Blakes7 February 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

80 participants
929 discussions

Re: [B7L] Wendy-speak/hijacking
by Mac4781＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

I sent a post on this yesterday but it was bounced back to me with a "permanent fatal error" messages attached to it. Assuming that means what I think it means, I'll repeat myself here. Annie wrote: > I, for one, don't believe that it is > possible to "own" a thread of conversation on a mailing list. Once you put > it > out there for public consumption, you really can't impose your own rules > regarding who can and can't respond and the tone that they must take. I agree with everything Annie has been saying on the subject. If "thread hijacking" is an important issue to some list members, the solution would be to set up a separate list. Something like the "spin list." Set up a list for serious-only discussions. Move threads over there when you want to avoid frivolous commentary. I've a couple of other lyst posts from yesterday that are still in limbo. If they don't turn up soon, I'll resend them. Carol Mc

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Re: [B7L] Wendy's complaint (was Sally-speak)
by Mac4781＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

Mistral wrote: > As for attacking Wendy - no, I don't think so, either. It looked more to > me like people reacting to what they perceived as an attack from her. > The topic and her position on it were not the problem; it was the > sarcasm, insults, and slurs. To some of us, they were obvious; another > group have said they didn't see it at all. ISTM the only thing that's > been clearly demonstrated is that we all have different ideas of what > constitutes good debate etiquette - there is no Gospel According to > Lysator. I think there are double standards, whether we'd like to admit to them or not. I've seen posts as blunt as Wendy's go through without raising outcries because they were made by "insiders" or because they toed the party line. I don't want to pull up those posts and point fingers, but I'll go to the archives and grab up a couple that I remember from the past month or so if anyone feels that is necessary. Carol Mc

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Re: [B7L] Wendy-speak/hijacking
by Ashton7＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/22/01 4:45:44 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net writes: << If anything, it's the funsters (who I do not consider nitwits, whatever Penny might say) who are the egotistical ones, because they seem to assume the right to jump in on any conversation and make it their own with scant regard for those who are trying to enjoy themselves in their own fashion. >> I'm sorry, Neil, but we're obviously never going to come to an agreement on this issue, because your idea of what an internet mail list *is* is obviously so completely different from mine. I, for one, don't believe that it is possible to "own" a thread of conversation on a mailing list. Once you put it out there for public consumption, you really can't impose your own rules regarding who can and can't respond and the tone that they must take. Yes, you personally might find it annoying if someone finds humor in the conversation, but sorry. It's a public list and those who chose to "trivialize" things, as you put it, have just as much right to respond to a public posting as anyone else. That's the way I see it. And, yes, I do think it is a matter of ego and, even more than that, a matter of wanting to control what people do and think. Unless you are the moderator of a particular list, you do not have that control over who and what gets posted. Annie

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Wendy-speak
by Caveatemptor1＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

<<Fiona wrote: << Actually to me it sounds ironic. Wendy expressed a view of Deliverance quite different from the Gospel According to Lysator, and, good heavens, she got attacked for it. So did Neil, Dana and I for agreeing with her. Under those circumstances, I'd be a bit bitter too... >> Well, now, in fairness to those who are accused of "attacking" Wendy, I think it should be pointed out that the Deliverance thread was a lively, interesting, and congenial debate (in fact, one of the best we've had in some time). It wasn't til Wendy became insulting (beginning with the "Wolf at your door" message) that there began to be a certain amount of resentment at her insistence that if we couldn't see sexism in "Deliverance" we must be stupid. <<Fiona wrote: << Now, what bothers me personally about serious (like Neil I'd avoid the word "intelligent") conversations going silly is that often it's not a natural progression, it's a hijacking. To give a (semi) fictitious example, some people can be having a discussion on, say, themes of class struggle in "Weapon," and then somebody else, who hasn't participated at all up until this point, will launch in and say "Ooh, I think Carnell's accent is dea sexy! What's everyone else think?" And there's the whole prospect of further serious discussion gone to pot. >> Yes...it's true threads get hijacked. But that's just a fact of life on the lyst (on any list). But there is an easy solution...hijack it back. That's what debate is - give & take, back & forth. I've been on this list a lot of years now and it still amazes me that these kind of confrontations still pop up. I must say, though, that the Wendy thingy is not nearly as stinging is the SuperStud thingy. << Fiona wrote: << The astonishing thing about the Deliverance thread for me was seeing people who don't normally participate in the "serious" discussions take up cudgels. >> Hmmm, which people would that be? From my experience on this list, those members who post regularly post on all variances of threads. I'm really not sure what you mean by your comments above. Are you saying those who normally lurk came out to protest being insulted? Courtney

