I’m late on this. I’m very much not plugged into what’s happening outside my own world because whenever I stick my head out of the cave there’s usually something unpleasant going on. Here’s the latest thing: Stephen King has just released a new book in print only – no digital version. This brought out the anti-print and anti-traditional publishing trolls and I read some unkind comments directed toward King because of this decision. Frankly, I don’t understand the criticism. Authors own the rights to their books and they can do whatever they want with them. If that means not releasing them in certain formats, then that’s entirely their business.
So, as I did a quick Google search on Stephen King with regard to this issue, I ran across this disgusting tidbit from the UK Daily Mail: Stephen King Gives to Maine Gun Control Group. According to this article he gave them a five-figure sum. He, also, wrote a book called, “Guns,” in which he purports to support the 2nd Amendment, which is the highest and oldest law in the land with regard to guns, even claims to own a few guns of his own, all while urging more gun control and mis-characterizing both American gun owners and the NRA (National Rifle Association) and displaying his ignorance about guns.
See review:
This all seems like a PR move since he, also, pulled his book, “Rage,” from the shelves, also (although, this was some time ago, back when school gun violence was becoming an issue in the news). King’s books are characterized by all kinds of violence and misogyny, so why pull this particular one? Well, this book was supposedly pulled by King after a copy of it was found in relation to a hostage situation in Kentucky, in which it seemed that the perpetrator was trying to carry out the plot of the book, which is about a school shooting. (Kentucky Youth Frees 11 Hostages and Surrenders, Associated Press, Published: September 19, 1989)
Isn’t it interesting that all of these celebrities who are, at least, partially responsible for depictions of violence with guns in popular culture are now hypocritically anti-gun?
Isn’t interesting, too, how many of them have guns of their own, have their own body guards and sometimes live in gated communities?
They want guns to protect themselves, but you are on your own.
If I could ask any of these people a question, I would ask them why they hate violent crime survivors – and, especially, women – so much?
Stephen King’s work is especially misogynistic (ie. The Shining and The Secret Window – both depict instances of domestic violence and violence against women.) Yet, it appears that he and other celebrities, would sacrifice the safety of people in the U.S. and sacrifice the law (the 2nd Amendment) that protects us for the sake of their own pathetic careers – as a public relations move. Have they no souls?
{pd}
Stephen King is, also, a 6′ 4″ tall, ghoulishly ugly man, which means he has no idea what it is like to be a 5′ 2″ tall woman, who has dealt with threats of bodily harm from strangers since the age of 12. See my Rant on Height Discrimination Against Shorter Women and Men, in which I describe how most perpetrators of violence (against me and other women) are huge men who choose petite victims. Apparently, King feels that we have no right to defend ourselves from people like him, however we see fit to do so.
Why do these gun control advocates hate those of us who have had to cope with stalkers? Rape and threats of rape in our own home? The death of our family members? Why do they want to leave us defenseless, so that those who want to harm us can finally get the job done and completely obliterate us?
What kind of selfish, evil person do you have to be to be a gun control advocate in the face of the epidemic of rape and violence against women in this country?
Furthermore, it takes a special kind of sell-out to use your celebrity influence to publicly advocate the overthrow of the 2nd Amendment, which protects the basic human right to self-defense, merely as a public relations move. That is really low.
If you are not on the side of victims and survivors, then you are on the side of the perpetrators of violent crimes. It’s that simple.
Video with hypocritical anti-self-defense celebrities advocating against the 2nd Amendment, which is one of the most basic protections of human rights in the U.S.:
King and other celebrity hypocrites, as well as media dunderheads, could benefit by listening to this video before opening their stupid mouths on the subject of guns:
A crazy person in charge… Oops! I just invoked Godwin’s law! Discussion over! {PD}
This rant is about abusive moderators in online forums. Unfortunately, forum members aren’t the lone source of abusive and insane behavior in online forums. In my experience, it is common for moderators to be not quite right in the head.
