Lady Business

I've said this briefly on twitter (and to some extent over at SH, but I think my comment there came out more... disagreey than I meant it to), but it bears repeating: thank you for writing the post, and my sympathy for what you've had to go through since.

I, too, was really surprised at the extent to which some people seem to have perceived your argument as an attack on authors, rather than the expression of a viewpoint from one corner of fandom. I found myself arguing with people I respect who had clearly taken it very badly, without seeming to see that you were in no way forbidding them to disagree with you. I think some of it was the twitter effect - i.e. more people were reading 140-character versions of the post than they were reading the post itself - and some of it was the way the sf community seems to communicate with itself these days. Also, clearly one or two people with non-trivial megaphones who have taken against you personally, unfortunately.

Things seem to be calming down now a bit, for an outsider's perspective; we've entered the blog post phase, which usually allows for a bit more nuance in response. I hope it looks calmer from where you are, too.

Nic (Eve's Alexandria)