The Asshattery Just Keeps On Coming
This thread is not doing anything to change my mind about the significant percentage of GIGANTIC FUCKING ASSHOLES in Doctor Who fandom.
Seriously. Some guy rips off a bunch of fan reviews without permission, publishes them (as filler, without analysis) in a for-profit book, and has the gall to complain that his feelings are hurt when the people he stole from get upset? Because it was too much of a burden for him to ask permission from twelve people?!
I archived several hundred people on All About Spike and I asked for permission from every single one (and that site’s not even for profit). It’s not hard to show a bit of common courtesy. Some of the authors I most loved didn’t give me permission, so, you know what? I didn’t archive them. Because if you respect someone’s work enough to want to use it, you also owe them the respect of asking their permission and abiding by their wishes.
Oh, but posting in public is exactly like giving the world permission to use your work in any way it sees fit! *eyeroll*
And, of course, it comes down to the know-it-all men talking down to the “shrill and hysterical” women who for some silly reason don’t like having their words stolen and used for someone else’s gain.
*headdesk times infinity*
* Some of the more egregious bits are quoted here if you can’t access DWF. It’s also on Fandom Wank.
Current Mood: 
pessimistic
19 Responses to “The Asshattery Just Keeps On Coming”
a_white_rain on September 8, 2008 6:34 pm | Link
This is me headdesking.
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rusty-halo on September 8, 2008 6:42 pm | Link
Apparently this guy comes from the Laura Hale school of “you’d better friendslock all your posts, because anything you post publicly on the internet is free for me to steal and profit from.” :P
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a_white_rain on September 8, 2008 6:44 pm | Link
I think he should take classes on respect.
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rusty-halo on September 8, 2008 6:52 pm | Link
His condescension is kind of stunning. Nice mix of “clueless” and “arrogant” he’s got going there as well. “But how could I be expected to understand the peculiar customs of this strange ‘LiveJournal’ tribe that I quoted 5,000 words from?!” and “Wah, poor me, everyone’s so meeeean. The silly little women should be flattered that I used their words in my big manly published book.”
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Paratti on September 8, 2008 6:50 pm | Link
Thanks for the support, mate.
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rusty-halo on September 8, 2008 6:54 pm | Link
Negative Amazon reviews. Hit him where it’ll hurt most. I’ll leave one as soon as Amazon US enables them.
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Lelah on September 8, 2008 7:05 pm | Link
Has someone who was plagiarized from contacted the publisher? With legal threats? Because I would.
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Paratti on September 8, 2008 7:15 pm | Link
He co-owns the publisher:(
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netweight on September 8, 2008 8:32 pm | Link
You know, there’s something to be said about how the closing of Lexicongate came right in the heels of this. I’m not sure exactly WHAT, but definitely something.
On the other hand, I’d like to know which kind of academia they’re doing that “it is absolutely acceptable to quote small chunks” of texts and why has no one seen fit to inform my teachers of the acceptability of this practice. As it would make my life so much easier. -.-
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rusty-halo on September 9, 2008 11:39 am | Link
LOL. I’d also like to know how an unofficial tie-in written to cash in on someone else’s TV series counts as “academia”!
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Melody on September 8, 2008 8:51 pm | Link
I just wanted to post that even though I am in no way involved in this fandom (save for my enjoyment of ‘Torchwood’) I am definately going to post this so any readers of my journal can see it. Because self-important windbags are unfortunately not fandom-specific and it would cut into me to see another fandom ignorant of the same self-serving crap. It’s bad enough when you have hack fanfic writers steal your stuff. But when someone just ‘assumes’ you’ll be ok with the press you get from them randomly deeming your thoughts worthy enough to be included in their big, important, mostly-self-published, un-official compendium?!
*headdesk*
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rusty-halo on September 9, 2008 11:36 am | Link
Thanks for spreading the word. The arrogance of this guy is stunning. Blaming the “incomprehensible netiquette” of LiveJournal instead of admitting that he screwed up? GRRR. >:(
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chloris on September 8, 2008 9:51 pm | Link
I’ve been reading about this and all I can think is ‘this is what male privilege looks like.’ He spent enough time in LJ to find the (female) reviewers that he liked the best but couldn’t be bothered to talk to any of them. And then expected them to be grateful to have their work used in a commercial publication.
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rusty-halo on September 9, 2008 11:31 am | Link
*sigh*
Yeah.
And I’m sure a lot of people would have been flattered if he’d asked permission. ARGH.
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redeem147 on September 9, 2008 11:18 am | Link
I read the first guide, without knowing he hadn’t contacted the writers. It’s not really filler – he has a very small section under each episode called ‘Fan response’ that follows the one called ‘press response’ where he does the same thing. All the quotes are credited. The majority of the book is his material. It’s a well-written, comprehensive guide, and screwing up this way can only hurt him.
He should have contacted the bloggers he used. And he shouldn’t be behaving like a jerk now.
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rusty-halo on September 9, 2008 11:30 am | Link
If he’d recognized what he’d done wrong, apologized sincerely, and promised to always ask and respect the authors’ wishes in the future, this whole thing would have blown over.
Instead he went with the textbook example of a passive-aggressive blame-the-victim fauxpology. *sigh*
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spikewriter on September 9, 2008 2:19 pm | Link
Because of this, I’m adding the following to all reviews currently posted and any reviews I post in the future:
A chunk of that thread is a prime example of fanboy entitlement, condescension and the tinge of misogyny that infects some areas of fandom — and why I stayed away for so long.
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rusty-halo on September 9, 2008 2:39 pm | Link
Maybe it’s not so much “Doctor Who fandom is full of assholes” as “Boy fandom is full of assholes, and DW is just the first time I’ve had the misfortune to encounter it”?
*sigh*
*misses Buffy fandom*
Do you mind if I add that permission notice to the “About” page of my journal? Not that a jerk like that guy would honor it, but it would be good to have it there to point to in case anything like this ever happens to me.
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spikewriter on September 9, 2008 5:02 pm | Link
Go for it. I put it up so that if people wanted to use something like that, they could take as a model or whatever. And, yeah, he probably wouldn’t honor it, but it would be real handy to be able to point to it.
I think you’re right about “Boy fandom” — DW isn’t the first time I’ve encoutered it. Straight SF fandom is rife with it, but it’s just a little more…open in DW fandom. Doesn’t help that the owner of DWF can be absolutely clueless himself; if he doesn’t see the harm in it, he doesn’t understand why others would. (I have long experience there. I like him, but there have been many times in the last twenty years that I seriously have considered smacking him into next Tuesday to put some sense into him.)
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