have archived my story "The Five," please delete all copies of
> both Book 1 and Book 2 as soon as possible.
>
> Apparently that's the only way I can be sure parts of the story won't
> be quoted in somebody's book or magazine, journal or newspaper
> article. I had hoped not to have to do this, but I don't see any
> option. I will deeply appreciate your cooperation in this matter, and
> please believe that it has nothing to do with any individual archive
> or archivist. Thanks.
sorry, I'm a bit confused here...
did you say that parts of your story have already been quoted and/or
plagarised?
if so, please tell us the offending parties and we'll "discuss" it with
them... heh, heh, heh...
but if it's happened, pass on the information ASAP please...
thanks in advance...
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
"Scully, what are you wearing?" - Fox Mulder
Jodi Berls
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>sorry, I'm a bit confused here...
>did you say that parts of your story have already been quoted and/or
>plagarised?
Quoted, yes. Plagiarized, no.
>if so, please tell us the offending parties and we'll "discuss" it with
>them... heh, heh, heh...
The "offending party," as you put it, didn't do anything illegal or
unethical. The quoter merely took advantage of the "fair use"
provisions of U.S. copyright law. Consequently, I'd rather not say who
it is and have the individual get mail-bombed for doing nothing more
than what was his legal right to do. I just don't want it to happen
again.
Look, the stuff that's in the archives is *public*, just as if it were
published on paper. As long as it's quoted in reasonable lengths with
the original author credited, *nobody* *has* *to* *ask* *your*
*permission.* You may not ever know your stuff's been quoted,
depending on where it ends up being reproduced. Frankly, I am much
less worried about the quote I saw - which was pretty innocuous - than
I am about the ones I might not ever see.
I'm just trying to protect my name, myself and my work from being used
in a way that I haven't authorized and don't approve of. It'd be much
different if I had posted the story anonymously, but I didn't - which
I now deeply regret.
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <3321bdd2...@news.mindspring.com> on 3/8/97,
jwb...@mindspring.com wrote:
> Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>
> >sorry, I'm a bit confused here...
> >did you say that parts of your story have already been quoted and/or
> >plagarised?
>
> Quoted, yes. Plagiarized, no.
>
okay, now I'm REALLY confused... not that that's a new thing these days...
> >if so, please tell us the offending parties and we'll "discuss" it with
> >them... heh, heh, heh...
>
> The "offending party," as you put it, didn't do anything illegal or
> unethical. The quoter merely took advantage of the "fair use"
> provisions of U.S. copyright law. Consequently, I'd rather not say who
> it is and have the individual get mail-bombed for doing nothing more
> than what was his legal right to do. I just don't want it to happen
> again.
>
let's not talk about mail-bombing - just what we need, another black eye for
the fanfic community...
> Look, the stuff that's in the archives is *public*, just as if it were
> published on paper. As long as it's quoted in reasonable lengths with
> the original author credited, *nobody* *has* *to* *ask* *your*
> *permission.* You may not ever know your stuff's been quoted,
> depending on where it ends up being reproduced. Frankly, I am much
> less worried about the quote I saw - which was pretty innocuous - than
> I am about the ones I might not ever see.
>
> I'm just trying to protect my name, myself and my work from being used
> in a way that I haven't authorized and don't approve of. It'd be much
> different if I had posted the story anonymously, but I didn't - which
> I now deeply regret.
wait a minute... does this have anything to do with the legal article that I
was just shameless promoting a few posts earlier? I was asked if I would mind
being quoted and just asked for the particular reference and what it was in
relation to... and it's a dammed good article, IMHO...
so you're upset because there's a possibility that your story might be quoted
somewhere, sometime, if it hasn't been already and no one is going to tell
you if and when it could/might happen?
and while I think I understand the concern you have here about your story
being reproduced, I must point out that there's thousands of hard drives that
your story is probably on at this moment - and it's impossible to track them
all down and erase them all (tho I hear Microsoft is working on the
problem...)
so unless everyone here plans to post anonymously (and that should just
THRILL the archivists) I can't see any solution around your concern aside
from just not writing... which kinda kills the entire topic, right?
I've been quoted and reprinted and so forth numerous times that I know of -
and every time I've been asked politely if they could use my material or my
characters - just plain old courtesy... but if they didn't; there is nothing
I could do because I wouldn't ever know about it... which then means that we
all should stop writing out of fear that perhaps someone might do something
with it...
I guess I'm just wondering about the degrees to which people can insist on
keeping their fanfic away from the public - now no one coming onto any of the
ng or mailing lists will ever hear of your story; nor will people be able to
hand them a copy because they'll have to beg permission off you in the first
place - and that's not really fair to the new readers who might hear great
things about this fabled story and can't get it anywhere...
I wish you'd reconsider - but if you don't, I'll understand - as best I
can...
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
- sent via an evaluation copy of BulkRate (unregistered).
furry...@mindspring.com
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>so you're upset because there's a possibility that your story might be quoted
>somewhere, sometime, if it hasn't been already and no one is going to tell
>you if and when it could/might happen?
>
>and while I think I understand the concern you have here about your story
>being reproduced, I must point out that there's thousands of hard drives that
>your story is probably on at this moment - and it's impossible to track them
>all down and erase them all (tho I hear Microsoft is working on the
>problem...)
>
>so unless everyone here plans to post anonymously (and that should just
>THRILL the archivists) I can't see any solution around your concern aside
>from just not writing... which kinda kills the entire topic, right?
Posting anonymously *is* a solution and the archivists don't seem to
have a problem with it. We've been discussing this on the fictalk
mailing list, and the consensus there seems to be that by posting with
a pseudonym though an account that doesn't give your real name one can
avoid any problems such as these. In fact, one of the Gossamer
archivists provided suggestions for emailers that do well in
protecting their customers' anonymity. So the archivists don't seem to
have a problem at all, just so long as there is a pseudonym to use
rather than there not be any name at all -- I assume.
There has been frequent instances of posting anonymously with
pseudonyms on the x-files-fanfic mailing list. In fact, I personally
have forwarded fanfics for folks who wish to remain anonymous, and
some of those works were later forwarded to this newsgroup. I don't
know if Sue's FAQ has a policy against anonymous posting or not.
Anyways, there is no problem with it on xff, and there are also the
many more private lists where all such concerns are taken care of by
operating in a closed or semi-closed environment.
>I've been quoted and reprinted and so forth numerous times that I know of -
>and every time I've been asked politely if they could use my material or my
>characters - just plain old courtesy... but if they didn't; there is nothing
>I could do because I wouldn't ever know about it... which then means that we
>all should stop writing out of fear that perhaps someone might do something
>with it...
>
>I guess I'm just wondering about the degrees to which people can insist on
>keeping their fanfic away from the public - now no one coming onto any of the
>ng or mailing lists will ever hear of your story; nor will people be able to
>hand them a copy because they'll have to beg permission off you in the first
>place - and that's not really fair to the new readers who might hear great
>things about this fabled story and can't get it anywhere...
But that doesn't have to happen. Indeed, I doubt Jodi will be
following that course. Using a pseudonym and posting anonymously takes
care of my concerns for identity.
Now as for concerns about folks using material one might consider
their personal *property* without permission -- that is a concern that
might never be resolved..... but you all know how I feel about the
Internet and property ;-)
Anyways, no one need hide their fanfic because of stuff like this. Is
is always a solution if we look deep enough.
Gil
Jodi Berls
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>> I'm just trying to protect my name, myself and my work from being used
>> in a way that I haven't authorized and don't approve of. It'd be much
>> different if I had posted the story anonymously, but I didn't - which
>> I now deeply regret.
>
>wait a minute... does this have anything to do with the legal article that I
>was just shameless promoting a few posts earlier? I was asked if I would mind
>being quoted and just asked for the particular reference and what it was in
>relation to... and it's a dammed good article, IMHO...
No. I agree - it's a terrific article. It's purely coincidence that I
found out about another incident at approximately the same time.
>and while I think I understand the concern you have here about your story
>being reproduced, I must point out that there's thousands of hard drives that
>your story is probably on at this moment - and it's impossible to track them
>all down and erase them all (tho I hear Microsoft is working on the
>problem...)
Judging from my experience installing Windows 95, Microsoft figured
out how to do that long ago - they drive you mad and get you to type
in format c: all of your own accord. :-)
If it's on fanfic readers' hard drives, fine. That's what it's for. If
they printed it out, great. If they e-mailed it to their friends,
swell. What I don't want is for somebody to quote it out of context
with my real name attached. That's all.
>so unless everyone here plans to post anonymously (and that should just
>THRILL the archivists) I can't see any solution around your concern aside
>from just not writing... which kinda kills the entire topic, right?
I should have said I plan to post *pseudonymously*, not anonymously.
I've set up a separate account for that purpose. Expensive, but worth
it, in my view.
>I guess I'm just wondering about the degrees to which people can insist on
>keeping their fanfic away from the public - now no one coming onto any of the
>ng or mailing lists will ever hear of your story; nor will people be able to
>hand them a copy because they'll have to beg permission off you in the first
>place - and that's not really fair to the new readers who might hear great
>things about this fabled story and can't get it anywhere...
The last thing I want is to keep my stories away from the public.
That's why I put them on the 'net in the first place, because I want
people to have access to them and read them. But I didn't write "The
Five" to get famous for it in some magazine or research paper. I wrote
it for people to read. Period.
