In Defense of SFWA

It's a tempest in a teapot, more or less. It sounds like good things may come out of it, though, and that's encouraging.

My reasons for quitting precede this event. If the changes continue and the organization grows from this, I may have to reconsider my decision to not renew.

Inarguably, the EMF is one of the best things SFWA has ever done for its community. They've helped many people. Were I not covered by my workplace's medical insurance, I can assure you that I would still be a SFWA member.

My lack of participation in SFWA is on my own shoulders -- I have half-heartedly tried to use the forums they have set up, but the interface is a big turn-off, and what free time I have I'd rather spend on writing. That'll change someday. And when it does, I'll evaluate if I need to once again pay SFWA to represent the writers of my genre.

I am afraid this time the teapot is a big one....

Wish you'd stick around, the org needs people like you, to help enact the positive changes we might all prefer. :-)

I'd just renewed my SFWA membership the day before this mess blew up, but while this error was embarrassing, it would not have dissuaded me from joining again. Living in Australia, I'm never likely to need its Emergency Medical Fund and don't expect to attend any SFWA lounge parties at Worldcon again any time soon, I and doubt I'll ever win a Nebula (closest I've come was the preliminary ballot)... but I'm nonetheless glad these things exist and that the organisation as a whole exists.

Glad you're staying in, Stephen. :-)

Hey, maybe one of the things that can happen in time is more outreach and more features for non US members.

You should link to this post from sfwa if you haven't yet done so.

Good idea, thanks -- will do!

Here here!

Don't forget the model contract, griefcon, and foreighn rights advocates. For all it's faults, SFWA has a place in this world and fills it admirably.

Exactly.

The Writer Beware section of SFWA is also hugely important in this day and age of scumbag tricksters and thieves looking to bilk writers.

I joined two months ago and in spite of the late unpleasantness, plan to remain a member for a long time. If only because I know the organization can rise above this and I'd like to help it do so, so that former members will want to rejoin and new writers will want to join.

Good, and welcome to SFWA!

We're a varied bunch, hard to get along (a herd of cats in the turest sense), but in the long run very much worth it -- I think. :-)

Just a quick note -- I don't think the anger I've seen in the blogosphere towards SFWA is just about "this one incident". I think the problem is actually a longtime pattern of behavior, as evidenced by a series of red-flag incidents and public stances taken by the SFWA leadership in the last few years. For example: there was plenty of warning that SFWA's e-Piracy committee might do something stupid long before this recent incident. The "webscabs" comments of a former SFWA officer several months ago hinted at disturbing attitudes toward/ignorance of modern technology, e-commerce, and the law. That a number of active SFWA members and officers came forth to defend and support these comments made it clear that his attitudes are entrenched in the SFWA leadership. On top of that, it's taken years of bitching by a whole lot of people to get SFWA to consider updating its bland, ugly, circa-1995 website. And there's something downright obsessive in the fact that SFWA has a committee and an official statement focused on the issue of e-Piracy, but on no other issue that's important to their membership or SF writers as a whole. (For example, after the whole Harlan-groping-Connie incident last year gave the whole SF community a PR black eye, I would've at least expected to see SFWA issue a statement about diversity and inclusiveness.)

I recognize that SFWA does many things well. I commend their work on the EMF, the Grievance Committee, etc. But doing some things well while massively cocking up other things does not excuse the cockups. There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing this out, or with demanding that SFWA do better if it's going to continue to hold a leadership position within our genre/profession. So IMO, the best way you can show your pride in being a SFWA member is to work at fixing what's broken within this organization, so that it won't embarass you again and so that it will do more things of which you can feel proud in the future.

Thanks for your comments. You bring up a number of good points.

However I do believe there is something very wrong and unbalanced in the act of only criticizing without giving equal time to the good aspects of a thing, SFWA included.

When was the last time people discussed with pleasure the good things that SFWA does and has been doing since 1965?

I chose to do this now.

Someone has to.

It's like doing a workshop critique of a written work -- if one only points out what is wrong, it is very easy to lose track of what is fundamentally very right.

