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troped-fanfic-challenge · 3 years

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*This event has ended! Click the links in the Timeline to see individual rounds, prompts, fics, voting, and results!*

Hey, Tropesters! It’s time for another TROPED event, but this time the prompts will be in the form of MOODBOARDS! Made by yours truly, the moodboards function as the inspiration for the fics written for this event! We've got four exciting themes picked out, and the boards are already looking great, so we hope you're excited! This event will be a little different from the others that we have put on, so keep reading for more info!

How It Works:

Firstly, this is our first ever TROPED Multi-Fandom event, so share this around! We would love to get fics from fandoms we've never had for TROPED before! All Fandoms are welcome and there is in no minimum participation required for this event!Because this is a Multi-Fandom event, the voting process and the overall event structure will be a little different!

No Sign-Ups Required! We will release the prompts right here on the TROPED tumblr and you will submit your fics to the AO3 Collection! The Writing Periods will be on a rolling basis, with a moodboard dropping every ten (10) days, but fear not! If you are inspired for a round later in the event, you can still submit a fic to be included in Voting! We will simply drop the next board, but nothing will officially close or end until the end of the full Writing Period, on August 25th! Fics will be accepted into the official collection for the entirety of the event! **You will write four or more (4+) separate fanfics inspired by each round, but you do not have to participate in each and every round.**

Moodboard Prompts! As we said, the prompts for this event will be in the form of MOODBOARDS!!! Because photos are open to such a wide range of interpretations, and inspiration from a moodboard can come in all shapes and sizes, this event is much less strict in terms of 'sticking to the prompt'! We will be releasing the moodboards with a little blurb about what it is we envisioned when putting them together, but if inspiration strikes and takes you in another direction, go for it! Pretty much anything goes, as long as it fits with our standard rules! As a general rule, we'd like you to take each of the nine (9) photos and find a way to include that imagery in your fic in some way. Try to find a way to incorporate the concepts and inspirations you get from each photo into your story! Similar to the tropes used in our traditional TROPED format, the photos in the moodboards should matter to your story. You should try to have the photos not be inconsequential moments within your fic, but rather make the moments in the moodboard plot relevant!

All Pairings Allowed! TROPED is always a neutral space for any and all ships! We encourage [and sometimes require ;)] rare pairs, platonic pairings, and other out of the box dynamics within our fics! TROPED is, by design, a positive fandom space for everyone, and focusing on allowing and celebrating any and all pairings (that are allowed within the rules) is a big part of that! **Please feel free to write any pairing (within our rules) from the Fandom of your choosing. You do not have to write the same Fandom/Pairing for each round!**

**As a note, the photos in the moodboards are not definitive! A lot of stock photos are white, and straight, but we chose photos simply for the ✨vibes✨ of the photo, not the pairings themselves!! You can implement those scenes into your fics with any characters or combos, as long as it complies with our relationship rules!!**

This event will be Optionally Anonymous! Because the voting for this event is much more chill, and the writing period will be open for over a month, we will not require this event to be anonymous! However, if you would like to have your fic be anonymous, we will be sharing a small tutorial on how to make your fics anonymous and how to remove them from being anonymous sometime before the event starts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Voting! The voting for this event will be pretty simple! We will keep a list of all fics submitted for each event, and then at the end there will be a "best overall" poll for each round, along with some bonus polls! The voting will be based on the fics as a whole, and will include all fandoms together! If you do not want your fic included in the voting, you can let us know, or you can simply upload your fic to our non-anon collection instead! We will still share it along with the other fics and it will be included in all masterlists! We will provide a link to SurveyMonkey when voting begins.

For the OG Tropesters: As an added bonus for our long time The 100 fandom writers, we've cooked up an extra special little challenge for you! We will be including a special tenth (10th!!) photo, just for you! The 10th photo will be of a character of our choosing from The 100 (obviously) for you to include in your fic! We will be releasing the character we've chosen for each round when we drop the moodboard, so keep your eyes peeled!

Timeline:

Writing Period Dates: July 15th - August 25th!

Moodboard for R1 : July 15th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R2 : July 25th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R3 : August 4th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R4 : August 14th at 12:00am

End of Visual Writing Period: August 25th at 3:00am PST/6:00am EST [EXTENSION UNTIL SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH AT 8:00 AM EST!]

Voting: August 28th at 12:00pm - August 30th at 11:59pm

Winners: August 31st!

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified!

Rules:

If you are a veteran to our TROPED Challenges, the rules below are mostly the same as before, but any newbies joining the fun should definitely take a look below!

This competition was created to get creative and put out different fics into the world, and to create a fun, positive fandom experience for everyone! In order to ensure that we achieve that goal of a positive experience, here are a few rules and guidelines that must be followed!The requirements for the fics entered into the competition will be:

Must include Characters from your specific chosen Fandom

Must try to fit the Theme of each round! While this event is a lot looser, each board will have a clear concept or theme for you to use in your fics!

Must try to use ALL of the pictures selected for the round. Each of the 9 photos are meant to be taken and turned into scenes, images, or themes within your story! This isn't hard and fast, but we encourage you to try to utilize the boards in a specific way, beyond just the general ✨vibes✨ of the board!

All fics must be 10,000 words or less! (We have allowed a 500 word buffer to allow for fics that are not quite finished at the 10k mark to get wrapped up!) There is no minimum word count.

All ratings G through M are welcome, but E Rated fics are not allowed. Please be aware that some fics may not be everyone’s thing! Write what you like, but the voting is public so just keep that in mind!

Multiple Entries Allowed. We love when authors are able to pump out multiple fics for a single prompt! If you would like them to be considered seperately for voting, please be sure they are standalone fics! If you end up writing multiple chapters or parts of one fic, let us know! We will only include one for voting but we will be sure to share all the parts!

Collaborations! We've had some people ask about collaborations, and we're all for it! If you and a friend would like to write a fic together, go for it! Just let us know who to credit when we share the fics on our masterlists and we will be sure to tag anyone involved!

You will be disqualified if you include:

Smut! Due to the chance that some fandoms might include a cast of all underage characters, we have decided to exclude smut. All ratings G-M are allowed!

Rape!

Underage! This means no High School AU with sex, no teacher/student if the student is underage, zero adult/under 18 romantic relationships!

Incest! Incest includes adopted siblings, foster siblings, parent/child, step siblings, biological siblings, or any familial relationship, blood related or not!

Negativity towards any character or ship! This includes any sort of abuse perpetrated by a character intending to paint them in a negative light, negative statements about a character intended purely to express your dislike of a character, or things of that nature. You MAY write characters as villains! Writing a character as a villain asks the audience to disagree with the characters motivations and choices, not to dislike the character on principle. The basis of this rule is that your fic should not be written as a way to simply express your dislike of a character.

Plagiarism! While the tropes we use in our challenges are common and communal, the stories and words you create must be your own! Fanfiction is about transformative work, and taking concepts from other writers is natural! Inspiration can come from lots of places, but rewriting someone else’s fic is unacceptable. *Following our own rules, we want to let you know that all photos used in the TROPED: VISUAL Moodboards are from Unsplash.com —a source for freely-usable images.*

This is meant to be a fun and positive experience for everyone. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone if we are reading their fic and we think it violates any of our rules!

Because this challenge is NOT completely anonymous, feel free to share your fics and post about them to your hearts content! If you wish to remain anonymous until after voting, you can, of course, wait and post about your fics then! The non-anon only applies to this event, though, so if you come back to write for us in the future be sure to keep those lips zipped!

Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, the TROPED Instagram, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release our prompts in these places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!!

If you have any questions about this event, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box or DM a Mod (@dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire)!

#TROPED: VISUAL #troped visual #Multi Fandom Event #multi fandom fanfiction #troped: multifandom #multifandom #long post

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comicteaparty · 5 years

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February 22nd-February 28th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from February 22nd, 2020 to February 28th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

How do you deal with people shipping non-canon ships for your story?

Deo101 [Millennium]

To be completely honest, I've only had one person ever ship a non canon/endgame thing. I kinda just ignored it. I think I would in general just ignore it, no matter how many people did ship a non canon thing. But it does make me uncomfortable

carcarchu

I once had a professor tell me "once you release your story to the world it no longer belongs to you" and i think he was right. once your story is shared with others it can no longer be said to be solely your creation anymore. you can't stop other people from shipping non-canon ships and even if you want to discourage it it's kind of beyond your hands at that point. other people's interpretations of your work is something you have to accept as a creator even if you find it unsavoury

Tuyetnhi

this is always in the back of my mind so uh, I let folks be and try not to search up fandom pics of my comic. at the US at least, I remember reading that creators who are currently writing/creating a story and it's not up to completion, anything like viewing fanart or reading fanfiction of alternative interpretations is not advised. So you have to stow it away till the story is thoroughly done, then you can just check out what fans are doing rip. I think it's aimed towards creators who have like NDA thing they're working on or if they're working with a publisher. still, I thought that's an important thing to keep in mind.

though I do get folks send me like single character fanart and really doesn't interfer with the story anyway so I accept those lmao

carcarchu

@Tuyetnhi that's for creators to not get sued for having their story turn out similar to people's fanfics

Tuyetnhi

aahhh :0

still er lmao. if the possibility is there, I rather not uh.... seek it lmao

especially like shipping fanfiction of my characters when the story isn't over yet lmao

eli [a winged tale]

I totally agree carcarchu. Readers can interpret character interactions through their own lenses and sometimes what we as creators intend in the story may be seen as a potential ship to varying degrees. I actually just had a conversation about this within my beta circle where a friend who hasn’t seen the whole script shipped a non canon pair and it was interesting! I personally don’t feel disturbed by it unless the pair had a large age difference/can potentially be unhealthy etc. There is a threshold I won’t cross but that tends to be quite high. Otherwise I just think it’s interesting and continue the actual story

Eilidh (Lady Changeling)

I haven't come across this with mine yet, but given that my story is deliberately non-romantic and the whole cast is aroace, I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone shipping any characters romantically. But that's very specific to my comic.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

To me, there are four levels of "non-canon" with regards to shipping. 1. You were supposed to ship this and get disappointed, so good job. The obvious example is the Mizuki-Cahe-Pejiba love triangle. Mizuki x Pejiba doesn't work out in the end, but it's not like it was a non-viable ship - if Mizuki x Pejiba wasn't compelling at all, it wouldn't have been much of a love triangle, now would it? 2. Didn't think of it myself, but I get the dynamic you're going for. One surprisingly common ship in the shipping contest poll was Taci x Coruby, which isn't a ship I was deliberately teasing... but, like, I get it? Coruby is outgoing, loyal, and makes lots of dad jokes. Taci is prickly, self-absorbed, backstabbing, and was (is? probably is) literally afraid of dad jokes. I can definitely see why people would want to see more of that dynamic. 3. ...Why? An example of this is Zaxaty x Mr. Enetoro, which showed up in the poll. Even ignoring the bad age gap (22 vs 50 which is like... all right... she's half your age but ok...) and the sexuality incompatibility (Zaxaty's only into women, Enetoro's not into anyone)... these two have literally never spoken to each other either on or off screen. Literally what drew you to this pairing??? Like I'd almost believe it was a mis-click on the poll over anyone actually thinking these two work together. 4. Bad, bad, very very bad. AKA "they're related", "one's underage", and/or "i know exactly why you want this ship, and I don't like it". For a while during the shipping poll's running, the third place ship was Mizuki x Nothing. First off, the age gap there is pretty gross, but I guess I can't expect readers to know that (Nothing is an immortal demon, but relative to other demons it's a kid so... someone's underage there). And second... I know exactly why people were shipping Mizuki with the giant demon that uses tendrils to mind control people, and I do not like that dynamic.

As for what I do about the ships in #3 or #4... so far, nothing, because they've been contained to the poll. If someone drew actual art of them, though, I'd probably tell them to stop, and I for sure wouldn't post the art on my fan-art page.

kayotics

I don’t have a very present fandom, at least in the sense that there’s any amount of shipping that’s unexpected. Or maybe it’s tucked away? I think the people who read my comic aren’t ones who make their own content. Either way, I’m pretty ok with shipping non-canon ships. I’d encourage it, really. I love the idea of people having fun with my characters in a way I didn’t expect. As for ships that are taboo... as long as they’re not hurting real people, I just don’t want to see it really or be made to be part of it. It would make me uncomfortable.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, how pushy/not pushy they are with Weird Ships is a big factor for me as well.

As long as they keep it to themselves, they can ship all the ships they want, no matter how icky. I'd prefer to not know if it's really icky.

So far there is only one Potentially Viable ship in my comic, though. And that Viable ship is very, very important to me. So if anyone ships one of the involved characters with someone else, I would seriously hope it's not because I've failed to develop the Viable Ship in a compelling manner. People are free to ship whoever, but don't let that be because of my own failure as a storyteller?

I've actually had anti-shippers against that Viable ship though lol, which may be relevant to the topic. What do you do when you get vocal anti-shippers of canon ships

I do think it is related, like another variation of "people sticking to their own thing with regards to ships."

kayotics

As a shipper: any crack ships I come up with is usually just because I like to explore the dynamic. Some people are more extreme about hating ships but... idk it’s probably just because they don’t like one of the characters for some reason

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Believable crackships can be a lot of fun to observe, as a non-shipper. Like I look at this amazingly well-written crackship and I'm like, wow, this is sorcery

sagaholmgaard

I haven't had it happen yet (my comic is less than a year old and doesn't have a lot of followers haha) But I'm really open about shipping! Much like @kayotics I would probably encourage it. I'm personally aroace and in my original writing I like to explore non-romantic relationships, but I know the appeal of shipping and tbh i ship my own ocs that aren't canon to the story/don't get explored in the comic because they're background characters for whatever reason. It would be genuinely fun to see if other people started exploring those ships on their own! Or things I haven't thought about! If something made me really uncomfortable, I would likely ignore it. If someone tried to get their non-canon ship to become canon that would be worse, no matter if i personally liked the ship or not, lol.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, people need to respect boundaries, always

kayotics

Yeah, definitely. It wouldn’t make me uncomfortable unless someone was trying to break into my personal boundaries

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It doesn’t happen so much currently with Phantomarine, because I just don’t have enough shippable characters yet (related, underage, or otherwise just kinda squicky). I wonder what will happen when I introduce more. But as long as people are interacting with my characters in a fun healthy way, but still respect my choices in the end, they can ship away in any (legal) direction. It’s honestly not a ship-heavy story. It’s far more about friendship and healing and rebuilding strength/trust after trauma - if any shipping were to happen, it would probably be in a sequel or continuation when everyone is... feeling a lot better

DanitheCarutor

Depends on the characters. 90% of the time I don't care, I may even make jokes. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to see my hideous characters getting together, although there are two things that would make me a little salty. 1. If there is a scene going on that I want readers to take seriously. Such as if there is a part in the story where someone is overwhelmed and having a mental break down, then another character comes over to help calm them down. It would be kinda rude to get a bunch of comments screaming "KISS THEM!", "KISS NOW!" Although that could just be me being a stick in the mud. 2. Anything involving Julian. They are currently not mentally stable enough to properly consent to any romantic endeavors, so when people try to ship other characters with them it's a little... eeeeh! Kinda non-con, and it feels a little gross. I try not to get on anyones ass about these, realizing no one means any harm, they may not even be full aware of the situation. (Especially with Julian since they're still functional enough to talk to people sometimes and hold down a job.) Normally I leave the comments be, they just kinda irk me sometimes.

em.rowene

Honestly, I think I'd be flattered to see more fan interaction with Fractured Magic. Even if it's a ship I don't really get, it would just be nice to know people are engaged with the story and like my characters enough to interact with them beyond just reading (though this answer's definitely coming from a place of having been publishing it only half a year and not having a huge readerbase yet) Someone making fanfic with my characters is actually a major goal of my writing, but I agree with the above people who said reading it before the story's done probably isn't a good idea. I don't think there's much legal risk to it (I actually wrote a major paper on this in law school) - there's only been one case even remotely analogous in the US. Someone wrote a Rocky fan script and sent it to the writers, and then the next Rocky movie had a similar plot and the person sued. The judge said if you make a derivative work (like fanfic), you can't sue the creators of the original copyright for infringement. But I do think it would be bad form bc it is really easy to be influenced by stuff like fanfiction of your own story, even if you don't mean to be

Mei

Thankfully I haven't had to deal with people shipping my characters from MHIAC with anybody else. But that's mostly because I've only actually introduced the two main characters, who are husbands, and one friend. I think it'd be super interesting to see how people view the character relationships once I introduce more of the cast. I'd be really curious too! I mean, I don't want people to try and break up the canon couple that's for sure... but I guess all the side characters are fair game for shipping if people choose to. I'd honestly be super flattered if people shipped any of my characters, it would feel like I'm doing something right. As long as there's no NSFW stuff because boy that'd make me uncomfortable.

chalcara

Shipping‘s fan stuff and just for fan, as long as you do it in your own space, go hog-wild. Have fun! Not gonna watch/read/view it, but have fun! People taking their headcanons as fact for the main-comic might end up a problem, but I‘ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

So far, I've only had people ship the canon main couple, so I haven't had problems yet. But honestly, I don't care who the readers ship for the most part, unless it's gross and/or illegal. For example, if they are related or underage... Other than that, I don't mind. It's all in good fun

Deo101 [Millennium]

I actually wanna add on to my comment: non canon ships only make me uncomfortable if they go against the Characters sexuality, or if it's an abusive ship or illegal. If it's not one of those then it doesn't bother me! My Characters are generally friends so I totally get someone wanting to ship two who won't be endgame

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I dunno. I just can't be bothered by stuff like that for multiple reasons. 1) Most of my characters don't talk about their sexuality in the comic. 2) Because of setting and time period, everyone expects everyone to be straight (which of course isn't true). 3) And I don't think readers typically mean anything bad by shipping people with each other that won't be together (again, unless it's gross or illegal).

One of my characters, for example, is aroace, but he doesn't even know that's a thing, because sexuality and mental health is not understood in this time period. So of course he hasn't mentioned that he's aroace at all. He is married to a woman, because of societal expectations, so likely he will be shipped with her. But their relationship is horrible, and it was definitely a marriage of convenience. So if readers decide to ship him with other people, I can't fault them, because they simply do not know.

Him being aroace is only in the subtext and in my heart.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I make my Characters sexualities pretty clear, so I consider it akin to homophobia to want to see my gay man with a lesbian

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

In your case, it's definitely a bit different, because you have made it obvious.