Once upon a time, back in the late 1990s I was a regular member of an online forum. It was a popular one that was moderated solely by the owner of the forum. There were some interesting personalities on there and I learned a lot about effective written communication there. As this popular forum grew, it became increasingly abusive and as many of the regular posters shared details of their personal lives there, it became apparent that many of them were truly mentally ill. Lots of them had diagnosed mental conditions of some kind and many were on medication. It got to the point where some posters there began warning others about all the psychos at this particular forum. Eventually, the crazies pretty much took over and the forum seemed to become a caricature of itself. Finally, the owner sadly shut it down.
But, a large group of dedicated, regular members were not ready for it to go away and one of them established her own forum and invited all the members to join. At the new forum, the usual discussions and occasional flame wars went on and things didn’t seem all that different. After a while, I began to realize that the owner and moderator of this forum was using multiple User IDs. She had her regular account and, at least, one sock puppet account. A sock puppet, for anyone unfamiliar with this term, is a fraudulent secondary account someone establishes in order to pretend to be someone else.
Using her sock puppet IDs, this apparently schizophrenic moderator would pose as other posters in order to start heated discussions, hurl insults and instigate all kinds of problems. While she was doing this, she, also, falsely accused other posters of having fraudlent accounts. She claimed she knew they were fake accounts because she could see that the IP addresses were the same, etc. But, she was the one who had the multiple accounts and was starting arguments with “herself” and other posters so she could step in and moderate them.
This completely insane person, also, had access to people’s e-mail addresses, which they used to sign up for an account. The entire forum turned into an opportunity for this crazy person to lure people in, gain some measure of control over them, then feed off the emotional chaos she manufactured. In other words, this person was probably a narcissist or a psychotic or had some other kind of mental disorder. She was from that pool of people from the original forum, many of whom were suffering from serious mental illnesses.
Now, apart from insanity, why would anyone want to own or moderate a forum?
The answer is, of course, money.
How Forums Make Money
{pd}
Back in the 1990s, there were not a lot of affiliate programs and there was no Google AdSense. Amazon started the first online affiliate program, but just as it is now, it didn’t pay well then, either. It might generate enough money for the forum owner to cover part of the cost of hosting and domain. They, also, operated off PayPal donations from regular forum users.
But, 15 years later, things have changed a lot. People have forums usually either to promote products they’re selling or to generate passive income through advertising revenues. When you go to a forum and you see lots of ads, then you know this is how they’re doing it. Forums that don’t have ads are usually support forums for a product or service.
Many big forums these days don’t employ a lot of human moderators. Instead, they are moderated by some kind of automated complaint and review process or automatic filtering.
But, a few larger forums still use human moderators – sometimes multiple moderators. Sometimes they are the owner of the forum, but if it’s a very large one, they have to find other people to moderate. Usually, these people are unpaid volunteers. Sometimes they are personal friends of the site owner, although more often they are frequent posters at the forum who volunteer for the job.
While there are some basic guidelines that can be given to forum moderators to help them do their jobs more effectively, there is nothing to do about the fact that many, if not most, people who volunteer to be moderators are personality disordered individuals. Some of these volunteers are narcissists who enjoy the sense of power and adulation that comes from the position of being a moderator. At many forums – and I have complained most recently about the Writ’ers Cafe at KBoards (formerly Kindleboards) because I have seen outrageous examples of this relationship there – the moderators are like some sort of gods who are never to be questioned and always to be praised and worshiped by the members of the forum. This is the narcissist-psychopant pairing I have previously ranted about – they go together like bread and butter.
Moderators set the tone at a forum, so if they’re crazy, then it quickly becomes a congregation of crazy posters as more normal people who want to join the discussion are soon repelled by their online activities or actually bullied off the forum because they are not properly participating in the mentally ill social dynamics of the forum.
As long as the core of crazies remains, the forum can continue to make money and that’s the most important thing in the case of forums that have advertisements everywhere. A heated discussion that turns into an explosion brings lots of visitors to their forum. If it’s bad enough, it generates discussion elsewhere online, which means more visitors to the site and more visitors means more revenues for the owners. It plumps their monthly visitor totals and if visitors click on ads, it increases their affiliate revenues.
