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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Facebook Commenting Policy

Well....it finally happened.

My "can't even" about the comments on my Facebook page went from figurative to literal.

At over a million followers, gentle reminders have stopped working, admin-ing comments has become virtually impossible, delicately explaining is a waste of my time, and my patience for unacceptable behavior is exhausted. Too many people ordering a double helping of savage without even a side order of chill. The laws of large numbers are starting to ensure that even if thousands upon thousands of people understand the spirit in which something is presented, someone will be having a bad day or not read carefully or think they understand a phrase that they don't, or read in maximally bad faith....or even just be a troll in my dungeon.

Thus, the time has come for an official commenting policy so that folks won't be making their best I-just-ripped-this-guy's-helmet-off-and-it-turned-out-to-be-Robert-The-Bruce-Mel-Gibson-as-William-Wallace-during-the-battle-of-Falkirk betrayed faces when I ban their asses.

Here's the TL;DR part for those of you who don't want to have to read very much:


This isn't 4chan. You don't get to say whatever you want because of "free speech." It's my space. Think of it more like you are in my house and I am putting on a show for you. If you are abusive or contemptuous, comport yourself in such a way that any human being with feelings whose hospitality you were under wouldn't invite you to come back, if you use bigoted slurs, if you are dismissive or derisive about posts that would be commonly labeled as "social justice," promise to (or threaten to) flounce from the page, "dare" me to ban you, or post spam links to either your own writing or a commercial site, or do slimy hitting on people in the comments, you may be banned without warning.




Now here's the nuance if you want to understand it a little better:

Itty bitty point- If risqué language will make you blush, buckle up or do a tuck and roll dive out the passenger side. This shit's not going to fucking stop and I'll fucking ignore the fucking comments and PM's demanding it fucking does. Golly.

Itty bitty teeny tiny point - If you block an admin, you're out. If you make some nasty comment on your way out, I will cheerfully delete it. Discuss it like an adult, or leave like an adult. Your tantrum gets you nothing. 

Smol point- If you slam the door on your way out, it'll lock behind you. And if you dare me to kick you out, I always, always ALWAYS will. If you're joking around ("Blokt!"), please make sure I know it.

I care about you and I care about you achieving your goals. What am I if not a supportive, but occasionally firm cheerleader? If you flounce, I'll help you stick to it because I know that's what you would want. If you tell me you're going to flounce, but don't seem to be able to find the door, I'll make sure you know right where it is. If you threaten to flounce in a spectacle, I'll make the decision much, much easier for you. I'm here for you, pal. Plus that's just rude.

Tiny point- No, I'm not going to stop posting links to my blog. Ever. At least once a day (sometimes two or three, just to annoy the haters). That's the reason this page is here–to try to drum up a few hits and build an audience. (It's only kind of worth the effort, but it's better than nothing.) You don't ever have to visit the blog if you want to just enjoy the puns and the inspiration memes and whatever I find about writing that tickles my brain, but the snotty emails and whiny tears telling me that my page would be "so great if you just stopped all that self promotion" will be used to fuel my Genesis device.

Your tears keep me young.
I'm actually 248


Reasonably moderate sized point- I'm up to fifty or so PM's a day. (Deplorably, none are million dollar contracts! I mean why did I even want to be a writer again?) Most are spam or asking me for some kind of free editing or beta reading or to share their own page something. So I don't even reply to the majority of them. My freelance/tutoring rate is $60USD/hr and TRUST ME that you don't want me doing copy editing (though I'm pretty good at content/developmental end). If your solicitation for help does not include some indication that you plan to pay me or do me a comparable service, I will simply ignore it. (I get way way way too many of those every day.)

Check out my Facebook FAQ, and you'll probably find the answer to your question. At least you'll find the answer to 95% of the PM's I get.

Also if you PM me, please keep in mind that I'm just a human being. I listen to the Encanto Soundtrack, watch Hawkeye with my family, play Fallout 4 and cuss when I stumble into an Alpha Deathclaw at 12th level, love Robert Asprin books despite myself, can't tell when someone's flirting with me (to. save. my. LIFE.), and try to write every day. I'm self conscious about how gaunt my face looks in some light after I lost a bunch of weight because of cancer, I cry when large swaths of my friends excuse torture so long as it is done to the "right sort of people," and have a really, really bad next-day if I eat too much pizza. Messages demanding I do X immediately or take down Y post because you didn't like it or "HOW COULD YOU..." will be cheerfully ignored. Add in some schoolyard shit talk to this kind of bullshit, and I will do my best Strong Bad "DELETED!" as I ban you.



