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Incident at TW

Nate · 2007-05-18T01:20:34Z

I do not wish to make this into a big deal. I post this only because if I don't, it'll just become bigger and bigger until it explodes into an all-out site war, which is something I absolutely do not want to see occur. For those of you who do not know (or for those of you reading this months or years from now!), TW is teenagewriters.com. About a week ago, TW and YWS began to forge a working relationship. However, several incidents have since made it difficult to go forward in this relationship. This is not to say that this relationship is now totally ruined, but rather is strained at this point and it will take longer than earlier imagined to become essentially "sister sites." Although since even sisters fight a lot.... Let me begin by saying that YWS is not just a Web site, and is not just a place to hang out. YWS is a community of young writers, and I will always put my reputation as an unbiased site admin on the line if a member from this site has been wronged. I want to also say that I think YWS has always been great at welcoming and absorbing new members. I am not sure if it's because of the type of person who comes here, or if it is the type of person who stays here, but the members here make moderating the site very easy. There has never been blatant vulgarity outside of a literary piece, and I have never seen one member attacking another member simply because they are new to the site. I also want to say that I have enjoyed welcoming many of the members from TW onto YWS, and I hope they found a welcoming environment here. I also hope they continue to visit the site, and I want to express that I highly respect them. The problems we are experiencing right now is not between the members of the two sites, but between the moderating staff of the two sites. Different sites have different moderating cultures. YWS has been fortunate enough to strongly benefit from an administration staff that has remained constant since day 1. I speak not only of myself, but also of Firestarter (who has been a site admin since May 2005 and a moderator since almost the beginning), and moderators like Hunter, Crysi, Chevy, and EBM, who have all been mods for a very long time (EBM was the first). There is also Meshugenah, who was a mod since at least January 2005, and who was recently made a site admin late last year. The rest of the mod squad (Snoink, Griffinkeeper, Areida, Matt Bellamy, Poor Imp) are all well established members and highly respected on the site. Most of them have been here for years (Matt Bellamy was one of the first 100). A recent incident, however, showed that our moderating cultures do not mesh well. For those who do not know, Incandescence was recently accused of plagiarism at TW. Instead of asking for comment from Incan, the moderators decided instead to make an announcement entitled "I told you so," and did not seek input from us here. If they had done so, they would've discovered that the piece in question is a transcript from an event on the very author Incan was accused of plagiarizing. More than that, if one bothers to read both pieces, then it becomes very clear that plagiarism did not occur as Incan disagrees with the viewpoint of the original author. The decision was rash on the part of the moderators, and they still have not offered a complete public apology for the incident (although they have offered one in private). They further claim it was merely a random check, but based on past incidents that do not all involve Incandescence, it is clear to me that this was part of a witch-hunt on their part. Based on the public apology TW has issued, I do not wish to sever the currently existing relationship, but nor do I wish to see it go any further for now. As one of the mods here pointed out to me, if one of them were to do something like this, I would kick them out of the mod squad. However, I do want to express again that the current troubles only lie with the moderating staff of TW. They do not lie with the members of TW, and I do beseech the members of YWS to put this incident behind us. Furthermore, if anyone has any questions or wishes to outline any points of disagreement, I will be in the chatroom tonight (May 17, 2007) at 11 p.m. EDT (or 3 a.m. GMT on May 18 ). I am usually in the chatroom at that time about 2 to 3 times a week if you want to speak with me, but cannot catch me tonight. - Nate

TNCowgirl

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Sun May 20, 2007 3:33 am

TNCowgirl says... · Sun May 20, 2007 3:33 am

please no war, i don't want people here hating me cause i came from there :'( y'all can't just cause some users are annoying or such. you find that everywhere.

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Emerson

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Sun May 20, 2007 3:42 am

Emerson says... · Sun May 20, 2007 3:42 am

I think it was simply a joke, or perhaps people are misunderstanding.

The point Nate is trying to make I believe is that despite what happened, we are going to remain on good terms with TW and TWers as much as possible.

So...no being cruel, yes. And stay on topic? I feel this is kind of moving around just a bit.

“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Nate

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Sun May 20, 2007 3:55 am

Nate says... · Sun May 20, 2007 3:55 am

* Locked *

No reason for being locked really, just that it's time to move on to other things, like submitting to Squills! Seriously... submit to SQUILLS!

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Incident at TW

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