But SFWA isn't a written work. It can't be "finished" at any point; it can't be critiqued once, refined into a perfect (or more perfect) form, and sent forth into the world to thrive or fail. SFWA is an organization -- a living, evolving organism. To me, praising SFWA now for its past good works feels kind of like praising human beings for our ability to walk upright and master written language -- in the middle of a debate about our contribution to global warming. Sure we've done good things in the past, but what have we done lately? In the end, that's what will dictate our survival and/or legacy.

Or a better analogy: it's like citizenship. There are many in the US who feel that it's disloyal (at least) to criticize our government for its current actions. "We're the greatest country in the world," they say; we've done so many good works, etc.; to focus on all that's wrong right now overlooks our mostly-OK history. But I think those people fail to grasp that this criticism is a positive thing, especially given that historical context. If not for that positive history, we wouldn't be so frustrated now. We wouldn't believe, based on experience, that we can do better. We wouldn't give a damn. The true enemy of any organization is not criticism -- it's apathy.

I'm not saying you're wrong to focus on the positive; we could all use a break from negativity. =) I'm just saying that your "defense" of SFWA isn't necessary. If people didn't already believe SFWA was worth all the angst and frustration they've been expressing, they would be silent. Then SFWA would really be in trouble.

But SFWA isn't a written work. It can't be "finished" at any point; it can't be critiqued once, refined into a perfect (or more perfect) form, and sent forth into the world to thrive or fail. SFWA is an organization -- a living, evolving organism. To me, praising SFWA now for its past good works feels kind of like praising human beings for our ability to walk upright and master written language -- in the middle of a debate about our contribution to global warming. Sure we've done good things in the past, but what have we done lately? In the end, that's what will dictate our survival and/or legacy.

One might argue that a written work can never be finished either. *grin*

Or a better analogy: it's like citizenship. There are many in the US who feel that it's disloyal (at least) to criticize our government for its current actions. "We're the greatest country in the world," they say; we've done so many good works, etc.; to focus on all that's wrong right now overlooks our mostly-OK history. But I think those people fail to grasp that this criticism is a positive thing, especially given that historical context. If not for that positive history, we wouldn't be so frustrated now. We wouldn't believe, based on experience, that we can do better. We wouldn't give a damn. The true enemy of any organization is not criticism -- it's apathy.

Now you bring up another interesting point. As a naturalized citizen myself, someone who's struggled for it, who fought long and hard as a refugee to finally gain US Citizenship, I can say that I tend to put my gratitude to this country first. It will always come first before I venture any criticism of its policies (and no, I am not shy about that either). I feel that very strongly, "in my blood and my bones," how thankful I am to belong. Maybe this also translates to how I feel about SFWA, antoher group situation.

Maybe it's a different cultural habit of a lifetime -- to find the positive grounding first, then start tearing things apart to make them better?

I'm not saying you're wrong to focus on the positive; we could all use a break from negativity. =) I'm just saying that your "defense" of SFWA isn't necessary. If people didn't already believe SFWA was worth all the angst and frustration they've been expressing, they would be silent. Then SFWA would really be in trouble.

To specifically address your question about the reason for this particular defense of SFWA on my part, please take a look at this post I wrote in the SFWA Lounge (note that a login and password is required since it is a private newsgroup).

Can't view your Lounge post, sorry; I'm not a SFWA member. I could be, but I purposefully haven't joined. I don't plan to for the time being.

And I guess I'm one of those people who tends to assume the positive and feel that it doesn't need to be stated aloud. If I didn't feel/see positivity in what SFWA does, I wouldn't say a word for or against it. I would simply ignore SFWA and join something else. For many years that's precisely what I did -- I'm active in the SLF and Carl Brandon and a bunch of other groups that seem to me to be doing smart things. But when SFWA recently started to show signs that it was actually trying to shed its stagnant, moribund image and catch up with the millennium, I started paying attention. I started asking questions. In those conversations I was reminded about the good things SFWA had done, and realized it had the potential to do so much more. So I started to care.

Unfortunately I'm also a skeptic, and I wonder whether SFWA is capable of making the reforms it needs to survive before it self-destructs from sheer stupidity. Potential is worthless if it's never realized, and what an organization has done in the past is not sufficient to make me overlook evidence of poor management in the present. To join SFWA now would be a waste of my money and time. But if it takes at least a few progressive steps, I'm willing to meet it halfway.