Kind of slightly large point- As of this writing, I cannot (and in many cases will not) read the comments on this page.

There are OVER a million of you and one of me. (Well…sort of two. But usually it's only one of us at a time; my assistant only jumps in when I'm unable to.) I often max out the 99 notifications for this page in less than two or three minutes. I cannot POSSIBLY keep up with all the comments even if maintaining FB were my only job (it's not). Furthermore, what was once a playful community with the occasional legit jerkwad easily dealt with has become more and more like the bottom half of the internet (and all that that implies). I actually avoid the comments unless I suspect it's a post which will attract bigots and I need to do my banning thing. When half a million people are seeing something, the law of large numbers suggests that someone, somewhere read it wrong, is upset about something else, needs lunch and a nap, wants to pick a fight, or just generally is going to be a complete anal seepage dripping asshole about it. I know it's a statistically tiny amount, but the number of people confusing shitposting with clever makes me weep, and when people think that disagreeing with something they see automatically means they can behave in the worst way imaginable. I know you just came here to attack and now you're feeling such a good time, but I like parading through people's rain. Seriously though, enough people are really, really mean that it hurts my soul. It's honestly not good for my mental health to even try to read them all.

Which means three things pragmatically:

ONE: if someone is being a complete ass in the comments, send me a link through PM, and I'll decide what to do. (Ban them. Warn them. Rickroll them. Whatever.) But I miss 90+% of what's going on in the comments, so don't count on me to step in if you haven't notified me–I probably don't even know it's happening. Please send me a link so I know WHERE the problem is happening. I post several posts a day and sometimes the comments go on for a week or more, so I'll need help finding where to go.

TWO: I won't even see, and certainly won't reply to a lot of comments. I just can't. It hurts me in my tender fee-fees to try. I know some of you definitely are addressing the page admin with your comments, but you'll have to send me a PM if it's in some way urgent.

I've also ignored a lot of comments lately that either missed the point or clearly hadn't read the entire piece they were responding to. It's not personal; it's just a time thing. Read what you're responding to if you want me to take a comment seriously.

*Protip: demanding to know the answer to a question that is answered in the first paragraph of the post is generally a pretty good hint that you didn't do the reading.

Over the years, I have learned that (especially on the Internet) if you point out that someone clearly hasn't read something, they are more likely to attack than take the suggestion with some humility. 

Also, if you really want me to reply, send a PM. Just remember that whole "human" thing if you tread that path or I will make 30-year-old pop culture references at you by saying, "You chose.......poorly."

No.

THREE: I don't have time to gently warn everyone. ("Now now. There's a human being with feelings on the other end of your apoplectic abuse.") I'm assuming you already know how to be a decent person and that the internet sometimes helps you to forget. If I see bad faith behavior, I'll just start swinging the ol' Ban Hammer™Mjölnir [I call it M.J. cause we're THAT close.] You should know better than to behave that way (and you WOULD know better in any space that wasn't online). My warnings are reserved for folks who maybe didn't know they were on thin ice.

And they get exactly ONE.

Large point- This is my page. It's free content for you delivered straight to your computer on an average of 12 times a day (depending on the FB algorithm). This free content you enjoy takes me somewhere between 30 minutes to 90 minutes a day of unpaid labor. I'm going to post what I want. I'm going to post what I find fascinating. What I find interesting. What I find funny. What I find engaging.

And I'm going to post my blog. Even though it's sometimes a very thin connection to writing, delves into socio/political issues, or talks about my personal life.

I welcome suggestions. I welcome dialogue. I welcome discourse. I welcome concerns. I welcome criticism. (As I said above, you will likely have to PM me to get my attention since there are so many of you, but I still welcome this stuff.) I will be especially receptive to the concerns that something I've posted has inadvertently engaged in some sort of institutional harm.

However, if you comment (or PM for that matter) like you're entitled to have MY page be whatever you want in the same way you might scream at the Spokane McDonalds night shift manager because there isn't lobster thermidor on the menu, I can promise you that the conversation will go one of two ways: If you're just being boorish and demanding without regard for the fact that I'm not a robot in a skin suit sent from Khyron Beta Prime to please your every whim, I'll ignore while singing old Starship songs. ("And we can BUIIIIIIIIIILD this dream together...") If you're being abusive, I'll ban you. There are OVER A MILLION of you. Even if I had an interest in keeping everyone happy, I couldn't. 

