Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:37:57 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: WSFA and hosts
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 08:14 AM 10/20/2005, you wrote:
>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.

OK, that is a legitimate reason, but trying to place the blame on the club
for your decision isn't.

>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.

Honey, many members already do.  They also already hate me, and Mike and
pick a name and fill in the blanks.  That's part of life, not everyone is
going to like you.  You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get
out of the game.

Also, another good reason for not giving the club an ultimatum is that many
of us have a policy that in a situation like that, the one who makes us
make that choice is the one to go.  Your original request for a vote of
confidence doesn't make anyone make that choice.  It simply says, should I
stay or should I go?  Frankly, I want you to stay.  But if it becomes an
ultimatum, I vote against the person who issued it.

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

Then in that case, you should go, but I sure would hate to see it.

>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.

You don't have to be a member to attend meetings.

>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.

Not everything is about you.  That question was about potentially moving
the Virginia meeting.  And just because someone thinks you told a lie,
doesn't mean that they think you are a habitual liar.  Hell, I've told
plenty more than a handful of lies in my life, and I don't get the
impression that people think *I'm* a liar.  As a matter of fact, I think as
a whole they think I'm pretty honest.

> > 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?

I didn't say you weren't important, I said you aren't the center of anyone
else's universe.  "I am the center of the universe.  This is true for all
instances of 'I'."  People usually only agonize over what affects them
personally.  Your fight with Lee only affects you, Lee, and the people who
have chosen to get involved.  Everyone else just wish we would all shut up.

>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.

I didn't say that you made a threat.  I said that you said something that
was misinterpreted as a threat.

> > 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.

The rest of the world couldn't give a rat's ass about WSFA.

>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.)

I've seen that behavior in people, but the fact of the matter is, all you
can do is your best.  Whatever that may be.

Candy
(301)345-6635