Was I being naive to post under my real name? Yep, sho 'nuff. And,
yes, I do realize that anybody who wants to find out the name behind
the pseudonym bad enough can do so. The best I can hope to accomplish
is to make it sufficiently difficult to find me that the average
person won't bother.
daybreaq
furry...@mindspring.com wrote in article
>
> Now as for concerns about folks using material one might consider
> their personal *property* without permission -- that is a concern that
> might never be resolved..... but you all know how I feel about the
> Internet and property ;-)
>
I think the problem occurs when people start thinking of expression as
*property*. It is not... I find the whole idea of "intellectual property"
absurd. Expression should be credited but it should not and can not be
controlled. The only way someone can have complete control over something
they have written is by never allowing *anyone* to read it. Once a writer
chooses to *share* their work, he or she should expect/HOPE that it will
have and impact on the readers and that it might inspire some of the
readers' expressions. The right to quote or reproduce someone else's
expression as long as it is properly credited is honestly a *good* thing!
Just look at S. Anderson and Cheryl Deluca's wonderful "A Thimble for
Peter" here as an example. Certainly the story could have been told
without it, but it is certainly made richer with the reference to Barrie's
"Peter and Wendy."
Teddi
dayb...@ix.netcom.com
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <33222767...@news.mindspring.com> on 3/8/97,
furry...@mindspring.com wrote:
> Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>
> >so you're upset because there's a possibility that your story might
> be quoted >somewhere, sometime, if it hasn't been already and no one
> is going to tell >you if and when it could/might happen?
> >
> >and while I think I understand the concern you have here about your story
> >being reproduced, I must point out that there's thousands of hard
> drives that >your story is probably on at this moment - and it's
> impossible to track them >all down and erase them all (tho I hear
> Microsoft is working on the >problem...)
> >
> >so unless everyone here plans to post anonymously (and that should just
> >THRILL the archivists) I can't see any solution around your concern aside
> >from just not writing... which kinda kills the entire topic, right?
>
> Posting anonymously *is* a solution and the archivists don't seem to
> have a problem with it. We've been discussing this on the fictalk
> mailing list, and the consensus there seems to be that by posting with
> a pseudonym though an account that doesn't give your real name one can
> avoid any problems such as these. In fact, one of the Gossamer
> archivists provided suggestions for emailers that do well in
> protecting their customers' anonymity. So the archivists don't seem to
> have a problem at all, just so long as there is a pseudonym to use
> rather than there not be any name at all -- I assume.
>
hmm... but then how would people look up their favourite author? I mean, it's
fine to post a story under an anonymous author name; but without some way of
tracking the authors eventually; you end up with the readers being unable to
find out what other stories the author has written - such as Paula Graves,
Livengoo or Karen Rasch - heck, rename them under Anonymous, and then where
do you go from there? Anonymous One, Two, Twentyfive???
and there are unfortunately accounts out there that don't let you use
aliases... mine, for example, charges more...
personally, I'm a bit suspicious of aliases... because it's easy to hide
behind cute names - but I know some servers insist on them, like AOHell...
> There has been frequent instances of posting anonymously with
> pseudonyms on the x-files-fanfic mailing list. In fact, I personally
> have forwarded fanfics for folks who wish to remain anonymous, and
> some of those works were later forwarded to this newsgroup. I don't
> know if Sue's FAQ has a policy against anonymous posting or not.
not that I know of - as long as there's a name on it of some sort - remember,
the FAQ was based initially on other systems and how they ran, as far as I
know - and we're not the oldest gang on the block...
> Anyways, there is no problem with it on xff, and there are also the
> many more private lists where all such concerns are taken care of by
> operating in a closed or semi-closed environment.
>
but my point is that we've never had problems here on atxc where people have
feared so much to post that they've gone to Anonymous for an author name...
is there?
I can see newer writers not wanting to put their own name on it the first
time they post, but if they continue to write and request feedback and so
forth, it makes very hard to respond to an addy that doesn't exist...
unless you're volunteering to be the clearing house for every letter coming
in for a specific story and reroute it to the author, whose name you would
know since you posted for him/her...
it just seems to me to be creating more problems than it solves...
> >I've been quoted and reprinted and so forth numerous times that I know of
-
> >and every time I've been asked politely if they could use my material or
my
> >characters - just plain old courtesy... but if they didn't; there
> is nothing >I could do because I wouldn't ever know about it...
> which then means that we >all should stop writing out of fear that
> perhaps someone might do something >with it...
> >
> >I guess I'm just wondering about the degrees to which people can insist on
> >keeping their fanfic away from the public - now no one coming onto
> any of the >ng or mailing lists will ever hear of your story; nor
> will people be able to >hand them a copy because they'll have to beg
> permission off you in the first >place - and that's not really fair
> to the new readers who might hear great >things about this fabled
> story and can't get it anywhere...
>
> But that doesn't have to happen. Indeed, I doubt Jodi will be
> following that course.
wrong, oh fuzzy one - it's already been removed from the Gossamer archive on
her request... sad, but true...
> Using a pseudonym and posting anonymously takes
> care of my concerns for identity.
>
as I've noticed, Gil...
cool alias... furrylogic indeed...
but then signing your real name at the bottom of the post kinda gives it
away, yes?
;-)
> Now as for concerns about folks using material one might consider
> their personal *property* without permission -- that is a concern that
> might never be resolved..... but you all know how I feel about the
> Internet and property ;-)
>
let's not go there again, yes?
I'm sure the file on you at Fox and 10-13 is fat enough...
> Anyways, no one need hide their fanfic because of stuff like this. Is
> is always a solution if we look deep enough.
well, I'm just a fool who believes that all you have to do is write the
stories and then post them - I've got over 190 stories archived, and I'm not
losing any sleep over disclaimers or worrying about people stealing my
stuff... not that I feel any of them are good enough to steal; but that I
write for fun and don't take myself that seriously...
I guess it all goes back to why you write - and how far you're willing to
stretch your imagination to protect the unprotectable (in cyberspace at
least) and to walk the thin line of legality...
but I'd like to point out that unfortunately this problem didn't originate
with X Files fanfiction - we're the new kids on the block - look at Star
Trek, Star Wars... they've been around a lot longer and are all on the
electronic highway - and they've managed to survive all the same problems
that we're dealing with, I daresay... they're all on the net and fanzines
were there before this; and they've been there before... don't tell me that
the fanzine editors and publishers haven't dealt with copyright protection
and plagarism and people making illegal copies... heck, they were writing
Kirk/Spock slash stories before it was even popular!!!
it's just funny to see the reactions as if we're treading through new
territory - heck, they're probably laughing at us in some of the other groups
as we totter towards maturity... anyone wanna to talk to the people over
there and see how they've resolved these problems?
'cause it's not just a X Files fanfic problem... and I refuse to believe
there's not a simple solution to this... for some reason we've been doing
fine for three years up to this point...
;-)
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
"I have a life..." - Fox Mulder
furry...@mindspring.com
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>> Posting anonymously *is* a solution and the archivists don't seem to
>> have a problem with it. We've been discussing this on the fictalk
>> mailing list, and the consensus there seems to be that by posting with
>> a pseudonym though an account that doesn't give your real name one can
>> avoid any problems such as these. In fact, one of the Gossamer
>> archivists provided suggestions for emailers that do well in
>> protecting their customers' anonymity. So the archivists don't seem to
>> have a problem at all, just so long as there is a pseudonym to use
>> rather than there not be any name at all -- I assume.
>>
>hmm... but then how would people look up their favourite author? I mean, it's
>fine to post a story under an anonymous author name; but without some way of
>tracking the authors eventually; you end up with the readers being unable to
>find out what other stories the author has written - such as Paula Graves,
>Livengoo
Goo is actually a good example here of what I'm talking about -- it
may not be Goo's intention, but that name protects their identity on
the net to a certain degree. At least enough to meet the concerns
expressed by Jodi.
>or Karen Rasch - heck, rename them under Anonymous, and then where
>do you go from there? Anonymous One, Two, Twentyfive???
No, of course not. I'm not saying authors should use 'Anonymous' for
the screename, but a pseudonym (ie. the Dragon). And they could get
ahold of their favorite authors same way the post was made -- by
sending feedback through the person that forwarded the fanfic. Now
this does complicate things and creates a third party, but that's why
there's cheap or free mail forwarding or out-and-out email accounts,
which eliminates the need for a forwarder.
>and there are unfortunately accounts out there that don't let you use
>aliases... mine, for example, charges more...
For $10 a year, you can get a mail forwarding alias from akamail.com.
You can get a free out-and-out account from hotmail, geocities, or
juno and post to the newsgroup by using either a mail-to-news gateway
or sending it thru the forwarding service on the x-files-fanfic
mailing list. And many freenet accounts don't use a name but a number
to define identity, so that unless you give your real name in your
signature there's no way to tell.
>> Anyways, there is no problem with it on xff, and there are also the
>> many more private lists where all such concerns are taken care of by
>> operating in a closed or semi-closed environment.
>>
>but my point is that we've never had problems here on atxc where people have
>feared so much to post that they've gone to Anonymous for an author name...
>is there?
I think this is because many of the folks that post to atxc already
recognize that they are doing so in an unmoderated environment where
flaming and worse cannot be easily be taken care of. So the authors
who post here have already gotten over that fear -- what more does
this new fear mean to them? Now I know that a number of the writers on
x-files-fanfic will only post on a moderated forum because of that
safer environment, so it would only follow that they might have
further concerns -- because moderated forums can address these
concerns whereas a place like atxc and the archives possibly cannot.
