(no subject)
Nov. 2nd, 2010 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Okay, this really fucking pisses me off.
Fiction Alley, the biggest HP fanfic community (archives/forums) has decided it would be an excellent idea to apply to Pepsi Refresh's charitable giving program for $25,000 dollars. In fact, it's encouraging its large membership to vote for it three times a day!
This is a program for actual charities. Samples of who FA is competing with for the $25,000 dollars: Fight Against Human Trafficking & Empower Survivors, SWOOP in and build wheelchair ramps for people in need, Build A Handicap Accessible Playground At Lake Reba Park- Richmond, KY, Provide backpacks full of basic necessities to homeless veterans, Refurbish Computers for Children in Foster Care Living in Buffalo, NY. Competitive arts programs include: Commission a piece by an African-American composer for my students, Fund an instrumental loaner program for area youth, Create Disability2Ability.org an Audio Accessible Community Online. Seriously, I have not yet seen a single program that I think needs the money less than a HP fanfic site. Yet, somehow, Fiction Alley thinks that they're "no less deserving". After all, aren't they incorporated as a 501(c), too? Clearly being incorporated as a charity automatically makes you just as deserving of money as an organization dedicated to helping the homeless, right? Right?
And they're not even using the money primarily for new programs! If they, say, wanted to start a program helping people learn to write better, with a focus on younger authors, and needed money for that, that would be one thing (and I'd still say they probably should've gone for the $5,000 donation, rather than the $25,000 donation). I could actually see the educational value in that, though I'd raise my eyebrow that they're just raising money for a program like that as the HP fandom is starting to die down. But of the $25,000, $15,000 of it is going immediately to server costs and software upgrades.
I'm actually more pissed off about the software upgrades than the server fees, honestly. Server fees...are at least a problem faced by everyone who hosts a large site! And I can vaguely understand the thought process leading up to asking for help with them, even though I obviously don't agree. But software licenses? Oh my jesus fucking christ, get over yourselves and use free open source already. Seriously, open source may or may not have all the exact shiny stuff you need already, and probably has terrible instructions, but fuck it, you're the ones who wanted to run a giant HP site. If you don't have the skills to, learn or ask your membership for help. FA has a lot of people leading it and lending their skills to it - I have a very hard time believing that they really don't have access to the skills necessary to do it for free. Which basically means they're asking for charity for their ego-boosting hobby because they're too fucking lazy to do it themselves.
I am seriously pissed I ever even participated on that site, even if it has been at least 5 years since I even logged in. And if they actually win the charity money because of the size of their internet following, over the people who actually need the money, I am going to despise everything ever.
Fiction Alley, the biggest HP fanfic community (archives/forums) has decided it would be an excellent idea to apply to Pepsi Refresh's charitable giving program for $25,000 dollars. In fact, it's encouraging its large membership to vote for it three times a day!
This is a program for actual charities. Samples of who FA is competing with for the $25,000 dollars: Fight Against Human Trafficking & Empower Survivors, SWOOP in and build wheelchair ramps for people in need, Build A Handicap Accessible Playground At Lake Reba Park- Richmond, KY, Provide backpacks full of basic necessities to homeless veterans, Refurbish Computers for Children in Foster Care Living in Buffalo, NY. Competitive arts programs include: Commission a piece by an African-American composer for my students, Fund an instrumental loaner program for area youth, Create Disability2Ability.org an Audio Accessible Community Online. Seriously, I have not yet seen a single program that I think needs the money less than a HP fanfic site. Yet, somehow, Fiction Alley thinks that they're "no less deserving". After all, aren't they incorporated as a 501(c), too? Clearly being incorporated as a charity automatically makes you just as deserving of money as an organization dedicated to helping the homeless, right? Right?
And they're not even using the money primarily for new programs! If they, say, wanted to start a program helping people learn to write better, with a focus on younger authors, and needed money for that, that would be one thing (and I'd still say they probably should've gone for the $5,000 donation, rather than the $25,000 donation). I could actually see the educational value in that, though I'd raise my eyebrow that they're just raising money for a program like that as the HP fandom is starting to die down. But of the $25,000, $15,000 of it is going immediately to server costs and software upgrades.
I'm actually more pissed off about the software upgrades than the server fees, honestly. Server fees...are at least a problem faced by everyone who hosts a large site! And I can vaguely understand the thought process leading up to asking for help with them, even though I obviously don't agree. But software licenses? Oh my jesus fucking christ, get over yourselves and use free open source already. Seriously, open source may or may not have all the exact shiny stuff you need already, and probably has terrible instructions, but fuck it, you're the ones who wanted to run a giant HP site. If you don't have the skills to, learn or ask your membership for help. FA has a lot of people leading it and lending their skills to it - I have a very hard time believing that they really don't have access to the skills necessary to do it for free. Which basically means they're asking for charity for their ego-boosting hobby because they're too fucking lazy to do it themselves.
I am seriously pissed I ever even participated on that site, even if it has been at least 5 years since I even logged in. And if they actually win the charity money because of the size of their internet following, over the people who actually need the money, I am going to despise everything ever.
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Date: 2010-11-03 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 06:50 pm (UTC)Actually, "they never even tried," sums up most of my feelings on how they handled this! That and the shoddy communication and the wish-wash between WE NEED THIS MONEY TO KEEP THE SITE UP and WE HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO KEEP THE SITE UP BUT WE WANT TO EXPAND.
It's like they're trying to enrage people, goddamn.
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Date: 2010-11-03 07:22 pm (UTC)But! They didn't try a fundraiser or selling t-shirts or anything before applying for a grant entirely outside fandom, and are basically asking for money for tech stuff that...honestly, I'd be surprised if they couldn't find someone to help them for free if they were willing to put the effort into finding them. The bulk of the money is going for software upgrades, and I know for a fact that there's open source software that'll fulfill most their needs. I'd recommend a Drupal installation, either using phpBB or Drupal's default forums offhand, though I don't know the exact details of what they need in software. It would probably take some programming skills, especially getting everything imported over, but not... $9,000 worth.
I mean, even if they weren't competing against disabled kids for the money, they just aren't doing anything at all that makes it seem like they have a clue as to how to use the money for good. They could at least, idk, offer to release the resulting software as an open source resource for other fandoms that want to try to build a community like FA's. Or use the excess money all on education rather than spending $5,000 on a hypothetical HP fan movie. It's the combination of cluelessness and entitlement and pure lack of effort that just makes me augh forever.
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Date: 2010-11-03 09:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, exactly. I'm on a number of sites that exist entirely because of the users who have the ability to donate and are funded that way, and DW is honestly only one of them. And fandom generally doesn't want things to go away! We like stability and we like having things like fanfiction archives. Doing it this way is just… auuuuugh. SERIOUSLY, WHAT DID THEY HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH. I do not even know.
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Date: 2010-11-04 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 06:17 pm (UTC)They're... I mean they're honestly...
*has no words for the disgusting entitlement and fuckwittedness of this and is reduced to waving her hands around in incoherent outrage*
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Date: 2010-11-03 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-04 05:11 pm (UTC)No
I THINK DARWIN AWARDS WILL WANT TO HAVE A CHAT WITH THEM.
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Date: 2010-11-04 06:11 pm (UTC)On the plus side, they did back out! Eventually.