And, shhhhhh,  I don't have any interest in keeping all of you happy. Some of you status quo defenders I very much want to disturb. To say nothing of bigots. 

So I'll be true to myself, and if that bothers you SO. FUCKING. MUCH. that you can't give the ol' scroll wheel finger a quick workout, then you get to talk to me like I'm a sensitive artist and shit. Because I am a delicate fucking creative flower, goddamnit! FUCK!

Add to an above demand a threat to flounce if I keep doing what you don't like, and I will just assume that I should show you the door to save myself future headaches.

If, on the other hand, you're just going to feel jilted if this page isn't exactly what you want to see all the time, you should feel absolutely free to spend the next five years posting 10-15 pieces of content every day about once an hour to build up your own audience, and then you can make that page whatever you want. 

No promises that I won't stop by and complain though. Just for the symmetrical beauty of it all.

This goes just as well if I post a joke you don't "like." I care (deeply) if I've inadvertently dehumanized a group of people. I don't care that some didn't get the joke or didn't find it funny or it made fun of Christianity or something. If you don't stop to look up what a phrase meant before assuming bad faith, that's not my problem. And trying to guilt me by telling me there are children or second language learners who might take it seriously won't really get much traction either since children shouldn't be here and I'm not billing myself as an educational site. Learning to navigate a world in which some written rhetoric involves satire, irony, or sarcasm is part of the cost of business in English, and my job on this site isn't to act as those filters for others.

Again, if something bothers you that much, drop me a PM and let's chat. But remember the "catch." If you want to get a message back: you have to treat me like a human with feelings. Last I checked, the cybernetic brain overlay had yet to take.

Beyond Hella Huge Point (about social justice)- 

Every goddamned time I post an article or meme or anything that deigns to intersect with how writing and writers affect social issues,

...or an interpretation of a work of art or entertainment that challenges the status quo, how language reflects societal prejudice,

...or how whitewashed, sexist, and anti-LGBT publishing is,

....or the narratives through which we define our world that could use scrutiny,

a new gaggle of jerkwads end up being shown the door.

Or hell, even just post a little Content Notice on something they think isn't a problem–so much so that it must be mocked.

It's not that they disagree. Disagreement I can handle. The comments all over this page are filled with disagreement–we're definitely no echo chamber. The problem is they either decide to react in the most dismissive and derisive way possible ("This is SJW crap!" "Ableism? That's insanely [r-word] you [c-word].") in which case this page is not for them, and I don't particularly want to have to deal with that shit post after post...OR they outright lose their composure and abusively attack other members or me for taking the time and energy to attempt to explain the frame of an issue or share a personal perspective on a topic.

If what essentially amounts to free tutoring about how language affects people who aren't exactly like you is going to be shat on because you wanted to "win" an argument, have the last word, condescend to the suggestion that the world is unequal and our print media might play a part in that, or treat people like crap for sharing an opinion that challenges the status quo, Writing About Writing is simply not for you.

There is a one-to-one echo that exists within this reaction that I am pretty sensitive to (mild CN for abuse dynamics): abusers gas lighting their victims. Instead of taking a moment to consider why someone is upset, that they are accurately able to assess their own mental state, that they can be trusted to relay when they are feeling hurt, or that their life experience of marginalization may be something worth listening to, often they are told they are being dramatic or ridiculous and dismissed outright. Their feelings and even their actual experiences are invalidated. We see this in a personal relationship and it raises our hackles (hopefully), but when a group in social power (like men) do it to a group they have social power over (like women or gender variant folks) on a massive scale, it is considered perfectly normal behavior. And it can even cause the people who are constantly being dismissed and derided to question their own perceptions of reality.

(I think abuse and oppression have a number of shocking parallels, but maybe a post for another time.)

Let me be blunt about this. (Cause I've been sweetly dancing around the point until now.)

Y'all are fucking writers, and this is a page about fucking writing. You fucking ought to know better than anyone that words carry tremendous fucking power...possibly even to invoke fucking harm. Nobody ever silently went to war or committed genocide without fucking words fueling them first. No one ever articulated a justification for racism or sexism that caused people actual PHYSICAL HARM without using fucking words to do so.

And nobody ever said "let's fucking commit human atrocities because we're just that evil" either. They always always ALWAYS fucking rationalized it away as necessary for their own protection....and they did so using fucking words. "Just" words.

