Well.
First of all, although she might not want to hear it, I *do* congratulate LauraBF on her win, now that she's gotten her scores and confirmed that they're accurate. Any perceived implication that she hadn't deserved the win was unintended.
Secondly, for the record, M-Comm has sent me an e-mail apologizing for the lack of communication. I found it in my in-box this morning, and it clearly indicates that it was sent before M-Comm posted on this thread. I thank M-Comm for sending that apology. The other aspects of that private e-mail need not be aired in public.
Third, that apology has nothing to do with my "losing" an award that was apparently not mine in the first place. I harbor no resentment for a more accurate tallying of points that ended up shuffling the rankings.
It would probably be wisest to leave things at that. I will certainly ignore any "whining" comments and such-like; I suppose any statement, no matter its intention, might be construed at hostile if viewed in a suspicious light. Instead, I will focus on two aspects that seem to be directly accusatory.
M-Comm (from the text, I assume it is not Katrina herself) said, on page 1 of this thread:
You admitted in an e-mail to Katrina that submitted this under a pseudonym
A lovely word, "admitted." I stated it. I was not confronted or accused. I offered that information voluntarily, without being asked for it. My only previous communications with M-Comm, before I sent that e-mail, were the submissions of my stories, the requests for my two scorecards, and an e-mail from Katrina, sent on the same night I got my "Hazel" scorecard, saying that people on the "Merriweather boards" would like to read my story.
The Committee was suspicious of the source of the story and had been checking to make sure it was posted somewhere and not someone else's work submitted just to test us.
This one baffles me, frankly. What in the world was suspicious about an anonymous submission? What do you mean that you suspected that "someone else's work" was submitted to "test" you? What test was involved, exactly? Did you suspect it was plagiarized? That it belonged to someone other than "Allyse"? Your rules state that stories can only be submitted by the author. There is nothing to indicate that said author must have references as a FoLC author, or that the author is not permitted to use a pseudonym. You yourselves are anonymous. What is so suspicious about a supposedly new author? Your rules also specifically state that stories do *not* need to be somewhere on the net, but may be submitted as an e-mail attachment. Does the above statement mean that only previously posted stories qualify? If that is the case, the entire purpose of the Merriweathers seems moot.
We spent three days trying to track down your story on archives, googling, Fanfic.net and other sources then we wouldn't have wasted so much time unnecessarily
Again, why would you do such a thing? Your rules specifically state that is not required for a story to have a URL of its own. Why were you so desperate to find it?
If you had been upfront with us when you submitted the story, i.e., had told us that it was your story under a different name, then this error would have been corrected a lot sooner.
Why did you need to know the author's name before you could correct your error? It can't be in order to inform the author privately.
Your rules state that an author can only submit two stories per cycle. I did so. If I had wanted to be underhanded, then I might have submitted *two* stories under Hazel and one under Allyse. I felt myself honor-bound to restrict myself to two, even if M-Comm was unaware that Hazel and Allyse were one and the same.
Several members of the M-Comm wasted three days because you refused to come forward and admit your charade.
I regret the waste of the waste of M-Comm's time. I still do not understand why the search was required. However, "refused" suggests I was asked. I was not asked anything at all.
That seems to cover the "underhanded" and "sneaky" part of the accusation. Now for the second part: the accusation of deliberate ill intent.
Why did you feel the need to have both scorecards before you posted? To test us? So see if we were legit? Why was it so important to you that you prove something about us? Since you pulled this stunt, your wounded, betrayed behavior has no sympathy with us. If you want to discredit us, don't bother entering a story. Just badmouth us on the boards.
I fail to see how my choice of being anonymous -- just as your choice of being anonymous -- is a "stunt." You are ascribing motives to my actions without any proof. I wrote a story specifically for the Merriweathers, because I wanted to enter the contest and I'm not a WAFFy writer. Once I had the story finished, it was an impulse to submit it completely anonymously. Why not? There was nothing to prove or test. As I wrote when I first posted "Sunrise, Sunset" on both mbs:
I submitted two stories to the Merriweathers -- one under my own name, and one under an old pseudonym of mine from way back. Why did I do this? Curiosity, I suppose. The whole Merriweather process seemed shrouded in anonymity, so I figured I might as well go all the way.
Besides, the idea of writing a purely WAFFy vignette seemed so alien to me that I practically needed to be someone else to do it!
Still, once I'd written Sunrise, Sunset, I didn't want to leave the impression that I didn't trust M-Comm, so I sifted through my fics from 2001 or later and actually found one that technically qualified.
My choice of sending in *two* fics, rather than one, was specifically for the purpose of showing that it was not a matter of distrust. Yes, I waited until I had both scorecards, so I could compare the results. Why not? Why shouldn't I be interested in seeing the interpretations of my work? There was no intention to discredit. I can't help it if you choose to find motives where none exist.
Cindy suggested, on the same theme:
It's also regretable that some people seem to have gone into this contest bent on wreaking havok.
Cindy, are you implying that submitting a story under a pseudonym is a deliberate attempt at havoc? Even Tempus would find that a little too ironic, coming from "Ann N."
It's simple: I wrote a specific story for the Merriweathers because WAFFs aren't my thing, and I couldn't participate otherwise. The choice to submit the story under a second pseudonym doesn't make that underhanded, but rather anonymous. And since the Merriweathers have emphasized that anonymity is the key to fair judging, I fail to see the problem with that.
Cindy thinks that only "previously posted stories" should be allowed. What's the point of the awards, then?
I will conclude this ridiculously-long post with the final three paragraphs of the e-mail I sent M-Comm this morning:
You are essentially asking us to trust you, but your behavior has not exactly inspired trust. I don't think it's entirely your fault, though; the FoLCdom of today is not the same as it was a few years ago. Polarization exists, whether or not we want it to. Your original implication on your website that the Kerths were not trustworthy may not have been intentional, but I'm afraid it didn't help very
much. The net result of that choice of phrase, your insistence on anonymity, and the unhappy coincidence that the FoLCs who chose to applaud your undertaking were the selfsame ones who have denigrated the Kerths, unfortunately resulted in an atmosphere of suspicion.
I can't speak for anyone else; I'm not an IRC regular, and I'm part of no FoLC mailing list other than the largely defunct mailing ficlist on Yahoo. But I can tell you what my reaction was when the Merriweathers were first announced: "Oh, no. This is a swipe at the Kerths, isn't it? That's such a pity. This could have been such a great contribution to FoLCdom."
Despite my experiences with this first round of the Merriweathers, I still hold out hopes that your award system will mature and grow to become a healthy addition to FoLCdom. I don't think I'll be participating for a while, though -- at least, not until I can be reasonably sure that you've gotten all the kinks out. Once burned and all that.
Good luck with future Merriweathers.
Hazel
Editing this to add something that occurred to me after commenting on Paul's scorecard on the other thread: While some of us might have commented or disagreed with some of the judges' remarks, I don't think anyone has disparaged the actual judging process, either by suggesting that the judges aren't qualified or that the judging was unfair. The problems have been with M-Comm's handling of the process, not with the judges' hard work.
Just wanted to make that clear.