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Re: [B7L] Thread hijacking (was Re: Sally-speak)
by Ashton7＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/22/01 4:44:22 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net writes: << Actually I have no problem with this per se, since a valid point is a valid point regardless of the terms in which it's couched. However, such posts are likely to be character-oriented, and as such pull a non-character oriented thread off-track. >> Well, once again, you're trying to impose *your* idea of the direction a conversation should take upon a whole list of people. I don't know how many people are on this list these days... it used to be a few hundred. It would be an exercise in futility to assume that you could possibly control the flow of conversation amongst that many people. And, frankly, you don't have a right to. If you want to have *private* conversations "over in the corner", then why are you posting them on a huge mailing list? Annie

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Re: [B7L] Sally-speak
by Tavia Chalcraft 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

Wendy wrote (in two different posts): >You're following a discussion on, say, Travis 1/Travis 2, and suddenly someone pops up under >the same header to talk about how much of each of them you can see through their costumes? I believe most people have bodies under their clothes. I may be wrong. >By the time I've read enough to know I should delete it, it's too late. It seems like any subject can >be given a sexual or innuendo twist, which IMHO often means turning an intelligent subject into a >dirty joke. Some people who are intelligent also have sex. I believe. Some of them even talk about it occasionally. I've always read the Lyst 'no sex' policy as suggesting that one should refrain from posting material that is explicit, and in particular, more explicit than the Blake's 7 series itself. What you're talking about doesn't sound to be so. There's a reasonable amount of sexual innuendo in the series (Avon re Dayna in Aftermath, the human bonding ceremony in Ultraworld, lots of Vila's comments, Servalan and various assorted sidekicks &c &c). You could think of it like going down the pub and starting out having intelligent conversations, which gradually get sillier as people get tired or merry. >around I've seen a whole lot of threads which start off intelligently degenerating into talk about >whether Avon or Tarrant is sexier or descriptions of Steven Greif in black leather. It's hard to get away from the fact that some of the costumes appear to have been designed to look sexy. >It also seems like IMHO some people have become so wrapped up in fanfic (not just the slash >stuff either) that they read it back intoparticular episodes too. This is an interesting point. Certainly there are trends in fanfic that appear to be enshrined in custom from the earliest works, that have little (or disputed) basis in the series. I'd love to see more fanfiction that tried to break new ground. I'd even write some if I had the talent, ideas, time &c... I'm not sure how much of what people see as H/C today was intended to be seen as such by the >writers-- *I* think very little. And I don't think it was ever intended to be the focal point of the >episodes. But that's what fanfiction's all about, filling out areas or ideas that aren't explored in detail in the series. Very little attempts to write extra episodes similar to those existing, though that is the motivation for some. I imagine some of the episodes were written against tight deadlines and the writers had little time to explore the subtexts in what they were writing. (I seem to recall you arguing the precise opposite of this with respect to Deliverance, rockets, phallic symbols and the like. But I, for one, don't wish to get into that argument.) Tavia http://www.viragene.com/

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Re: The Romance of Hijacking (was Re: [B7L] Sally-speak)
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/23/01 7:48:53 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net writes: << As I hope I've made clear enough by now, I can't argue with this. It's turning the thread *into* whimsy that gets me heated. >> Well, it's gonna happen, Neil. Occasional forays into levity come with the list territory. Sometimes, the pillars will be granite. Sometimes, they'll be marshmallow. Generally, if you just sit back and wait a short while, the light stuff will subside and you can shift it back into the serious mode you prefer. But I don't feel it's appropriate, practical or even possible to control these things. Leah