Capitania do Azar

Too bad @Deo101 [Millennium] i am preparing problematic ships right now (no I'm not)

I don't care about what people would ship, and I would be curious as to why people think this or that pair could work it's a very interesting way to see how people are interpreting the story and the characters

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I'm definitely scared of people shipping incestual relations in my comic, because there is a situation where characters are related, but it isn't known to the audience (yet)

And I really don't want that mistake to be made

Deo101 [Millennium]

Lia/luke shippers before the last star wars movie came out...

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yep

I'm like... soooo nervous right now

I can just feel the bad ships encroaching

Capitania do Azar

If people don't know can you blame them?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I think it's only bad if the ships persist after it's revealed

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I can't blame them, but I just don't want to think about it

sagaholmgaard

ack, good luck cronaj! I wanted to add that when it comes to shipping and canon sexualities i'm the same boat as you cronaj. I have my own idea that my main characters are pan and ace respectively, but it doesn't come up in the comic and they don't have the lingo for it during this time period, so I can't blame readers for making up their own headcanons and ships

I have comic ideas that are a lot more centered around sexuality and getting into a relationship. If i ever make them happen I'm sure I would mind a lot more it people's ships went against the characters' canon sexualities

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol, haha, I also have a pan character whose sexuality isn't revealed in comic XD

Like... A little bit of subtext, but not explicitly said

FeatheryJustice

I actually don't mind people shipping things in my comic that is non canon, because it just proves people read my comics. I myself love crack pairings and dumb things, so I treat their ships like crack pairings. I think an example in Teasday was someone joking about shipping Vander with Spyder, two characters who never met and I was like "Haha that's funny." Because it just proves they read my comic to even know the names at least.

Capitania do Azar

They never met but... If they did

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

I've had more readers want to date the characters themselves then ship them with another character, so it's hard to have a solid thought on how I'd feel with ships so far That being said however, i don't really mind ppl shipping as long as it's respectful to me and the readers boundaries. There's been people honestly wanting more interactions between characters that aren't shippable in my eyes, so i most likely would advert them if i saw ships i didn't agree with. That said, go wild!

Kat - The Yuri Canon

I get a lot of non-canon shipping, mostly because there are so many possibilities. Mostly I allow it, as long as they don't get too extreme or overly sexualize my characters. But I did have to stop some when they kept insisting my Ace go out with one of my characters. I finally had to say it just wasn't happening.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Its never happened to me, but if it did that would be fine I guess. I’m not about to change plans in how I write the story to spontaneously put characters together unless there was good chemistry maybe

I would be happy overall that people were engaging with my characters on that level

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I have only had one single ship comment in the 14 years I’ve been doing webcomics, and it was over a decade ago. But it was also an intensely uncomfortable one, where a reader was trying to ship my 14yo gay character with an adult female villain. Needless to say I put the brakes on that right away, and have never had a ship comment since.

But secretly I wish readers did occasionally ship my adult characters, because so long as they don’t get toxic, I think non canon shipping can be fun. If the reader doesn’t demand their ship be made canon or fight with people shipping a different pairing, I’d be all for it.

Ash🦀

Honestly I would love to see ships. I've never really had an audience for Foxes with Machine Guns, so seeing people care that much? I think I'd just be grateful. TBH I cried when I got a comment so someone having a whole ship? Of My OCs?? I'd probably end up sobbing like an idiot. They're all adults, ship away, you have my blessing.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

I personally love shipping, and in regards to my comic, I'm excited, but also nervous. I have a main ship that I push myself that so far a lot of readers have been really receptive to (Merlow/Nocturne <3). I also have a few more ships coming up... but in the meantime, I like to see theories, but I worry that either a) the ships I end up with will make folks unhappy, or b) folks will ship things that ignore a character's established orientation. Like, it's fairly clear Diana is a lesbian, but I already had a casual suggestion from a rl reader of her and Merlow getting together and I'm like. N no. No please. Please, just let them be besties, they will be best friends I promise but Merlow is not a lady.(edited)

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

See, I don't care about people having ~gross~ ships. I might not want to hear about it -- and if you expect it to become canon, you're probably out of luck -- but if a reader enjoys imagining or exploring it on their own time? I'm not gonna police them over that.

Just because a thing is illegal to do IRL, that doesn't mean it's illegal to imagine it or write about it. (If it was, I'd be in a whole lot of trouble...)

...not that it's really come up, since with my comics it seems like most people are happy to go with the canon mostly-healthy ships anyway, but.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Same with shipping against orientation -- if some reader wants to imagine an AU where the character realizes they've been bi the whole time after all, why not? The canon representation you wrote is still there. It's not gonna be compromised or erased unless you write that happening.

(And if the reader's imagination is more like "everyone is actually straight and some people, including these characters, just get temporarily confused"...I mean, at that point they have waaaay bigger problems than which webcomic characters they like to imagine kissing.)

kayotics

I think I gotta agree with Erin here. I’m not gonna police what people want to imagine. It’s not my business. They can do what they like in their free time.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I assume most of "I don't want X" folks mean "I don't want to see X." I can't even imagine policing what people do in their own time! I mean, what are you gonna do, be like the NYC library parking sign?

(That sign is real and I have seen it)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

"I don't want to see X" is definitely true for me

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Yeah, any time someone's clear that they mean "I don't want to see X" or "I don't want readers telling me about X", that's a different story!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

And if said illegal/gross ships are perpetuated on the internet, I'll probably try to step in

ESPECIALLY WITH UNDERAGE CHARACTERS

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

...see, that's getting back into "policing what random people do with their free time" territory.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I WILL FIGHT YOU

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

um, there's a difference between things you do on your free time, and things you post where children can see

it's an important distinction

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I specifically have one character who is a small child who I do not want to see in ANY romantic situations

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I mean, we don't have psychic filters on "check this box to confirm that you are over 18" filters, so in theory "children can see" just about anywhere...

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

unless, of course, the character is aged up significantly

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

And cute ships with young characters having crushes on each other have been around since forever.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

oh young characters having crushes on each other is one thing

but there are far worse things on the internet

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yes

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Right, but we're talking about "shipping" as a general thing, which includes the cute crushes.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't want any weird pedo crap

keep that aaaaawaaaaay from my characters thank you

Deo101 [Millennium]

on the subject of what people do in their free time, it's pretty obvious that I can't control what people are doing but that doesnt mean I support any free time activities.

I'm not gonna say I'm okay with adults shipping adults and children even if they do it where no one can see

like they CAN and I can't stop them but I wont say i'm okay with it just because I can't control it

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Sure, but, we're not talking about any "free time activities" -- we're talking about people using their imaginations. That doesn't cause me any harm. And if nobody ever sees it? Geez, plenty of people have waaaay darker thoughts than that in the privacy of their own heads.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I think it causes harm to how they interact with the world, though. and just because it could be worse doesnt mean it's okay

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

If they are interacting with the world in a specific harmful way, that would be a thing we can discuss on its own merits!

FeatheryJustice

I feel like if you police people from not doing something, they want to do it more.

So by not drawing attention to it, it might be a better move? For Ships, if someone ships something you don't like, don't draw attention to it kinda thing?

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Also true!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think "I won't say I'm okay with it" and "I will actively make an effort to police it" are two very different things?

You can definitely have this... area where the distinction isn't clear

FeatheryJustice

For example, if someone is like "Don't draw this character as X because I don't like it" People might do it because you said something?

People are weird, I wish they will listen to author wises but not everyone will.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I mean, yeah, but "I won't make an effort to police it because that would be physically impractical" is also different from "I won't make an effort to police it because that's not my job."

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Well, if they do that, then they are an asshole(edited)

because they aren't respecting the creator's barriers

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

@FeatheryJustice Not spreading ideas you don't like in the first place is a smart move, yeah. Put your energy into promoting and spreading the things that make you happy.

FeatheryJustice

Yeah! Promoting things that make you happy might be better. Like "I like the fact you guys enjoy drawing my characters" Something like that that's more positive

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Sure, they can do it, but if you do something like that, which is also illegal in most countries, then you are disrespecting the creator, the character(s), and the law

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Wait, what are people doing that's illegal?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past) Today at 11:19 PM And if said illegal/gross ships are perpetuated on the internet, I'll probably try to step in ESPECIALLY WITH UNDERAGE CHARACTERS

FeatheryJustice

Oh yeah that's something different. That's just illegal.

RebelVampire

I'm just admin stepping in here to remind people to remain respectful. Cause this is the sort of conversation that can quickly go out of hand.

FeatheryJustice

Got it Rebel

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Doing bad things is illegal. Writing about bad things happening isn't illegal. (Again: I have written fiction about soooo many illegal-to-actually-do things.)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I think there is a difference between writing about a terrible thing happening and putting it in a negative light and shipping pedophilia(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I think writing about underage characters with the intent for sexual pleasure counts as CP

FeatheryJustice

I mean drawing and writing about murder is okay, actual going out and murdering someone is not okay. But I think for this context we are looking at something that is a bit more worrying.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

But I wouldn't want to read a story where murdering for pleasure is glorifed either

FeatheryJustice

Yeah, that's why I think context matters.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

and I frankly think media like that shouldn't be shared with the world

Like, i guess write it and stash it away on your computer somewhere

but don't show it to people

Tuyetnhi

i can hear the police sirens blaring from the sound of someone writing cp lmao

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol

FeatheryJustice

Back to talking about shipping (Sorry I got this conversation derailed here), I think there will be people who will never announce their ships as well.

Or have it so open ended no one knows what's what.

And maybe we can brainstorm good ways to tell people we would like them to not ship certain things?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Probably don't say anything unless it does become a visible problem

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

...I get that nobody wants to go into this too closely, and I sure don't either, but I also think someone should say -- legally speaking, a work is only CP if a child is harmed in its creation. If there's a living, human victim. Conflating that with other things is not beneficial to anyone, and can itself be hurtful to survivors.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Honestly, I don't feel the need to warn people not to write inappropriate ships about my underage characters, because it should be common sense not to do such a thing

I really won't say anything about it unless someone actually posts it on the internet

Tuyetnhi

rip I hate to burst it but under us law, even drawn cp is considered illegal

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I think it depends on the country

but in some countries, yes, it is considered CP

RebelVampire

But see that brings in the complecation of international law. If an artist is in the US but the fanartist is in say Japan where they have a much different relationship, whose laws apply?

Tuyetnhi

it depends on the site host i think?

like if it's a US based site

and there's CP there, it's under US law correct?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

the fanartist can't be be punished if they live in a country like Japan where that's legal, but I would still try to contact them and ask that they take it down(edited)

FeatheryJustice

(I wasn't talking about CP in my post I was just like if you don't want these two characters to be shipped together what can you say? Didn't mean to spiral off like that sorry)

RebelVampire

But it might only apply to US citizens. For example, some sites specifically alter themselves so part of their site follows European GDPR laws but tell the americans they suck

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

But that is also the difference between law and site terms

the person might get banned from the site but not sued

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I can't speak for every country, but it's genuinely not illegal in the US -- and, yeah, I don't know why a general discussion about shipping had to go this far either! You don't need to go right to the most disturbing possible interpretation when thinking about hypothetical shippers...

RebelVampire

Yeah. All my point is is blanket saying its illegal just cause it is in the US is inaccurate.

Deo101 [Millennium]

also morals =/= law, and a site is allowed to say no to that even if it is legal

they are not owed a platform

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Individual site TOS can be stricter than national laws, yeah.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn) I think the reason people discuss the worst case scenarios is because those scenarios are precisely what they have issues with, as opposed to other kinds of non-canon ships

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

@Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn) In my case, I mentioned it because that's where I draw the line with shipping. Other stuff, no matter how much I disagree with it, I don't really care enough to do anything about it

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I get that people have those lines in their heads, but when you don't describe the distinction, when you talk about "shipping" as if "everyone should understand that I exclusively means graphic photorealistic sexual content"...that's a big leap to make!

Tuyetnhi

@Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn) agreed but er.... I still do believe that the US has a law about drawn CP being illegal. it's something that I found out when I had to help a friend out from a situation (I won't go to details rip)

but yeah it's a big assumption lmao

I know shippers in good faith won't try to push that onto others

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

And it seems unfairly harsh on any shipper with literally any other interests or activities.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Honestly, even if someone only commented about a ship with an adult character with a child character, I would still ask them kindly to delete their comment, or delete it myself

Tuyetnhi

^ye

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

It doesn't have to be a visual representation for me

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

And when you're talking about your own website, I think setting rules like that is completely reasonable.

Deo101 [Millennium]

again, I wont say im okay with it even if it's only in someones head. Just cause theyre not sharing it doesnt mean I'm okay with it

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

If I have the power to remove their comment or report them, I would

but if I don't, I will ask them to refrain from such comments

That's all the power I have

And as @Deo101 [Millennium] said, I also don't have to agree with people's filthy thoughts

Deo101 [Millennium]

I understand they can think them and i cant do anything about it but i wont offer support for it i dont think

RebelVampire

As a reader, I want to second that it's important to distinguish what you mean when you say you don't tolerate specific ships. Obviously, no one think pedophilia is okay and that would be a fine ship to not tolerate. However, if all you say is you don't tolerate specific ships, readers will also jump to the worst conclusion possible, which in this context is you don't tolerate anything that is non-canon (vs. what creators think is the worst possible conclusion when they hear non-canon).

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

see, this sort of thing is exactly why i have four tiers of "non-canon"

Deo101 [Millennium]

please elaborate!

Tuyetnhi

4 tiers? :0

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Oh yes, definitely

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

i mean it's in my post a few days back To me, there are four levels of "non-canon" with regards to shipping. 1. You were supposed to ship this and get disappointed, so good job. 2. Didn't think of it myself, but I get the dynamic you're going for. 3. ...Why? 4. Bad, bad, very very bad.

with more detail explaining specific ships that ended up in my poll that fit into each category(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Even if stuff is noncanon, or goes against a character's canon sexuality, I don't really care, because fan AUs exist

and it's pretty hard to offend me

mostly the pedophilia thing is the only thing I'm passionately against

So yeah, #4 is the only place where my hair stands on end

Deo101 [Millennium]

oh sorry I did read that but I didnt realize thats what you meant by the tiers ^^;

Tuyetnhi

its helpful!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

It is indeed

I read it before, and I still find it useful

I'm sure #1 and #2 is where most of the WotP shippers will reside

And there will definitely be a few #3s

FeatheryJustice

That's very useful, the tiers XD

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

@RebelVampire absurdly late, I know, I just wanted to second that "obviously, no one thinks pedophilia is okay" is really important to keep in mind. No matter what anyone says about any kind of shipping -- people should be able to feel comfortable that nobody's gearing up to call that into question. We're all on the same side with that one.

spacerocketbunny

There's a few characters I'm a little protective over regarding their sexuality, but most of the characters are bi/pan so it's pretty free game! I'm so here for random crack ships honestly

Capitania do Azar

Get ready

AntiBunny

Personally I enjoy seeing what random ideas fans come up with. It's all part of being a creator.

meek

lmao i'll try to get one comment in before the discussion closes As a creator, a lot of my feelings about shipping is related to how I am as a reader/audience member for media? Character dynamics and relationships are one of my favorite things + what'll usually hook me for a series, and definitely exploring relationships that either didn't receive any attention or were completely non-existent in the original material is one of my favorite things to do! And that'll inspire me to create or make certain choices with my original characters based on that "Well, what if [this] happened in that story?" So with that, I don't find myself get super-attached to canon/endgame ships and I'll just do my own thing, regardless. I always respect the original intent when it comes to character's sexuality or preference (unless it's a case of 'everyone's straight' lol), but I'm a rabid multishipper in fandom anyways so I'll carry that energy over to my own works LOL And let it be free for all, even if I have an 'end' goal in mind. After all, I'm the biggest multishipper for my own characters too!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

>I always respect the original intent when it comes to character's sexuality or preference (unless it's a case of 'everyone's straight' lol) @meek Just for the sake of argument, why do you respect the characters' sexualities unless everyone is straight? Personally, I don't mind sexuality swapping in fan ships and such, but I do wonder why there is this specific stipulation for you.

meek

Also input as a reader: sometimes it's good to be completely upfront about where your boundaries are as a creator! And also being explicit about certain character details or relationships can help, because a lot of times readers don't.. really know.. I can't tell you the number of times I've started reading a comic where the ages of the characters are very ambiguous with: - specific ages are never said - the art style is stylized in a way that unless they're explicitly a child or an elderly person, everyone looks like they're the same age - the context clues on their age is limited to.. they worked a minimum wage job - in-story they are treated with the same level of respect and authority status as everyone else around them - characters that are older than them that act the same age and that's led me several times to thinking a character was at least 18-23+ and actually they were supposed to be 14.....

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I assume it's for the same vein of reason why we don't have a Straight Pride Day. This is getting into the weeds though, so I'm very hesitant to approach further

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Sure

meek

The short answer is that there's no harm in adding more gay or trans representation to a work of fiction

but erasing canon gay or trans representation to make it cis or straight is bad and homo/transphobic

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with respecting characters's sexualities or messing around with possibilities, but it just seems rather... odd

meek

also just straight up it's complete white-washed fiction that LGBT or POC did not exist in history until [convenient time here] so acting like you're being "historically accurate" by exempting them is just.. bad

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Well, depending on location, that would be incorrect

But again, I'm not particularly upset to see "straight" characters depicted as gay(edited)

meek

well i'm a queer nb person so i've encountered innumerable works of fiction where everyone is straight, cis, and white so i'd much rather diversify that then perpetuate it

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

You're not wrong about there being a numerous amount of straight, cis, and yes, white characters in media

But I feel like it's destructive to society as a whole to suddenly decide to be more courteous toward LGBTQ+ groups than toward straight people

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is getting too political for me and I feel it could get out of control quickly

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Maybe it is political

You don't have to participate

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It also feels off topic

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

But I think it's important to politely discuss it

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Maybe not in this channel specifically

meek

i'm going to be honest, i feel incredibly uncomfortable to be asked to continue this conversation

if you want to talk more, then write a DM but this has nothing to do with the main part of my comment or the topic for this channel

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

If you feel uncomfortable, then I respect your decision not to continue this discussion

I've said my piece

Spring-heeled Jack

Jumping in before this closes: I'm not there yet but I'm in the camp of "whatever floats your boat!" If someone ships my characters I think I'll be flattered that they are that invested in them to have those feelings. But also I'm super new to this and the only comment so far is my friend jokingly saying she ships herself with one character.

Ash🦀

I'm in the same boat as Spring-heeled Jack- the idea that people would even be invested enough would be flattering, yes. It would be really cool, but I doubt it will happen since there's a limited cast and it's not a romance. I do have personal ships, but since romance isn't a factor, shippers... Just won't be canon, kinda no matter what they ship. Maybe if my story was more romance-centered I'd care more, but as it is... Do what you want, it's not going to hurt my feelings if you think Ren and the Oni would be a power couple or whatever.

kayotics

I’m just gonna pop in here and say this: shippers making queer content of (presumably) straight characters is a large part of how I figured out I was queer, because for the most part (especially when I was younger) that doesn’t exist in the public eye.