I'm not an SFWA member (just and SF reader and I'm completely unaware of SFWA politics) but I read the many posts on the latest brouhaha and had these thoughts (please correct me if I'm wrong).

1)I gather the officers are not paid.

2) I gather that most of the officers ran unopposed (except for last minute write-in candidates).

3) Being an officer is a time-consuming job.

So ... what you had here was someone trying to do the right thing, but, maybe because of time constraints, doing it very badly. I didn't see anyone say "hey, you don't know how to do it and I can help" until the note went out about creating a committee. And how many people besides Scalzi stepped up to volunteer to be on the committee??

It's easy to criticize, so much harder to "do".

Yes, the officers are all volunteers. And the election this year was unopposed until the eleventh hour when write-in candidates stepped forward.

Time consuming is an understatement. *grin*

As far as the committee, it already existed but it needed new blood and new energy, definitely.

Volunteers

"Yes, the officers are all volunteers. And the election this year was unopposed until the eleventh hour when write-in candidates stepped forward.

Time consuming is an understatement. *grin*

As far as the committee, it already existed but it needed new blood and new energy, definitely"

I have to recognize Michael Capobianco for his handling of being caught between a rock and a hard place, and it appears that he hasn't added new blood to the committee, he's done the right thing and disbanded it and creating a new one which will be far more useful. Copyright issues are important but until now have been addressed poorly.

Then there's the sales pitch. As someone who's worked on conventions -- and what caught my eye in the first place -- the world needs far, far more people to volunteer for things. It's an unpaid job, it always takes up more time than you expect it to and more time than you thought you had, and often it seems that the only return you get is people grousing about what you haven't done or what has gone wrong. But the satisfaction of doing a good job for something you care about is more than it sounds, and now and then people do notice the good things; one or two people doing that makes up for the complaints. It's not an entirely thankless job. Meanwhile, if you're certain that you don't have time or skills for something, if you have a chance to vote on something, learn about it and vote.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I'm not an author, editor, or anyone who might ever be a member of SFWA, just encounter this and that. And I'm taking a year's hiatus from working on conventions. This particular volunteer ran into burnout after seven years, which is shorter than most. After a couple of months off I am working on one but being facilities second isn't hard if the person taking lead is good and the convention has only somewhat over a thousand members. I still wouldn't have done it if someone else wasn't taking lead and all the weight of responsibility, only working at-con. It's the responsibility that burns you out the fastest. Thus the need for new people volunteering.)

I was a member of SFWA for a year, way back. As best I can tell I benefited from it in no way -- but I put nothing into it, so that's very likely why. I volunteered for nothing, skimmed the publications. I was peripherally aware of the standard-issue political hubbub... a meeting at this con or that where everybody was up in arms over the burning issues of the day... but that was pretty much it for me.

I do know from your experiences, Vi, and from other friends, that SFWA does a good job of fulfilling special needs. I think it also has a lot to offer in social terms, networking, and whatnot. However, the main thing that kept me out on the fringe -- and which eventually left me shrugging at my membership renewal notice -- was SFWA's stance on copyright advocacy. At the time it struck me as somewhat alarmist, uninformed, and overzealous.

What strikes me most powerfully about these current events is that the factions on both sides... the voices with which they have spoken, the actions they have taken... fall so squarely in line with my memory of those same factions and individuals. I'm not saying that to poo-poo anyone person or pat anyone else on the back. The point is, political movers on any level have a track record, and they're typically pretty consistent. Voters and "activists" are consistent, too.

As I understand it the current administration -- whose past actions, opinions, etc., are well documented in public forums, as they have been for more than a decade -- was elected without contest by a constituency who is also very active in and aware of those forums. If so, then accountability falls on the members of SFWA as much as it falls on anyone.

Of course, that also means the power to make amends is in their hands, too. And I'm sure they will.

Yes, "accountability falls on the members of SFWA as much as it falls on anyone." I also note that the current administration took on a tough situation, and their handling may not be perfect, but, oh, thank goodness we found people willing to take it on. I commend them; it's going to be a tough year. But I like to think that by next year, most of the house will be back in order.