Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Well, I did not intend to hurt Doreen's feelings. But let me describe how this played out from my point of view.

First, Doreen couldn't find the edit button. I think she posted about this about 15 times and sent me a few emails about it too.

Then, she let me and everybody know that she didn't like the basic structure of the entire project -- not enough interactivity, etc. Fair enough, okay.

Then, we took too long to get her post online, and had to hear about that.

Then came the whole line break fiasco. I don't know how many emails had to go back and forth about this. I'm sure Doreen is correct that something weird happened to her line breaks ... but everybody else is subject to the same conditions (it's HTML, after all, which has never been very flexible with regard to layout) and nobody else seems to keep having problems like this.

Then, when we finally got done talking about the line breaks ... she posted another message with a title that was too long for our title field, asking me to change our software so that our title field can accomodate her title.

At that point, yeah, I started to feel angry.

I am sorry I got angry, but please see this from my point of view. Imagine you are hosting a dinner for a lot of people. And one person announces that they don't like the decor. Then they don't like the soup. Then they don't like the salad. Then it's the wrong kind of bread, or there's dishwasher spots on the knife. At some point, a guy just puts his head in his hands and screams "LEAVE ME ALONE".

We have feelings too. I never claimed October Earth was perfect. As I wrote to Doreen yesterday (trying, and probably failing, to be polite), I don't feel I can take the responsibility to make sure she is ever going to be happy with the way her posts are going to appear there, and for this reason I don't think she should post there anymore.

I never said she was "banned". That's not the way I see this. I suggested that this was not likely to be a good experience for her, based on past results.

I just have my limits, and I think I reached them yesterday. That's all.

-- Levi

Hi Levi-

If you would like, I can publish our email exchanges here. I don't think you'd find that to be a good idea, though.

My request to fix my line breaks in my poem for me was not unreasonable.

It was ignored and dismissed. And the more it got ignored and dismissed, the more leery I became about whether you cared or not. I even went so far as to format a Word document and attach it to an email to you, showing the proper line breaks.

It's not my fault the edit button wasn't there for my use. I looked and looked and got reassured by my partner who looked with me that indeed, there was no edit button available to me. I didn't post about the missing edit button 15 times. I asked this community, many of whom were participaing in the project, if they could see the edit button so I could get some direction from others and find out whether it was my browser problem or whether others, too, didn't have an edit button. I had to ask somewhere! I didn't get any answer from you or your staff and you responded with a snappy, "Sorry, I can't help you. There's only one hour to edit."

Why do you have time to edit other people's material to correct grammar, correct spelling, correct punctuation, and correct capitalization at the beginning of sentences but couldn't take the time to fix my line breaks in my poem? I didn't understand this and still don't.

Perhaps the missing edit button had something to do with my using a Mac browser. I don't know. All I know is, it DID appear eventually when I revisted your site, but when I used it, still my line breaks were messed up and I asked you the simple task of correcting it when you had an opportunity.

My posts here about the project have been nothing but supportive and also replying to the posts of others who are disappointed that there is no interaction on the litkicks boards associated with this project. I certainly wasn't the only one saying it.

There are many participants in the current project who have posted their opinions here and other places on the net about how they think the project would work better. My replies to them and my posts myself were only for the support of litkicks because I've loved the place for 4 years and lived there. But my posts were not any more excessive than anybody else's who had input about the project for which there is no place to interact at your place.

Why am I being singled out?

If you don't want suggestions, my suggestion would be to post a message on your site which states how the project is being operated and tells people that you aren't interested in suggestions and not to send them to you. (Whoops! I made another suggestion! Darn it! Sorry!) To me, I think a joint effort such as this will prosper by considering the suggestions of participants.

Then, we took too long to get her post online, and had to hear about that.

You heard about that because you never published the piece. The piece was a reasonably well written piece, in keeping with the other pieces which had been published but I posted it at about 5PM and by midnight it wasn't published, with a note by it that says "NOT PUBLISHED". I wanted to know why.

If you want to offer rejection slips, that's fine. But if you do not notify your participants with a reason why their piece is rejected for publication while other similar pieces are being published, I suspect you will get continued inquiries from participants asking you why their pieces weren't published.

I have no qualm with your rejecting my work for publication. I would just like to have a reason and not if I am being ignored. You suggested I take a break. I don't want to take a break and I don't understand why you don't welcome my participation in the project.

If you have taken ANY of my posts here or anywhere on the net or my emails as anything other than constructive suggestions, then you have read my words wrong. ALL of my posts about the project have been posted to support your efforts and reply to others who had suggestions. All were posted in a positive, supportive way.

I am plenty happy to participate in your project and will continue to do so. I will no longer offer suggestions, however, since I know they aren't welcome.

I haven't seen my poem in reply to the Black & White issue published yet. It says "Not Yet Reviewed". Perhaps you haven't had time to read it.

I WAS having a good experience with the project and I can continue having a good experience with the project, but not if my posts are not published for no good reason.

You don't have to like my work and you don't have to publish it. But to tell me not to participate in your project based solely on the fact that you didn't have time or refused to correct my line breaks for me and you have misconstrued constructive suggestions for criticism, then that's just not right.

Of course, it's your project. You are the editor. And unless I have no way to post to your site, I will continue participating in the project.

If you find something I write as being worthy of publication to your efforts, please feel free to use it.

If you find my submissions unworthy of being included in the project, you are not required to publish them, of course! But please have the courtesy of offering me a valid reason for their rejection.

Again, I'm sorry you read my efforts to help your project as criticism. That's not at all how they are intended.