Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 15:54:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Gilliland Fliers
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com> wrote:

> And even if it does exist, who cares?  That horse is dead.

Only if Alexis's reputation is so bad throughout all of fandom that
nobody will believe anything he says.  I strongly doubt that's the
case.  Do you believe otherwise?

Malicious untruths that are believed do real damage to real people.
If someone were to distribute fliers at conventions (or publish them
in widely-read fanzines such as File 770) that claimed that the
dresses you make fall apart as soon as they were worn, and that you
wouldn't give refunds when this happens, that would greatly hurt your
business.  Especially if the person making the claim was someone who
had been active in fandom for decades, a published author, and a
Hugo-winning artist, whose integrity and honesty had never been
questioned by anyone until the past year or so.

If they were to continue distributing such fliers a year later, I
don't think you'd appreciate being asked to ignore it on the grounds
that it's a dead horse or stale news.

Just to be clear, I didn't see any such flier or hear rumors of any
such flier at Capclave, nor did I see Alexis there.

The flier of a year earlier definitely existed and definitely
contained malicious libel against myself and others.  Not everyone who
has read it knows for certain that it is false.  And Alexis definitely
attempted to get it published in File 770, in an attempt to damage
my reputation throughout fandom with no chance for me to publish a
response in the same fanzine for half a year.  He did this even though
I had already resigned from WSFA.