So, these are the reasons how and why a forum can function with crazy moderators and equally crazy members and continue to generate revenues for the owner. And, what do the volunteer moderators get out of it? They get to feed. They get their narcissistic “supply.” It’s kind of like paying musicians in beer to play at your night club. It’s not money, but it’s something they crave, so they’ll work for it.
Conclusion
Don’t get caught in the devilish snares of forums run by crazy moderators. {pd}
I will conclude by reiterating some of the things I’ve said in previous rants revolving around this subject, particularly about writer’s forums like the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards that encourages you to share information about yourself upfront, although this applies to any online forums.
Remember: When you sign up somewhere or even place a comment somewhere online – like at a blog (like this one) – you are leaving information someone can use to trace you. You never know who you’re dealing with online and I swear there is an increasing number of crazy people everywhere right now. This means you do not know if the owners and moderators of the forum are stable people or if they’re sociopaths or psychotics who are going to track you down and cause trouble for you. This has happened to people. Furthermore, there’s a very good chance – in fact, I’d say it’s 100% in a forum of any size – that you are posting along side people who have serious mental disorders.
Therefore…
Do not sign up with your regular e-mail address. Use a throw-away email account that cannot be traced to you.
Choose a throw-away email name and a UserID at the forum that have absolutely nothing to do with you, ie. your preferences for anything whatsoever, where you live, your interests, etc. (If you like knitting, choose a handle that has something to do with skydiving; if your favorite food is hamburgers, then pick a handle that has something to do with Chinese food; and so on…). Also, choose something common that would be difficult to trace anywhere and never use it anywhere else except for at that particular forum.
Do not provide personal information about yourself of any kind – obviously never give financial information. Don’t brag about your income, what you own, your children, your pets, etc. In writing forums do not talk about your work. Certainly, do not provide links to where your books can be found – despite whatever they’re telling you, a help forum where you interact with other authors is not the place to market your books!
Also, do not post picture of yourself or your family – especially if you are a woman, do not post a picture of yourself. Do not post pictures of your children for the same reason. There are sickos online who will become fixated on you or your child just based on a glimpse of a photo – it has happened to me and countless other women and it can ruin your life. So, be very careful.
In fact, do not post any photos, at all – especially those taken with a camera that can provide your GPS (Global Positioning System) location – like a cell phone photo can – to someone who might want to harm you. These photos are stamped with the latitude and longitude at which they were taken, so even if you take a picture of your pet gremlin frolicking in the grass of your backyard, someone could use that picture to locate you.
You don’t have to do or say anything wrong in a forum to have a problem. Just asking the wrong question over at a place like Writer’s Cafe Kboards can cause some people to go crazy and start harassing you – pretty soon, you’ll have a mob of them at a forum with a major narcissist-sycophant dynamic going on. See the “Rant on Kindleboards or Kboards Writer’s Cafe.”)
Get the information you need from the forum and get out. Remember, the way these forums make money is by your visits and the content you provide them with. When you type something at a forum – they own it – you are voluntarily contributing valuable content to their site, from which they profit. Keep that in mind and ask yourself if you want to contribute content to a site owned and run by crazy, abusive people. If you run across a forum like that – don’t feed the vampiric moderators or help fatten the owners’ profits by voluntarily contributing your content – especially if you are someone full of valuable insights. It won’t be appreciated by such people, anyway.