So they're not gonna bring up these concerns here because frankly,
there's nothing that atxc can do about it -- whereas a moderated forum
like xff can. So they bring it up there and not here.
>I can see newer writers not wanting to put their own name on it the first
>time they post, but if they continue to write and request feedback and so
>forth, it makes very hard to respond to an addy that doesn't exist...
But there would be an addy though, whether it be the addy of the
forwarder or their own alias account.
>unless you're volunteering to be the clearing house for every letter coming
>in for a specific story and reroute it to the author, whose name you would
>know since you posted for him/her...
Been there, done it, happy to continue :-)
>it just seems to me to be creating more problems than it solves...
Well, the solution you seemed to express was to either surrender to
the fact that the author's identity could be as easily put up for
public view outside of these fanfic forums as their product, or to
stop posting. For me, either of those create very serious problems. In
Jodi's case, she would be resigned to stop posting new material.
But an alias solves the problem for her and anyone else that shares
those concerns. And it doesn't have to be hard to get.
>> But that doesn't have to happen. Indeed, I doubt Jodi will be
>> following that course.
>
>wrong, oh fuzzy one - it's already been removed from the Gossamer archive on
>her request... sad, but true...
You're quite right on that, but what I meant was that Jodi can
continue to post through an alias. Indeed, she might repost those same
fanfic to Gossamer and use another alias for feedback on those pieces.
It's not a lost cause is all I'm trying to say -- there *are*
solutions.
>> Using a pseudonym and posting anonymously takes
>> care of my concerns for identity.
>>
>as I've noticed, Gil...
>cool alias... furrylogic indeed...
>but then signing your real name at the bottom of the post kinda gives it
>away, yes?
>;-)
This was a typo ;-) I meant to say that a pseudonym and posting
anonymously takes care of *any* concerns for identity. Maybe a
Freudian slip... the only reason I'm using this account instead of the
trevizo one is an attempt to catalogue certain kinds of mail in
certain boxes. Me, I have no problems with identity. Hell, I just made
a 12-hour trip to put my ugly mug on syndicated television for this
Net stuff ;-)
>> Anyways, no one need hide their fanfic because of stuff like this. Is
>> is always a solution if we look deep enough.
>
>well, I'm just a fool who believes that all you have to do is write the
>stories and then post them - I've got over 190 stories archived, and I'm not
>losing any sleep over disclaimers or worrying about people stealing my
>stuff... not that I feel any of them are good enough to steal; but that I
>write for fun and don't take myself that seriously...
Well personally, I agree with you completely. I honestly don't care
what people do with my fanfic once I get the sucker finished (in
beta-testing as we speak). But that's me personally, not me the list
administrator. And as an administrator, I have to share my writers'
concerns and find ways to deal with them.
As to the other Internet fanfic fandoms, I welcome their experience --
indeed, following these mini-conventions were setting up all over the
place for folks on x-files-fanfic, I would like to see a big
convention for Internet fanfics of all fandom, personally so I can
swap war stories with other admins of big automated fanfic lists. But
I really don't think we're quite the young'ns we seem. Trekkies have a
long history behind them, but it's almost all in 'zines not the Net
fanfic. One look at the archives for Trek fanfic will show that they
could learn more from us and Gossamer than we from them ;-) Star Wars
is expanding greatly, but the nature of the material (movies, novels,
and comic books as opposed to a weekly series) makes it develop
differently than us. B5 would probably be a lot bigger and more like
us if JMS weren't so pig-headed on this stuff. Forever Knight, Due
South, Highlander, Dr Who, and Quantum Leap all have similar forums to
XF, but many of them haven't developed to quite our size or are only
now beginning to grow in similar size. Simply put, we really are the
pioneers when it comes to Internet fanfic, and I'm not sure there's
any old folks we can turn to for advice. But you know me, I'm open to
all feedback...
Gil
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <01bc2c4e$09a4d580$97c4...@daybreaq.ix.netcom.com> on 3/9/97,
daybreaq wrote:
> furry...@mindspring.com wrote in article
> >
> > Now as for concerns about folks using material one might consider
> > their personal *property* without permission -- that is a concern that
> > might never be resolved..... but you all know how I feel about the
> > Internet and property ;-)
> >
> I think the problem occurs when people start thinking of expression as
> *property*. It is not... I find the whole idea of "intellectual property"
> absurd. Expression should be credited but it should not and can not be
> controlled. The only way someone can have complete control over something
> they have written is by never allowing *anyone* to read it. Once a writer
> chooses to *share* their work, he or she should expect/HOPE that it will
> have and impact on the readers and that it might inspire some of the
> readers' expressions. The right to quote or reproduce someone else's
> expression as long as it is properly credited is honestly a *good* thing!
> Just look at S. Anderson and Cheryl Deluca's wonderful "A Thimble for
> Peter" here as an example. Certainly the story could have been told
> without it, but it is certainly made richer with the reference to Barrie's
> "Peter and Wendy."
hmm... interesting thoughts here...
I guess it goes back to why you write - if you're here to be "discovered" by
TPTB, then you'll be interested in the copyright issue more than other people
who just do this for fun...
of course, now I'm copyrighting the idea of using songs in stories, since I
did it first years ago in the Original Downtime - please send your checks to
me...
and then you wonder where flattery fits into this - if someone parodies or
comments on another writer or their idea in the story; is this an
infringement or just plain old stroking of the ego???
I think the current push to get everyone to use aliases is a bit silly and
just builds more walls between us - if you want to, fine... but I thought the
idea of writing was to tear down the walls...
JMHO...
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
"Baa-Ram-Ewe!" - Dana Scully
Stephen Ratliff
: As to the other Internet fanfic fandoms, I welcome their experience --
: indeed, following these mini-conventions were setting up all over the
: place for folks on x-files-fanfic, I would like to see a big
: convention for Internet fanfics of all fandom, personally so I can
: swap war stories with other admins of big automated fanfic lists. But
: I really don't think we're quite the young'ns we seem. Trekkies have a
: long history behind them, but it's almost all in 'zines not the Net
: fanfic. One look at the archives for Trek fanfic will show that they
: could learn more from us and Gossamer than we from them ;-)
Well, we just haven't been having much luck ... Our last archivist
(before Alara) left a year before Gossamer Ohio's demise. We have tried
to get mirrors for our 170 MB Archive but we have a size which makes it
hard ... to make it worse, we had an Index Maintainer who disappeared
into the unknown without letting us know. I've taken over, and I'll say
that we started first in a lot of cases have solved problems that have
come up over here before they came here (which is why I occassional drop
by with suggestions) Our problem is we have an old archive that keeps
moving that we have to go though to index ... I've only got 20 people
doing so ... but it looks like I'll have everything up-to-date by April.
: Star Wars
: is expanding greatly, but the nature of the material (movies, novels,
: and comic books as opposed to a weekly series) makes it develop
: differently than us. B5 would probably be a lot bigger and more like
: us if JMS weren't so pig-headed on this stuff. Forever Knight, Due
: South, Highlander, Dr Who, and Quantum Leap all have similar forums to
: XF, but many of them haven't developed to quite our size or are only
: now beginning to grow in similar size. Simply put, we really are the
: pioneers when it comes to Internet fanfic, and I'm not sure there's
: any old folks we can turn to for advice.
Actually if you want to phrase it like that Trek is the pioneer (ASC
established 1991) and ATXC is the settlers... So yes there are "old
folks." However the nature of the net is such that the people in the
maintainers roles change constantly. Right know I'm the oldest FAQ
Maintainer on the alt.*.creative* groups, I believe Alara may hold the
archivist, but I've got some blind spots on a couple groups (does dr who
have an archive?) Now as to Indexes to Archives, your Gossamer Project
has that position (unless you count alt.fan.q's archive by Mercutio).
So the "old fokes" may change (I'm only FAQ maintaining for one more
year) on the net, and yes ATXC is the current Hot Spot, but that changes
(for the month of December ASC had more stories, but that was just the
after effects of First Contact)
Stephen Ratliff, ASC's FAQ and Index Maintainer
PS Stop stealling our authors :) ... we miss them
--
Stephen Ratliff CS Major, Radford University.
srat...@runet.edu Radford, Virginia 24142-7496
rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc's polite target. Marrissa Stories Author
http://www.cs.runet.edu/~sratliff/
FAQ Maintainer for alt.startrek.creative FAQs/
Index Maintainer as well index/
http://aviary.share.net/~alara/
ASC Awards run from 2/02/97 to 3/19/97 see alt.startrek.creative for
details.
"I assure you that at the first sign of betrayal, I will kill him
(Garak). But I promise to bring the body back intact."
"I assume that's a joke."
"We'll see."
-Worf and Sisko, DS9's "In Purgatory's Shadow"
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <3321c773...@news.zippo.com> on 3/8/97, Natasha wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Mar 1997 19:35:50 GMT, jwb...@mindspring.com (Jodi Berls)
> wrote:
>
> I do understand your concern and we're taking your stories off today, but I
> do want to mention that Deja news is a much bigger threat than any of our
> archives.
>
> http://www.dejanews.com/
>
> is the general site, but this page has instructions for finding ALL the
> posts by a given e-mail address, that was the one that bothered me a bit...