Spring-heeled Jack

My comic isn't romance based, it's horror but I feel that really good horror is best built off characters you can connect to. So I have some families. I have some married couples. The older two "children" (they are in their 20s) are dating. I made one of my main non-binary and their partner is ace. Another main is a transman. In my heart my characters are all pan anyway so I like just putting them with who I think works best lol

I also low key ship one of my married characters with another character that is coming in later. I do enjoy shipping so I might be biased lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

my comic is pretty romance based, it's not a romance but there are pretty strong romance threads in it, and my characters arent all pan so I feel differently, so I do see why you would feel differently than me on this subject!

Spring-heeled Jack

I can also respect a creator having an idea for a character and not feeling comfy with people going different directions with it.

Ash🦀

Oh definitely- How individuals interact and feel for their characters varies from person to person.

Kabocha

I don't mind people making changes for shipping purposes or shipping non canon stuff -- so long as they don't expect me to change my writing to suit them. And like Snuffysam, I kind of have similar tiers for ships, too. I don't want to (and can't, really) control what other people do, but I'd prefer that if a reader knows it's going to make me upset or something I've expressed wishes against, that they not share it with me. Besides, if what I'm writing doesn't meet their needs, I'd rather see shippers search out, celebrate, and elevate work that better matches the values they idealize in pairings. (and trust me, romance is FULL of it if you look. :D)

Spring-heeled Jack

I thought about my only canonically het character that I have (I only rp him now, I have a comic planned for him down the line) and even with him all I can think is "if someone wants him to kiss a boy, I super don't care."

Ash🦀

Wait, hold on, have people actually asked to change the story based on who they think should get together? Is that a thing people do? (Forgive my ignorance, I’m not really a fandom person? I’m p shy and keep to myself)

FeatheryJustice

I seen it happen. Which in itself is pretty rude soemtimes because people get angry if their ships aren't canon kinda thing

Ash🦀

Oh my. Thank you for the warning then, I’ll keep it in mind. That’s very rude! Would probably fill me with spite, to be honest. The “well now I’m not doing it” haha. I’m... disappointed but not surprised this happens. Still, it won’t change my mind. XD

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I have run into more than one person who hyperfixates on a ship (in any media, not just comics) that's... honestly, truly, never going to happen? Like, a main character crossed with a background character who had no lines and showed up in a single scene. That sort of thing. Then they implode/explode when it doesn't become canon by the end. If it happened for my own work, I don't know what I'd say. Apart from telling people not to put all their eggs in one basket, I guess I fear that kind of manic fanaticism.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Wasn't that the reason behind that infamous blackmail incident, the Voltron one

or am I mixing it up with a different fandom?

Spring-heeled Jack

Looking at fandoms in general, there are people that get over invested and become possessive. It's a shame.

Deo101 [Millennium]

the fact that it could be more than one fandom says a lot, i think :P

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

yeeeeeah ugh

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If it's not, I'd still believe it (edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Also the needle in the cookie one (though this was given to a fan artist who drew a ship they didn't like, not the actual author)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Hoooooooly hell, I feel like I remember that, but not specifically what it was for. NIGHTMARE SCENARIO.

Deo101 [Millennium]

thought that was because they didnt draw a character fat?

again, the fact it could be multiple things

hugely concerning

Spring-heeled Jack

Just, please, never take consumables (food, drink, ect) from strangers.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I think the "you didn't draw her fat enough" was a different one

Deo101 [Millennium]

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Scary world we live in -_-

Spring-heeled Jack

There are people who get too invested in things and don't know how to process those feelings. Be smart and careful, but don't let those people stop you from making your comic, art, fanart, or anything.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

ngl, I'm honestly legit scared. Not quite terrified but lowkey fear in my mind... I'm not at all active in con circuits, etc. so I don't think any physical harm will happen to me, but I do worry about potential online harassment.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Me too, to be completely honest

Spring-heeled Jack

Conventions are usually really great. I've been at some for about three years now and everyone has been so kind. Online, however, is more of a concern because people can post anything, it's easier with that distance.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Even with a low likelihood of something happening, common sense is definitely good. Don't take food, have a buddy nearby, have an 'out' if you feel uncomfortable. But yeah, cons seem to be lovely so far. If anyone causes trouble, staff usually does a good job wrangling them

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yeah, I've had great experiences at cons for the most part. A few creepy people that camped out at my table for a bit longer than comfortable, but otherwise it's been great

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Oh yeah The campers. They mean well, but man... they CAMP.

Spring-heeled Jack

I get a lot of lingering people and returning people,. but only once so far did I really have someone just stand there and block others. But he was a bit older and was putting his change in his wallet from a sale, so I didn't want to say anything

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I love the people who return! I usually get people returning the next day to buy something (or to buy more stuff). Those people always seem so invested in my work.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's more the online stuff I worry about

o(-<

Deo101 [Millennium]

me too, I've been real lucky to have people mostly be very kind but theres always new fear with new readers, or every new thing i introduce that someone will be mad about it

Spring-heeled Jack

Lemme clarify, returners are okay, but the ones the are weird and linger and block the booth. That makes me a little stressed out

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Oh man, Deo, I can feel those fears in my bones.

Deo101 [Millennium]

ahahha a bunch of new people show up and youre just like thats a lotta people who could be pissed at me huh?

I had someone get very upset with me over something once, in a way i never imagined someone would, and im coming up on a scene I've been planning for like a year now which canonized my characters trans identities, and I worry some people will think i am hmmmmmm doing a bad job

or not the job they want

Spring-heeled Jack

Forget them. Do what you have planned!

Deo101 [Millennium]

yup! but if people do get very upset with me I will still be hurt, even if I think I am really doing the best job I can

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

hard same

I won't bend my story, but I sure as hell will be hurt

Spring-heeled Jack

I understand. I worry that my queer characters aren't queer enough, but then that's a worry I have about myself IRL, sooooooo, I get you

Deo101 [Millennium]

someone once got upset with me over that ;) so i worry about it too

Spring-heeled Jack

It sucks because the opinion of others both don't matter and SUPER matters

Deo101 [Millennium]

or, sorry, they said I was blase my bad

and yeah like, im gonna do what i want but it still sucks when people are mean about it, regardless

which ^ is kind of how I feel about this shipping topic. Im gonna do what I want but Id really prefer people not be upset over not getting what they want.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I think everyone's mileage varies on what 'the right representation' of relationships and characters is. Barring obvious no-nos, I don't think everyone will ever be 100% satisfied. I do very much dread that one person coming into my comments to tell me "You did this character/ship wrong, thus, you are a bad writer, and probably a bad person - gonna write an article about you now kthxbye" At that point, I would just hope enough people come to my side to go "Um... no?" because I would definitely want to recede far into the nearest dark corner and think about what I've done

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah. when I did get that comment of someone kind of telling me off about how Ive chosen to represent things. I really kind of started... not overthinking, because I dont think that worrying about doing a good job and taking comments into consideration is BAD, per se, but I started really worrying about whether or not i DID do something wrong. my friends came to my defense, which was very nice, and the person did actually end up changing their mind and kind of rescinding their comment. I think places like this and having people that support you to back you up when stuff like this happens is really important

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It happened to me and it did absolutely suck. I'm genuinely unsure I can take another one if it happens again

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah idk what I would do if someone went... that hard..

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I think there are some reactions that not even sensitivity readers could predict. Like, things that are so out of left field, but also still make a bit of sense if you really, really stretch your brain? Arguments that would make for excellent thesis papers someday, tbh

Spring-heeled Jack

:( I'm really sorry it hurt you that much, Keii. I know I can say "don't let it get to you" all day but you will feel how you feel when someone pulls that kind of stuff. I hope it doesn't happen again and, if it does, I hope it doesn't hurt you!

I hope it helps to remember that there will probably be many people out there that see your work and see the characters and go "That's me!" or "I feel seen!"

Spring-heeled Jack

We get a new topic tomorrow, yeah?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think so

Spring-heeled Jack

Nice!

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble #comic tea party #ctp

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yuurivoice · 6 years

Text

The YuuriVoice Survey Results

A few days ago I put out a survey here on Tumblr in hopes that I could dig up some helpful information in regards to what I can do to improve moving forward and keep things here fresh and on point. With over 1,100 responses I think it’s safe to say we can take a look at the data and see what we’ve got! So...let’s break it down! (Shoutout to Lucio mains!)

How long have you been following the blog?

I found this interesting because nowadays on the internet people don’t always stick with a thing for very long. Certainly there’s plenty of follower turnover on my blog, people are REALLY hype for one thing, then over time they may move on to other things for a whole variety of reasons. Having 1/4 of the responses be from those who have followed for over a year is huge. It doesn’t surprise me that less than 3 months is the smallest portion because it’s been a pretty slow three months in general for me, but that’s how it goes sometimes!

How did you first discover my content?

I’m not shocked to find that most people discover my content when searching for specific characters, given my fandom based approach. I want to dabble in some non-fandom audios more often because that’s a whole demographic (i.e. people specifically looking for audio porn) that I don’t always tap into. When I do, the results are usually really great, and you’ll see in a moment that the people who show up because of the characters don’t necessarily ONLY want that character they found me through.

What is shocking, however, is that nearly 10% found me through YouTube. That might not seem like a lot, but I haven’t been doing the YouTube thing for long (or consistently for that matter) so I think that might help show you all why I’m putting value in getting content onto YouTube. There’s infinitely more reach on YouTube than there is on Tumblr.

Do you have a favorite character/voice of mine?

This was one that I already knew the answer to because of my own prior research, but I think it’s important that we all take a look at it here together. Guzma is the most popular voice by an impressive margin. I say impressive because I honest to god never would have expected things to play out like this. Yuuri and Sidon are also very popular, of course. Then there’s a healthy 20% that like two or more of the voices.

So you see why it’s not always easy for me to keep up. Between balancing the big three and exploring new voices and my own as well, there will naturally be less of some things. Yuuri is obviously super important to me, but there’s also significantly more content for him than all the others, even after slowing down a bit. A lot of what I do is primarily based on what is getting commissioned as well, and it’s no surprise that Guzma has been the most commissioned character due to his popularity.

There’s not a lot else to say here other than I’m doing my best to make sure there are no Good Boys (TM) left behind, but I’m also just one man. I’m glad that there is crossover between fans of the voices as well. I haven’t got a “I hate when you post this instead of that” message in a long, long time. It’s nice that most people can at least enjoy one of the other voices aside from their fave, even if it’s not EXACTLY what they want. Y’all are real good to me in that regard.

Do you listen to non-character audios of mine?

Pretty straight forward. The vast majority of the followers are cool with checking out things regardless of whether fandom is involved or not, so long as it’s their jam in regards to content. This makes me happy and hopeful. Characters have always been a great way to get people to discover me, but I think the future is not just doing fandom stuff.

Do you prefer One Shot audios, or series?

This one is extremely clear, my current process of having some audios that are a series that ties together and most that are just one shot scenes is working just fine. I figured as much, but it never hurts to ask!

Does having my SFW content on YouTube interest you?

This was a relief, honestly. Moving older stuff to YouTube has been a process, and the earlier data showed that it does have a positive impact. In the future there will be new stuff hitting YouTube and Tumblr at the same time, but it has taken me a long time to try and get caught up so old stuff is up on YouTube and I can move on to new. It’s happening slowly, but you can at least rest easy knowing I’m not gonna crush your dashboards with spam of old audios uploaded in video form.

Would you submit scripts/ideas if there was a system to do so?

Well what the hell am I waiting for? I’ll get to work on creating a submission system where you can send in scripts and ideas. Something better than Tumblr’s submissions. I’ll have examples for you to look at so you can see how it should be formatted and other information as well. I’m very interested to see how that plays out, so I’ll get to work on it soon!

Would you be interested in my own original characters, voices, and stories?

This is a very encouraging bit of information! In the not so distant future I want this to be a thing. My own characters with their own art, backgrounds, personalities, and voices. I had a pretty expansive idea for what this could look like, but perhaps an early taste with just one character to give people a real idea of what I’m talking about would be cool. Interesting.

Are you a current or former supporter of my Patreon?

No surprise here given how big my Tumblr audience is versus 350 people on Patreon, but I wanted to ask this so I could give context to this next question.

Is there something in particular that would make you more likely to become a Patron?

First things first, my bad on not having the foresight to include a “financial situation” answer. That’s a good 20% of responses and I really should have included it.

I was very, very interested to see that input and voting was such a big deal! This seems to have been a blind spot for me, perhaps because I’m just bad at running polls and figuring all of that out, but damn. The Patreon version of the survey also confirmed that this is a big deal. So I am going to be sitting down with my Patrons and figuring out what tiers need to be voting and the resulting audio, as well as how I’ll be able to deal with things like the big split between characters. I don’t know exactly how that’ll play out, but obviously it’s an important factor that needs to be incorporated to my Patreon.

I’m also flattered that 25% of responses just want more access to me, my process, and stuff like that. I can post more. I’m looking at doing Patreon specific monthly Q&A’s for a start and I’ll also pick my Patrons’ brains for more ideas.

As for more exclusive audios, this is tough. I already do three as it is, and now I’ll be figuring out how to get Patron input on those. I don’t want to put too much content behind a paywall, you know? Like, I get it, people would pay for it. That’s really cool! There is a trade off, though. More exclusives may in some cases mean I can’t always put out as much public stuff. Now, that might change with script submissions taking some of the workload off of me. As it stands, I just don’t know. First things first, I’ll figure out the whole voting and submission thing and improve the exclusives that are already in place.

Does personal engagement with me matter to you?

You like me! You really like me! My big takeaway here is “Yeah, you’re alright, but don’t answer 20 questions in a row and ruin my dash, please.” I think that’s what it means, at least. I needed to know if I needed to STFU or just keep doing my thing, so I’ll keep on doing my thing. <3

One of the recurring themes in the additional comments section was that Tumblr kind of sucks for audios. A better system would be ideal and I think everyone is absolutely right. I don’t have any answers right now, but know that I’m thinking about this a lot, and I want to do something about it.

Thank you all for taking your time to fill out my survey, and of course, thank you for following, listening, and being all around awesome. This was incredibly insightful and I hope that with this information I can make some big improvements around here!

#long post

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Did Obama Try To Work With Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-obama-try-to-work-with-republicans/

Did Obama Try To Work With Republicans

How Bidens Firm Line With Republicans Draws On Lesson Of Obamas Mistakes

Obama: I’ve tried to work with these Republicans

The president has sought bipartisan support but not at the cost of delay and dilution of his bold policies

Joe Biden started his presidential campaign with promises to be a unifying force in Washington who would help lawmakers come together to achieve bipartisan reform. But over his first 100 days in office, Bidens message to Republicans in Congress has been closer to this: get on board or get out of my way.

This willingness to go it alone if necessary appears to be a hard-won lesson from the early years of Barack Obamas presidency, when Democrats negotiated with Republicans on major bills only to have them vote against the final proposals.

It has also prompted some especially on the left of the Democratic party to make early comparisons between Biden and Obama that favor the current president as a more dynamic, determined and ruthless political force for progressive change than his old boss.

Just three months into his presidency, Biden has already signed the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package, which did not attract a single Republican vote in Congress. Delivering his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Biden signaled he was willing to take a similar approach to infrastructure if necessary.

The numbers behind Bidens proposals tell the story of this daring strategy.

I dont just blame Obama. I could blame all of us everybody, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, recently told writer Anand Giridharadas.

Public Debate Over Impeachment Demands

In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believed President Obama should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans. Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.

On July 8, 2014, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 RepublicanVice Presidential nomineeSarah Palin publicly called for Obama’s impeachment for “purposeful dereliction of duty”. In a full statement, she said: “Itâs time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”

Andrew McCarthy of the National Review wrote the book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case For Obama’s Impeachment, which argued that threatening impeachment was a good way to limit executive action by Obama .

Us President Barack Obama Speaks During A Press Conference At The White House In Washington Dc On November 5 2014

Washington – US President Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to work with Republican lawmakers after their midterm election win but warned he would act without them to protect his core agenda, starting with immigration reform.

The US leader stopped short of accepting direct responsibility for his Democratic party’s colossal defeat at the hands of opponents who successfully turned the election into a repudiation of his policies.

The GOP snatched control of the Senate, tightened its grip on the House of Representatives and won key Democrat governorships, in an election Obama admitted was “a good night” for Republicans.

“To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you,” Obama said.

Congress’s two top Republicans said the new legislature would focus on jobs and the economy, and move to repeal Obama’s signature achievement — the health care bill known as Obamacare, which provides medical insurance for millions who lack it.

“Well also consider legislation to help protect and expand Americas emerging energy boom and to support innovative charter schools around the country,” House speaker John Boehner and the incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell wrote in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Democrats suffering from the whiplash of their overwhelming defeat were left to contemplate what went wrong.

– ‘Red flag’ on immigration –

But he acknowledged he would study Republican proposals to make “responsible changes” to the law.

Recommended Reading: Did Any Republicans Vote For Trump Impeachment

Obama: Gop Blocked 500 Bills

President Barack Obama is railing against congressional Republicans, telling a Hollywood crowd that the midterm elections are crucial because the GOP is willing to say no to everything.

The president, speaking at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event Wednesday evening hosted at Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horns home, said Republicans have been obstructionist since even before he took office.

Their willingness to say no to everything the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them, Obama said of Republicans.

The conclusion is, well, nothing works, the president continued. And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for for the person whos cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.

Obama opened by saying that he is in trouble at home, because in 2012 he had told his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, that he had run his last campaign.

Etymology Of Obama Republican

On February 12, 2008, Barack Obama mentioned Obama Republicans in his Potomac primary victory speech: “We are bringing together Democrats and independents, and yes, some Republicans. I know there’sI meet them when I’m shaking hands afterwards. There’s one right there. An Obamacan, that’s what we call them.” In another speech, he said, “We, as Democrats right now, should tap into the discontent of Republicans. I want some Obama Republicans!” In his call for Republican votes, Obama referred to Ronald Reagan, who he says “was able to tap into the discontent of the American people … to get Democrats to vote Republicanthey were called Reagan Democrats.”