So if you sit on your couch every November 5th watching a dude in a Guy Fawkes mask bloviate between the fight scenes that, "Words offer the means to meaning," and then starts a revolution because the "truth and perspectives" of his words are bulletproof, and then you imagine yourself leading said glorious revolution with your own martial arts skill and throwing stilettos, yet you then turn right around and roll your eyes at "those damned Social Justice Warriors" being all "oversensitive" to  some slur you didn't mean "that way," you are DROWNING in the irony of social power dynamics and your own double standards.

I'm not going to have a conversation every single time I bring up an issue of social equality with folks whose main conceit seems to be: "writers should be able to write whatever they want." You already CAN write whatever you want. You can write your sausage fest story with no people of color and one woman who constantly needs rescuing, and ignore every bit of advice out there about how to make deep and interesting characters  Literally no one will stop you. And if you're in a situation where you can't write whatever you want (politically or socially), it's certainly not upholding the status quo that is what you're not "allowed" to write. Further writers often do write whatever they want no matter how harmful or objectionable. Rarely are their careers even impacted and occasionally that's what launches them. If these writers stay off the pages that criticize them, they don't even have to have their feelings hurt. So if you're going to react with hyperbole and loss of composure to anyone asking you to consider how and what you write....on a blog about writing, Writing About Writing is definitely not for you.

But CENSORSHIP, Chris! But FREEZE PEACH!

Do you know what I hear Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no hovercraft outside the window, no clickeyty-click of the little spiders. Do you know why I can't hear those things Danny? Because right now, no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. I'm not a government agent. This page isn't a public park. You have conflated freedom of speech with entitlement of medium.....Danny.

In case that was too subtle.

If you've mistaken a governmentally protected freedom with the absence of consequence, feel free to study up on both again. (But for ten bonus points, see if you can identify the irony in trying to silence criticism by invoking your "free speech" ad nauseum.) And your little guilt trip, complete with a high school comprehension of the word "Orwellian," is not going to prevent me from moderating comments in my own space. This isn't even a social justice activism page. I'm going pretty easy on you comparatively. I don't expect you to be fully intersectional (or even to know what "fully intersectional" means). But the cliche that “You are awful and hate free speech if you block or ban people” is regurgitated mostly by the same entitled dillholes who don't like it when people have boundaries....at all....ever....about anything. I have like eighteen jobs and NONE of them are listening to you patiently explain why people shouldn't be allowed to define their own realities and tell their own narratives.

If you want to drop some hateful commentary, share my article in your own space with commentary. Otherwise be ready to be shown the door.

Frankly, I'd rather have a smaller following where those who normally run screaming from the comments sections on most of the internet feel comfortable participating in the conversation, than a large following where the Status Quo Defenders speak over and run roughshod over anyone who has the temerity to suggest that maybe arts and humanities do something wacky like affect social perceptions, that representation matters, and that once in a while we might ought to think about such things. The whole damned world will let the people in power decide what is ridiculous to care about (spoiler: it's always going to be anything that challenges their power in any way). Here I want an actually diverse conversation, not just more and louder and more hostile dismissiveness reinforcing the status quo and actively silencing such voices.

I care about how to question whether narratives are reinforcing institutional harm. I care about how much of the writing that exists (even wildly popular writing) often reinforces harmful status quos like racism, sexism, heteronormativity, transphobia, and more–things are ingrained in many of our narrative tropes or through our lack of or type of representation.  If you want me to be vapid about the impact of writing and stick to linguistic prescriptivism that makes fun of legitimate English dialects (often in a vaguely racist and definitely classist way) or those who struggle to get the right homonym, drops the same dozen articles (and their knock offs) over and over on how to publish your novel/find an agent/write a query letter, and never really asks you to think hard thoughts about how powerful writing is in creating the stories shape our culture, Writing About Writing is positively absolutely unequivocally not for you.
"Because maybe....JUST MAYBE, arts and humanities affect social perceptions and that's worth examining once in a while..."

If we can't at least consider and think about these things, we're just telling the same stories over and over again, not really exploring new ones.

In case that little Rantsalot moment was too gentle or esoteric: If your reply is nothing more than "This is PC bullshit!" or "This is crap. You're the real sexist!" or "Shut the fuck up with this pandering crap!" (or any of the thousands of variations on this theme that is intended to silence through dismissal that I've heard over the years) and certainly if you use bigoted slurs or double down on your "right" to be sexist, misogynistic, racist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, or fatphobic after you've been asked to stop, I will use my admin tools to show you the door*.