Read More About Crazy, Abusive Posters and Moderators in Online Forums:
Good general article on the subject of Online Forum Bullies. It advises reporting forum bullies to the moderators, but this is useless advice if you have moderators who are, themselves, bullies and enjoy online bloodsports. Some personal stories of online forum bulllying are shared in the comments section at the end: http://chataboutyou.com/online-forum-bully
Interesting article about what to do if you own a forum and your moderators go bad. The comments section has personal stories of being bullied by cliquish posters and crazy moderators. This quote entitled “Scumbag Moderators” is mind-blowing because I’d swear they were talking about the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards because it describes exactly what goes on there – “I know a forum with scumbag moderators. The place is like a cult gathering. The mods will arbitrarily take issue with someone, almost always a new member, but not often enough for people to realize that the mods are a-holes – and they will make them feel unwelcome and treated unfairly… …It is truly a disgusting collection of egos.” Read more at the following link: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/013440.html
Videos About Bad Behavior on Message Boards
I recommend listening to this video, but not watching it – the guy is eating and he has very poor table manners, but he makes some interesting points. Warning for some offensive language:
This rant is on a phenomenon I have experienced both in real life and online in the past three years. I don’t remember it ever happening before that time, so I’m wondering if it is some kind of new trend. At first I thought it was just men bringing up the subject of rape to women they don’t know out of the blue. But, after more consideration, I realize this is something they do when they are angry about something – it may not be anything related to you, but they are feeling frustrated so they automatically think of grabbing their dicks and doing some violent thing to a woman – otherwise, why are they talking about it?
It seems to me that more and more men are obsessed with rape and they feel free to bring the subject up with women they just met or have never met (as is the case online). Why do some men automatically think of their crotches and rape when they get angry about something? And, why do they direct their aggression at whatever woman is handy at the moment? I don’t have answers, just questions and some incidents to share with you as I try to sort out the reasons for this bizarre behavior for myself.
In a previous rant, I’ve talked about huge and tall men I’ve never met before instantaneously becoming angry with me, such as the case when I was in Germany and several men had to hold another man back who wanted to attack me while I was quietly sitting in a chair. After becoming increasingly agitated and telling me, in English, that I should be gang raped by black men, he had to be held down to prevent him from attacking me. A strong element in these face-to-face instances is that the men are very large compared to me. It may not be a factor, but it goes with my big and tall men hating short, small women (and men) theory, which is discussed in the Rant on Height Discrimination Against Women and Men.
What I just described was a very direct threat of assault and possibly rape, but other instances are less direct, but still seem like threats to me.
People talk about the things that revolve in their minds. This is a fact. If you’re not thinking about it first, you’re not going to say it. The thought must precede the words. So, it’s clear to me that a lot of men walk around thinking about rape quite a lot.
I no longer deal with the public much and I like it that way because of the disturbing encounters I have with people when I do talk to them – not the little old ladies at the grocery store, but men – usually huge men.
The last time I had to deal with the public was when I was helping out a friend with his store by taking his place one night a week while he was recovering from surgery. A lot of my customers were geriatric and I can’t tell you how disgusted I am at the behavior of these men, old enough to be my father or grandfather, right in front of their wives. Apparently, when they see you as a clerk standing behind a desk, they feel you are some sort of captive or you are of some lower status than them and, therefore, have to put up with their perverted behavior. I coped with that – barely – one night a week for a few weeks.
Then, the very last evening I worked in this place, a man came in and I don’t know how he got on this topic, but he began a long racist tirade, which went on and on and to which I was held a polite captive. At one point, he began repeating over and over again about how I would be raped by black men if I tried to walk across town. He didn’t just say it once, but repeatedly. Finally closing time came. There was, also, another man there who was doing some shopping, for which I was grateful and the rape fanatic finally left. But, I was pretty shaken up by the long racist tirade in which the man repeatedly talked about me being raped.
I don’t understand the racist component that some people want to throw into the problem of rape. (Race is irrelevant to a rape survivor – all rapists are inhuman monsters to us.) I’ve been told more than once that I should be gang raped by black men or Mexicans. Why do men I don’t know express to me these fantasies of me being gang raped by anyone? Clearly, it’s because they have rape on their minds.
Furthermore, I realized that they think of rape when they’re angry and much like actual rapists, they will target any woman who is handy.
I’ve had similar experiences online. I had it once with someone from YouTube, which is overrun with MRAs (Men’s Rights Advocates). There I was told by a stranger that I should be gang raped by Mexicans because I expressed an opinion that differed from someone else’s.