RepublicansforObama.org was founded in December 2006 by John Martin, a US Navy reservist. The organization grew to include over 2,500 registered members from across the United States, and was featured in USA Today, The New Yorker and other media throughout the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

You May Like: How Many Seats Do The Republicans Control In The Senate

Transition Period And Inauguration

The presidential transition period began following Obama’s election to the presidency in November 2008, though Obama had chosen Chris Lu to begin planning for the transition in May 2008.John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition Project. During the transition period, Obama announced nominations for his Cabinet and administration. In November 2008, Congressman Rahm Emanuel accepted Obama’s offer to serve as White House Chief of Staff. Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009, succeeding George W. Bush. Obama officially assumed the presidency at 12:00 pm, EST, and completed the oath of office at 12:05;pm, EST. He delivered his inaugural address immediately following his oath. Obama’s transition team was highly complimentary of the Bush administration’s outgoing transition team, particularly with regards to national security, and some elements of the Bush-Obama transition were later codified into law.

Congressional Calls For Impeachment

In October 2010, prior to the elections in which Republicans won control of the House, Jonathan Chait published an article in The New Republic called “Scandal TBD” where he predicted that if Republicans were to win control of the House, and Barack Obama were to win re-election in 2012, the Republicans would try to impeach Obama and use any reason possible as pretext.

You May Like: Are There Any Republicans For Impeachment

Why Trumps Foreign Policy Might Prove Less Radical Than You Think

That same weekend, McConnell gathered his depleted Senate Republican caucus in the ornate Members Room of the Library of Congress to deliver a similar non-governing message. He warned his colleagues that they would have nothing to gain from working with the incoming president, that bipartisan cooperation would just make Obama look like a hero. An aide later provided a copy of his talking points:

âWe got shellacked, but donât forget we still represent half the population.â

âItâs important to keep an eye on regaining the majority.â

âMost importantly, Republicans need to stick together as a team.â

That was all before Obama took office. After his inauguration, Republicans quickly canceled his honeymoon.

The economy was shedding nearly 800,000 jobs a month, and Democrats had just crossed the aisle to help the unpopular outgoing President George W. Bush pass a politically toxic bailout for Wall Street. So official Washington assumed that Republicans would reciprocate, and help the popular new president pass a gigantic package of tax breaks and spending goodies for Main Street. But as Obama was about to visit Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans about his stimulus, word leaked that House GOP leaders were already whipping their caucus to reject it en masse. âThis shitâs not on the level, is it?â the president asked his top political adviser, David Axelrod.

Does Obama Even Know How To Negotiate With Republicans

Obama Says GOP Has Tried to Repeal ACA ‘More than 60 Times’ at Michigan Rally

WASHINGTON Like many of you, I watched President Barack Obama’s press conference Wednesday to see how he would approach Republicans, and an electorate that just sent him a pretty harsh “Dear John” letter. Like many of you, I was surprised at his approach. Obama was the one who went out there and said, “Make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot”; if he believes what he said, then voters just delivered a convincing message that they don’t like his policies. No one reasonable expected the president to grovel, but it seemed reasonable to think that he’d seek whatever narrow ground he and Republicans can share.

Progressives have long said that Obama made a mistake in 2010 by admitting he took a “shellacking” in those midterms, and by retrenching rather than pushing harder and louder with a bold progressive message. Those people now seem to have the ear of the president. After naming some unobjectionable items he hoped to get through in the current session, such as fighting Ebola and curbing ISIS, he offered incoming Republicans the chance to work with him on a higher minimum wage and other longstanding Obama agenda items.

Most notably, of course, he said he would take executive action on immigration by year’s end unless Republicans passed a bill. It’s certainly a bold negotiating tactic: You can do what I want, or I’ll go ahead and do what I want anyway. This is how you “negotiate” with a 7-year old, not a Senate majority leader.

Also Check: What Is The Lapel Pin The Republicans Are Wearing

After Election Obama Vows To Work With And Without Congress

By and Peter Baker

WASHINGTON President Obama shook off an electoral drubbing on Wednesday and said he was eager to find common ground with Republicans during the final two years of his presidency, but he swiftly defied their objections by vowing to bypass Congress and use his executive authority to change the nations immigration system.

In a sign of how he intends to govern under a new political order with ascendant Republican leaders, Mr. Obama renewed his commitment to act on his own to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.

His remarks, at a news conference in the East Room of the White House, were meant to put the vitriol of the campaign behind him he responded to disaffected Americans by saying that I hear you and that his election mandate was to get stuff done. But his promised action on immigration underscored the profound partisan disagreements that persist in Washington.

transcript

Mitch Mcconnell Brags About Blocking Obama For 2 Years Then Laughs About It

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday night bragged about blocking President Barack Obamas attempt to fill federal judicial vacancies for two years.;Then, he laughed about it as he discussed the Republican Partys effort to stack the courts with conservative judges under President Donald Trump.;

I was shocked that former President Obama left so many vacancies and didnt try to fill those positions, Fox News host Sean Hannity said to McConnell.;

Obama didnt leave those vacancies so much as he was blocked from filling them by a GOP-controlled Senate led by McConnell something the majority leader was quick to point out.;

Ill tell you why, he said. I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.;

Then, he laughed:;;

Hannity: “I was shocked that former President Obama left so many vacancies and didn’t try to fill those positions.”Mitch McConnell: “I’ll tell you why. I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration. “

Jason Campbell

I will give you full credit for that, and by the way take a bow, Hannity said. All right, that was good line!;

McConnell not only blocked federal judges, he prevented Obamas Supreme Court nominee;Merrick Garland from even getting a hearing.;In 2018, McConnell told Kentucky Today that the decision to block Garlands appointment was the most consequential decision Ive made in my entire public career.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Are In The United States

Drug Policy And Criminal Justice Reform

During Obama’s presidency, there was a sharp rise in opioid mortality. Many of the deaths then and now result from fentanyl consumption where an overdose is more likely than with heroin consumption. And many people died because they were not aware of this difference or thought that they would administer themselves heroin or a drug mixture but actually used pure fentanyl. Health experts criticized the government’s response as slow and weak.

Killing Of Osama Bin Laden

Remarks by the President on Osama bin Laden

The Obama administration launched a successful operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, a global SunniIslamist militant organization responsible for the and several other terrorist attacks. Starting with information received in July 2010, the CIA determined what they believed to be the location of Osama bin Laden in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburban area 35 miles from Islamabad. CIA head Leon Panetta reported this intelligence to Obama in March 2011. Meeting with his national security advisers over the course of the next six weeks, Obama rejected a plan to bomb the compound, and authorized a “surgical raid” to be conducted by United States Navy SEALs. The operation took place on May 1, 2011, resulting in the death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers and computer drives and disks from the compound. Bin Laden’s body was identified through DNA testing, and buried at sea several hours later.Reaction to the announcement was positive across party lines, including from predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and from many countries around the world.

Recommended Reading: Why Did Radical Republicans Impeach Johnson

Michael Brown And Ferguson

Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was shot and killed on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer. The disputed circumstances of the shooting of the unarmed man sparked existing tensions in the predominantly black city, where protests and civil unrest erupted. The events received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracted protesters from outside the region, and sparked a vigorous debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African Americans, the militarization of the police, and the Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri and nationwide. Continued activism expanded the issues to include modern-day debtors prisons, for-profit policing, and school segregation.

As the details of the original shooting emerged, police established curfews and deployed riot squads to maintain order. Peaceful protests were met with police militarization, and some areas of the city turned violent. The unrest continued on November 24, 2014, after a grand jury did not indict Officer Wilson.

Not Entirely His Fault

About half of our academics said the Republicans refused to compromise with the Obama administration from the start.

Some said they were pushed by the steep rise of conservatism among the average Republican.

I think that Obama attempted to negotiate in good faith with congressional Republicans about budgetary issues, and that the constraints on the House leadership made it almost impossible for the House to negotiate with Obama. In short, there was nothing more Obama could have done to negotiate more effectively.James Russell Muirhead Jr., professor of political science, Dartmouth College

Relations are indeed a two-way street. For a long time â perhaps too long â Obama tried to live up to his campaign pledge of transcending partisan polarization. For example, the development of the Affordable Care Act in Congress dragged on and on because Obama, along with his congressional leadership, was intent on some Republican buy-in from the likes of Susan Collins and Charles Grassley. That the Republicans in the end were unanimous in rejecting the Affordable Care Act was not Obama’s fault, but theirs.Bruce Miroff, professor of American politics, State University of New York, Albany

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wazafam · 3 years

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When it comes to How I Met Your Mother, Marshall tends to be among the most universally beloved characters the sitcom has to offer. Particularly among the men, whereas Barney is often predatory toward women, and Ted has his lapses, Marshall is by and large committed to his romantic partner, his friends, his family, and his values.

Related: How I Met Your Mother - 5 Things Season 1 Marshall Would Hate About Finale Marshall (5 Things He Would Be Proud Of)

Marshall’s kind heart and dedication to the people in his life haven’t always served his professional ambitions well, though. Despite a law degree making him the most educated regular character on the show, the arc of the series saw him lose jobs, take the wrong jobs, and generally ride a roller coaster of ups and downs through his career.

10 Best: Taking The Job At GNB

Money is a regular source of drama for Marshall and Lily throughout their relationship and marriage on How I Met Your Mother. Lily racks up credit card debt with reckless abandon. Meanwhile, Marshall has his own student debt racked up in the process of getting his law degree.

Despite Marshall’s ethical reservations about taking a job in corporate law, and more particularly the morally dubious Goliath National Bank, he does follow Barney down this lucrative career path. Morality aside, it was the best decision to both add substance to his resume and bring in a big salary to take control of his family’s financial future.

9 Worst: Taking A Job For No Money

In the wake of his father’s unexpected passing, Marshall quits his corporate job to take a position with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The position is well attuned to his sensibilities and ambitions for a career in environmental law. However, it is also an unpaid position.

Related: Things That Make No Sense About Money In How I Met Your Mother

There’s certainly a place for working jobs in low-paying, or even non-paying situations when someone is building their career. However, several years out of law school, talking about starting a family, and knowing that managing money isn't one of Lily's strengths, it simply wasn’t responsible for Marshall to even entertain that kind of career move.

8 Best: Pursuing A Judgeship

After enduring a maze of career detours, setbacks, and disillusionment, Marshall arrives at a pivotal decision—he’s going to pursue a career as a judge. The direct lead up to this choice stems from the mishandling of a case he was involved in trying, and he comes to the logical conclusion that his best course of action to achieve his goals of saving the planet is to become a judge who, himself, makes important decisions.

The choice to pursue a judgeship marks a rare point when all of Marshall’s professional considerations come together. The position may not pay as much as he once made in corporate law, but is all but guaranteed to rake in more than he made in environmental law. Moreover, it’s a position that legitimately jives with his ethics and that he can begin to pursue seriously given the experience he has accumulated up to that point.

7 Worst: Assuming He Lost The Election

The final season of How I Met Your Mother anchors itself around Robin and Barney’s wedding, but does quite a bit of time hopping. One of those jumps looks into Marshall’s future, when his hard work culminates in him up running for a seat on the New York State Supreme Court.

After he faces a seemingly insurmountable deficit at the polls, Marshall starts drinking. So, by the time he actually ends up winning, he’s intoxicated and embarrasses himself in front of reporters. While the show plays this moment for comedy, it’s a surprisingly poor show of judgment for someone looking to advance his career in the public eye.

6 Best: Returning To Corporate Law Post-Italy

The final season of How I Met Your Mother finds Marshall and Lily at a crossroads. Marshall gets offered a judgeship just as Lily gets the career opportunity of a lifetime to move their family to Italy for her to advise The Captain on art purchases. After much back and forth and a crisis of conscience, they move to Italy.

In a flash-forward, it’s revealed that after they return to New York, Marshall takes another job in corporate law. While it’s clear he’s unhappy with the job, it looks like he was making a practical choice to provide for his family and advance his career while he waited for another bench appointment to come his way.

5 Worst: Giving Brad His Stamp Of Approval

Marshall has a questionable tendency to give everything and every one his stamp of approval. In 'Tramp Stamp' this approach to life sees him vouch for law school buddy Brad for a job at his law firm. Brad promptly tanks the interview.

As if the bad interview weren’t a poor enough reflection on Marshall, Brad executes one of the show's biggest betrayals, infiltrating Marshall’s firm to steal information for an upcoming case. So it is that Marshall’s tendency to see the best in those around him nearly costs his firm and, consequently, puts Marshall’s job on the line.

4 Best: Keeping Dunk Champion On His Resume

Season 4 episode 'The Possimpible' finds the How I Met Your Mother crew comparing resumes, with a specific eye toward absurdities and outdated information they should have cut out years ago. In Marshall’s case, it’s revealed he still references his past as a slam dunk champion.

Related: Top 10 Hilarious Marshall Eriksen Quotes In How I Met Your Mother

Marshall defends the choice, citing a lot of businesses have recreational basketball or other sports teams, and that evidence of his athletic accomplishments could help him land a job. While the gang laughs him off, Marshall is speaking to a real consideration at a number of businesses. Moreover, Marshall does wind up contributing to a winning basketball team in the season 8 episode 'Splitsville'.

3 Worst: Sticking With A Dead Law Firm

Things take an odd turn for Marshall’s career when he seemingly wins a huge case, only for the judge to determine that the pharmaceutical company on the hook only needs to pay a fraction of the amount they were being sued for. So, despite a moral victory, it’s an embarrassment for the firm and in the episode 'Romeward Bound', it’s revealed that they lose virtually all of their business.

Marshall hangs around the firm, goofing off for most of his days without anything to work on. It’s an understandably disappointing situation for Big Fudge, but he seems to let it stall out his career for some time to follow. The slew of attorneys laid off from the firm were probably just as well off for moving on with their lives while Marshall stagnated on a sinking ship.

2 Best: Turning Down The Judge Position

Most of Marshall’s best career decisions came down to him either chasing his dreams or compromising his values in return for big paychecks to do the responsible thing for himself and his family. However, there’s one noteworthy exception in the final season of the show, when Marshall is offered a rare opportunity at a judgeship but winds up turning it down.

In 'Daisy', the show reveals Marshall passed up on that particular opportunity, in favor of moving to Rome for Lily to follow her dreams and work as an art consultant. This was an important demonstration of the character's personality as he showed his respect for Lily and their marriage. This choice was about creating a better life, which in turn pays off down the road as he achieves his professional dreams, too.

1 Worst: Screaming At His Boss

In the season 3 episode 'The Chain of Screaming', Barney explains one of his many half-baked theories—that it’s important to get one’s frustrations out, but to vocalize them “down the chain.” Each person yells at someone in a position of less power such that the frustration gets handed down.

Marshall reaches his breaking point and does scream, but makes a pretty terrible life decision when screams up- rather than down-chain, reprimanding his boss. Worse yet, Marshall winds up quitting his job - rendering him unemployed, with a burned bridge behind him.

Next: Each How I Met Your Mother Main Character's Best & Worst Workplace Decision

How I Met Your Mother: Marshall's 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Career Decisions from https://ift.tt/2Q8Zl32

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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Polls say Americans report record low opinions of China. Are the surveys measuring racism?

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/polls-say-americans-report-record-low-opinions-of-china-are-the-surveys-measuring-racism/

Polls say Americans report record low opinions of China. Are the surveys measuring racism?

In fact, if you go by the polls, they’ve never liked it less.

When asked how they felt toward China, the vast majority of Americans surveyed required no further detail before giving definitive answers like “very cold” and “very unfavorable,” according to results published by Gallup and Pew, two leading public opinion research groups, this month.

In a national context that sees Asian Americans harassed and assaulted because of their ethnicity, and where then President Donald Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus” was linked to increases in racist online rhetoric, some observers are wishing that the questions Americans ask to understand themselves allow for more nuance.

“It’s not possible to treat China like this one, coherent thing. As if you can hold positive or negative attitudes towards the government, all the people, the culture — and that all sticks together as one single opinion,” said Tobita Chow, director of Justice is Global. Across the US media spectrum, China is a subject of constant interest. It is depicted as partner, competitor, and enemy, but it’s never ignored.

In this climate, Chenchen Zhang, lecturer of Politics and International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast, says the “feeling thermometer” questions used in surveys about China are different. Mainstream pollsters “wouldn’t ask Americans this question about Denmark or Italy, because no one would know who the prime ministers there are, or what the policies of the ruling parties are,” she said.

“And (Americans) don’t know the Chinese policies either, but they know that there is a Communist party, and it’s not good. I think that makes opinion surveys about China different from other nations,” Zhang said.

“There’s a lot of pressure and encouragement for people to engage in thinking about China that’s either black or white; good or evil. It is exceptionally hard to get people to think of China in a more nuanced way,” Chow said. “It’s worth asking: are there different ways we can check people’s attitudes?”

China as a monolith

Whether it’s the pernicious model minority myth or the alarming spike in xenophobic language being used to harass people of Asian descent, one of the defining features of the racism Asian Americans experience is being treated as a monolith, community advocates say.

And with the outsized presence of China in the American imagination, it is a frustratingly common experience for people who have nothing to do with China to be presumed “Chinese” on the basis of their name or appearance. Loyalties are questioned. Crude stereotypes are assumed.

And among those who pay close attention to the politics and culture of China, the extremes can be dizzying in a way that is difficult to quantify in a single word or “temperature.”

Chow says important distinctions get lost in the possible survey answers of “favorable” and “unfavorable.”

“What do you think about the state of the country right now, and what do you wish for the country? I have an unfavorable view about a lot of what is happening in US society right now, but at the same time I want things to get better for the US and everyone in it. I suspect that ‘unfavorability’ applied to China fails to make this distinction, and runs these things together: thinking that the other country has a lot of problems right now and wanting things to go poorly for them in the future.”

Decades in use, historic findings

But academics who study and design polls say that these questions offer valuable insight into how opinions have changed over time.

“The reason we keep using these feeling thermometer questions is because they’ve been asked for so long,” said Samara Klar, a political scientist at the University of Arizona.

“There’s a trade-off,” Klar says, “if you change the question, then you lose the time series, and you can’t really compare it to any previous surveys. So it is really valuable to have them, partially because we’ve been asking them for decades. And if you’re seeing these trends become more and more negative, that’s definitely telling you something.”

In the year of the coronavirus pandemic, these trends have reached historically negative levels.

In the survey conducted by Ipsos – KnowledgePanel for the Chicago Council in July 2020, Americans responded with the lowest “temperature” they’d reported since the council began asking the question in 1978.

In a Gallup poll conducted early last month, 79% of Americans surveyed reported an unfavorable view of China. It was by far the highest percentage Gallup had reported since September 1979.

In a Pew survey also from last summer, 42% of Americans surveyed reported a “very unfavorable” opinion of China. It was by far the highest percentage Pew had observed since it began asking the question in the spring of 2005.

These findings were reported widely, often as little more than splashy headlines and tweets.

