Category: Uncategorized

Section B outlines Matthew Johnson’s creative attempt to expand the complaint from a single violation of the Twitter feed guidelines to cover my own blog posts here and at Black Gate, the comments made by commenters on my blog, and comments made by commenters on other blogs.

B. Continuing pattern of actions prejudicial to SFWA

This section of the report examines the evidence on the question of whether Theodore Beale has engaged in ongoing and deliberate efforts to disrupt SFWA’s mission and to undermine the credibility of the organization both among the membership and the general public that did not occur in SFWA controlled spaces or in ways that directly violate SFWA bylaws and policies.

While they may not be in direct violation of SFWA bylaws or policies, they may be taken as evidence that Beale’s actions and continued membership in SFWA pose a significant risk of imminent and serious harm to the organization.

Three general issues will be addressed in this section:

1. Attacks on members
1.1. Personal attacks
1.2. Threats by commenters

2. Attacks on the reputation and integrity of the organization
2.1. Accusations of corruption

3. Effect of Beale’s continued membership on SFWA

Needless to say, as will become clear, the “attacks on members” are, for the most part, responses to their attacks on me.  Matthew Johnson mostly omits that minor fact from his “comprehensive” report; even when he does mention that a current board member openly threatened me he attempts to minimize her actions.  He fails to mention, of course, that the same member also attacked me in the SFWA channel known as the SFWA discussion forums.

Unlike the previous section, where he never got around to the fifth general issue, Johnson does actually address the three issues raised in this section, none of which, by his own admission, have anything to do with any violation of SFWA bylaws or policies.

Now, there is nothing I could do that could possibly undermine SFWA’s mission to promote the publishing of science fiction as much as the Board’s determination to expand that mission into matters that are of no legitimate concern to the organization. There is nothing I could say that would undermine the credibility of the organization more than the repeated awarding of Nebulas to trivial works of fiction by mediocre authors.

On the subject of SFWA’s credibility, I think the decision to publicly assert that the eminently forgettable sixth novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire was the Best Novel of 2001 permanently undermined the credibility of the organization as a legitimate writer’s association.


“The beautiful young noblewoman Kamoj Quanta Argali rules a declining
province on a distant planet that has lost the high technology of its
original colonists. To save her people, Kamoj has contracted to marry
Jax Ironbridge, the moody, unpredictable ruler of a prosperous land.
Then a mysterious stranger from another world proposes a marriage that
neither honor nor law will allow Kamoj to refuse.”

The Quantum Rose
#1,989,497 in Books
#323,201 Paid in Kindle Store 
27 reviews
3.7 rating
2001 Nebula Award winner for Best Novel

SFWA was once an organization that nominated bestselling science fiction authors like Jerry Pournelle and Mike Resnick for its highest awards.  Now it is an organization full of mediocre and derivative writers who are openly attempting to drive those authors out of the organization.  One cannot undermine a nonexistent credibility.

At this point, not even Hitler can salvage the SFWA’s credibility. Though I do look forward to eventually hearing about the copious new rules, policies, and guidelines that will soon be going into effect in order to belatedly defend it, especially the very important rule about not posting Hitler parody videos that refer to the organization.

§ 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.

Section 4 isn’t particularly interesting or relevant, except for what it reveals about Matthew Johnson’s competence and the extremely arbitrary nature of their charges.

  4. Threats of harassment and mischief against SFWA and members

This section will look specifically at threats of harassment and mischief made in SFWA-controlled spaces; other threats can be found in section C.

This investigation has found two threats of harassment and mischief against SFWA and members made by Mr. Beale in a SFWA-controlled space, both in a post later removed by moderators from the online Forums:

You can certainly try it [expulsion]. […] I’ll just tell you right now, I will absolutely be insisting on a Nebula award as part of any settlement.
    (See Fig A.26)

This would seem to imply that he is suggesting that he means to extort SFWA in some way so as to be guaranteed a Nebula award.

Immediately afterwards he adds:

What I find amusing is that some of you actually seem to think I’m being difficult now. (Ibid.)

It is not difficult to interpret this statement as a threat of harassment and mischief.

The first thing I note is that Johnson gets the figure wrong.  There is no  Fig A.26.  He actually means Fig A.25, which is one of his nine screencapped violations of SFWA discussion forum confidentiality.  And it’s interesting to note that he felt it necessary to selectively edit the text of my post, because the whole text shows that not only am I not harassing anyone, I am simply responding to what amounts to eight years of public harassment by members of the organization, including several of the current Board members presently adjudicating this matter.

[REDACTED]

Sure it isn’t.  By that standard, you’re going to have to discipline dozens of members who have attacked other members in the Bulletin, the Forum, and in their official capacity as an SFWA officer.  And you’re not fooling anyone with that transparent dodge.  The “misuse of Twitter feed” already has a clearly defined penalty: “Marking blog posts for inclusion that include threats or personal attacks or obvious trolling will also be grounds for removal.”

My blog has already been removed from the feed.  Now the board is discussing if you think you can get away with adding a second penalty on top of that one… for a first offense.

I’m perfectly aware there are some who would love to use this as an excuse to kick me, and anyone who happens to think like me, out of the organization.  There are members who have been talking openly about wanting to expel me for my opinions and nothing else since 2005. You can certainly try it. I’ll just tell you right now, I will absolutely be insisting on a Nebula Award as part of any settlement.  What I find amusing about this is that some of you actually seem to think I’m being difficult now.

It’s actually impossible to interpret the statement as any such threat.  Standing on my rights and adhering firmly to the letter of the law and the organization’s rules is neither harassment nor mischief.  As will soon become clear through copious documentary evidence, I have been the object of harassment by multiple SFWA members for eight years, and I am now being harassed by their allies on the Board who have targeted me with this irrational, arbitrary, and malicious report.

As further evidence of the Board’s arbitrary behavior, because Mr. Johnson was referring in his report to moderate-deleted Forum posts to which I have no access, and since other members have made threats against me in the Forums which were deleted by the moderators, yesterday I requested access to both the Forum and the moderator-deleted Forum posts.  This morning, I received the following response:

As was noted in earlier correspondence, your access to the SFWA discussion forums has been suspended due to your repeated reposting of discussion forum posts, without permission of the authors, culminating in your blog post of July 10, 2013. The right of all our members for confidentiality outweighs your request in light of your continued repostings. Accordingly, your request is refused.

Matthew Johnson
Canadian Region Director
SFWA

Note that Mr. Johnson’s claim is obviously false as I could not have reposted posts from a discussion forum to which I do not even have access. I merely posted graphic elements from the non-confidential report that Mr. Johnson himself sent me unsolicited.

UPDATE: In light of the “threat of harassment” charges, it may be informative to note that there are no less than 59 instances of actual harassment from what looks like a single individual here on this blog in 2013 alone.

§ 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.