> ;(
>
> http://www.dejanews.com/help/dnaprofile_help.html
>
> I mention this not to make everyone panic, but it's a reality you should
> know about. If someone wants something taken off of our archives or wants
> us to archive it only under a screen name and stuff, that's no problem at
> all, but you can't make these guys take your post off of there, poke around
> and read their answer to complaints about that in their faq...
>
> >Look, the stuff that's in the archives is *public*, just as if it were
> >published on paper. As long as it's quoted in reasonable lengths with
> >the original author credited, *nobody* *has* *to* *ask* *your*
> >*permission.* You may not ever know your stuff's been quoted,
> >depending on where it ends up being reproduced. Frankly, I am much
> >less worried about the quote I saw - which was pretty innocuous - than
> >I am about the ones I might not ever see.
> >
> >I'm just trying to protect my name, myself and my work from being used
> >in a way that I haven't authorized and don't approve of. It'd be much
> >different if I had posted the story anonymously, but I didn't - which
> >I now deeply regret.
> >--
> >Jodi Berls
> >jwb...@mindspring.com
> >I get paid to ask stupid questions.
so let me get this straight...
you're saying that even if everyone takes Gil's (ooops, furrylogic's) advice
and goes to fake names in order to preserve their identity that it doesn't
matter???
snicker...
talk about a tempest in a teapot..
but in a way this is scary; in another you had to know this was going to
happen - after all, it's like that falsehood that email itself is private -
your admin can and possibly does look at what you send out; especially if you
work for a company or an university - it was just proven in court that emails
sent under a company name are, in fact, the property of the company and the
boss is legally right to scan your incoming and outgoing email for
whatever... I'm assuming this also extends to universities; and we know about
the mild censorship that happens on AOHell and other servers...
so an alias ain't gonna save you if the above is true...
oh, well...
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
"I have a life..." - Fox Mulder
Sheryl Martin
In message ID <332269dd...@news.mindspring.com> on 3/9/97,
furry...@mindspring.com wrote:
(snipped for length, but not comment)
> Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>
> >hmm... but then how would people look up their favourite author? I
> mean, it's >fine to post a story under an anonymous author name; but
> without some way of >tracking the authors eventually; you end up
> with the readers being unable to >find out what other stories the
> author has written - such as Paula Graves, >Livengoo
>
> Goo is actually a good example here of what I'm talking about -- it
> may not be Goo's intention, but that name protects their identity on
> the net to a certain degree. At least enough to meet the concerns
> expressed by Jodi.
>
last letter cut off, possibly by her server - but a bad example, I grant
you...
> >or Karen Rasch - heck, rename them under Anonymous, and then where
> >do you go from there? Anonymous One, Two, Twentyfive???
>
> No, of course not. I'm not saying authors should use 'Anonymous' for
> the screename, but a pseudonym (ie. the Dragon). And they could get
> ahold of their favorite authors same way the post was made -- by
> sending feedback through the person that forwarded the fanfic. Now
> this does complicate things and creates a third party, but that's why
> there's cheap or free mail forwarding or out-and-out email accounts,
> which eliminates the need for a forwarder.
>
great - so now instead of worrying who's reading my stories, I can worry
about who's accessing my email to forward it to me?
isn't that a greater invasion of privacy when I give you the key to my
mailbox???
> >and there are unfortunately accounts out there that don't let you use
> >aliases... mine, for example, charges more...
>
> For $10 a year, you can get a mail forwarding alias from akamail.com.
> You can get a free out-and-out account from hotmail, geocities, or
> juno and post to the newsgroup by using either a mail-to-news gateway
> or sending it thru the forwarding service on the x-files-fanfic
> mailing list. And many freenet accounts don't use a name but a number
> to define identity, so that unless you give your real name in your
> signature there's no way to tell.
>
ah, but furry one - you forget that with these places you have to give them
your credit card number to do the business - or a personal check...
so you're giving them more information on you, right?
I'm just pointing out that the more you try to hide your identity the more
exposed you make yourself - they sell names to mailing lists and your mailbox
will have lots of junk in it, believe me...
> >> Anyways, there is no problem with it on xff, and there are also the
> >> many more private lists where all such concerns are taken care of by
> >> operating in a closed or semi-closed environment.
> >>
> >but my point is that we've never had problems here on atxc where
> people have >feared so much to post that they've gone to Anonymous
> for an author name... >is there?
>
> I think this is because many of the folks that post to atxc already
> recognize that they are doing so in an unmoderated environment where
> flaming and worse cannot be easily be taken care of. So the authors
> who post here have already gotten over that fear -- what more does
> this new fear mean to them? Now I know that a number of the writers on
> x-files-fanfic will only post on a moderated forum because of that
> safer environment, so it would only follow that they might have
> further concerns -- because moderated forums can address these
> concerns whereas a place like atxc and the archives possibly cannot.
> So they're not gonna bring up these concerns here because frankly,
> there's nothing that atxc can do about it -- whereas a moderated forum
> like xff can. So they bring it up there and not here.
>
yah, yah, yah... yawn...
atxc is full of angry trolls who flame everyone new who comes here... we're
all just a bunch of marauding ogres compared to the delicate nurturing
environment over on xxf... yawn...
the speech is wearing thin... considering that all the mailing lists
originated from people on atxc, you'd think people would have more respect
for their elders - without the ng, no one would have even started the
lists...
besides, guaranteeing them a moderated forum doesn't prevent flames... you
and I know about the little flamewar that seems to have happened where an
author was toasted in public without approval or being stopped for a few
days...
> >I can see newer writers not wanting to put their own name on it the first
> >time they post, but if they continue to write and request feedback and so
> >forth, it makes very hard to respond to an addy that doesn't exist...
>
> But there would be an addy though, whether it be the addy of the
> forwarder or their own alias account.
>
> >unless you're volunteering to be the clearing house for every letter
coming
> >in for a specific story and reroute it to the author, whose name you would
> >know since you posted for him/her...
>
> Been there, done it, happy to continue :-)
>
like I said, I somehow find the idea of giving you access to all my incoming
email as a result of my stories to be a bigger worry about invading my
privacy than using an alias... or anyone supposedly stealing my stuff (which
has yet to be shown to be an epidemic, like suggested)
> >it just seems to me to be creating more problems than it solves...
>
> Well, the solution you seemed to express was to either surrender to
> the fact that the author's identity could be as easily put up for
> public view outside of these fanfic forums as their product, or to
> stop posting. For me, either of those create very serious problems. In
> Jodi's case, she would be resigned to stop posting new material.
>
> But an alias solves the problem for her and anyone else that shares
> those concerns. And it doesn't have to be hard to get.
>
but the question I'm still asking is why?
why are you encouraging everyone to run out and get an alias?
aside from being impractical for some of us, I don't see how privacy is going
to be ensured; since from Dejanews you can track back the poster in the first
place - and in the second, I've yet to see any major infringement of a
poster's rights that would encourage this mass exodus to race off the board
to alias...
I point out that most of the best writers here don't have them - Karen Rasch
and Paula Graves somehow manage to avoid having their stuff stolen, and they
even use their real names!!!
god forbid...
> >> But that doesn't have to happen. Indeed, I doubt Jodi will be
> >> following that course.
> >
> >wrong, oh fuzzy one - it's already been removed from the Gossamer
> archive on >her request... sad, but true...
>
> You're quite right on that, but what I meant was that Jodi can
> continue to post through an alias. Indeed, she might repost those same
> fanfic to Gossamer and use another alias for feedback on those pieces.
> It's not a lost cause is all I'm trying to say -- there *are*
> solutions.
>
but I'm still asking what the problem is...
> >> Using a pseudonym and posting anonymously takes
> >> care of my concerns for identity.
> >>
> >as I've noticed, Gil...
> >cool alias... furrylogic indeed...
> >but then signing your real name at the bottom of the post kinda gives it
> >away, yes?
> >;-)
>
> This was a typo ;-) I meant to say that a pseudonym and posting
> anonymously takes care of *any* concerns for identity. Maybe a
> Freudian slip... the only reason I'm using this account instead of the
> trevizo one is an attempt to catalogue certain kinds of mail in
> certain boxes. Me, I have no problems with identity. Hell, I just made
> a 12-hour trip to put my ugly mug on syndicated television for this
> Net stuff ;-)
>
ah, yes... I heard about that... snicker...
just adding a few more inches to your file at Fox and 10-13, hmm?
I've heard it's mighty thick at this point...
> As to the other Internet fanfic fandoms, I welcome their experience --
> indeed, following these mini-conventions were setting up all over the
> place for folks on x-files-fanfic, I would like to see a big
> convention for Internet fanfics of all fandom, personally so I can
> swap war stories with other admins of big automated fanfic lists. But
> I really don't think we're quite the young'ns we seem. Trekkies have a
> long history behind them, but it's almost all in 'zines not the Net
> fanfic. One look at the archives for Trek fanfic will show that they
> could learn more from us and Gossamer than we from them ;-) Star Wars
> is expanding greatly, but the nature of the material (movies, novels,
> and comic books as opposed to a weekly series) makes it develop
> differently than us. B5 would probably be a lot bigger and more like
> us if JMS weren't so pig-headed on this stuff. Forever Knight, Due
> South, Highlander, Dr Who, and Quantum Leap all have similar forums to
> XF, but many of them haven't developed to quite our size or are only
> now beginning to grow in similar size. Simply put, we really are the
> pioneers when it comes to Internet fanfic, and I'm not sure there's
> any old folks we can turn to for advice. But you know me, I'm open to
> all feedback...