Feelings about the self and the other

To Klar, the historically negative results may be a function, in part, of the way the question was asked.

Klar does not study China, or Americans’ opinions of it. But she does use survey research to understand how Americans think about partisan politics at home, and she sees some relevant parallels in the ways “feeling thermometer” questions are asked of Democrats and Republicans.

“What survey researchers have found, over the last several decades, is that people feel about the same towards their own party that they always have, but they feel more and more negative towards the other party. And this has led to this phenomenon that political scientists call affective polarization, which means people increasingly dislike members of the other party. And people are really concerned about this,” Klar said.

But in thinking about the “other” in the question, Klar and her colleagues have found that when Americans give especially negative answers, they are often thinking, specifically, about the elites of the other party.

Perhaps anticipating the public’s curiosity, Pew published a companion piece to its latest survey, explaining what Americans were thinking about when they reported their views of “China.” Similar to Klar’s observation about broad questions causing respondents to imagine elites when they answer, Pew reported that “Americans rarely brought up the Chinese people or the country’s long history and culture in their responses. Instead, they focused primarily on the Chinese government.”

On the subject of the Chinese government, Americans’ views are especially negative about Chinese president Xi Jinping. Forty-three percent told Pew they had “no confidence at all” in Xi to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”

Klar says Americans polled on China might respond differently if asked narrower questions, like they do when polled on domestic partisan issues.

“When we say, ‘ok, now I want you to think about the people who voted for them, or people who identify with the other party.’ Then we find significantly warmer reports. So essentially, what this means is that people have very negative feelings towards the institution of (the other party) or the elites of the (other party), or maybe even that party as an abstract concept, but when we hone in on the question of ordinary voters, they actually feel quite warm towards them. Which suggests that we do tend to be colder in the abstract than we are when it comes to a person down the street.”

Risks of misinterpretation

So what if Americans’ now-famous negativity toward China is overstated?

Klar notes from her own research that “the more people think that Republicans and Democrats are polarized on issues where they’re not actually that polarized, the more they express negative feelings toward members of the other group, risking creation of a vicious cycle.

Stated more broadly, “if we overstate hostility towards out groups, it tends to exacerbate subsequent hostility toward those groups,” Klar said.

But as Asian Americans around the country are saying loud and clear, the racialized hostility they experience is hardly overstated.

Klar sees the risk. “If we understate discrimination, then we are essentially dismissing a really important crisis in our country, which is that a non-White minority is being discriminated against,” she said.

Justin McCarthy, a spokesperson for Gallup, notes that their polls have measured large fluctuations in public opinion over the last four decades. But previous spikes in American antipathy for China have not corresponded to increased reports of xenophobic attacks against Asian Americans like this past year.

Diversity in design

David Wilson, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, says “feeling thermometer” questions can be effective tools for measuring a society’s views, and may even help pollsters identify the kinds of views that respondents may be reluctant to admit openly.

The American public’s affect, or mood, about China, is a useful data point for researchers, Wilson says. In combination with data from other questions on things like specific foreign policy initiatives, researchers can gain valuable insight into the public’s behavior.

But Wilson notes that what the general public considers to be an appropriate survey question can change over time. So can the makeup of that public, itself.

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, according to Pew, and their voices have been reflected in these polls in increasing numbers. But according to Wilson, there has been relatively little focus in the survey design world on how Asian Americans perceive questions. “It’s a legitimate concern to know how they’re interpreting the questions,” he said.

“Most questions have been standardized on White Americans. America is probably the leading country in terms of surveys and public opinion work, and, on average, the overwhelming majority of every sample is White people. So most of the questions we’ve been tracking over time just disregard the racial sensitivities of other groups,” Wilson said.

How can researchers accommodate for the ways different people may perceive a question?

For me, it’s diversifying the survey room so you can have the tough conversations with each other, and vet the survey. Vet the conversation before you give it to the public,” he said, about his hopes for the industry as a whole.

The view from the survey room

Dina Smeltz is a senior fellow for public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and a member of the team that designed their October 2020 survey. She says the survey’s questions offer an important way “to gauge the ups and downs” of a relationship like the one between the US and China, and the public’s reactions to it.

“I don’t think this is normalizing animus, it is measuring a snapshot of public opinion at a particular point in time. The thermometer is an especially neutral way to ask about a country,” she said.

But she notes that there can be big differences between views of a country and views of its people.

“In a perfect world, research organizations would be able to ask a full range of questions about the Chinese government, the Chinese economy, the positives they associate with China, the negatives they associate with China, and then move on to ask about the Chinese people, the positives and negatives associated with the Chinese people, and from there break it down even further,” Smeltz said.

“If we had the room and the budget to ask deeper questions about various groups of people within China, those indicators would, of course, add a richer understanding of American attitudes toward China and the Chinese people. Hopefully we will be funded to do that in the future.”

McCarthy defends his organization’s current approach. “At Gallup we are fortunate to have powerful tools at our disposal to accurately measure public opinion, and to have trends that provide unparalleled context for current attitudes. It is our responsibility to maintain these trends and to provide expert analysis explaining them. Selectively choosing not to measure certain things out of fear of how the results may be misinterpreted or misused would be a dangerous and slippery slope. Rather, we would encourage all who want to improve society to look to reliable data like Gallup’s to understand public attitudes and work from there to press for policy or societal changes as needed.”

Laura Silver, senior researcher at Pew, said “we agree that it’s important to be clear what people are thinking about when they respond to questions like our feeling thermometers,” and noted that, this year, Pew asked a question to try to uncover that.

“Our results show that when Americans described what they thought about China, they rarely brought up the Chinese people or the country’s long history and culture in their responses. Instead, they focused primarily on the Chinese government — including its policies or how it behaves internationally — as well as its economy.”

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hedgehog-goulash7 · 8 years

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Pay Attention: Here’s How You Fight Back Under Trump

It’s tempting to boycott the inauguration and change the channel whenever Trump’s on TV.

But we can’t afford to look away any more.

By Erin Gloria Ryan, THE DAILY BEAST

01.19.17 12:03 PM ET

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/19/pay-attention-liberals-here-s-how-you-fight-back-under-trump.html

Humans naturally have an aversion to pain. Sometimes this is helpful. A child learns that sticking their finger in the dog’s food bowl results in a nip. A teenager tries to weasel out of a missed curfew only to learn that their parents have many years more experience lying than they do. An adult learns that spending a day shopping for Ikea furniture with a new lover will result in strife.

Other avoidant behavior isn’t as useful. Not checking one’s bank account balance after a blockbuster weekend, for example, could result in an embarrassing surprise when one’s card is declined. Not visiting your nursing home-bound grandfather out of fear that facing his failing health will shake you could lead to the sort of regret that eats you alive on the inside. Not paying attention to the exact way a creepy used car dealer is trying to screw you over could lead to a whole universe of stress headaches.

On Friday, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. He’ll make history in a number of ways—he has no public service experience, he lost the popular vote by 3 million, and he’s got the lowest approval rating of any president-elect ever. And, while I don’t have the official stats on this, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the first president with a piss-related sexual scandal before he even takes office. At least in my lifetime.

Donald Trump rose to fame on a reputation as being a guy who screws, in the literal and figurative sense. He screwed his way through Manhattan, if the New York City tabloids of the 1980’s are to be believed. He screwed his first wife, figuratively, by screwing his second wife, literally. He would go on to screw his second wife, figuratively, and the child they had together, whom he seems to forget exists from time to time. In the meantime, he was screwing his casino employees, his contractors, his business partners. He was bragging about how adept a screwer he was to Howard Stern, to Billy Bush, to the cast and crew of The Apprentice. Nothing he’s done since declaring himself a candidate for president, save for the face he made when he walked onstage at Trump Tower after election night, hasn’t been screwy.

Trump’s managed to offend or upset nearly every non-fat-white-guy demographic during his nascent political career. Mexicans, the press, Muslims, women, Meryl Streep, black people, Buzzfeed employees, Megyn Kelly, deaf people, Nevadans. His brand of nationalist barking is both noisy and intellectually incoherent, offensive to the ears and brain. It makes sense that people who prefer to surround themselves with that which is beautiful and joyful would turn away from Trump. It makes sense that a person would reach for the remote when he appears on the nightly news. It’s perfectly normal to want to flip past the front page of the paper or scroll past a news story about what the new President is up to.

Turns out, liberals and progressives have been changing the channel when political unpleasantness reared its head for years. While this country’s liberals were busy gif’ing the POTUS pretending to brush his shoulders off, an alarming number of statehouses and governor’s mansions went to Republicans. A Republican congress gerrymandered the House out of contention until at least 2020, maybe longer. Democrats lost the Senate. While some were rolling their eyes at Trump tweets, smugly confident that Hillary would glide into the Oval Office, Trump voters were sharing bogus news stories and viral talking-head Facebook rants and heading to the polls, riled up.

It seems that liberals didn’t grasp until it was too late that being funnier, or cooler, or smarter, or having more famous friends isn’t taken into account in tabulating the electoral college totals. Votes don’t count more or less depending on whether or not the person casting it did so for a terrible reason. A woman in Michigan who dutifully learned the positions of both candidates and cast her ballot carefully can have her vote canceled out by a man who just doesn’t like Hillary Clinton’s face. An acrid comeback on Twitter doesn’t cancel any votes. Lena Dunham doesn’t need to star in any more outreach videos about abortion.

If liberals are so smart, then why were the people some would deride as denizens of flyover country able to outsmart us, over and over? Why have they been able to use that power to disenfranchise voters, making it even more difficult for the left to regain lost territory? We’re pretty damn smug for people who keep losing.

In the years leading up to Trump Year Zero, those who were empowered to put a stop to the events already in motion were not paying attention. Or, at least, they weren’t paying attention to the right things. While banishing bad thoughts is a relief in the short-term, problems don’t go away if you pretend they don’t exist. An illness, for example, won’t get better if you just ignore it. Bills don’t get smaller if you simply don’t pay them. Leaving on vacation and never checking in on your house isn’t a good way to keep it from being robbed. Unless we start paying attention en masse to the ugly, unpleasant aspects of Donald Trump, it’s only going to get worse. We no longer have the luxury of avoidance. From this point forward, it’s a dissenter’s patriotic duty to face whatever pain Trump’s words and actions cause. Do not retreat into comfort. Those who oppose Trump need to know enough about what is going on to speak up against it when it crosses a line.

Trump’s power comes from being able to pull a fast one on the public by disappearing into a cloud of bullshit every time something singularly damaging surfaces. Don’t let the volume of distractions minimize their severity. Russian influence in American politics, the new Justice Department, the deficit, access to health care, and Trump’s nominees for cabinet posts are all issues that deserve unrelenting attention from the general public. It doesn’t matter if he was pretending to write a speech at a reception desk at Mar-a-Lago. It’s funny, but we’ve spent the last 8 years laughing when we should have been listening.

Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t change the channel. Trump’s lack of palatability was an asset, and it will continue to be an asset as long as it can convince people who should be working against him to stop keeping abreast to the facts. Don’t let him force you to stop listening. Don’t let a person who has spent a career screwing business and personal contacts screw the whole country.

If the next four years are going to be a fight, you can’t depend on anybody to fight for you but you. Watch the entire inauguration. And watch the hearings of Trump’s cabinet nominees. And read the newspaper. And call your representative. And talk to your neighbors. And run for office. And don’t forget why you care. Force yourself. Don’t let the pain of the way Donald Trump pronounces “China” distract you. The time to look away has ended.

#wise words #DON'T NOT WATCH HIM #WE NEED TO WATCH HIM #trump #he needs to be watched #READ ABOUT HIM #REMEMBER #CARE #call your representatives

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gibsongirlselections · 4 years

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Will Rust-Belt Catholics Keep Backing Trump?

Throughout most of the twentieth century, Catholic voters had been a pivotal demographic for Democrats in presidential elections.

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson could not have been elected without the huge support they received from urban and suburban white ethnic Catholics.

But the loyalty of many Catholic voters began to wane in the late 1960s and they became Nixon Democrats and later, Reagan Democrats. Why did they desert the Democratic Party?

The most succinct explanation was voiced by Ronald Reagan in 1980:

The secret is that when the Left took over the Democratic Party, we took over the Republican Party. We made the Republican Party into the Party of the working people, the family, the neighborhood, the defense of freedom, and yes, the American Flag and the Pledge of Allegiance to one Nation under God. So, you see, the Party that so many of us grew up with still exists except that today it’s called the Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan made it clear, time and again, that he did not leave the Democratic Party, it left him. The takeover of the Democratic Party by extreme leftists, that gave the nation the Great Society social experiments that created a welfare-dependent underclass and pandemic urban crime, drove Reagan and millions of working-class Americans, particularly inner city and suburban ethnic Catholics, into the arms of the Republican Party.

In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first Republican to carry a majority of the Catholic vote, 52%. Ronald Reagan won a plurality (44%) of Catholics in 1980 and 61% in 1984. Fifty-one percent of Catholics voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988.

But, at the tail end of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, Catholic demographics changed. While the Church-going World War II “Greatest Generation” Catholics were dying, many younger baptized Catholics no longer practiced their faith and could care less about Church teachings, particularly on abortion and sex.

A study released this year by the Center for Applied Research, as reported in TheCatholicThing.org., confirmed the decline in observant Catholics: “Between 1970 and 2018, annual figures for Catholic marriages in the United States fell from 426,309 to 143,087; infant baptisms from 1.089 million to 615,119; students in Catholic elementary and secondary schools from 4.4 million to 1.8 million; and elementary and secondary school students in parish religious education from 5.5 million to 2.9 million.”

These findings explain why generic Catholic vote exit polls—which include large subsets of non-practicing Hispanic and White Catholics—have generally gone with the winner:

1992 Clinton 44%* 1996 Clinton 54% 2000 Gore 51% 2004 Bush 52% 2008 Obama 55% 2012 Obama 52% 2016 Trump 52%

* Plurality

However, while the total number of working-class practicing Catholics has declined, they are still a key voting bloc in the economically-depressed rust-belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Aging Catholics are disproportionately represented in numerous counties within those states because their children and grandchildren have relocated to greener economic pastures in the south and southwestern parts of the nation. Hence, these Catholic voters, who generally cast their ballots according to their Judeo-Christian principles, still matter. And in a closely contested election, they can determine in 2020 who will carry the Electoral College just as they did in 2016.

For instance, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where Catholics are about 35 percent of the voting population, the winners in presidential elections carried the state by narrow margins. (Gore 51%, Kerry 51%, Obama 55% in 2008 and 52% in 2012, Trump 48%). Pennsylvania is closely contested due to its three voting demographics: the liberal cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; central Pennsylvania’s rural NRA country; and the heavily Catholic economically-depressed western portions of the state.

While the major cities are reliably Democratic and central Pennsylvania is reliably Republican, the state’s western portion is a swing vote area. Take, for example, the voting patterns in presidential elections (2000-2016) of western Pennsylvania’s Elk and Cambria counties which are 65% and 55% Catholic, respectively:

Elk County

Votes % Gore 5,754 42% Bush 7,347 54% Total 13,081 Kerry 6,602 45% Bush 7,822 54% Total 14,424 Obama 7,290 51% McCain 6,676 46% Total 13,966 Obama 5,144 41% Romney 7,099 57% Total 12,242 Clinton 3,853 26% Trump 10,025 69% Total 13,878

Cambria County

Votes % Gore 30,308 50% Bush 28,008 46% Total 58,309 Kerry 32,591 48% Bush 34,048 50% Total 66,639 Obama 32,451 49% McCain 31,995 48% Total 64,446 Obama 24,249 40% Romney 35,163 58% Total 59,412 Clinton 18,867 29% Trump 42,258 67% Total 61,125

These two counties tell an interesting political story. In 2016, voters came out in greater numbers for Trump than for Romney in 2012 or McCain in 2008.

These numbers confirmed the 2012 findings of blue-collar focus group studies by pollster John McLaughlin in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. Participants indicated that in 2008 they weren’t excited by McCain and decided to give Obama a shot at fixing the economy.

In 2012, while many were unhappy with Obama, a significant number thought Romney was a plutocrat who didn’t understand them culturally and economically. That November, while Romney carried Elk and Cambria counties, the total votes cast were down. A subset of Catholic voters opposed to Obama but uncomfortable with Romney stayed home.

In 2016, however, these Catholics came out in force and overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Statewide, Donald Trump carried 14 of the top Catholic counties while Romney carried 10, and McCain 8. And the voter turnout for Trump was greater in each county.

Similarly, Church-going Catholics that came out in Wisconsin and Michigan were responsible for bringing down the Democrat’s “blue wall” in those states. In Wisconsin’s top twenty Catholic counties, Trump’s vote totals were significantly higher than Romney’s. He carried 18 of the 20 counties versus 13 for Romney.

The results were similar in Michigan. The increase of white blue-collar voters caused Hillary Clinton to lose Michigan by 11,000 votes out of 4.5 million cast. In the top twenty Catholic Michigan counties, Hillary Clinton’s vote exceeded 50% in only one, Oakland—a traditional Democratic enclave. Obama had exceeded 50% in nine of those counties in 2008 and 6 of them in 2012. Michigan’s Macomb County, a blue-collar Detroit suburb—which many analysts consider the original bastion of Reagan Democrats—is a microcosm of the Catholic vote.

Macomb County, Michigan

Vote for President

1980-2016

Republican Democrat Independent 1980 51.9% 40.4% 7.7% 1984 66.2% 33.3% — 1988 60.3% 38.8% — 1992 42.3% 37.4% 19.5% 1996 39.4% 49.5% 9.5% 2000 47.5% 50.0% — 2004 50.8% 49.2% — 2008 45.6% 54.4% — 2012 53% 47% — 2016 54% 42% —

Trump’s vote total in Macomb County was 224,589 versus Romney’s 208,016. Clinton’s vote, 176,238, was down 10% from Obama’s 2012 total of 191,913.

What does this all mean for Trump in 2016?

To be re-elected, Trump must keep together the coalition of Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern states he carried in 2016. This means he must carry three of the four rust-belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. The fact that the margins of victory in those states were very narrow means every one of those Catholic votes matter.

The bad news for Trump: in the past four years, a portion of those Catholic voters have died. Today, there are precious few Reagan Democrats alive. Of the 16 million people in uniform in 1945, only 300,000 were alive in January 2020. In 2015, that number stood at 939,000. Korean War veterans that trend toward Trump are dying at the rate of more than 700 a day.

The good news for Trump: an EWTN News-Real Clear Politics Opinion Research poll taken in late February, indicated that practicing Catholics, representing about 6% of the electorate, are sticking with Trump. Sixty-three percent of these Catholics approved of Trump and “59% said they are certain they will vote for Trump in 2020; another 8% say there is a good chance they will.”