But, I had the subject of rape brought up to me in anger, at least, four times by strange men in the short time I participated at the Kindleboards (now Kboards) Writer’s Cafe forum. And, when I objected to the last two people who brought it up, the moderators protected the perpetrators and enabled (if not encouraged) them to continue with their bullying behavior – which I was told (by one of the male moderators there) to just forget, since I was the real problem. In my experience and observation, this particular discussion board has a culture of misogyny. By contrast, I’ve been a life-time, member of another popular forum for over three years and I’ve never had a problem with anyone doing something like this.
In every case in the online forum when this happened, it was a man who was angry with me for my opinion or something innocent thing I said. Whenever they’re angry they automatically think of their crotches and rape.
I think about these instances every so often, but what made me think of them, again, today was running across this article at Salon.com about an Indie author who is very active over at the Kboard Writer’s Cafe. He has a bizarre sycophantic following at this misogynistic forum, so it really was no surprise to me that he wrote an article called “The Bitch from WorldCon,” which he later deleted. See part or all of the original article here and here. This is another case of indie authors behaving badly (see my Rant on Indie Authors Behaving Badly) and an example of another type of behavior some of the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards members are known for, which is trying to bully authors and publishers associated with traditional publishing houses.
According to the original blogpost, the author in question (His name is Hugh Howey) disagreed with something a woman, who was a publishing agent, said and he wrote that in his anger he thought of grabbing his crotch and ends his online tirade by telling her to “Suck it, bitch!” There’s a lot more to his misogynistic ranting, but this seemed to me to be the highlight. And, again, it begs the question: Why do men immediately think of their crotches and the commission of acts of sexual violence against women when they become angry?
A woman with her consort, the devil. Somebody, please, wake me up when the 21st century finally arrives – I’m still waiting.
This author is supposedly known for writing strong, fictional, female characters (although a couple of his books are on a “Misogyny Books” list at Goodreads.com), so his misogynistic tirade was a disappointment, especially to some women. And, this is why authors – at least, some authors – really need professional help (for example, an agent or a traditional publisher). Ironically, as it turns out the woman, whom he referred to repeatedly as a “bitch,” a “she-devil” and a “demon” and whose appearance he hatefully ridiculed while he talks about slapping her and fantasizes about grabbing his crotch while calling her a bad name and to whom he finally makes the demand that she perform fellatio on him – all because she expressed a differing opinion about something – was correct, after all. Lest you think any of this is hyperbole, see this article with screen captures of the original post before it was deleted at this link right here. And, there’s more, including the original comments before those were deleted here: http://cuddlebuggery.com/blog/2013/04/15/buzz-worthy-news-15th-april-2013/
I thought long and hard about how best to respond to your posts, and I realized that what I’d really like—and what would be best for you under the circumstances—is for you to be raped.
Now, please understand that I don’t say this because of any sexual feeling or desire to exercise power on my part. Nor do I want to see you silenced, disempowered or devalued as a person or a woman. It’s just clear to me that you struggle with parsing and interpreting the words of others, and rather than standing by and watching you writhe in anguished futility, hamstrung by your own linguistic handicaps and tortured by internet trolls, I submit to you that a hands on demonstration of the difference between deed and word might do you a world of good.
Besides, it’ll give you a good story to tell at the survivors meetings, and provide you with a little more authenticity and street cred when you share your experiences and opinions with others. Really and truly, I have nothing but your best interests at heart.
Here’s hoping you have a truly wonderful day, lady!
What’s the deal with this?
I don’t have any answers for why this is happening now – or why it is happening, at all, for that matter. It seems like something that didn’t happen before a few years ago (apart from direct threats of rape). To me these instances, in which strange men bring up the subject of rape to a woman, seem like a subtle (indirect) threat of rape when they feel that a more direct one cannot be made. It’s, also, disturbing that so many men are running around fantasizing about me or other women being gang raped or engaging in rape fantasies whenever they become angry with us (sometimes because we express an opinion about something that differs from theirs) or just angry, in general.