Don't worry. The other million of us will carry on without you.

You don't have to agree with me. You DO have to play nice in my playground.

Me and M.J. hitting the town.
Get it?
"HITTING" the town...never mind.

*Once upon a time when I was getting such comments once a month, and before loved ones had cancer and before I had cancer and before there were kids in the picture and before I needed to write a novel four years ago, I had the time to warn and explain the problem gently with each person in an exhausting choreographed dance (that lead to a banning or a flounce 99% of the time anyway); however, I do not have the time or energy to continue to do this. I will simply protect this community from harm and/or that status quo defender bullshit.

ADDITIONAL INFO

The Just Not Worth It Clause You are in my space. (You are not entitled to be here.) You are generally welcome as long as you refrain from a few choice behaviors (see above). However, I am under no obligation to extend infinitely my hospitality to those who are constant sources of negative energy and make my work unpleasant so long as you technically don't break the rules. It might take a while for me to recognize your name, longer still to watch you for a while, and even longer to decide what to do, but if you are constantly argumentative, unpleasant, bellicose, condescending, and generally negative, I will eventually show you the door. Because this is my space, and it's just not worth it to me to have to put up with that on post after post. 

And if you're firmly and often representing yourself as unwilling to understand issues such as systemic inequality, the scripts of oppression, the difference between bigotry and pointing entitlement culture, or things like that, I may eventually decide that my space is not for you.

Guest posts:
I'll leave up anything (even if I don't fully understand it) unless it is to a commercial site or it is self-promotion. The former will be removed and the poster banned. The latter will be removed (and if it keeps happening the poster will be banned). If you want to promote something on my page, message me. Whether or not I say yes will depend on how much it has to do with writing. Basically I'm not going to let people spam my readers.

Pedantry:
Knock yourself out, (lord knows I could use the help) but keep in mind the other rules before you decide that what your grammar fix needs is to be slathered in the gravy of bumptious superiority. I'll fix it if I can. The more obnoxious and condescending you get about it, though, the more I'm going to look at that ban button like Sylvester looks at Tweety. And if you are being classist and racist by mocking a legitimate dialect of English or a second language learner or something, Tweety's not long for the world.

Links in comments:
If they're not absolutely relevant to the topic or are clearly self promotional, I'll erase the comment. If it keeps happening I'll swing The Ban Hammer™Also, just so you know, I kind of hate people who respond to my writing about a topic with someone else's writing about the same topic. Like I know it's petty, but I'm here to promote my OWN shit, not someone else's. 

Bot Commenting:
The engagement is appreciated, but the generic reply-to-anything comment will eventually get you banned.

Trolling Comments to Hit on Folks:
I ban anyone who trolls the comments hitting on femme presenting folks. No questions. No appeals. You will be shown the door. This is not the space for that and I want those folks to feel safe commenting here, not as if doing so is going to open them up to being oozed.  

(And just to anticipate a possible social script designed to protect this sort of behavior, if you can't tell the difference between genuinely striking up a conversation that MIGHT end up in a "Hey would you be okay with a friend request?" and the behavior I'm talking about [usually appearance based, usually IMMEDIATELY focused on a friend request, almost always cut and pasted to multiple people], then you shouldn't be doing either.)

Post Attribution:
I get macros from all over the intersphereweboverse. Pinterest. Other pages. Friends share things they find with me. Old posts. Even Tumblr. The internet is like that with people posting and reposting. Original attribution can be incredibly hard to find after things have been through multiple layers of reposting (even with things like reverse search images, which even if they always worked [they don't] add enough annoyance and time sink to an already thankless labor of love to make it not worth it). Plus many artists are happy to see their work proliferated just so long as it has their watermark on it.

As a content creator myself though, I know how much it sucks to watch something you made go viral for someone else without so much as a link or even attribution. If I've posted something that belongs to you or someone you know or have posted a webcomic with a watermark that you can't bear to see not linked with a URL, let me know and I'll edit the post.

Or if it's yours and you want me to just take it down, repost with attribution, or whatever to handle the situation. Unfortunately, there are some people will try to claim credit for something they didn't make, even editing out an existing watermark, so I'll be looking for some small indication of actual source-age. (Usually that's a trivial matter for a content creator of linking the original post.)