>
> Gil
hmm... first, these conventions that you're talking about can't really be
that large unless you hook them onto the backs of other conventions - it
would seem to me that the size of the internet dictates that any con would be
relative to the amount of people who can attend; and unless you're on the NA
continent you might lose out a bit... and even then that travelling thing is
the reason why we're on the net, yes?
and you can't ever hook it on the back of an official convention; and even
the fan-run cons might need plenty of notice to attach a fanfic con...
but I think you're not giving fanzines enough credit - they were there before
the internet and therefore had to deal with the real problem of copyright
years before the electronic medium and must have come up with various ways of
protecting the author and the product... don't write them off as useless
because they're old... a common trend these days...
and I caution you against trying to make fanfic "official" to TPTB - in the
first place, if you read the legal article (which you've been quoted in, BTW)
you'll see that Paramount among others recognize and turn a blind eye to
fanfic with a cautionary wave that they know it exists, but as long as it
stays non-profit and pretty well under the table that they won't/can't pursue
it with legal action...
by trying to make it "official" you might just cause more problems than it
could solve - and given your rep at Fox, I'd think to tread very lightly
around conventions and the like - as well as the names you give out to
support your cause...
JMHO...
Sheryl
who's not afraid to sign her name to things...
;-)
"Heart of a warrior; mind of a fool... soul of a romantic." - Jackie St.
George
"I am a brother to dragons and a companion to owls..." - The Book of Job
"I write the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries..." - Steven King, 60
Minutes
"You want a drink with that?" - The Dragon, cyberwordsmith
******************************************************
"Tick-tick, Scully..." Mulder to Scully
furry...@mindspring.com
srat...@runet.edu (Stephen Ratliff) wrote:
. One look at the archives for Trek fanfic will show that they
>: could learn more from us and Gossamer than we from them ;-)
>
>Well, we just haven't been having much luck ... Our last archivist
>(before Alara) left a year before Gossamer Ohio's demise. We have tried
>to get mirrors for our 170 MB Archive but we have a size which makes it
>hard ... to make it worse, we had an Index Maintainer who disappeared
>into the unknown without letting us know. I've taken over, and I'll say
>that we started first in a lot of cases have solved problems that have
>come up over here before they came here (which is why I occassional drop
>by with suggestions) Our problem is we have an old archive that keeps
>moving that we have to go though to index ... I've only got 20 people
>doing so ... but it looks like I'll have everything up-to-date by April.
Have you checked out simplenet? (www.simplenet.com) It offers
unlimited disk space and unlimited hits very cheap, like the cost of
an average ISP account. And it works pretty quickly in the US. That
would allow you to host those 170 megs and anymore you needed.
The only thing is that it's WWW-only, and believe me, I *like* that
you guys run off of FTP primarily because I know that FTP is more
accessible to the whole Internet than WWW. But the Gossamer archive on
Simplenet is mirrored on an FTP site in Berlin, which means that you
folks might be able to do the same (you'd still have the problems of
disk space with your FTP site though).
As for a lack of volunteers, something I've personally seen work
wonders is a mailing list for fanfic discussion. It's really brought
people together and gotten them interested in helping the community in
ways that I'd never seen before. When there was just the mailing list
for fanfic only, I felt pretty alone in this, but once fictalk
started, the help started pouring in.
>Actually if you want to phrase it like that Trek is the pioneer (ASC
>established 1991) and ATXC is the settlers... So yes there are "old
>folks."
Quite true, indeed. I was pretty sure that the newsgroups for Trek, Dr
Who, and Quantum Leap fanfic were around before ATXC. But you gotta
know that I'm not talking about ATXC -- I'm talking about the XF
fanfic community at large (get out the wet noodle, fictalkers ;-) ).
If were just ATXC then we'd probably be behind most other fanfic
communities.
> However the nature of the net is such that the people in the
>maintainers roles change constantly. Right know I'm the oldest FAQ
>Maintainer on the alt.*.creative* groups, I believe Alara may hold the
>archivist, but I've got some blind spots on a couple groups (does dr who
>have an archive?) Now as to Indexes to Archives, your Gossamer Project
>has that position (unless you count alt.fan.q's archive by Mercutio).
>So the "old fokes" may change (I'm only FAQ maintaining for one more
>year) on the net, and yes ATXC is the current Hot Spot, but that changes
>(for the month of December ASC had more stories, but that was just the
>after effects of First Contact)
Yeah, that's what I mean with Star Wars -- the current upsurge there
might have more to do with the releases than anything else. And if we
have to judge this by quantity (which I'm not), Trek is king in
fanfic. Trekkies might have less on Net than XF, but their body of
work is so substantial that once you reach that point of several
hundred stories that beyond that is just semantics. And then when you
add in the offline fanfic, you be huge ;-)
What I'm talking about more is how the fanfic is distributed and the
community built. And there XF is constantly changing and on the move.
We didn't just stay on ATXC but expanded out to include other forums
and are constantly building on the success of Gossamer. The other
fanfic communities are all doing similar things and doing them very
well, but I don't see them coming up with any new ways that could be
used to improve XF fanfic. On the other hand, I don't really see too
much we could come up with that they're not already doing. Who knows,
maybe we've exhausted all the new methods... I hope not :-)
While I've got you here, do you know of any conventions where Trek
fanfic or just fanfic in general (the Net stuff not 'zines) is
highlighted? Like I said, I'd really love to see the x-files-fanfic
mini-cons culminate in a big one where all the Net fanficcers could
get together to talk and party. I really think this Net fanfic has
significant differences from the 'zine stuff, and we oughta have an
event glorying in that. At least it's a good excuse for a blow-out
bash ;-)
Gil
furry...@mindspring.com
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>hmm... interesting thoughts here...
>I guess it goes back to why you write - if you're here to be "discovered" by
>TPTB, then you'll be interested in the copyright issue more than other people
>who just do this for fun...
Well, it's also because we might want to defend ourselves legally if
FOX comes calling.... I don't know about others, but I'm gonna feel a
lot safer when Rebecca finishes law school and passes her bar ;-)
>I think the current push to get everyone to use aliases is a bit silly and
>just builds more walls between us - if you want to, fine... but I thought the
>idea of writing was to tear down the walls...
I don't see anyone encouraging the use of aliases -- I personally
agree that I wouldn't feel it necessary. On the other hand though, I
wouldn't dismiss Jodi's concerns as silly. I mean what if some local
reporter wrote an article on the schoolteacher that's posting NC-17
slash without their permission? Not only could happen, but something
close to it has happened. Fact is this world of ours can sometimes be
very close-minded, and some can see putting on masks to protect
themselves. Hell if Hobbes is right, we all do that...
Now if putting on a mask allows a person to explore their creativity
where before they would've been afraid to do so, then I think we
oughta support them in that, maybe not follow them but certainly
support them. I mean, I don't about others, but those are the walls I
really want to help break down -- the walls around each individual's
capability to create.
Gil
Jodi Berls
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>In message ID <33222767...@news.mindspring.com> on 3/8/97,
>furry...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> >I guess I'm just wondering about the degrees to which people can insist on
>> >keeping their fanfic away from the public - now no one coming onto
>> any of the >ng or mailing lists will ever hear of your story; nor
>> will people be able to >hand them a copy because they'll have to beg
>> permission off you in the first >place - and that's not really fair
>> to the new readers who might hear great >things about this fabled
>> story and can't get it anywhere...
>>
>> But that doesn't have to happen. Indeed, I doubt Jodi will be
>> following that course.
>
>wrong, oh fuzzy one - it's already been removed from the Gossamer archive on
>her request... sad, but true...
Let me correct a misunderstanding - although "The Five" has been
removed from the archives, I intend to post under a pseudonym in the
future. Without trying to speak for Gil, I think that was the point he
was trying to make. I agree with you that for everything to be labeled
"by anonymous" won't work. But there are already loads of stories out
there whose authors use pseudonyms. Amperage, for example. And I don't
have a problem if somebody wants to quote via fair use and refer to me
by my pseudonym, i.e. "New Story" by What's-her Name. (No, that's the
not the pseudonym I plan to use - though, now I think about it, it's
not a bad one. :-) )
Does that clear it up?
Jodi Berls
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>hmm... interesting thoughts here...
>I guess it goes back to why you write - if you're here to be "discovered" by
>TPTB, then you'll be interested in the copyright issue more than other people
>who just do this for fun...
Yeah, but some of us who do this *purely* for fun, don't want it
sullied by having *somebody* *else* make money out of it by selling
references to it out of context. If I thought I could sell "The Five,"
I wouldn't have written it at all. I already have a 50-hour a week
professional writing job - I'm a newspaper reporter - and I write fan
fiction to take a break from that. If it ceases to be a break, then
much of my reason for doing it will go away.
>I think the current push to get everyone to use aliases is a bit silly and
>just builds more walls between us - if you want to, fine... but I thought the
>idea of writing was to tear down the walls...
I don't think anyone - least of all me - is trying to make "a push" to
get everyone to use aliases, and if I said anything to indicate that
was my intent, let me correct it right now. This is an individual
choice issue - everybody's going to have to make a decision for
himself/herself. My own situation dictates that I'd be better off with
an alias. But I'm the last person in the world to suggest that
everybody else ought to do the same. It depends on what your situation
is.
furry...@mindspring.com
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>> Goo is actually a good example here of what I'm talking about -- it
>> may not be Goo's intention, but that name protects their identity on
>> the net to a certain degree. At least enough to meet the concerns
>> expressed by Jodi.