It seems to me that something in the culture has changed for the worse that this is now acceptable. Unfortunately, I have no solution. I try to avoid places online where there is a culture of misogyny, although, sometimes you can get a nasty surprise in what, at first, looks like a safe place. For the sake of my health, sense of well-being and physical safety, I have just stopped talking to all but a couple of men who – so far – haven’t done this kind of thing to me.
Jail Cell – This is the place fraudsters, pirates and other thieves belong! Author Andrew Bardwell from Cleveland, Ohio, USA Copyright::Creative Commons
This rant is specifically about serial returners of ebooks at Amazon.com – it’s not about returns of ebooks anywhere else or the return of paperbacks, because this is not much of a problem right now. But, the problem of serial ebook returners at Amazon is getting worse – despite an alleged crackdown on them in January this year.
What is a serial returner, you ask?
A serial returner is a habitual returner of retail merchandise – in this case, ebooks. They buy and return them, one after the other.
While there are legitimate reasons for returns, such as a defective product, there is no reason for someone to go through an entire author’s or publisher’s list, buying and returning books in succession.
Why are they doing this?
Like other criminally-minded people, they’re doing it because they can. And, they can because Amazon is allowing it to happen.
Serial returning is piracy and like all other pirates, they are dishonest people who don’t mind committing fraud, especially if they can do it within Amazon’s Terms of Service and not get in any serious trouble.
Petition to Stop E-book Refund Fraud at Amazon at Change.org
Authors upset about returns, in general, have signed a petition at Change.org requesting Amazon.com to, at least, stop taking returns on books that have been read. Although, it doesn’t specifically address the problem of serial returners, who sometimes go through an author’s entire series of books in a set, buying and returning them, it’s something.
The following link goes to a very short article, called Return to Sender: Why Return Ebooks?, which is proceeded by a bunch of comments about the above petition. The article isn’t much, but some of the comments are interesting. Some justify this form of piracy just like pirates always justify their nefarious activities to the victims. They say, “Live with it!” – “It’s not really hurting you.” They, also, justify theft of books when they cannot afford them, although ebooks are extremely affordable (many between .99 and 2.99).
But, the best comment is # 14 by Ekatarina Sayanova who says:
“Returning an ebook because you don’t “like” it is promoting what essentially amounts to piracy. Whether or not you will like a story is the chance you take. Caveat emptor. Besides, you can download a free preview. If you buy the book after reading the preview and don’t like the book, tough. Get over it and move on.”
“The only valid reason to “return” an ebook would be if the file was corrupted and you were not able to access it on your ereader, or it did not display properly. A refund would be issued only if, after downloading the second file, the file still didn’t work properly. Because free previews are available, there is absolutely no reason to be permitted to return an ebook for a full refund.”
“Here’s what everyone is refusing to understand: Those returned books are resold and the author does not make a single penny on the resales. The sale of a copyrighted work without royalties paid to the author is piracy – plain and simple. Amazon gets away with it because of a loophole in the law or because they are (paraphrasing) “too big to prosecute”.”
“I’m an editor. I bust my professional rear end working with my author clients to get the best possible story out to the readers. I’m not a charity and cannot work for nothing. Those who complain about stories that need editing – guess what? Piracy is one of the reasons why authors (indy authors especially) sometimes can’t make enough to hire professional editors. (Don’t get me started on what small publishers charge authors for editing.) There is nothing we’d like better than to see to it that every ebook sold went out without errors and read as smooth as the finest brandy feels going down the throat. It isn’t going to happen if the author can’t make money because the work they sweat blood over is being sold without them getting compensation.”
“So, the next time you return that ebook because you don’t “like” it and you didn’t take the time to read the preview, or simply because you just don’t “like it” , or because you think you can get away with something, remember that book is someone’s livelihood. How would you like to put a year of your life into something and see it stolen out from under you? Hmmmmmm?”
A Witch Rants 