While Trump has been falling behind in national polls, it appears his base voters in the rust-belt states are still behind him.

In the June Pennsylvania primary—in which neither Trump or Biden faced serious opposition—there was a record turnout. Over 40% cast ballots. Trump received 861,000 votes—94% of the total, while Biden received only 734,000 votes. Analyzing the results, Salena Zito wrote in the New York Post, “Biden, who boasts Scranton as his hometown and has based his national campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, has earned just under 78 percent of his party’s support. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hawaiian Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ate away at his numbers, with Sanders winning nearly 20 percent of the vote even though he has dropped out of the race and urged his supporters to back Biden.”

To keep his base intact and to attract “on the fence” suburban voters, Trump must hope that the coronavirus-driven unemployment in Main Street America (which has seriously hurt his supporters economically) significantly declines and that culture war issues—political rioting, arson and looting, the destruction of cherished landmarks, the defunding of police departments, and surging crime—convinces them to vote again for Trump because he will preserve their American way of life.

And he must crank up the enthusiasm of working-class Catholics and persuade them to come out to the polls in droves for him, not the pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage, cafeteria Catholic Joe Biden.

If Trump fails to get them out, his lease on the White House will end on January 20, 2021.

George J. Marlin is the author of the American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact. His next book, Mario Cuomo: The Myth and the Man, will be published in October.

The post Will Rust-Belt Catholics Keep Backing Trump? appeared first on The American Conservative.

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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How Fb Fought Pretend Information About Fb

http://tinyurl.com/yy7hjjsu A month earlier than the 2016 US presidential election, a hearsay unfold on Fb. Individuals had been sharing a viral gimmick acquainted to e mail spammers: Copy and paste this message to all your pals, or Fb will share your non-public info. The hoax took off, notably in pockets of the US and the Philippines. Inside Facebook’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters, a small group of staffers watched this hearsay acquire traction utilizing a particular software program program they referred to as Stormchaser. The device was designed to trace hoaxes and “memes” – foolish, typically unfaithful web missives – about Fb on the social community and different company-owned companies together with WhatsApp. Since 2016, Fb workers have used Stormchaser to trace many viral posts, together with a preferred conspiracy that the corporate listens to customers by their cellphone’s microphone, in accordance with three former workers. Different matters ranged from bitter protests (the #deleteFB motion) to ludicrous jokes (that Fb Chief Govt Officer Mark Zuckerberg is an alien), in accordance with one former worker. In some circumstances, just like the copy-and-paste hoax, the social community took energetic steps to snuff them out. Workers ready messages debunking assertions about Fb, then ran them in entrance of customers who shared the content material, in accordance with paperwork considered by Bloomberg Information and 4 folks conversant in the matter. They requested to not be recognized discussing non-public initiatives. Many firms monitor social media to be taught what prospects are saying about them. However Fb’s place is exclusive. It owns the platform it is watching, a bonus that will assist Fb observe and attain customers extra successfully than different corporations. And Fb has been saddled with so many actual issues not too long ago that typically misinformation can stick. Stormchaser is only one of a number of instruments Fb has deployed to handle its repute, which has taken a dramatic hit due to its function in spreading Russian misinformation throughout the US election and quite a few privateness scandals. The corporate employs a whole lot of public relations officers and spent $13 million on authorities lobbying in 2018. Zuckerberg and Fb Chief Working Officer Sheryl Sandberg have develop into so intertwined with the corporate’s picture that Fb routinely collects public survey knowledge to grasp how most of the people views them – knowledge that shapes what the executives say and do publicly. These inside efforts, which have not been beforehand reported, additionally included a program dubbed Evening’s Watch, after HBO’s Sport of Thrones, that allow employees monitor how information protection of Fb unfold on the social community and apps equivalent to WhatsApp. Messages and content material on WhatsApp are encrypted, however Fb may get a way of what went viral on that app by how some folks talked about info from WhatsApp after they posted to Fb. It was with Stormchaser, although, the place Fb went on offense. Within the Philippines, Fb put an alert atop customers’ information feeds informing them that the “copy and paste” meme was not true. Within the US, Fb promoted a put up from one of many firm’s official Pages debunking the meme. These counter-programming messages, run by Fb’s product advertising and marketing division, had been referred to as “fast promotions” and had been, like most issues at Fb, measured intensely. In a single inside message, considered by Bloomberg Information, a staffer informed colleagues {that a} QP within the Philippines was reaching customers at a “gradual fee,” hitting solely 20,000 of a focused viewers of 750,000. In one other message, a Fb worker mentioned a proposal to focus on US customers with a QP saying the corporate was targeted on pretend information and explaining the best way to report such misinformation. In keeping with a former staffer who labored with Stormchaser, the initiative confirmed how the corporate prioritized initiatives refuting pretend information about Fb over different types of misinformation spreading on the social community. The corporate now hires exterior fact-checking teams to attempt to appropriate false content material on its service, though outcomes have been spotty. Nonetheless, different former workers described Stormchaser as a crucial effort to tell customers and make clear info, one thing that the majority firms do. A Fb spokeswoman mentioned the messages countering hoaxes had been solely despatched a handful of occasions, together with within the Philippines. In one other occasion in 2015, messages had been despatched to clear up a hearsay that Fb would begin charging customers. The subsequent 12 months, knowledge from Stormchaser was used to ship folks in India and Brazil extra details about a plan for WhatsApp to share account info with its guardian firm, Fb. The spokeswoman disputed the concept that Stormchaser was much like combating misinformation extra broadly, a large problem for Fb since 2016. “We did not use this inside device to combat false information as a result of that wasn’t what it was constructed for, and it would not have labored,” the spokeswoman wrote in an e mail. “The device was constructed with easy expertise that helped us detect posts about Fb based mostly on key phrases, so we may take into account whether or not to reply to product confusion on our personal platform. Evaluating the 2 is a false equivalence.” Fb stopped utilizing Stormchaser to reply to memes in mid-2018, she added, however didn’t specify why. The expertise nonetheless exists, although. The corporate continues to make use of polls to measure how its prime leaders are perceived. These surveys of public notion function very like political campaigns, in accordance with folks conversant in the method. The info, which was collected quarterly at one level following the 2016 election, is used to find out the place Zuckerberg and Sandberg have goodwill with Fb’s customers, and the place they want enchancment. In a single presentation summarizing knowledge on Zuckerberg from June 2017, the CEO was rated on character attributes, together with phrases like “mature,” “trustworthy” and “passionate.” He scored highest on “progressive,” and lowest on “shares my values.” Zuckerberg was additionally charted towards rival CEOs. One other slide confirmed a grid measuring “favorability” and “familiarity,” with Zuckerberg nestled amongst names like Oprah Winfrey, Anderson Cooper and Jimmy Fallon within the “well-known, nicely favored” quadrant. The chart confirmed that Zuckerberg was much less likable than Pope Francis, however barely extra acquainted. Sandberg was within the “not well-known, nicely favored” column. Different slides detailed reactions to Zuckerberg’s graduation deal with at Harvard College in Could 2017. The speech was rated extra “inspiring” than his F8 convention keynote discuss earlier that 12 months, partially due to “the inclusion of his personal experiences.” The inner slides present a uncommon glimpse at Fb’s inside priorities and what the corporate’s communications and advertising and marketing groups take into consideration prime executives. Former Fb Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Gary Briggs instituted the surveys after becoming a member of the corporate in late 2013. His principle was that Zuckerberg’s repute influenced Fb’s, and vice versa. “Mark was sceptical, however I had a hunch that specializing in his repute would enhance Fb’s as nicely,” Briggs mentioned in a press release supplied by Fb. “My group did this analysis with the objective of convincing him and bettering each. Ultimately, Mark selected to not concentrate on this a lot.” That did not imply the analysis was ignored. A slide towards the tip of the June 2017 presentation outlined the place Zuckerberg ought to focus his consideration shifting ahead. It requested the query “why does it matter?” earlier than offering its personal reply: “These reputational territories will assist inform all the things from key messages, talking alternatives, who to look with, focus of posts, objectives, and many others.” When Fb workers introduced the findings to Zuckerberg in his glass convention room often called the Aquarium, he took explicit concern with a slide that targeted on innovation, in accordance with an individual conversant in the presentation. Zuckerberg’s face appeared on a slide subsequent to a photograph of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates underneath the label “Historic Innovation.” Beneath that was an outline: “As soon as pushed the restrict/boundaries to develop one thing new.” To the proper, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos had been underneath a unique label: “Present Innovation.” The descriptor beneath their footage learn, “Persevering with to push the envelope.” Zuckerberg was incredulous, in accordance with this individual. The concept that he was a former innovator, and never a present innovator, wasn’t only a knock on Zuckerberg himself – it was a knock on Fb, which depends on its repute for creativity to recruit software program coders and maintain firm morale. The info was introduced to Zuckerberg a 12 months after the corporate unveiled Constructing 8, its secretive {hardware} lab targeted on moonshots, and simply weeks after Fb executives went on stage at its annual developer convention to speak about tech that might switch an individual’s ideas into textual content on a display screen. By the summer season of 2017, Fb had copied among the greatest options of Snapchat, a messaging and picture app that competes with Fb’s Instagram. Gates was probably the most frequent benchmark for Zuckerberg within the slide presentation. Within the “favorability” and “familiarity” slide, Gates was listed as probably the most “well-known, nicely favored” individual on the grid. One other slide confirmed the hole between Zuckerberg and Gates when it got here to character traits like “humble,” “reliable,” and “charitable.” Zuckerberg and Gates are shut buddies, and Zuckerberg thinks of Gates as a mentor — although that is not essentially why the Microsoft co-founder is probably the most incessantly talked about government within the presentation. As a substitute, these conversant in the hassle imagine Gates is the one actual corresponding to Zuckerberg at this stage in his profession: A well known tech founder who got here out of a interval of nice scrutiny – Gates had his personal battles with regulators previously – to develop into a marquee philanthropist. That arc was outlined on one of many slides. “It’s value noting how perceptions of Invoice Gates have vastly developed over the previous 40 years,” the slide reads. “Establishing repute takes time.” Source link

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unixcommerce · 5 years

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Sick and Tired of Measuring Customer Sentiment the Old Fashioned Way? Read This

What Began as a U.S. Trend is Now a Global Norm

On social media, opinions dominate.

What began as a U.S. trend is now a global norm. When marketers are nimble on social, they can turn opinions-at-scale into valuable data, but it’s no magic bullet. Good tools are required, and even then, insights gleaned from opinion data still need creative direction to fit into content.

Sometimes, different elements (such as data visualizations) are also needed to stand out, so beware of any data “solution” that’s a one-trick pony, or just too slow to be part of a fast feedback loop.

While opinions are certainly scattered, the trend of non-stop opinions is sticking around. Business who want to gather opinions can reduce steps through certain platforms. We spoke to one named The Tylt.

* * * * *

Data Has a New Ally: Opinions

An era ago, when Netscape’s Jim Barksdale said “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have is opinions, let’s go with mine”, it was pretty funny at the time.

But in the era of social media, data and opinion can combine for a one-two punch. Rather than putting emphasis on data tracking and telling people what your brand values are, The Tylt says it’s wise to look at real-time data on what customers, influential netizens, prospects and others believe — with statistically viable sample sizes and without the costs and clunkiness of focus groups.

Talking to the Tilt

Small Business Trends connected via email with The Tylt‘s general manager, Kyle Lelli. The Tylt is a polling platform focusing on naturally high-engagement hooks such as pop culture. It launched in April 2016 out of Advance Alpha Group, the 35-person special incubator for new projects and new products within Advance Local, the 9th largest news org in the U.S. As such, The Tylt employs journalists and editorial teams to present two sides of various debates as the initial spark.

As General Manager of The Tylt, Lelli is responsible for driving day-to-day operations of the business as well as long-term product and growth strategy. A self-proclaimed “people person and geek at heart,” Lelli has nearly a decade of experience in digital marketing. Prior to The Tylt, he worked at Complex with a focus on audiences.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: What does your company do? Who is it for? What’s the backend tech?

Kyle Lelli: Millions of people share their opinions on the internet everyday, and The Tylt is quantifying those opinions. We are the internet’s sounding board where social polling and opinions of Millennials and Gen Z are the focus. Especially for trending topics in culture, sports, politics and entertainment. Anyone can cast votes on the news of the day either at TheTylt.com or across social channels by voting with the corresponding debate hashtag. On social media, The Tylt brings a debate directly to audiences without taking people off the app they’re using.

Are you ready for the #NFLDraft? Join THE BET: how well can you predict what will happen? Watch the full video: https://t.co/TFGILjHIcT pic.twitter.com/Q5JyMTmL0c

— The Tylt (@TheTylt) April 24, 2019

Taking the Temperature of Online Opinion

We help marketers by helping them understand and measure consumer sentiment over time. The Tylt also offers branded content campaigns to marketers. Expert teams at The Tylt help to design those campaigns. Once the campaign is live, The Tylt delivers a simple, fun and engaging social polling experience and then gathers and visualizes opinion data.

The Tylt’s patented “Signal” algorithm is the underlying technology. We’re the only company marrying branded content campaign design with polling on social and the web. The Tylt’s team of journalists, community builders and social media experts work together to define and showcase two sides of a topic, skillfully crafted with effective campaign design and unique storytelling. We create the polls based off of what’s happening in the world. We offer data visualizations too, and polls can be embedded on other sites.

Small Business Trends: That’s a cool mix of talents at your company; I like the sound of that. How are things going, three years after launching?

Kyle Lelli: The Tylt now reaches over 50 million people each month across digital channels, primarily ages 18-34. The Tylt is able to capitalize on social media virality and gives marketers opportunities to engage with their audiences in unique ways and then translate those opinions into a powerful branded content strategy.

How Collecting Customer Sentiment has Changed

Small Business Trends: In the past, let’s say before social media was big, what were some choices for audience studies?

Kyle Lelli: For decades, traditional polling methods like focus groups and phone polls have been industry standards for data-driven audience studies. Calls are getting costlier and people are increasingly less likely to pick up. The Tylt believes that people’s time is valuable, and rather than forcing them into an inorganic position, The Tylt meets people where they share their opinions organically, which is by and large social media and the Internet. By tapping into people’s natural tendency to share their opinion with their friends, family and online communities, The Tylt removes many of the pain points found in other polling methods. We like to say that we help brands reach their audience’s audience.

* * * * *

Pictured: Kyle Lelli and Sarah Schmidt of The Tylt Images: The Tylt

This article, “Sick and Tired of Measuring Customer Sentiment the Old Fashioned Way? Read This” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Sick and Tired of Measuring Customer Sentiment the Old Fashioned Way? Read This appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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braindamageforbeginners · 6 years

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Medication

Well, I can’t put it off any more, I have to write about those familiar, controversial Western medical bugaboos, pain medication and psychiatric meds. There are a helluva lot of issues here, and this is almost entirely an opinion/anecdotal piece, since it’s going to be a commentary about opinion (so, an opinion squared?), and I’ll be doing my usual crazed magpie topic-selection of madly going whatever shiny object/joke/whatever is closest to me. A few items to keep in place: modern pain killers are, in the span our species (the proper one, not the drunken Irish bishop’s estimate), brand-spankin’ new - less than 200-ish years old (for comparison, a former roommate of mine grew up in a house that had been in his family for that long)(before anyone gets any images of Kennebunkport, it’s worth noting that we’re talking about a former drinking buddy of mine, which is automatic grounds for disqualification of nobility in most places). Psychiatric drugs are much, much, much newer, especially as readily-available to the general public. Ironically, brain surgery - or trepanning, anyway - is almost as old as our species (so, who’s unnatural now?). And people tend to distrust new things - particularly medically new things (a former classmate was one of the first recipients of a live-organ donation, getting a liver at age four; she said a few fringe religious groups had called her parents with death threats over this)(this sort of thing is why I’m not particularly fond of religion, but I digress)(side-note; it kind of proves that we live in a society completely ruled by rich, old men that no one was up in arms when Viagra came out, even though it enables me to permanently shatter your sense of well-being with four words: Grandpa gettin’ it on)(I apologize for that last joke, that one made even me shudder). And technical/scientifically-oriented humans tend to love new toys, and abuse them.

Which is all a way of saying that I think - medically speaking - after getting over the novelty of all these things and overprescribing them for years, then backing off too much and inadvertently causing a drug abuse pandemic (sort of; I’ve read that the driving factor of the opioid crisis is people with chronic pain issues being under-prescribed or wrongly-prescribed meds, and then, in desperation, turning to more effective-albeit-dangerous things, like oxycontin), I think - and I’m just one severely neurologically-screwed-up individual - that most doctors are coming to think about these things the way they do about alcohol - it’s not for everyone, it’s not always appropriate, but in moderation, it’s healthy for most people. Again, throughout my experiences, I have never - at any point - been completely pain-free (if we include psychological pain) - but I have always been functional (sometimes near-super-functional). Credit where it’s due, I think that’s because I’ve had access to a highly competent, resourceful group of medical practitioners - from the receptionists on up - who weren’t afraid to use every single tool available to them.

The key word in that previous paragraph as it pertains to modern attitudes is “functional.” I could go on forever about how people have a weird hang-up about not using technology to enhance themselves” (again, unless it pertains to our genitals)(again, that’s not some vulgar statement, it’s a further reference to things like Viagra and/or plastic surgery)(not that I’m out of that one either, since I have veneers); we’re still obsessed with Greek games that are “natural.” Meanwhile, the World’s Strongest Man Competition is closer than ever to giving us the Hulk in real-life. Side-note, in case I haven’t mentioned it before; even if you’re completely disinterested in sports, I recommend checking out the World’s Strongest Man. Whilst other sports are obsessed with who can walk faster or swim longer, WSM is more concerned with lifting small cars (this is true) and hauling commercial aircraft. Not that discus throwing doesn’t have a place in modern society (it doesn’t), but if I’m taking bets on who would win in any event other than swimming, a Fiat or Lance Armstrong, I’m sure the Fiat wins. Whereas a Fiat vs Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson in any non-speed related event is a much, much harder call. My point being, we should have a regular, classic Olympics, and an Olympics we’d actually watch in which the only rules are “no killing the competitors, and no horse steroids.” Not because one is clearly more entertaining (although i will admit that’s a strong contender), but because there would be loads of assorted technology and stuff that they’d develop for it. We’d have bionic limbs (I mean, we’re getting there, but not soon enough), replacement clone organs, and better-than-new cartilage alternatives last week if Budweiser invested the sort of sports-sized sponsorship money into related biomedical research (admittedly in rather unorthodox way), and that could help sick people. Or help handicapped people. Or turn handicapped people into the Hulk. I mean, the technology that helped piece my brain back together (neuro/biofeedback) is amazingly more advanced today than it was just 15 years ago (we’ll come back to that shortly).