I am happy to do this. But please remember a couple of things: First, you need to message me (rather than just comment) if you definitely want me to see it because I don't reliably engage with comments (see above). Second, be kind. There are basically a million of you and one of me and I am putting up 15 posts a day, so what seems like a trivial effort to you on a single post may not be to me, especially over time. If you want to be the attribution police rather than just a friendly "Hey I found a source on that post for you!" feel free to go run your own page and find out what a headache it can be.

Responding to Posts (Especially Answering Mailbox Questions) Without Reading the Article
Listen....

This one gets like four and a half stars.

I am a flawed, frail human being.

One of my human failings is that even though I understand the FB algorithm and how engagement helps, it really annoys me when I post something I spent an hour (or two or three or five or EIGHT or MORE) writing, and people jump into the comments to take it upon themselves to read answer the question CLEARLY without having read the article. It just irritates the fuck out of me.

It's like reading your own shit at another author's Q&A. It's like using your "question" at a convention to talk for five minutes and then say, "Do you agree?" to a panelist. I'm glad you found the question provocative (I really am!), but JOIN the conversation. Don't start a new one of your own in MY comments. Sometimes these replies don't even realize they're suggesting exactly the same thing I did or have used one or two of the same examples. It's great that we're all on the same page, but how rude! It's like those cartoons where someone suggests something and then another character says the same thing. In the world of comments at the end of posts, you usually at least see people who have engaged with the article (sometimes they clearly didn't get past a certain point before commenting, didn't understand a part, or were reading in bad faith, but you generally don't get replies that disregard the source material whole cloth. Social media means an awful lot of people jump in to tell you what they think of the title and/or preview text. Knock yourself out (I guess), but be ready for your admin to hide or delete your comment.

You need to start your own blog for this shit
If you want to reply to something, enjoy. If you want to disagree with me, have fun. (Just remember all the other rules.) However, if you want to write some shit that is seriously longer than the post you're replying to, go find your own platform. And if it's just some "take down" shit (especially of the I-didn't-manage-to-finish-reading-this-or-read-it-carefully-before-I-got-angry-and-slammed-out-many-paragraphs) variety, I'm probably just going to hide it. It's an admin power that pages have. You and your friends will be able to see it and give each other high fives, but no one else will.

Arguing with "You should be writing" macros:
Uh...whatever cooks your churro, boss. You do you.

However, let me add a couple of things: as I dig through the depths of the internet for and/or create such memes that aren't a profusion of sparkling hot white guys, keep the bigoted slurs out of your polemics if you don't want to get banned. You can yell at macros reminding you to write (or whatever) like old man yelling at cloud if that's your jam, but bigotry is no more acceptable as a reply to a You Should Be Writing macro than anywhere else in this space.

Second, I have a folder full of people thanking me. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of messages basically saying that the daily reminders were wonderful for their motivation. I'm not going to stop because your complaints get more and more hyperbolic, but I will eventually assume that my page is not for you.

Arguing with other macros or posts:
If you have a significant ideological problem with a quote or an idea or post, I first invite you to sit with it and think about what insight it might offer. Not everything is about you. It might not be saying what you think it is. Have you read it in the best faith or are you running it through an ideological lens and assuming that I'm saying something maybe I'm not? I post things regularly that are mutually exclusive because sometimes they're for beginners, sometimes for veterans, sometimes for people who are prescriptive about language, sometimes about people who think they don't actually need to learn grammar, sometimes for cocksure folks who won't suffer an editor, and sometimes for those who need a little pick me up to their confidence. Some things are for people who want to be capital W writers and need to stop making excuses. Some are for people with executive dysfunction who need to be kinder to themselves about what they can and can't do. If you can glean a point, a conceit, or a thesis that might be valuable to some writer SOMEWHERE, maybe it isn't quite so important that you kick in the doors, knock over a vase, and make sure everyone upstairs can hear you screaming that you don't absolutely love it. 

Far be it from me to suggest that a single 280 character tweet is going to contain all the nuance or that a prescriptive tumblr post has advice that you won't be able to imagine an exception to, but if you can find something interesting, useful, or edifying to your writing, that's probably why I posted it.

Okay, you've had a deep breath or three and you still don't like it? It's okay to let people know you're doing the opposite of endorsing the message or that you see a glaring gap in context, bring the nuance! I welcome it. However, reading clinging to a worst faith read, assuming that any advice is panacea and that you are entitled to tear into it, the poster, anyone who agrees, or ME using the most hostile and hyperbolic language you can come up with because that's how the internet works will not go well for you. Not here. Save that shit for Reddit.