>>
>ah... forgive me for stating the obvious, Goo's using her real name with the
>last letter cut off, possibly by her server - but a bad example, I grant
>you...
Yup, but how many folks know it's a "she" because of that (till what
you just posted of course)? Or her first name? Like I said, it may not
be her *intention* but this semi-pseudonym protects her identity in
the way Jodi is concerned about.
>> No, of course not. I'm not saying authors should use 'Anonymous' for
>> the screename, but a pseudonym (ie. the Dragon). And they could get
>> ahold of their favorite authors same way the post was made -- by
>> sending feedback through the person that forwarded the fanfic. Now
>> this does complicate things and creates a third party, but that's why
>> there's cheap or free mail forwarding or out-and-out email accounts,
>> which eliminates the need for a forwarder.
>>
>great - so now instead of worrying who's reading my stories, I can worry
>about who's accessing my email to forward it to me?
No, because any ethical person will include the note that they are not
the author of the piece -- common part of most guidelines in the
matter. You know what's happening before you send any feedback.
>> For $10 a year, you can get a mail forwarding alias from akamail.com.
>> You can get a free out-and-out account from hotmail, geocities, or
>> juno and post to the newsgroup by using either a mail-to-news gateway
>> or sending it thru the forwarding service on the x-files-fanfic
>> mailing list. And many freenet accounts don't use a name but a number
>> to define identity, so that unless you give your real name in your
>> signature there's no way to tell.
>>
>ah, but furry one - you forget that with these places you have to give them
>your credit card number to do the business - or a personal check...
>so you're giving them more information on you, right?
Um, all ISPs require that information ;-)
>I'm just pointing out that the more you try to hide your identity the more
>exposed you make yourself - they sell names to mailing lists and your mailbox
>will have lots of junk in it, believe me...
Not akamail. Don't know about the others though, as they are free. And
then there are freenets if 10 bucks a year is too rich for your blood.
What it really centers on is not that the info is getting out there
but to *whom*. Remember that Jodi was quite happy to have that info
shared with XF fanficcers -- it was when it went beyond that that she
got concerned. So giving out this info to ISP -- which we all do
anyways -- is not any problem. It's making sure it doesn't get out to
anyone out there, on or off the Net. And companies like akamail do
have to follow certain standards in that regard, and akamail and other
such services do have a good reputation with this sort of thing.
Gotta trust something sometime or a person can't move....
>> I think this is because many of the folks that post to atxc already
>> recognize that they are doing so in an unmoderated environment where
>> flaming and worse cannot be easily be taken care of. So the authors
>> who post here have already gotten over that fear -- what more does
>> this new fear mean to them? Now I know that a number of the writers on
>> x-files-fanfic will only post on a moderated forum because of that
>> safer environment, so it would only follow that they might have
>> further concerns -- because moderated forums can address these
>> concerns whereas a place like atxc and the archives possibly cannot.
>> So they're not gonna bring up these concerns here because frankly,
>> there's nothing that atxc can do about it -- whereas a moderated forum
>> like xff can. So they bring it up there and not here.
>>
>yah, yah, yah... yawn...
>atxc is full of angry trolls who flame everyone new who comes here... we're
>all just a bunch of marauding ogres compared to the delicate nurturing
>environment over on xxf... yawn...
>the speech is wearing thin... considering that all the mailing lists
>originated from people on atxc, you'd think people would have more respect
>for their elders - without the ng, no one would have even started the
>lists...
Well, I just gotta call it like I see it, and I do hear that a lot.
Personally, I've never been flamed by ATXC -- by personalities on
ATXC, yes but not the newsgroup as an entity. But I've told things.
Anyways, do you honestly think that if I thought ATXC was such a
horrible place I be putting writers in danger's way by making it
policy to have their fanfic to forwarded here? That doesn't make any
sense. I have as much respect for ATXC as anyone else, indeed moreso.
That forwarding went a long ways to making sure that authors didn't
abandon the newsgroup for x-files-fanfic in the early days, and I was
putting a lot of work into that forwarding then.
But I can't see any other reason here than what I've said. Doesn't
mean that ATXC is really the way some folks think of it, like you
describe, but just that that fear is there. And how many fears turn
out to be true... ;-)
>besides, guaranteeing them a moderated forum doesn't prevent flames... you
>and I know about the little flamewar that seems to have happened where an
>author was toasted in public without approval or being stopped for a few
>days...
Aw c'mon, Sheryl --- remember what you said about building walls....
>> >unless you're volunteering to be the clearing house for every letter
>coming
>> >in for a specific story and reroute it to the author, whose name you would
>> >know since you posted for him/her...
>>
>> Been there, done it, happy to continue :-)
>>
>like I said, I somehow find the idea of giving you access to all my incoming
>email as a result of my stories to be a bigger worry about invading my
>privacy than using an alias...
I agree -- it creates complications. But an alias solves that and can
be had pretty cheaply or even for free, if you're so concerned. And
please remember, this is only meant as a solution for those concerned
-- I'm not encouraging anyone to do any of this stuff.
>but the question I'm still asking is why?
You'll have to ask Jodi and others that share these concerns that.
Like I said, I may not be personally concerned, but I respect that
others are because I realize what *might* happen. And rather than tell
those folks to deal with it or stop posting, I think we oughta look at
ways to reconcile that concern so they can continue posting unafraid.
>why are you encouraging everyone to run out and get an alias?
Um... I'm not Sheryl. How could I -- even I don't use an alias (you
can only name so many mailboxes 'trevizo' and I think 'furrylogic' has
a better ring than 'trevizo2'). I'm just trying to offer a solution
for those who do have these concerns. That's all :-)
>> This was a typo ;-) I meant to say that a pseudonym and posting
>> anonymously takes care of *any* concerns for identity. Maybe a
>> Freudian slip... the only reason I'm using this account instead of the
>> trevizo one is an attempt to catalogue certain kinds of mail in
>> certain boxes. Me, I have no problems with identity. Hell, I just made
>> a 12-hour trip to put my ugly mug on syndicated television for this
>> Net stuff ;-)
>>
>ah, yes... I heard about that... snicker...
>just adding a few more inches to your file at Fox and 10-13, hmm?
>I've heard it's mighty thick at this point...
I think you just answered your own question here, Sheryl. I can tell
you that after Murdoch's boys started keeping a file on me, a number
of friends told me I was going about this all wrong -- I should've
been using an anonymous remailer from the beginning. And now if what
you say is true, how is that going to haunt me. Will I be blacklisted
in some way? Will my privacy be compromised? Maybe there really is a
concern here about how folks can abuse one their one's identity on the
Net...
But then, it's too late for me now, isn't it... FOX has a file... :-(
>
>hmm... first, these conventions that you're talking about can't really be
>that large unless you hook them onto the backs of other conventions -
Yup, you're quite right there -- we'll probably have to go that route.
>it
>would seem to me that the size of the internet dictates that any con would be
>relative to the amount of people who can attend; and unless you're on the NA
>continent you might lose out a bit...
Not necessarily. I've got a lot of people in Australia and UK looking
to get together, and with the Brits the Manchester convention looks
like a good place for that, especially as the conventioneers have
already been talking about creating some kind of section for fanfic.
>and even then that travelling thing is
>the reason why we're on the net, yes?
But people still like to get together and meet face to face. It adds
an extra dimension to the whole experience. Besides, that why we have
the mini-cons, so folks don't have to travel very far.
>and you can't ever hook it on the back of an official convention; and even
>the fan-run cons might need plenty of notice to attach a fanfic con...
Right again -- we're talking about a year from now probably, after the
mini-cons have all been set up.
>but I think you're not giving fanzines enough credit - they were there before
>the internet and therefore had to deal with the real problem of copyright
>years before the electronic medium and must have come up with various ways of
>protecting the author and the product... don't write them off as useless
>because they're old... a common trend these days...
But it's that electronic medium that seperates us from fanzines in
these issues. Not only that, fanzines deal with money -- no money is
transacted in Net fanfic. It all boils down to the Internet and
copyright law, not just fanfic and that. It's a very important issue,
and one that can't be solved by looking towards fanzines, though that
certainly helps.
Anyways, I meant ways of distributing and discussing the fanfic moreso
than copyright when I said that we're just too different from
fanzines. I think we can all see there that we're dealing with two
very different animals in that respect.
>and I caution you against trying to make fanfic "official" to TPTB -
I don't have to, they've already done it. There is a forum for fanfic
on the official XF site, and I've heard they want to make one for the
Millennium site, too.
>in the
>first place, if you read the legal article (which you've been quoted in, BTW)
Oh yeah -- I consider Rebecca a good friend from fictalk and we've
talked about these issues a lot. I knew I was gonna be in there :-)
>you'll see that Paramount among others recognize and turn a blind eye to
>fanfic with a cautionary wave that they know it exists,
I've heard similar things about Chris Carter - in fact, a much direct
relationship with some pieces of fanfic.
>but as long as it
>stays non-profit and pretty well under the table that they won't/can't pursue
>it with legal action...