I mean, where was I? Oh, yes, we’ve always had a weird relationship between enhancement technology and society (better-explored in Carl Elliott’s book, “Better Than Well,”)(Kareem, you need to check this guy out, he got an MD, then got bored/annoyed and got a PhD in philosophy), and being able to enhance your neurological state kind of falls in there, in the sense that a fair number of psych drugs will take you past “normal” and into what Elliot described (based on patient interviews) as “better than well.” Again, based on a few EEGs my brain was functioning better after post-neurosurgery #2 bio/neurofeedback than it was when I went in (this is true), so I’m all for transhumanism. I bring this up because, again, in this broader viewpoint, psychiatric drugs and/or pain killers are part of the discussion,

The greater idea here is that I’m not feeling all the pain I could be from this experience. Well, no. I’m not. And there’s a significant fraction of the populace that has some sort of philosophical problem with that (I have not encountered them personally, but my step-mother does enjoy arguing for the sake of argument/entertainment, and the topics she goes for tend to serve as a sort of general opinion-poll for some of these issues). As she (sort of, maybe, it’s hard to tell) and Master Chief Urgayle would point out, pain is a good motivator. And I wholeheartedly agree. I would not be pestering physicians, social workers, pharmacists, etc. half as much or as effectively as if I were feeling okay. At the same time, there is a point - and this is not a wavy, thin line, this is something everyone will recognize if you ever see it - where pain not only becomes useless, it starts being a direct impediment to survival. After Neurosurgery #1, I blacked out several times from several assorted pain stimuli. In a completely natural scenario, that’s when the saber-toothed cats would’ve overtaken me, and, well, pain is even less helpful when you’re inside something with better teeth than you. Similarly, yeah, I’m not as upset by this whole experience as I could be, because I’m on some very powerful, exotic psych drugs (again, though, this is under direct medical supervision). And that’s essential to my survival; because, if I was doing this completely sober, my only reaction would non-stop vomiting, weeping, and staring out into space, followed by death because I’d forgotten to renew some critical prescription or procedure. So, if you do have friends or family who are chronically depressed (or even just post-partum depressed) and/or anxious and take meds for it, please just treat it as if they have diabetes and are getting and insulin shot. Modern medicine is essentially doing the same thing in both cases - supplementing/controlling a biochemical problem using chemistry.

Speaking of weeping and vomiting, I got a call back from Mad Scientist, who agrees with Senior Warlock in that the latest blip on the MRI is most-likely some sort of treatment side-effect/damage and not a recurrence or metastasis; and, at the same time, given both my history and placement in a clinical trial, very rapid follow-up MRIs were just a reasonably prudent precaution (she mentioned - Great Kraken bless that woman - that she’d be okay, if I weren’t in a trial, sticking with the original two-month schedule; but commended Senior Warlock’s hyper-vigilance on the matter). Which brings up another important reminder to both future-me and future-radiation patients, the list of potential radiation side-effects is lengthy and horrifying and can happen - including showing up on MRIs in weird places - any time post-Hiroshima. Like, I could make it to that 5%, five-year remission, and die at age 90 from necrosis related to radiation (unless I get my wish, and that side-effect guarantees me a slot in BalCo’s Gojira Clinical Trial for the next Olympics)(I’d probably sign up for that one right now even if I was completely healthy, if I’m being honest). Which doesn’t put me out of the woods for this latest little blip, but it will let me sleep slightly easier, which is probably a medical necessity at the moment, given that my current sleep debt is approaching four-digit numbers.

#brain tumor

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thetrumpdebacle · 7 years

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Putin enters the Presidential election year of 2018 in arguably his strongest-ever position internationally – and the weakest (relatively speaking) he has been domestically. He will still win the 2018 presidential election, he will still be popular, it is very unlikely there will be a palace coup. But the pressure that he faces from the young and those living in cities will grow.

Putin has maintained his popularity with a very simple promise: “support me and your lives will never return to the chaos and uncertainty of the Yeltsin period”. In exchange, the electorate has tolerated the restriction of certain rights and looked the other way at the personal enrichment of his inner circle. As 2018 approaches, Putin is increasingly reliant on “symbolic” victories rather than being able to deliver freedom from uncertainty, and this has implications for what will very likely be his final term in power. GRI has previously identified 2020 as the horizon when the perfect storm of economic and social pressures could gather over Putin.

The presidential elections

Putin will win the 2018 Presidential election. This would be the case even without widespread vote fraud. The most recent polls by the Fund for Public Opinion (FOM) and the Levada Center currently have Putin at 68% and 53%, respectively. The roster of legitimate challengers to Putin is short, and this is unlikely to change before the election in 2018.

While the final list of candidates has yet to be decided – with Putin only formally declaring his candidacy on 6 December– there are certain also-rans that will invariably serve as foils. The two stalwarts in this category are the Communist Gennady Zyuganov and the Liberal Democrat – who is neither a liberal nor a democrat – Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky is the more interesting foil, and not just because of the crazy statements he makes. To a large extent he acted as the public face of the desire Russians had to see Trump win the 2016 US Presidential election, with a video of him giving a toast to Trump’s victory doing the rounds on election day. In many ways he is the collective id to a large number of Putin supporters.

The opposition

Then there are those who truly wish to challenge Putin, but have no chance to actually do so. The most interesting in this category is unlikely to be allowed to run for the presidency, though his shadow candidature has the greatest potential to undermine Putin. Here I am speaking of the perennial whipping boy of Putin’s rigged legal system and former Moscow mayoral runner-up Aleksey Navalny. The Federal Electoral Commission has stated that he will not be allowed to run for the presidency, stemming from a past embezzlement conviction of dubious veracity.

Navalny’s influential anti-corruption videos and blog posts have done a great deal of damage to Putin and members of his inner circle, mainly through exposing the lavish wealth that they have garnered through serving as Putin’s boyars. One could make the argument that his influential video exposing the wealth that Medvedev has amassed when in power has completely delegitimized him as from serving in a high level government role after his term as Prime Minister ends in 2018. However, it is important to remember that Medvedev was already on the outs within Putin’s inner circle, and Navalny’s video appears to have simply hastened his demise. That being said, there is always the chance that Putin sticks with Medvedev in order to show his base that he is strong in standing up to the urban-based supporters of Navalny.

Another interesting anti-Putin candidate is the opposition TV stalwart and former socialite Ksenia Sobchak. Interestingly for those students of Putin’s rise to power, Sobchak is the daughter of the former St. Petersburg mayor – Anatoliy Sobchak – who gave Putin his first non-intelligence government role; a role which he cut his teeth in the robber baron and mafia-infested immediate post-Soviet Russia. Ksenia was at times in the past compared to the famed US socialite Paris Hilton for her earlier lifestyle, a narrative which Kremlin-owned RT appears to be pushing again.

However, regular watchers of the opposition internet TV channel – Dozhd – of which she is the figurehead will testify to the fact that she has come a long way since her socialite days, though the ability of the Putin-aligned TV stations to undermine her is virtually unlimited. She serves as a perfect foil for Putin if – as is predicted – the young and the city-dwellers move away from Putin in greater numbers than any previous election. Sobchak can be used as a stereotyped picture of the out of touch opposition, who can be presented as an out of touch cosmopolitan elite that do not understand the wants or needs of the “real Russian people.”

Risk of unrest

Unrest is unlikely to reach the level of the 2011 “Bolotnaya Protests” – the anti-corruption demonstrations across Russia in 2017, for all the – but the coverage around fraud in the 2017 legislative elections is likely to leave voters suspicious of any irregularities. Typically, this petty vote rigging is not done with such regularity in Presidential elections, as the popularity of Putin as strongman garners more votes than less well-known legislators.

With that being said, there is bound to be unrest in the big cities. There is a chance that growing support for anti-Putin liberals in Moscow’s local councils could turn into a 40%+ showing for an opposition candidate such as Navalny in Moscow, which could lead to legions of young Muscovites turning out onto the streets. There is also likely to be sporadic unrest in the regions, though it is too far out from the election at the moment to predict what issues will crystallise discontent.

Putin’s post-election priorities

Delivering pyrrhic victories

Putin’s next – and last – term as President is likely to see him attempt to cement a legacy, closely enmeshed with the idea of Russian power on the international stage.

Much like Trump’s famous “Make America Great Again”, if one were to sum up Putin’s goal as President it would be “Make Russia Great Again”.

Also like Trump, this return to greatness is, evidence suggests, a populist smokescreen for the enrichment of Putin and his inner circle. However, Putin did deliver what he promised, in terms of both global prestige and economic growth, until the war in Ukraine broke out.

By contrast, Putin’s domestic policy in the new year will be overly reliant on delivering the Russian people pyrrhic victories that help bolster their pride, while doing very little to actually provide the structural adjustments Russia so desperately needs. This will undoubtedly be made easier by the fact that Russia is hosting the world’s biggest cultural event, the FIFA World Cup.

As pointed out by Aaron Schwartzbaum, one of the key aspects of the election to watch is whom Putin chooses as his running mate in the coming months. Should he choose a reformer, such as former finance minister Aleksey Kudrin, it is a clear sign that he is looking to pass an olive branch to those who believe that the Russian economy needs a kick start through moving away from state subsidization of private industry and social spending. On the other hand, should he stick with Medvedev, it is clear that Putin thinks a show of force against the anti-corruption campaigners is the best means of going forward.

However, there is a third option where Putin does not aim for change or continuity, instead opting to aim for selecting a successor. While it is far more likely that Putin selects a stable hand going forward, there is always a chance that Putin plays a joker and picks a young up-and-coming Prime Minister that he can groom to keep his legacy after his next term ends in 2024. The most interesting potential candidate is the 37 year-old Nataliya Pokolonskaya, who currently serves as a Duma member from Crimea and was formerly the prosecutor for the region. While this selection remains highly unlikely, a wildcard selection of a young up and comer indicates that Putin is looking to select a successor that will continue his legacy.

International ambitions

Meanwhile, the international arena will continue to provide successes for Russia. Russia is increasing its portfolio of pragmatic allies in the Middle East, and is working to counterbalance the previously hegemonic role of the Sunni-led US-aligned monarchies in the region. While Russia’s recent cooperation with Tehran has always been pragmatic, the two sides will see ever more reason to work together to undermine the Sunni monarchies; especially as the Islamic State enters its post-territory holding phase. Cooperation with Turkey is similarly underpinned by pragmatism, but as Erdogan continues to move further away from the democratic promise of his earlier years in power, he and Putin will continue to see each other as useful allies.

In many ways the more interesting development is the new agreement the Russian armed forces have to use an airbase in Egypt. While it is unlikely 2018 will see a rebirth of the Nasser-era Soviet-Egyptian alliance, it is clear that Cairo is receptive to the role that Russia can play domestically.

Ultimately, Putin can call Sisi and ask, “would you rather work with the US and take 5 years to defeat an Islamic State-inspired insurgency in Sinai; or, hand over the reins to us and smother it out more quickly?”

While previously this may have been a difficult question to answer, with Trump in the White House Moscow is beginning to look like a more reliable partner in this fight, despite the human cost that always comes with Russian military assistance.

In 2018, Ukraine will be the wildcard in Russian foreign policy. Neither Kiev nor Moscow want to fund the cost of reconstructing the eastern portion or lose the symbolic significance of the conflict for domestic political gain. Ultimately, Putin’s Ukraine policy will remain the same barring a drastic change of the facts on the ground. With current domestic chaos in Ukraine and the developing Poroshenko-Saakashvili feud, there is always the possibility that Ukraine could enter into a new phase of domestic political crisis that Russia will look to exploit.

Russia’s economic outlook

The Russian economy will continue to oscillate between stagnation and nascent growth in 2018, which is better than things have been in a while. Since the imposition of Western sanctions, 2017 is the first year that the economy has not contracted. While a great deal of this growth is dependent on consumer debt, any growth should be seen as a positive sign for the Russian economy.

Moreover, the oil price looks to be stabilizing for the time being. This trend is likely to be helped by the fact that Russia and OPEC are now working together to control oil production numbers. It has allowed the Russian Treasury to begin stabilizing the Ruble through purchasing hard currency.

At the same time, the Kremlin budget remains strained and Western sanctions are hurting the Russian economy. The Russian government plays too large a role in running the private sector; whole industries would disappear overnight without vital cash from Kremlin coffers. The banking sector is a particular concern, needing capital injections to stay afloat. Moreover, the 2016-17 saga of privatizing the Russian oil giant Rosneft should be seen as the rule rather than the exception when it comes to the murky interplay between the state and private industry.

via The Trump Debacle

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careerexpansion · 7 years

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Checklist for Effective PD

Having great content is important when delivering a professional learning opportunity but it is not enough. What is also important is to ensure opportunities are well organized and leave participants feeling they got exactly what they expected.

Here are some considerations, followed by an explanation of each, that will enable you to accomplish just that.

Before:

Invite

Send out a calendar invite to intended participants. Include the full address, cross streets, directions to finding the entrance and room. Send a follow up before the event asking those who haven't RSVP'd to do so and asking those who have RSVP'd if their plans have changed.

Name badges

Have name badges. At the very least have the stick on kind. If you forget to do that, have people fold a paper and place on their desk with their name/affiliation. If possible get fancy and have a name badge or card that has relevant information for the day i.e. WiFi password, hashtag for the event, participant Twitter handle.

Check Your Tech

Get to your room early and check that your projector and speakers work before the class starts. Also check that the WiFi is working and that all digital resources and sites can be accessed. Ensure there are power strips so participants can charge phones and devices. If participants needed to bring headphones or devices, notify them in advance. If participants need to set up accounts, in some cases it may make sense to do this in advance so instructional time is not spent on account creation.

Informational Charts

Have information posted in the room that participants can refer to. This will avoid interrupting the day. Information should include:

Computer log in

Program sign in

WiFi access

URL for day’s agenda and materials

Facilitator names / Twitter handles

Bathroom location

Technical considerations:

When posting paper adhere in at least two corners. The center tape ups tend to curl in and the signage becomes unattractive and at worse unnoticeable.

Try to grab attention with what you post. A simple brand logo with a touch of color can help.

Agenda / Digital Materials

In advance of the session send participants the agenda which includes your presentation, evaluation survey, log in info, WiFi, and all other materials and directions. This way there are no surprises. Participants know exactly what to expect and when. They don’t have to worry about taking notes on your presentation, instead they already have it and can begin making meaning. Remember to have a link to the agenda posted in the room for anytime, easy access. Make sure that your agendas are posted an accessible digitally after the class in an easy to find online space. For example, create a Google Sheet with all classes and agendas that can be embedded in the website of your department, school, or company. Check out these tips for creating a great agenda here and here.

Catering

Double-sided tables: If you are serving food, don’t waste time with a single-sided table. Pull the table away from the wall and allow two rows to form on each side of the table. This way you get through the line much more quickly. If there are many people in the room, plan for participants to get lunch in shifts to avoid long lines.

Special dietary requestsPut food for those with dietary requests in a separate area. This way you minimize the risk of not having food for those who requested it. If you are serving breakfast, remember to have non-dairy options for coffee creamer and cream cheese.

Get Social

Professional learning experiences provide a terrific opportunity to celebrate the work of the organizer and participants. However, this requires organizers to have social media hashtags and accounts prominently displayed. Make sure this information is on your agenda, posted in the room, and on slides. Prepare to do a wrap of takeaways at the end of the day and consider live-streaming it on Periscope or Facebook live.

Build Community

Create an online community for participants. This is a place where they can share information before (Intros), during (polls, question responses), and after (challenges, successes, sharing work) the day.

During:

Greet Participants

Set the tone with a positive greeting. Presenters and all members involved in planning the day should greet participants and let them know how excited they are to have them become a part of the opportunity. Help participants engage in conversation with one another over coffee, tea, fruit. You know the drill: What brought you here today? How did you find out about this opportunity?

Have information posted on how to log in to the computers and sign into the program, but allow this to occur in a casual and stress-free manner. This cordial start, gets the day off on a positive note.

There are too many times where the sign in becomes a distraction. Don’t let that happen to you. Make sign in invisible. There are many ways to do that.

Name badges / cards or foldersHave participants take their folders or name badge. The ones left over are absent

IcebreakerHave participants answer a digital or analog icebreaker that includes their name and affiliation. Use this to record who is in attendance.

Physical sign inIf a physical sign in is necessary, keep these tips in mind.

Don’t print double-sided

Alphabetize the list

Spread out on multiple pages to avoid a line for one piece of paper

Place the sign in outside the classroom. Participants provide their signature prior to walking into the room. Consider splitting the alphabet in half and having the first half of the sign in on the left side of the entrance and the rest on the right side. Make sure the entrance to the room is not blocked.

Put Participants at Ease

Too often presenters point to the fact that “there’s a lot to get through…” or say things like “in the interest of time…”

Stop!

This stresses out participants. Less is more. Put participants at ease and instead assure them that they have exactly what they need when they leave your opportunity to be successful. Engage & Interact Sit and git learning can be a real yawn. Make sure your participants have opportunities to interact and do hands on work. If you're showing a video, incorporate techniques like frame, focus, and follow up (WNET guidelines). If you're presenting, provide a back channel for participants to share ideas and reflect. You can check out more ideas for engaging participants in this article.

Instill Confidence

Let the participants know you are right on track and ready to put what they learned into practice with statements like:

"After our time together you'll know exactly how to..."

"We are right on track..."

This way you’re focusing on what they have learned. The audience is assured that they got what they came for out of your time together.

End on time

It goes without saying you must not end late. Doing so shows lack of respect for the time of participants and poor planning. On the other hand, you also don’t want to end early. Too often presenters will talk about “getting participants out early.” Don’t do that. When you do, you are devaluing the experience you are providing for participants. You have also misled them. You gave an end time and now you are saying in essence, that something you planned to share with them is no longer important.

After:

Evaluate How'd you do? To answer that, review your evaluations. Google forms provides a free and useful platform you can use to survey your participants. Best practice is to have participants complete evaluations during class and have a link to the evaluation at the end of your agenda.

Curate

If you and your participants used a session hashtag to capture the day, it becomes easy to curate your experience using a tool like Storify. If you have a savvy participant, who likes social media, you may even have a class volunteer interested in doing this. Recap your event highlights which ideally include great quotes, photos, videos, and resources.

Follow up

Email participants a follow up to provide evidence of attendance, summarize the learning, and include the curated recap of the event. Remind them to visit your online community and share some enticing content that they may want to go there to check out right away.

