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Nov. 2nd, 2010 07:34 pmOkay, 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.