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Re: [B7L] Thread hijacking (was Re: Sally-speak)
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/23/01 7:45:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, ragan(a)sdc.org writes: << littles(a)lycos.co.uk wrote: > But there's another sort of thread hijacking which neither of you mentioned, > which is when somebody comes on the serious thread and makes a point, but > does it in a silly way, say calling Blake "my sweet baboo" or calling > Servalan "She who must be obeyed." Which IMO trivialises the the character, > the argument and the poster's point, all at the same time. Can that properly be called "thread hijacking," though? I mean, I can see where it would annoy you, but it seems to me that that comes down to less a matter of list etiquette as a simple matter of some people not liking other people's style or tone. Which, IMHO, is a very different matter. >> Perfectly put. And a very, very old issue of taste in media fandom. I remember that way back in the early 1980's, there seemed to be some kind of almost universal consensus among B7 fanzine editors that B7 fanfic *must* be every bit as grim in tone as some of the most grim moments of the series. Blacker, if possible. There was a lot of utterly terrific storytelling out there, but the vast majority of it was grim. I finally reached a flashpoint, and the first Bizarro 7 story was written in reaction. When I submitted it to Regina Gottesman for her zine, she dolefully declared that it had 'too much levity' for a B7 fanfic. It violated the dignity of the show, somehow. Naturally, Annie and I promptly went forth and created the entire Bizarro 7 universe in retaliation, where *everything* was levity and anything that ever appeared in the series was fair game for satire. Dignity was forbidden. The series itself had its delightfully humorous episodes and moments. I don't hear anyone complaining about these, ruining the tone of the show. Leah

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Re: [B7L] What's Silly ? (was Excalibur, Blake's 7 (but no Zulus))
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

How can *anything* be more silly than a giant, inflatable grasshopper that eats red rock candy? Leah

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Re: [B7L] Sally-speak
by Natasa Tucev 23 Feb '01

23 Feb '01

Fiona wrote: >No stats on it either, myself, but I'm also pretty sure that my uncle, a >retired Church of England clergyman who is both as strictly moral and as >compassionate and gentle as they come (and who preached strict morality from >the pulpit for thirty-odd years), would be more than horrified to learn that >he is about to start wielding a butcher knife on the neighbours :). Don't know the gentleman, but I think he would be equally shocked, or at least frankly amused, to learn that someone is making so much fuss about a broken leg in a SF story, when there's so much real suffering in the world around us. My elder son pulls off arms and legs from a baby-doll and I know he does this because he is jealous of his baby brother. What good would it do if I reprimanded him or forbade him to molest the doll? I'd only cure a symptom. Instead I try to devote more time to him, to show him that I love him as much as I love his brother, etc. If he stops being nasty to the doll, I'll know I've changed something. I think the same rule applies to fiction. There is pain in our stories because there is pain in us. If you ardently try and prove to people that it is immoral and outrageous to write such stories, the pain will have to come out some other way. Some other ways may be destructive. To transpose your emotion into a work of art, OTOH, may be constructive and healing. The emotion in a work of art differs from the emotion in real life. It is more complex, it comprises many elements, it transcends the author's personal motivation, and if a work of art is successful, the emotion will also reflect on wider issues - society, culture, human nature. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet when his father died, and we still read it today for reasons which have nothing to do with the personal pain of loss which initiated it. The paintings of Frida Callo (I'm not sure about spelling) show intense suffering, and it's small wonder they do, knowing she spent a great deal of her life in a cast. I find them extremely disturbing and I wouldn't hang them on the wall, but there's no doubt that they're real art. If, OTOH, a story doesn't succeed in transcending this initial, irrational urge to inflict mental of physical pain, it will simply be a badly-written, unsuccessful story. In any case, to make a moral issue out of this is IMO ridiculous. It reminds me of the priests in 'The Name of the Rose', who were so pious that they even refrained from laughing, but maybe you recall the things they did 'backstage'. >Finally, I'd >also like to point out that some of the loudest defences of this sort of >fanfic have come from America, which, I'm sorry to say it but it has to be >said, has one of the worst records in the world for attempting to impose its >worldview, moral standards and values on weaker nations. I'm not trying to defend h/c genre in particular - actually, I disliked many of the h/c B7 stories I read, because they were boring and badly written. The 'Vila-speech' I cited on the Lyst some time ago as an example of bad writing was from a h/c story. But I will defend a good work of art, even if it's wading in blood. I'm not making great distinctions between professional writing and fanfic, because the branch of literary criticism I'm practising is primarily concerned with the underlying mythical patterns of a story, with the world-view the author displays and the way in which he/she responds to the dominant culture. If the response is pain, it might tell us something about the culture. Actually, it is a notion which was cherished in communist countries, that new art should only reflect happiness and enthusiasm, because there's no reason anyone should feel unhappy in the brave new world. Recently a literary critic in my country recalled how thrilled he was when, as a young man, he first discovered Dostoyevski, "because I realized it was OK to feel depressed." I agree, it is as ridiculous to accuse you of promoting communist agenda as it is ridiculous to accuse me of promoting coca-colonialism. I didn't even know h/c was an American genre. N.

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Blakes7 February 2001