>by trying to make it "official" you might just cause more problems than it
>could solve -
I don't want to make it official -- have no idea where that idea came
from. I want to make it accessible and fun, first and foremost, and
then am very gladdened to see articles like Rebecca that can move
towards making it legal. But never official...
>and given your rep at Fox, I'd think to tread very lightly
>around conventions and the like - as well as the names you give out to
>support your cause...
Well, like I said before -- I don't see how you can deny that there
isn't some concern about identity when you've a bunch of FOX spooks
collecting files on people.... though to be honest, I'm not worried.
These guys are a bunch of maroons, probably make the Keystone Kops
look like the Mossad.
Uh-oh! Betcha that warranted another notation in that ol' file ;-)
Gil
Jodi Berls
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>great - so now instead of worrying who's reading my stories, I can worry
>about who's accessing my email to forward it to me?
>isn't that a greater invasion of privacy when I give you the key to my
>mailbox???
One presumes that a thoughtful person would choose a forwarder
regarded as trustworthy. This is a non-issue.
>ah, but furry one - you forget that with these places you have to give them
>your credit card number to do the business - or a personal check...
>so you're giving them more information on you, right?
Not if they're free services that don't charge anything to your credit
card. Incidentally, the sarcasm isn't helping you make your case.
>> >but my point is that we've never had problems here on atxc where
>> people have >feared so much to post that they've gone to Anonymous
>> for an author name... >is there?
Again there's a confusion about the difference between anonymous and
pseudonymous. Plenty of people post under a name that isn't their real
name.
>yah, yah, yah... yawn...
>atxc is full of angry trolls who flame everyone new who comes here... we're
>all just a bunch of marauding ogres compared to the delicate nurturing
>environment over on xxf... yawn...
>the speech is wearing thin...
Likewise the complaining about it. There are those of us who'd really
like to co-exist happily on both and keep finding ourselves drawn into
a battle we don't want about how they supposedly compete with each
other. They both serve valuable functions.
>like I said, I somehow find the idea of giving you access to all my incoming
>email as a result of my stories to be a bigger worry about invading my
>privacy than using an alias... or anyone supposedly stealing my stuff (which
>has yet to be shown to be an epidemic, like suggested)
Nobody suggested that "stealing stuff" was a problem in the case at
hand. I'll say it again: Nothing was plagiarized. However, if you
don't think people are worried about it, why do you think many people
add to their disclaimers a clause about not borrowing their
characters? Why do you think they put copyright notices on their
fanfic? You're right to point out that there's no such epidemic. But
there have been individual cases within recent memory.
>but the question I'm still asking is why?
>why are you encouraging everyone to run out and get an alias?
No one is encouraging anybody to run out and get an alias. That's your
(incorrect) interpretation. The mere fact that *I* got an alias and a
third party is suggesting it may be a solution for people who are in
my situation in no way means that either Gil or I think that's
necessary or desirable for everybody.
>I point out that most of the best writers here don't have them - Karen Rasch
>and Paula Graves somehow manage to avoid having their stuff stolen, and they
>even use their real names!!!
>god forbid...
Any many equally good writers use pseudonyms. I say again, it's *not*
about having stuff stolen.
>but I'm still asking what the problem is...
Okay, so *you* don't have a problem. I'm happy for you. I do have a
problem, and I don't especially care whether you think it's silly or
not.
>ah, yes... I heard about that... snicker...
>just adding a few more inches to your file at Fox and 10-13, hmm?
>I've heard it's mighty thick at this point...
Give it a rest, would you? It's really unfair of you to drag me into
this feud you have with Gil. Did you really want to discuss my
situation, or were you interested in making the mailing list and the
people who participate it look bad? At this point, I can't tell.
Parrotfish
Jodi Berls wrote:
>
> I intend to post under a pseudonym in the
> future.
I missed the beginning of this whole thread, and I don't know what the
original concern was, but I did want to contribute my two cents.
I use a pseudonym because I realize that publishing fanfic could have
serious consequences. I'm not as careful as some -- if someone really
wanted to track me down and had enough authority, I could be identified
through my ISP. But at least no one doing a casual Excite search on my
real name is going to find anything that violates the laws of half a
dozen states.
People, please realize that, in addition to copyright issues, there are
also CRIMINAL issues. In a number of states, publishing sexually
explicit material on the Web is a crime. You need to think about these
things. Fanfic is fun, but there's a serious side, too.
And if that pisses you off, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN! Write your state
legislator! Tell them you advocate free speech on the Web. (BTW, the
Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the Communications Decenct Act in
about a week.)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- governmental regulation of
speech on the Internet is a much more important issue than whether Fox
chooses to vigrously defend its copyrights and/or trademarks.
As fanfic writers and readers, we should care about these issues. A lot.
Parrotfish
furry...@mindspring.com
Parrotfish <parro...@ibm.net> wrote:
>I missed the beginning of this whole thread, and I don't know what the
>original concern was, but I did want to contribute my two cents.
>
>I use a pseudonym because I realize that publishing fanfic could have
>serious consequences. I'm not as careful as some -- if someone really
>wanted to track me down and had enough authority, I could be identified
>through my ISP. But at least no one doing a casual Excite search on my
>real name is going to find anything that violates the laws of half a
>dozen states.
>
>People, please realize that, in addition to copyright issues, there are
>also CRIMINAL issues. In a number of states, publishing sexually
>explicit material on the Web is a crime. You need to think about these
>things. Fanfic is fun, but there's a serious side, too.
>
>And if that pisses you off, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN! Write your state
>legislator! Tell them you advocate free speech on the Web. (BTW, the
>Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the Communications Decenct Act in
>about a week.)
>
>I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- governmental regulation of
>speech on the Internet is a much more important issue than whether Fox
>chooses to vigrously defend its copyrights and/or trademarks.
Well, I think they're both important. I send in my twenty in every
month to the ACLU (best I can do on my salary) and try to keep
informed. Fact is, we are at the crossroads of the defining moment of
the Internet -- we can surrender control of it to the institutions and
allow it to become the same kind of passive pacifying entertaiment as
television or we can realize it's potential as this intellectual
Utopia everyone harps on. And that control can come in a variety of
ways -- don't think that just because we win in the courts (as we've
done so far with CDA) that we can't lose in what might seem "sillier"
issues -- ie. unofficial websites.
So we oughta fight the power, no matter where it is or how it is. Now
the way we did that with FOX was that a bunch of people got steamed
and sent in a lot of email, and a bunch of other peopl (mostly on
fictalk) got even more steamed and created a very public online
movement. Now guess what -- the people on fictalk seem to be getting
steamed again -- right now, we're talking about these criminalization
of NC-17 material bills because your post was brought up there.
Back with the website, what galvanized folks were those two email
addresses -- they provided a target, a means to an end. But right here
we have no target. Writing your Congressmen is a good idea, but not if
your uninformed as to what bills are being put up in your area. It's
silly to write your Congressman in Oregon for a bill being passed in
Texas.
So what would really be helpful is a target. Who do we contact? Where
is the information? And how should we go about organizing to not just
make our voice heard, but heard effectively?
It's not enough to just get angry about these things -- we did that
over the summer when FOX went after the XF sites. It takes
organization and information -- it was only with that, that we were
able to force FOX to their knees.
People want to fight. People even know who to fight. But they don't
know how. Tell them and they will.
Just an opinion... that democracy in action thing ;-)
Gil
Parrotfish
furry...@mindspring.com wrote:
And that control can come in a variety of
> ways -- don't think that just because we win in the courts (as we've
> done so far with CDA) that we can't lose in what might seem "sillier"
> issues -- ie. unofficial websites.
They're radically different issues.
> Back with the website, what galvanized folks were those two email
> addresses -- they provided a target, a means to an end. But right here
> we have no target.
The information is readily available. Visit http://www.aclu.org.
> People want to fight. People even know who to fight. But they don't
> know how. Tell them and they will.
I've posted this information before and never gotten a single inquiry or
reply. All interest was focused on Fox. But here it is again. This comes
from the ACLU site at the above url. It is a treasure trove of
information on this and many other subjects.
Excerpts from "The Threat of State Censorship Bills" by Anne Beeson, an
ACLU attorney
"While online activists were busy fighting the CDA, state legislatures
were carelessly crafting pnline censorship bills at home. At least
eleven states passed legislation in the last two years to regulate
online content, and several others considered such bills, with some
still pending..."
"Yhe state bills, like the federal Communications Decency Act, raise
serious free speech and privacy concerns. None of the bills indicate an
understanding of the unique nature of the online medium. And many ban
the distribution of material which is clearly constitutionally protected
for adults."
"Legislators must also learn that laws that attempt to keep adult
materials from minors unconstitutionally reduce all online content to
that suitable only for children...In addition, the definition of
material that is "harmful to minors" under some of these bills could be
interpreted to include online posting of sex education materials or
abuse recovery discussion groups."
"The draconian effect of these state bills doesn't stop at state
borders. A message you post to the Internet today in New York City could
travel the fifty states and the globe by tomorrow. You'd better be
careful that the message isn't "indecent" according to a New Yorker,
"annoying" to a Connecticutter, or related to "terrorism" as defined
by a Georgian."
"The ACLU is involved in constitutional challenges to three online
censorship laws that passed this year in Virginia, Georgia, and New
York, and is considering additional challenges."
Bills That Became Law in 1995 and 1996:
California
Assembly Bill 295, enacted 9/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Bladwin.
Expands obscenity and child pornography statutes to prohibit
transmission of images by computer.