I posted a thing you REALLY disagree with:

I post things I don't even agree with myself. (Not harmful things, but stuff about craft or process.) Not every writer is going to agree on every way to be a writer--beyond reading and writing a lot. Go ahead and disagree, but if you get into that "How ever could you POST shit like this?" territory, it might be a short conversation.

Poll Nominations:
If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll. If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll. IF YOU DON'T GO TO THE BLOG WEBPAGE AND MAKE YOUR NOMINATION A COMMENT, IT WON'T END UP ON THE POLL!

How can your poll possibly not have [thing I like]?
Because no one nominated it? Or no one gave it a second? Or they did and it did not survive an earlier round? Everything is reader based. If you want to see your titles make it, get involved sooner.

J.A.Q.ing off
You might think I can't tell the difference between asking questions and "just asking questions" about something but it's actually breathtakingly easy. (Particularly when combined with "It's really obvious that you haven't actually read that.") So understand that after thirty years of being online and 15 years of teaching, I know the difference between a sincere question and bait when I see it.



You're so Clever:
One of the double edged swords of a community this large is that there is often a "race" to be the first to make a clever quip with almost every post. No problem when they're funny, but sometimes people mistake clever and mean. If the timber of these quips seems always to be discouraging or elitist (or some other variant of shitty), you may eventually find MJ thirsts to revoke your commenting privileges.

Shitty comments:
One of my admin powers as a page runner is to hide a comment so that only the person who made it and their friends can see it. I use this liberally when people are just being general jerkwads. You can cry your maudlin tears about free speech or whatever, but I make no bones about moderating the comments in my own space. If you don't have the decorum to treat your unpaid host with a tiny bit of decency, he doesn't have to suffer giving you a platform by proxy.

I only ban people if they're being bigots or extremely harmful. (It's always particularly funny to watch people who say "Watch, now we'll get banned because we disagreed," go right on commenting about how I censor them.) If you imagine that you are seated around a table with everyone you're talking sipping a tasty beverage of your choice and being watched by a group of students taking a class on how to discuss issues like adults, you will probably do just fine.

Please also see my Facebook FAQ if you have more questions.




If you're enjoying this blog, and would like to see more, the writer is a guy with a rent and insurance to pay who would love to spend more time writing. Please consider contributing to My Patreon. As little as $36 a year (about a cup of coffee every month) will get you in on backchannel conversations, patron-only polls, and my special ear when I ask for advice about future projects or blog changes.

46 comments:

  1. I like your content but your obsession with threesomes is creepy and gross.

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    1. That's fair. I write through a persona and it's an ongoing joke that there ARE no threesomes because writing isn't actually very glamorous, but I can see how it doesn't land perfectly for everyone.

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    2. I'll totally have a threesome with you

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    3. Well, I'm not up for a threesome anyway, but I find it amusing every time you bring it up.

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    4. I love threesomes! I even write about them! Keep up the good work!

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    5. I came across you today through a friend's post and almost immediately ended up on this page. Now I will have to follow you to see what you write that is so ruckus-causing.

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  2. Very well said. I had to C&P this sentence for the folks in the back, because it's gold-plated genius: "You have conflated freedom of speech with entitlement of medium."
    Keep on keeping on!

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    1. One of my favorites. Unfortunately, it has too many big words and literacy for most of the people who need to read it.

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    2. "You thought the right to say what you want was the same as the right to publish it wherever you want, but they are not the same." Definitely less elegant and punchy this way, though.

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  3. You won me at the Strongbad reference! Well played.

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  4. How did you get 250k followers?? Tell me your secret and there might even be a threesome in it for you. For the record, not flirting. That is what one might call "cheeky" :)

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    1. I don't really have a secret. I put up a meme, macro, article, pun or something pretty much once an hour for four years.

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    2. That, Chris, IS the secret.

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  5. My wife sent this to me in Messenger. I write song lyrics but that's about it. This was awesome!!! Thanks for the good read. I loved it.

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  6. My wife sent this to me in Messenger. I write song lyrics but that's about it. This was awesome!!! Thanks for the good read. I loved it.

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  7. "Well done, sir!" First guffaws I've had in years.