What do you think? Have you experienced learning opportunities that could be improved if some of the items on this checklist were included? Have any of these strategies worked for you? Are these strategies you would try when you present? Is there something missing?

________________________

This article was written with contributions from Clay Smith and numerous other educators who are members of the #NYCSchoolsTech group.

Checklist for Effective PD posted first on http://ift.tt/2tX7Iil

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politicalfilth-blog · 8 years

Text

Smearing Snowden and WikiLeaks In The Name Of Anonymous

We Are Change

The WikiLeaks and Snowden smears are getting more disingenuous by the day.

In the latest attack on what is without doubt the most significant media organization in the world—WikiLeaks—a far less consequential publisher—The Daily Kos—has managed to squeeze an entire article out of one Twitter rant by what they describe as a “quasi-official Anonymous Twitter account” – @YourAnonCentral, also known as YAC.

In doing so, The Daily Kos is the latest to demonstrate that there is nothing more intellectually insubstantial than the recent trend of quasi-journalists slapping together an entire quasi-article about someone having had a moan on Twitter.

Poorly-investigated and deficiently-sourced, their article fails to dig any deeper than the surface contents of the singular thread, trusting that it contains sufficient reference points that no one will invest the time or effort to look into the matter any further.

Unfortunately for them, we have.

The 25-tweet diatribe their article is based off can be read in their article and is dissected tweet by tweet at the bottom of this one. But first, let’s look a little deeper into the opinions and attitudes espoused by @YourAnonCentral, and give you the story that The Daily Kos didn’t.

YAC doesn’t just hate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. He also has it in for Edward Snowden.

The animosity isn’t restricted to silly memes or playing favorites among whistleblowers. It extends to pronouncements that blatantly violate the basic principles and beliefs of the Anonymous movement.

The idea that an Anonymous account would be openly calling for the prosecution of a whistleblower and advocating that they be subjected to “law and punishment” with “no exceptions” is not only contrary to the ideological premise of the collective, but is frankly extreme in its audacity and hypocrisy.

For an account claiming to be a part of a movement whose members have been aggressively hunted by law enforcement agencies, to advocate throwing a whistleblower to the dogs, is flabbergasting.

But their vitriol doesn’t end there. Since July 2014, YAC has been waging an unrelenting smear campaign against the pillars of the activism community.

Major Anonymous accounts like @AnonymousVideo, tweeting content from Thomas Drake to YAC, go without amplification or acknowledgement.

Other old school Anonymous accounts like @AnonSwedeninfo get acidic responses from YAC…

Or are completely ignored when they attempt to share relevant content with them:

Sputnik News noted the disparity between the positions of @YourAnonNews and YAC, on Snowden:

YAC’s smears against Snowden are completely baseless. Even the most cursory knowledge of his revelations and activity easily dispels them. Take for example, the following tweet:

In their desperation to discredit him and hoping that any mud will stick, Snowden’s detractors routinely contradict each other’s narratives. While some deride him for having spoken out about NSA spying on Chinese university students while still in Hong Kong, YAC audaciously claim that he has never cared about non-US citizens. Yet by the time of their above tweet, in October 2015, Snowden had spoken via video conference in a whole host of non-US countries, about revelations specific to those citizens, including but not limited to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany and others.

Of course, if you wanted further proof of how far YAC have been barking up the wrong tree, you need only look at their own historical tweets, which disprove their more recent ones:

Time and time again, YAC stumbles over its own opinion and contradicts its own messaging. For example, they cast aspersions on radical leftists and Russian-based media organisations, despite having a long history of sharing information from precisely those sources.

At various times they accuse Snowden of being both aligned with US government and the Russians. Likewise, with WikiLeaks.

They accused WikiLeaks of being beholden to other foreign governments:

…yet make bizarre attempts to associate WikiLeaks staff with being pro-US government – specifically claiming that they have “ties to the US military and intelligence”:

The attempt to portray WikiLeaks as being an agent of the US military-industrial complex is followed by, three months later, a switch of course to complain that WikiLeaks only exposes US war crimes:

In aggregate, it seems that they don’t care who WikiLeaks or Snowden is or isn’t working for, they are only trying to cause the maximum possible damage to their reputations, as seen by the posting of skewed opinion polls such as the following, which do not provide any dissenting option.

Glenn Greenwald is another frequent victim of attempts to detract from those doing the most significant and visible work to circulate revelations from the Snowden archives.

Accusations that The Intercept has not released enough documents, or with the speed that many would like, are commonplace. However, YAC chose the precise day that Greenwald and TI had just released further major revelations, in order to attack them about it. Ultimately serving as a distraction from the information that had just been released.

Rather than analyzing and amplifying the documents that they claimed to be so eager to see released, YAC just tore chunks out of those doing the actual work instead.

Things didn’t always used to be this way. A trip down memory lane reveals that at a certain point, there was a seismic shift in YAC’s position.

Going back through YAC’s tweets in reverse-chronological order, there was a clear delineation between the original stances of the account, with its reversed positions and open hostility.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the old YAC:

So what happened? How did YAC go from an account covering Occupy-related media and sharing pro-whistleblower content and leaks, in neatly laid out well-sourced tweets, to what appears to be an angry and aggressively anti-Snowden/WikiLeaks admin?

In the course of investigating this story I discovered the below tweet from fellow ex-Occupier and WRC journalist, Cassandra Fairbanks.

Suddenly, it all clicked. The concise news-style presentation of the early YAC tweets is likely attributable to Cassandra’s efforts. I reached out to her and asked for her take on what happened.

We Are Change: Cassandra, the @YourAnonCentral account shared a lot of great work throughout the Occupy movement and had a really effective tweet style with a focus on info-sharing, up until June of 2014. Since then it devolved into what appears to be one person’s endless rant against pillars of the activism world like Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks. Can you tell us how this occurred?”

Cassandra Fairbanks: “That’s about when I left YAC. I had been using it to promote WikiLeaks and Snowden stuff, but we had massive internal agreements so I quit. The main person running the account was using it as a tool to promote the person they were dating (@georgieBC) who had personal issues with Wikileaks even though she had previously ran WikiLeaks Central, which was essentially a fan site.”

YAC’s anti-Snowden tweets have very little uptake and the threads routinely feature dissenting opinions by readers that are puzzled by the maliciousness on display. Likewise, the malevolent nature of the specific accusations leveled at WikiLeaks by YAC that were picked up by the Daily Kos, did not escape notice.

So let’s break down the 25 YAC tweets, referenced by The Daily Kos.

Tweets 1-2/25: YAC tweets at @Khannoiseur, an anti-Trump, anti-WikiLeaks journalist, that they find his conspiracy theory that Julian Assange is being blackmailed by Putin “fascinating and quite in line with reality” and “would like to touch on the subject, given that we have somewhat of an insight into the matter.”

Tweet 3/25: YAC describes Julian Assange as a “fascist ideologue“, without any reference or source.

Tweets 4-5/25: YAC says that the attributes commonly associated with WikiLeaks including supporting “human rights, gov’t transparency, and open government” are “not in line with Assange’s politics”.

YAC then sets about trying to ascribe those qualities to people who have ceased working for WikiLeaks in the past, in an attempt to effectively strip WikiLeaks of its identity.

Tweets 6-7/25: YAC claims that WikiLeaks ability to receive leaks was dependent upon someone who had departed the organization. YAC says “the software developer behind it (leak platform) left the project. We assume he is still writing software.”

The software developer in question may be Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who volunteered full-time for WikiLeaks in 2009. In this annotated transcriptof the film “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” an unauthorized biography by filmmaker Alex Gibney, WikiLeaks points out that

“…in 2007 WikiLeaks uncovered billions of dollars’ worth of corruption in Kenya, a leak that made front pages around the world, and is widely viewed to have changed the results of the Kenyan 2007 Presidential Election. In 2008 WikiLeaks defeated the largest private Swiss bank in US courts after revealing its Cayman Islands trusts, costing the bank hundreds of millions as it cancelled its scheduled US IPO. However these leaks pre-date Domscheit-Berg’s substantive involvement.”

If the leaks pre-date Domscheit-Berg’s involvement, the idea that Domscheit-Berg was the sole engineer of the WikiLeaks platform—or so crucial that his departure crippled the technological functioning of the organization—is counter-intuitive. Meaning that in fact, the claims made by YAC in these tweets are demonstrably false.

But in fact, they are worse than merely slanders of WikiLeaks. They are an attempt to form a revisionist history that seeks to raise the profile of someone—Domscheit-Berg—who was not simply a disgruntled former volunteer. He was without doubt, a saboteur.

Here is why I can say that with such confidence: Domscheit-Berg didn’t merely beef with WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. He didn’t merely sell-out by writing a book slamming them and selling the movie rights to Dreamworks. He did much, much worse. By all accounts, he deliberately destroyed evidence of war crimes and other corporate transgressions and withheld documented proof of such that were entrusted to him. WikiLeaks also confirmed that Domscheit-Berg made off with the “internals” of up to 20 neo-Nazi organizations.

From this open letter by Guatemalan Human Rights lawyer Renata Avila:

“I gave WikiLeaks some documents detailing proof of torture and government abuse of a Latin America country. The documents were only in hard copy. I entrusted those valuable documents – the only copy available – to Wikileaks because of the expertise of the people running it, their procedures and the mechanisms they used to maximize impact when published. I did not intend to give such material to Mr. Domscheit-Berg personally, as was made clear to him by me at the time. My intention was to give it to the platform I trusted and contributed to; to WikiLeaks. The material has not been published and I am disturbed to read public statements by Mr. Domscheit-Berg in which he states that he has not returned such documents to WikiLeaks.” – Renata Avila

Avila describes being present at Domscheit-Berg’s home when he was toasting journalist Heather Brooke with champagne. Brooke later stated: ““one of [Assange’s] disaffected colleagues gave me a full set of the US diplomatic cables that Assange was planning to use in his next publication.”

These were, of course, files supplied to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning. Of Domscheit-Berg’s attitude towards Manning, Renata Avila notes:

“After the arrest of Bradley Manning became public, I asked Mr. Domschiet-Berg how I could help the young soldier, but he did not appear to be interested. He was on holiday. I sent him contact details of human rights workers I thought would be able to support Manning, which he said he forwarded on to someone else. He never followed it up. I was under the impression that he didn’t care or that someone else must have the situation well in hand. It was only after he was suspended from WikiLeaks that he became outspoken about Manning.” – Renata Avila

The comments section on Avila’s post is well worth reading, to begin to understand the full extent of the betrayals by Domscheit-Berg, referred to as DDB.

OpenLeaks, DDB’s project to springboard off WikiLeaks, was a spectacular failure that resulted in his temporary expulsion from the Chaos Computer Club.

Slashdot sums it up:

Then of course, there’s another tiny problem with the theory of DDB being the technical brains behind the WikiLeaks leaks submission platform.

It turns out he wasn’t actually a developer, a programmer, a computer scientist or a software architect. Nor did he invent, design, build or maintain the platform. He just did a really effective job of at sabotaging and temporarily compromising it.

Tweets 8-9/25: YAC alleged that WikiLeaks “copied the publish everything leak platform” concept from Cryptome.org‘s John Young. Then YAC alleges that Cryptome “left” WikiLeaks but still adheres to the principle. According to Young, Cryptome curate their content and do not simply publish everything. Nor do they guarantee the authenticity of the documents they publish, nor do they offer any protection to their sources. According to the Wikipedia page for Cryptome, Young says their organisation does not believe in “context“, “verification, authentication” or “background“. Additionally, unlike WikiLeaks, they have complied with official requests for removal of content.

Cryptome has a long established history of obscuring events related to the security of their website with conflicting statements.

Given the massive disparities between the two organizations, not the least of which is their core modus operandi, it is hard to decipher precisely what it is YAC now accuse WikiLeaks of copying from them. The function of receiving documents? That’s what journalists do. Cryptome might have been an early influence for WikiLeaks but they did not invent journalism.

Of WikiLeaks, Young said in a 2010 interview with The Observer:

So after joining WikiLeaks in 2006, publicly trashing it in 2007, printing its internal communications and then doing mainstream media interviews about the project he had abandoned after discovering years later that it had become successful regardless, John Young is a WikiLeaks “member”, “insider”, “devotee”, “critic”. Take from that what you will.

This is, of course, the same John Young who claimed to Vocative in July 2014 that Cryptome would be imminently publishing the Snowden documents that had been withheld from the public. He described the leak of the full archive as inevitable. It has yet to eventuate.

Tweets 10-11/25: These tweets are virtually meaningless. YAC says that WikiLeaks postures itself as anti-war and then attributes that stance to Chelsea Manning. Then anomalously states that Chelsea still holds these beliefs. As if WikiLeaks prior to 2010 wasn’t anti-war, when it clearly was, or as if WikiLeaks is somehow pro-war. The assertion is such a lame duck that it’s not even worth taking the time to debunk. Look at what they were releasing prior to 2010, and what they have since, and the writing is on the wall.

Tweets 12-13/25: YAC’s attempts to insinuate that WikiLeaks is usurping the achievements of others, with a complete lack of context, continues. Swiftly moving on to Iceland, invoking the terms ‘open government’ and ‘transparency’ then raising the IMMI (Icelandic Modern Media Initiative), brainchild of Iceland’s Pirate Party leader Birgitta Jonsdottir. What YAC fails to mention is how events in Iceland came to the head that they did. The tide of public dissent that the Pirate Party was able to ride to prominence came about from leaks published by WikiLeaks, exposing gross corruption on the part of Icelandic bankers.

Their supposition that WikiLeaks was not involved in IMMI at a fundamental level is also factually incorrect. In this 12 minute video of Birgitta and Julian Assange speaking at the 2010 Logan Symposium, the truth couldn’t be any more clear, or any more different than YAC portrayed it.

“The reason why I am here is that early this year me and a group of people including WikiLeaks started to work on a proposal for the Icelandic Parliament tasking the Icelandic government to create sort of a reversal ideology of a tax haven, where they pick good legislation around the world to create secrecy, we want to pick the best possible legislation from around the world to create transparency…

…when I heard this idea, originally the idea about IMMI was introduced by Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt at a conference in Iceland in December last year, where I was also speaking. Coming from a background of being an activist, a journalist and a writer and a pioneer on the internet, I immediately understood the importance of this.” – Birgitta Jonsdottir

The video is well worth the watch so here it is:

Tweets 14-16/25: YAC says that WikiLeaks only “supported human rights, horizontal governance and was a megaphone for those at risk… based on their (@wikileaks) Twitter feed from 2010 to 2012. News tweeted by @Wikileaks then was based on work of @GeorgieBC.” Once again, this is a ridiculous statement. WikiLeaks interest in human rights both pre and post dates Georgie’s admittedly excellent work on @WLCentral, which for a time was a brilliant and regularly lauded contribution to the WikiLeaks platform.

WikiLeaks’ most significant achievement in acting as “a megaphone for those at risk” has been in the establishment and undertakings of the Courage Foundation, which is a unique if not groundbreaking organization acting to defend, promote and represent the best interests of some of the world’s most high-risk, high-profile and fiercely persecuted whistleblowers and journalists. Courage was established long after WLCentral was discontinued.

Therefore the idea that their interest in either of the aforementioned principles was somehow bestowed upon them by a departed third party is frankly, disingenuous.

With regards to horizontal governance, it is true that GeorgieBC has done some really innovative, thorough and challenging thinking and writing on that topic and made many proposals through her personal blog and elsewhere. However, YAC is clearly no expert on how WikiLeaks currently operates or is structured behind the scenes.

The proof is in the pudding really and whatever WikiLeaks are doing, they are doing it right. The stats are long since in – they were the most impactful and most significant media organisation on social media during the recent U.S. election. They sport an unblemished record of relentless publishing. It is simply sour grapes to deny them the credit they are due for having achieved so much, in such dire and drastic circumstances as having intelligence agencies, particularly those of the West, set against their success and continued livelihood at every turn yet triumphing regardless.

Tweets 17-18/25: YAC bizarrely suggests that Jeremy Hammond having leaked the GIFiles from Stratfor was the sum total of WikiLeaks work against ‘corporate tyranny’. But their established record of publishing huge leaks on (not to mention confronting in court and winning) corporates goes back to 2007 and stretches to the current day. As a campaigner against the TPPA I can tell you that WikiLeaks consistent publishing and analysis of the TPPA, TISA and TTIP texts was hugely consequential in helping to grow the movements against those ‘trade’ agreements – which were not trade agreements at all, but corporate coup d’etas undermining national sovereignty for the benefit of the bottom lines of giant transnational conglomerates – and that is just the most recent example. To swing the pendulum all the way back, it was 2007-2008 when WikiLeaks first took on banks and won.

Tweet 19/25: “People thought @Wikileaks wanted to support the weak against the powerful. That was #Anonymous, not Julian Assange.” What else is there to do but shake one’s head at this inanity? Compared to the entire might of the Western Empire and its military-industrial complex, WikiLeaks *was* the weak. They are quite literally David vs Goliath and they have delivered time and time again. The false dichotomy between Anonymous and Julian Assange is a deliberate attempt at divide and conquer. The vast majority of Anonymous supports WikiLeaks and Assange and always has. Their genesis is from the same community. They cannot be separated just by someone with a Twitter account who desperately hopes they can be. When Assange’s internet was cut by Ecuador in 2016, what happened? Vast swathes of the connectivity of the East Coast of America (and elsewhere) was taken down in retaliation. No matter how much B.S. YAC circulates to the contrary, YAC cannot break solidarity between hackers just because they wish it were so.

Tweet 20-25/25: Bereft of any actual evidence and not having posted a single source link in the entire 25-tweet diatribe, YAC resorts to ad hominems. Assange is this, Assange is that. The WikiLeaks Party, which it is well known was infiltrated, just as its parent organisation had been repeatedly in the past, and then smeared for supporting neo-Nazis, just as Anonymous itself was once smeared for supporting neo-Nazis, just as Occupy was smeared as supporting neo-Nazis, just as any significant activism movement or group supporting any kind of radical change is, is hauled into the exact same smear because it is a known tactic of the state to do so. According to YAC, somehow Julian’s support of the First Amendment of the US Constitution is also bad – despite Birgitta Jonsdottir having expressed exactly the same admiration for it in the above video.

“None of the people who have ever been involved in @Wikileaks have changed…”

Well, the people involved in @YourAnonCentral have definitely changed and it sure as hell wasn’t an improvement.

By Suzie Dawson

The post Smearing Snowden and WikiLeaks In The Name Of Anonymous appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change http://wearechange.org/smearing-snowden-wikileaks-name-anonymous/

#We are Change #We Are Change

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