bitch, bitch, bitch

[redbird]

Before seeing The Glass Blowers last night, I met Lise, Moshe, and Andrew Porter for dinner. In between various other stuff, Andrew asks me what happened to the rassef meetings. Nothing happened to them. He wanted to know why he isn't getting email anymore, and I explained that nobody is, and that they're announced on the newsgroup. So far, so good (or would be if I didn't find him irritating for hard-to-identify reasons). But then he tried to give me his email address so he could get reminders.

I explained, less patiently this time, that I'm not sending reminders by email. To anyone. That I'm doing the work, and it's enough work already, and if he's interested he can find the reminders on any of three different newsgroups. He claimed to be a fakefan in this regard; that's his privilege, but not wanting to read the newsgroup, or even skim it for subject lines or for threads started by me, doesn't entitle him to more of my time and energy.

It doesn't help that what he would generally do, when he showed up, is spend his time trying to convince other people to take home old fanzines that he didn't want anymore. If I were in a mood to make exceptions, I'd be making them for people who contributed to the conversation.

It also doesn't help that, in the same conversation in which he wanted me to do extra work because of software he won't use, he explained that he couldn't ask Harry Warner to write even a paragraph for two on a tight deadline, because Harry uses a typewriter, not email. Everyone, apparently, should use all but only the technology he finds convenient.

Comments

I'm with Redbird on this.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

The point about the rasseff meetings is that they're rasseff meetings (and why doesn't anyone else have rasseff listed as an interest on LJ?). New York fandom has a long history of imploding fan meetings, and the rasseff meetings are pretty unusual in being open-to-everyone meetings that have never drifted into acrimony. As soon as you start an email list, they'll begin to become a general everyone-in-NY fannish meeting; I think there's a lot to be said for just leaving the announcements on the newsgroup.

Re: I'm with Redbird on this.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

"New York fandom has a long history of imploding. . ."

You could just end that sentence there.

Re: I'm with Redbird on this.

[redbird]

This is basically it.

It wasn't that difficult to maintain an email list, in terms of time or software. (The list was small enough that it just lived as an alias in my address book.)

But it got messages forwarded to people I either didn't like, or didn't know. Not r.a.sf.* posters or lurkers who wanted to talk: people who came and hung out with the people who'd forwarded the mail to them.

If they didn't want to socialize with the rassef crowd, why come to our socials? I don't know. Can it be that difficult to email your friends and say "hey, let's meet at X on Wednesday?" instead of attaching yourself to someone else's get-together. (These meetings are in bars: it's not as though we were renting a room and they were using the space.)

I told one or two people who complained that if they wanted to set up a different/more general NY fandom meeting, I'd cc their first announcement to my list. None of them took me up on it.

difficulty factors

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

*snrch*

"Can it be that difficult to email your friends and say "hey, let's meet at X on Wednesday?" instead of attaching yourself to someone else's get-together."

But if they actually did that, they'd have to take responsibility for selecting a place, setting a time and date, and dealing with people who didn't like smoke/alcohol/ambient noise/blue wall decor/parsnips on the menu.

Much much easier to grab someone else's coattails and ride, while bitching about the speed, the quality of the fabric, and the direction.

(The Cuisinart School of Metaphor Mixing)

Re: I'm with Redbird on this.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

and why doesn't anyone else have rasseff listed as an interest on LJ?

Cos I've got rec.arts.sf.fandom listed. I can never figure out how many S and Fs to put into "rasseff".

Re: I'm with Redbird on this.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I am very, very tempted to solve the "one or two s's, one or two f's?" question by making it a both/and thing, and using three each. rasssefff. -grin-