Section C purports to be evidence of what Matthew Johnson imagines to be my “bad faith”. Which I find to be more than a little ironic, considering his near-complete failure to provide any of the considerable exculpatory evidence available in his “comprehensive” report.
C. Actions which demonstrate bad faith
This section of the report examines actions by Mr. Beale which, while not individually as serious as those described in parts A and B, may be taken as cumulative evidence that his interactions with SFWA have not been in good faith.
Two general issues will be addressed in this section:
1. Declarations of unwillingness to obey SFWA bylaws and procedures
1.1 Archiving Forum material for later publication
1.2 Refusal to abide by bylaws and Board sanctions2. Threats of nuisance litigation
As well, the final part of this section will look at posts and comments made by Beale in which he makes statements regarding his intentions and his attitude towards SFWA.
In related news, the SFWA Board has voted on my 17 June complaint, which concerned Nora Jemisin’s apparent violation of discussion forum confidentiality in her speech in Australia, Lee Martindale’s implied threat to commit criminal violence against me in the event of my election, and Laura Resnick’s threat to kill me, dismember me, and serve the remains to her dinner guests.
SFWA President Steven Gould moved that the Board “disallow the complaint filed by a member against multiple members to continue through the complaint process for insufficient grounds” and the measure passed 6-0.
Just to make it clear that I have not violated any confidentiality rules, please note that I received the results of the Board vote from parties other than the SFWA Ombudsman. I am still awaiting the result of my 11 July complaint concerning the actions of Mr. Gould and Mr. Johnson.
Something else I found interesting related to the charge in B.3 concerning the supposedly negative effect of my membership in the organization. Given the necessity of an objective metric to ascertain the validity of Mr. Johnson’s charges, I asked him how many members the organization had on June 13th versus July 15th. Mr. Johnson informed me: “The membership numbers in the online directory represent our best data. We do not track membership numbers by specific dates.”
Given that the online directory still contains several members who left the organization some time ago, this makes it clear that the Board will have little choice but to dismiss that aspect of the complaint for what are, in this particular case, legitimately “insufficient grounds”.
And in the meantime, former SFWA president McRapey appears to have taken the news that rehashed Jane Austen is still acceptable “science fiction” in the eyes of SFWA 3.0 a little too enthusiastically. That, or he’s simply not dealing well with his copious free time now that he’s left Steven Gould to clean up, however ineptly, the Augean detritus that three years of McRapey’s “leadership” left behind.
Either way, he has let it be known that he would henceforth prefer to be known as Jane Scalzi in a courageous attempt to play life on a more challenging difficulty level. I know everyone in the Dread Ilk will join me in wishing him well in his transition.
UPDATE: Mr. Johnson’s statement is absolutely fascinating in light of Article V, Section 5 (c) of the SFWA bylaws.
§ 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding
the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted
work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by
any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
copyright.