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eitanestheim · 4 months

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What's Going On With The NaNopocalyse?

What is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is a yearly event where aspiring writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. The challenge was created in 1999.

What is the NaNoWriMo organization?

They are an official US based non-profit group who runs the NaNoWriMo.com website, the forums, and engages in local and community outreach online and in person with adults and young people as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

From their website: NaNoWriMo is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page. We’re also proud to be a majority community-funded charity.

The organization has existed since 2006 but there was a major board shakeup in 2019, resulting in a perceived shift in the management of the organization behind the scenes.

What are the NaNoWriMo forums?

The NaNo forums are an official online community hosted by the NaNoWriMo organization. The forums are exceedingly large and, until recently, heavily trafficked and populated by writers seeking community and guidance for their writing journeys.

Who are the people involved in this story?

Mod A: A volunteer moderator on the NaNoWriMo forums (one of more than 800 mods). Formerly lead moderator on the NaNoWriMo forums.This moderator was ousted in late October due to a racially insensitive comment she made regarding Staff B.

Staff B: A member of the staff as NaNoWriMo's Online Community Manager. She apparently received a number of complaints regarding her ability to successfully handle her duties as community manager. She is a person of color.

Mod X: A volunteer moderator on the NaNoWriMo forums (one of more than 800 mods). This moderator received complaints of discussing inappropriately adult topics with teen forum users, and making underage users in her charge uncomfortable.

The staff: A group of employees who are paid to manage the daily operation of the NaNoWriMo organization including the forum moderation, community outreach, fundraising, etc. They have been accused of failing to protect their users and properly moderate the forums.

The board: A moderately faceless entity supposedly in charge of NaNoWriMo as an official nonprofit. They have been accused of failing to protect their users, failing to provide transparency about their credentials to run a nonprofit, failure to provide transparency about spending, and more.

Q) What was the racial comment that Mod A made that resulted in her ousting?

Mod A commented that she had heard from another staff person that Staff B was a "diversity hire". This comment was made in the context of her apparently being a poor fit for her role in the organization, a topic which had been discussed in the organization prior to this comment. Mod A made a public apology regarding this comment, and departed the organization.

Q) In what way is Mod X accused of being inappropriate with children?

The exact specifics of the complaint that was brought to the board against Mod X are unknown. However the publicly available evidence is that Mod X ran a fiction writing website heated toward adult fetish material (specifically ABDL), and that she inappropriately discussed this website and its content with underage users. She is publicly accused of linking underage users under her care to this website, as well as generally making users under her care uncomfortable.

Q) What exactly is the NaNo board and staff being accused of?

Initially the NaNo staff were being accused of failing to act when their attention was brought to a potentially predatory moderator who had contact with teen users. This is true. There was a significant gap in time between when the users privately brought their concerns to the staff, and when they were finally acted on.

However, as the situation escalated, many other accusations have been leveled at the NaNo staff and board members, which will be discussed below.

The backstory

Earlier this year in October there was an incident in which Mod A resigned from her position as a moderator due to racially insensitive comments regarding another member of the organization's staff.

Following Mod A's resignation on October 20th, 2023, a discussion regarding general lack of moderation, and lack of oversight of the moderation team began between users in the NaNo community. Many young users cited incidents of lack of proper moderation, and feelings of a lack of safety. This conversation was abruptly shut down by the board and characterized as vitriol.

In the context of this discussion, a twitter/X user posted publicly on November 8th, regarding concerns and allegations about a moderator (Mod X) which they had brought to the staff earlier in May 2023. They brought screenshots and spreadsheets as evidence and asked for it to be further investigated.

A month had gone by, and nothing appeared to happen. Users under her care noticed that Mod X had begun to scrub her fetish website of what they considered to potentially be incriminating evidence, and further pushed the staff to act.

In June, Mod X had been removed as a moderator, but retained their account on the forums and continued to post there. The twitter post post alleges that she "continued to post in threads with their moderator name, and adapted a position of continued authority."

According to the twitter post, Mod X had been posting offsite threats regarding the users who had gotten her de-modded– this was later confirmed to be true. It was not until October 30th, when Mod X made threats against the NaNo organization that she, along with several of her alt accounts, was finally banned from the forums entirely.

The Forum Shutdown

Following the creation and spread of the twitter post on the 8th many more NaNo users began to ask questions of the staff, and reach out to them with their concerns over the handling of the subject.

On Sunday, November 12th the NaNo forums were shut down entirely, aside from one thread entitled "Board Response to Complaints about Forum Safety and the Safety of Minors". Members who were unaware of the allegations were surprised and confused by the forum shutdown, and they, along with those where were already aware, made their concerns known to the board through this post. This thread eventually reached over 4000+ posts.

On November 28th, the board opened a second thread called "Got Questions? Need Answers? Join Us Right Here", intended to be a Q&A session regarding public concerns. The tone of many messages was heated, and the board eventually stopped responding.