Connecticut
House Bill 6883, enacted 6/95.
Sponsor: House Committe on Judiciary.
Creates criminal liability for sending an online message "with
intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person."
Florida
Senate Bill 156, enacted 5/96.
Sponsor: Sen. Burt.
Amends existing child porn law to hold owners or operators of
computer online services explicitly liable for
permitting subscribers to violate the law.
Georgia
House Bill 1630, enacted 4/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Don Parsons.
Criminalizes the use of pseudonyms on the Net, and prohibits
unauthorized links to web sites with trade names or
logos.
House Bill 76, enacted 3/95.
Sponsor: Rep. Wall.
Prohibits online transmission of fighting words, obscene or
vulgar speech to minors, and information related to terrorist acts
and certain dangerous
weapons.
Illinois
Senate Bill 747, enacted 7/95.
Sponsor: Sen. Dudycz.
Prohibits sexual solicitation of a minor by computer.
Kansas
House Bill 2223, enacted 5/95.
Expands child pornography statute to include computer- generated
images.
Maryland
House Bill 305/ Senate Bill 133, enacted 5/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Murphy.
Amends child porn law to include online communication.
Montana
House Bill 0161, enacted 3/95.
Expands child pornography statute to prohibit transmission by
computer and possession of computer-generated
child pornographic images.
New York
Senate Bill 210E, passed 7/96.
Sponsor: Sen. Sears; Rep. DeStito.
Criminalizes the transmission of "indecent" material to minors.
North Carolina
House Bill 207, enacted 6/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Bowie.
Expands existing law to prohibit sexual solicitation of a minor by
computer.
Oklahoma
House Bill 1048, enacted 4/95.
Sponsor: Rep. Perry.
Prohibits online transmission of material deemed "harmful to
minors."
House Concurrent Resolution 1097, passed 5/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Paulk
Directs all state agencies, including educational institutions, to
remove all illegal obscene material from their
computer systems.
Virginia
House Bill 7, enacted 3/96.
Sponsor: Rep. Marshall.
Makes it illegal for any government employee, including professors
at state universities, to use state-owned
computer systems to access sexually explicit material.
Senate Bill 1067, enacted 5/95.
Sponsor: Sen. Calhoun
Expands existing statute to criminalize electronic transmissions of
child pornography.
Bills Still Pending This Year
Hawaii
House Bill 2665.
Sponsor: Rep. Aki.
Expands statute that prohibits "promoting pornography" to include
electronic transmission.
House Concurring Resolution 177.
Sponsor: Rep. Arakaki.
Requests that Attorney General study and recommend legislation to
protect minors from online pornography.
Illinois
House Bill 3622.
Sponsor: Rep. Winkel.
Amends Criminal Code to include threat by computer in the
definition of intimidation.
Maryland
House Bill 619.
Sponsor: Rep. Rosenberg.
Prohibits the use of e-mail to annoy, abuse, torment, or embarrass
other persons.
Senate Bill 163.
Sponsor: Sen. Norman Stone.
Expands "harmful to minors" law to prohibit exhibition of such
material by computer transmission.
New York
Assembly Bill 8509.
Sponsor: Rep. Sanders.
Expands harassment law to include harassment over computer
networks.
Virginia
House Bill 9.
Sponsor: Reps. Marshall and O'Brien.
Requires online service providers to label "sexually explicit
content" on their systems.
*Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington considered
bills but declined to pass them.
Loch Ness
Yow! This stuff is terrifying. Thanks for posting. In Texas, a bill is
pending that would make it a crime to post material to the Internet
"where a child can access it" - which we all know means *anywhere* on the
'net. Time to start writing legislators, folks.
--
Nessie
That deep water only *looks* still.
Gecko
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>> Goo is actually a good example here of what I'm talking about -- it
>> may not be Goo's intention, but that name protects their identity on
>> the net to a certain degree. At least enough to meet the concerns
>> expressed by Jodi.
>>
>ah... forgive me for stating the obvious, Goo's using her real name with the
>last letter cut off, possibly by her server - but a bad example, I grant
>you...
>
I'm sure Sheryl didn't intend to, but I kinda wonder how Goo would feel about
having her name and identity raised in this discussion? If the last letter is
cut off, it wouldn't take, oh, more than 26 letters to test out and search for
somebody's name and email addys (if multiple) on the Internet, using any of
several available databases. In fact, strictly speaking, my kid could get on
and do a pretty amazing search doing just exactly that.
So let's try and avoid using examples from real life and invading someone else's
privacy, you think?
GeckoLizzzard
Hey, it's not my real name, but then, I've seen other people sign with stranger
things......
Zoot
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>ah... forgive me for stating the obvious, Goo's using her real name with the
>last letter cut off, possibly by her server - but a bad example, I grant
>you...
Ah, forgive me for stating the obvious, perhaps Goo doesn't want or need to have
that pointed out? Perhaps she wouldn't appreciate you having publicly pointed
this out? Hmmmm? Personally, I think only a stinker would do that.
Zoot
Gecko
Sheryl...@tvo.org (Sheryl Martin) wrote:
>> Goo is actually a good example here of what I'm talking about -- it
>> may not be Goo's intention, but that name protects their identity on
>> the net to a certain degree. At least enough to meet the concerns
>> expressed by Jodi.
>>
>ah... forgive me for stating the obvious, Goo's using her real name with the
>last letter cut off, possibly by her server - but a bad example, I grant
>you...
>
I'm sure Sheryl didn't intend to, but I kinda wonder how Goo would feel about
having her name and identity raised in this discussion? If the last letter is
cut off, it wouldn't take, oh, more than 26 letters to test out and search for
somebody's name and email addys (if multiple) on the Internet, using any of
several available databases. In fact, strictly speaking, my kid could get on
and do a pretty amazing search doing just exactly that.
So let's try and avoid using examples from real life and invading someone else's
privacy, you think?
GeckoLizzzard
Hey, it's not my real name, but then, I've seen other people sign with stranger
things......
>
Stef Davies
> >
> I'm sure Sheryl didn't intend to, but I kinda wonder how Goo would feel about
> having her name and identity raised in this discussion?
I understood Sheryl's point to be that "Livengoo" wasn't a
good example of a pseudonym since it *wasn't* one - just a
function of the number of internet letters the ISP allowed.Nor am I really
convinced that the comments had the effect of really invading Goo's
privacy. Only Livengoo knows whether she wishes this name to be a
pseudonym now, but there are archive lists which I have downloaded in
the past which list her stories under her real name including forename, and
since everything seems to be forever on the 'Net, it would be a bit like
closing the stable door. Once you've allowed your real name to be used
attached to a specific e-mail address, surely the only way to become
pseudonymous would be to change your e-mail address entirely, given that
DejaNews can retrieve eveything forever?
And of course the whole thing would have slipped into obscurity with
no-one giving it much of a thought if GeckoLizzard's post hadn't invited
everyone to treat Goo's e-mail name like a crossword puzzle clue.
Especially since Sheryl wasn't the poster to cite Goo in the first place -
that was some-one else, also with no ill-intent, I'm sure.
Stef
____________________________________________________________
stephani...@ukonline.co.uk
OBSSE Novitiate
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livengoo
In article <77025414...@ukonline.co.uk>,
stephani...@ukonline.co.uk wrote:
> > >
> > I'm sure Sheryl didn't intend to, but I kinda wonder how Goo would
feel about
> > having her name and identity raised in this discussion?
>
> I understood Sheryl's point to be that "Livengoo" wasn't a
> good example of a pseudonym since it *wasn't* one - just a
> function of the number of internet letters the ISP allowed.Nor am I really
> convinced that the comments had the effect of really invading Goo's
> privacy. Only Livengoo knows whether she wishes this name to be a
> pseudonym now, but there are archive lists which I have downloaded in
> the past which list her stories under her real name including forename, and
> since everything seems to be forever on the 'Net, it would be a bit like
> closing the stable door.
Yes.. I DO wish Livengoo to be my pseudonym. The stories and references
to which you refer came about early on before I knew how invasive this
could be and I repeatedly asked Cliff Chen to remove my name and leave
them under my pseudonym. While other archivists since have been sensitive
and respected that desire, Mr. Chen ignored me.
I strongly feel that privacy through secrecy is almost impossible to
achieve because of the nature of high tech and high density culture.
Privacy is a function of respect and the tacit acknowledgement that if one
does not put one's name on most of one's material, then it's likely that
the pseudonym is not just forgetfulness but the way one wishes one's net
persona to appear. I certainly, definitely, really and truly enjoy having
a net persona separate from my work identity. It's both fun and pragmatic
since a casual browse through the biggest archives won't turn up my real
name, only the net name under which I want to be identified here. This
protects my work identity and lets me post more freely without worrying
that in ten years a client will turn me up on a search of my professional
accomplishments. I have said that before and I do prefer to control my
name. I'm not a public persona or celebrity and it doesn't seem ridiculous
to ask respect for my privacy by way of not speculating on my name in
public.
I likewise don't go digging into the personas of others. I have been
Livengoo for more than three years,almost four, and I don't go sniping
from behind it because it's not an anonymous identity - it's an
established pseudonym. I hope it continues to be how I'm known and I
really regret that I was ever mentioned in this thread.
Livengoo
--
"Rome wasn't built in a day - If it was we'd have hired their contractor."
Sign outside the Ted Williams Tunnel