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  8. I appreciate your open blog and sense of humor. I'm not up to doing the writing yet, but you've built my courage and helped me free write...which means I'm beginning. Building courage and having an idea good enough to chew on are always challenges Keep doing what you're doing. A few phuquing bad words won't bother me a bit. On bigotry, hate, and grossness...I agree with you! No one should have the right to abuse others under guise of having an opinion. Hate speech is never privileged.

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  9. Keeping within the boundaries of common decency, I think it very rrasonable that your page = your rules.
    Your freedom to speak does not impose an obligation on anyone else to listen, but by the same token, anyone else's freedom to read/listen to what you say does not impose an obligation on you to arrange your content to please anyone/ everyone else.
    But Starship songs? That's a bit sad. X

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  10. So appreciate your sentiments!
    Feeling like you've spoken for me...but in 4 years or so when I hope to have 1/4 Mil followers lol

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  11. Hang on. I've been a writer since roughly 20 minutes after the necessary brain structures formed during child development. Therefore, I get it: I was five and so it wasn't appropriate to invite me to threesomes. But I'm 48 now. WHERE DO I FIND THE SIGNUP SHEET?!

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. I did my level best to read it all . In the end though, I just scrolled down end ticked " I accept the terms of use" cheers

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  14. I giggled when, halfway through the carnage and waste-laying, you wrote, "Let me be blunt..."

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  15. This is marvelous and "status quo warrior" is my new favourite term. I hope to use it regularly henceforth.

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  16. Creating a typical Profile for your business will allow those around you; employees, friends and family to add your business profile as a friend creating their friends to see your profile.real facebook like

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  17. I just read this pinned post after stumbling upon your page. I think I fucking love you and your articulate crap. Will be following and reading. Namaste!

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  18. There's a word for gaslighting - is there a word for those people who rewrite reality to fit their emotions?

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  19. Absolutely brilliant and surprisingly hilarious!

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  20. Epicly awesome boss screed! I don't know how on earth you maintain the energy to do this page. I admire your writing - your blog posts are great - and basically I just feel like cheering the ban hammer. Sad that we need it, but if you have to do it, best do so with style and Godlike flair.

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  21. Excellent! I wish I had half your wit and skill! I need to re-read it, not because I didn’t get the message (in truth I am the nicest and kindest person both in print and in person), but to appreciate the crafting of it! As admin of my condo’s FB page, only 300 members and all so called neighbors, I have a small inclining of the torture the admin of your pages and blog would inflict. Your rules and insights as well as your allusions are a joy to read. Well done! May I borrow a word or two on occasion? (Of course I would cite my source.)

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  22. Except you banned me from your page for literally calling someone transphobic on your page who was prancing around about how they identified as a nuclear missle. Really not okay.

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    1. I don't even remember this, and I can't imagine doing this as ANYTHING other than a mistake. Do you remember what the post was?

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    2. I can still see all the comments, and I'll happily undo the ban with apologies if I really did something like this.

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    3. Okay, I think I see what happened, but I didn't ban you. I banned the person who started the thread and that erases the whole thread (and people can't go back to it and write more). You should still be able to see and post on WAW's page, and if you can't please let me know. chris.brecheen@gmail.com if you'd rather do it by email than comments.

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  23. Something not controversial (I hope) but just a curiosity. How long did it take you to compose this article? Maybe I missed a message that some of it was written a while, or longer, back. I'm sitting here working on my WIP, saw your FB post and decided to take a break. Turned out to be a longer break than I intended. Since I don't believe I've offended you, ever, do you suggest I read the entire - uh - post, article, blog, rant? Don't hit me. I'm a textbook introvert and this took me a lot of guts to write. Many good wishes to you and your laptop. Sue

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    1. The bulk of it was written and one sitting, but I’ve been tooling on it for over a year.

      Most people don’t need to read it at ALL. I just don’t want anyone to say I never told them ...

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  24. “I needed and editor”. I see what you did there!

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  25. That was the most enjoyable read-through of a TOS in my entire life! Thank you!

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  26. You help me; I'll help you. If you're running into Alpha Deathclaw at L12 you need to stay out of Haymarket Hall until you've done some sidequests.

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  27. "a sprinkle of words used pretty much with the express intention of keeping prudes offended in perpetuity, " Loved it!

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  28. Good on you for putting up a firm hand to the trolls, "TRUE fans, and flame-throwers. I sometimes put my foot in my mouth, but I rarely ever intend to be mean about things. Sadly the same can't be said for the aforementioned groups.

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