It is alleged that the specifically accused moderator– Mod X– posted variously on both of these threads under sockpuppet alt accounts.

It is additionally alleged, and seems to be true, that neither of these threads were moderated, instead relying on hiding messages automatically based on user reports.

As of December 4th, both of these threads were closed and the forums were shut down entirely.

Mod X's response

During the time that the two threads on the NaNo forums were left open, Mod X posted publicly and repeatedly in response to them on her own social media. The tone and contents of her responses was considered by many on the forums to be extremely hostile, erratic, and strange.

Despite her hostile tone, Mod X's posts also seemed to be just as critical of and hostile to the NaNo staff ard as those who were concerned about their inaction regarding her. Mod X revealed that she did in fact have multiple alternate accounts on the NaNoWriMo forum, and that all of these accounts had moderator powers, due to the allegedly incompetent way that the forum was managed.

In short, Mod X, as well as any other moderator, was able to create or promote more accounts as forum moderators at any time, without any oversight or checks. More of Mod Xs hostile toned posts alleged additional incompetence behind the scenes with how the forum was run.

In between threats, claiming the desire to bring the NaNo board down, and angrily responding to the allegations against her, Mod X also claimed to be dying of a terminal illness– a claim which many NaNo forum users were skeptical of. She also claimed a friend of hers, who is alleged to be a sockpuppet, was beaten and killed on November 28th, and other dramatic claims which were all the target of larger skepticism by the NaNo community discussing the topic.

At the time that the board shut down the NaNo forum completely, Mod X posted to her social media a post that read "I Win."

Where are we now

As of December 4th, the NaNoWriMo forums have been completely shut down, allowing for no continuing public discussion of the difficulties and accusations that the organization is facing.

At this time, one of the board members, whom users were concerned was using a fake identity, has disappeared from the board page on the NaNoWriMo website without comment.

What are the accusations against the organization?

While the original accusations against the organization were simply staff incompetence, and apathy regarding creating a safe and well moderated environment for their users, teen and otherwise, during the partial shutdown of the forum, the list of accusations has grown.

Fundamentally, users find it concerning that board members are allowed to use fake names to hide their identities, and why their credentials with regard to running a non-profit are not available online.

There is also question about how the revenue that the organization generates from donations is spent, and concerns have been reignited over a former scandal where the organization had briefly partnered with a predatory vanity publishing corporation known to exploit hopeful authors. Unlike AO3, the NaNoWriMo organization does not provide an easily accessible outline of their spending.

Many of these questions and concerns were raised in the board's Q&A topic before it was shut down.

Where do we go from here?

It remains to be seen how, or if, the board will respond to any of these questions, and how the organization will proceed in the future.

There is no current word on when, if ever, the forums will be reopened.

Some former NaNo participants, including former moderators, have created a discord server with the intent to rebuild a better community. They have been an invaluable source of information regarding these events.

Resources:

A list of links to resources for this article will be available in a reblog of this post.

#nanowrimo controversy #nanopocalypse #nanowrimo

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eitanestheim · 4 months

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A Summary of the allegations against Nanowrimo

A group of Rogue Writers have managed to assemble a list of the allegations that have come out against Nanowrimo in the last year, below.

PROTECT KIDS FROM NANOWRIMO

NaNoWriMo and its staff have recently come under fire for their numerous unethical and predatory practices. These include, though are not limited to:

Hostility and inaction after numerous members raised child grooming allegations against a volunteer moderator who was in charge of teens within the NaNoWriMo forums.

Headquarters took nearly 2 months to quietly remove the accused moderator's leadership powers, and over 5 months to remove their account… which they only did after this former moderator threatened to damage NaNoWriMo's contract with an affiliate.

Refusal to protect kids in the Young Writer’s Program from predators. Kids were instead bullied and silenced by the staff.

Ivan the Icy, a scavenger hunt game that featured a terrorist-styled “supervillain” (which they admitted was a mistake).

Local organizers (called MLs) not being background checked, yet required to host in-person events with kids present.

Harboring volunteer MLs who were reported as racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or abusive.

Ignoring and silencing MLs who begged for help regarding serious issues within the volunteer program. This resulted in at least one participant suffering an event-related assault.

Inaction when MLs abused fellow MLs with bullying and ableist discrimination.

Promoting multiple Vanity Presses (predatory, scam-like publishers), including Inkitt, even after outside sources confirmed and announced they were predatory.

Solicitation via email for donations from kids in the Young Writer's Program.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Do you know of a school or classroom participating in NaNoWriMo through the Young Writers Program website? Please bring these issues to their attention.

If you donate to the NaNoWriMo organization, stop. There are plenty of other charitable organizations far more worthy of your monetary support.

Continue enjoying the November writing challenge WITHOUT the NaNoWriMo organization. Many authors and writing groups have written 50k words in 30 days without even being aware that the organization exists.

Please share this post.

#nanopocalypse #antinanowrimo #nanowrimo controversy #nanowrimo

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