Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:14:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: WSFA and hosts
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com> wrote:

> You aren't even willing to wait and find out what "the club as a
> whole" thinks, you are just going straight into martyrdom without
> even waiting to be nailed to the cross.  I'm afraid that people who
> court martyrdom and get it aren't nearly as respected for being
> martyrs as those who accidentally fall into it.

WSFA has become very painful for me.  I can't see this changing for as
long as Lee remains a key member.  And I'm not willing to say "Either
she goes or I go," since even if I won, many members would then hate
and despise me, and I don't want to be in a club where many members
would hate and despise me.

It would closer to martyrdom for me to stay than for me to leave.

If I didn't have duties as a secretary, I would have left in the
middle of First Friday, and wouldn't show up at tomorrow's meeting.

I did enjoy Capclave, and look forward to attending next year.

I do enjoy this list when Lee isn't on it, and look forward to
continuing to host it on KeithLynch.net.  (Whether the WSFA.org
alias and archives remain is entirely up to the new WSFA webmaster.)

But I won't be attending any more meetings after tomorrow, and I am
resigning as secretary, Journal editor, archivist, and webmaster, and
I don't plan to renew my WSFA membership when it expires at the end of
this year.

This is as good a time as any for a transition.  Our next con is still
over a year away.  _Future Washington_ is done.  No important business
is pending.

People should be thinking, not about how to keep me in the club, but
about who wants to be the next secretary, Journal editor, archivist,
and webmaster.  It doesn't have to be the same person.  (Our bylaws
say the secretary *appoints* the Journal editor.)

> Is anyone thinking about Alexis here?  The man has been hosting WSFA
> for 30 odd years.  This club is so important to him that he even
> makes it to meetings at *my* house.  It would be a betrayal of all
> his years of faithful service to the club to move it while he is
> still willing to host.

Since he thinks I am a liar, he should be pleased that I am leaving.

> What makes you think that your problems with Lee are the center of
> anyone else's universe but yours?

They're important to *me*.  If I am not important, then why would
anyone mind my leaving?

The wrongness of Lee's actions have nothing to do with who was their
target.  They would have been just as bad had she picked on someone
who had never done a thing for the club.

> And since I *do* trust Alexis, I suspect that you really did say
> something that could be taken the wrong way as a threat and that
> is exactly what she did.

Nobody else heard me make any threats.  And I think most of you know
me well enough to know how profoundly out of character threats would
be for me.

> Lee apparently believes that Keith actually lied.  OK.  Lee believes
> that Keith lied.  *Lee* believes that Keith lied.  Just because *Lee*
> believes it doesn't mean that the rest of the world believes it.

Unfortunately, that's not how human nature works.  When someone with
a reputation as a liar falsely claims they found a rat or a finger in
their soup, business drops off at the accused restaurant.  Businesses
take people's credit reports seriously even though there have been
dozens of exposes showing that credit reports are full of errors.
Jurors have sent people do death row based solely on the testimony
of people already in prison for crimes involving falsehoods.

I am not blameless myself.  When Alexander Chislenko
(http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html) came down from Boston to
visit me, I was standoffish and didn't offer to let him spend the
night rather than staying in a hotel, because another member of the
local Transhumanist group had made vague but very serious-sounding
accusations against him.  A few months later, he committed suicide.
Of course I don't know whether he wouldn't have had I been less
standoffish.  But I still feel terribly guilty.  (That other member
then went to his funeral as if they were the best of friends, and
later went on to make similar vague accusations against numerous other
people, including me.  Followed, weeks later, by appealing to me as if
I were her best friend when someone else was mean to her by objecting
to her slandering him!  She was kicked out of the organization, even
though she founded it.)