The weekly opinion and news post.
1. It was an eventful week in Romanceland last week, and with the Book Blogger Appreciation Week nominations out any time, things promise to get more even interesting.
I have one of two things to say about BBAW, and will let you know which later:
A. I got shortlisted! Vote for me! Squeeeee!!!!
B. BBAW? So over it. But good for you, if it’s your thing.
2. As a public service, I hereby introduce the Romanceland Kerfuffle Advisory System (R-KAS). R-KAS is designed to guide protective measures when kerfuffles on a particular blog, message board, or social networking site are detected. R-KAS combines threat information with vulnerability assessments.
Low — low threat of kerfuffle activity. You are free to move about Romanceland with minimal concern, even to high risk areas.
Guarded — things seem ok, but if you put your ear to the ground you can hear rumbles (you can also find several books you have been looking for under the couch, but that’s a topic for another post). Proceed with caution. Avoid known controversy seekers at this time.
Elevated — one or more 50 comment thread has been detected, Tweets increasing in frequency, trolls have been spotted. Be sure to carefully check post titles before clicking though, and do not make comments on any blog which lacks an edit window.
High — the kerfuffle has been named, has its own hashtag on Twitter, and is being being discussed on three or more blogs. Big Bloggers who have never visited you suddenly show up in droves. Few blogs are safe, although Ramblings on Romance, The Thrillionth Page, and DIK Ladies are likely to be able to provide temporary safe harbor. Avoid Twitter at all costs.
Severe — the original kerfuffle now serves merely as platform for old feuds, the origin of which no one recalls or cares about. Things are still dangerous, however, as it has spawned meta-kerfuffles about who started, how to conduct, or what counts as settling the original kerfuffle, and it has attracted interested parties outside Romanceland, which a contingent of kerfuffle warriors has broken off to battle back behind non romance-genre lines. Even SuperWendy’s mad. If you are serious about your sanity, stay on your own blog (close comments and quickly write a post featuring LOLCats or hot men, preferably both, if you find yourself an unwitting kerfuffle host), and don’t open your non-work email for a week.
3. 2009 Golden Heart Winner Vivi Andrews has a very interesting post up at Damned Scribbling Women, called “What Makes a Good Book Good?”. what really caught my eye was this unusual admission:
“I love romance. I love writing romance. But I want to write a Big Book someday that examines and impacts society in a way a happily-ever-after could not do. So I can’t take offense when people ask me when I’m going to write something real. Yeah, it sucks that they don’t respect what I’m doing now, but I understand that to them a RGB [Really Good Book] has to be electro-shocky and romance just ain’t.”
4. This is why I blog. From a speech given last year by someone whom I may or may not personally know and admire the heck out of:
“Researchers report that only 20 percent of Americans read a book not connected with their work last year. A few more read about four books. No one has reported on how many people participated in discussions about those books. How can I bridge the gaps that separate me from my neighbor if I do not talk with my neighbor about things that matter? In discussion, our solitudes open and admit the other and we meet: not to agree or disagree, not to tie up and pin down the answers to questions raised by the reading, but to explore the possibilities offered by the book. When we fail to read and to discuss, we become less human.”
5. CNN.com had an interesting article on the changing social role of the librarian the other day:
“In a world where information is more social and more online, librarians are becoming debate moderators, givers of technical support and community outreach coordinators.” I had never thought about the way digitizing of books affects the role of the librarian.
6. Yet another book blog taking a bow! Let’s Gab is taking a break. They will be missed — although you can still find most of them at their other blogs.
7. I wish I could be like other bloggers and tell you what I have coming up this week, but I’m honestly not sure. A review of Judith Ivory’s Black Silk, probably. A post from Tumperkin that is going to singlehandedly raise the R-KAS to Severe (No pressure, T!). Not sure what else.
Happy week!
I vote to adopt your advisory system, stat.
I think you’re on to something with your advisory system. I could have avoided a lot of stress if I had had this a few years ago when I made what I thought was an innocent comment on a forum and got my knees whacked out from under me. I suggest you incorporate an early warning system into the header on your blog or on a sidebar so we can hunker down/jump in with both feet depending on our current mood.
Ha! Love it. You should make a Sprout widget, and we can all post it on our sidebars, and you can change the warning level from one central location.
…is it sad that I’m kind of serious?
And I’m sitting here thinking about #3, wondering if it’s true. I get what she’s saying, and it’s not that I disagree — but I wonder if it’s the HEA at fault, or that for (most) romance, societal norms are re-affirmed. Romances don’t really challenge the status quo, even if they manage to highlight certain issues and question them. By the end, everything is right in the world.
But I don’t think I agree that groundbreaking, inspiring, and/or challenging books can’t have a happy ending. :-/
Hell, I just love that you name-dropped me under the “Severe” alert.
Regarding CNN article – at least from the time I was in library school (late 1990s), librarians and library science programs were pretty “with it” in regards to technology. I had a whole class on “non-book” materials, and I remember discussing HDTV back then – before it was even remotely available to your average consumer. I think what has changed is the advancement of social media, and how quickly a lot of librarians have glommed on to it.
I think this is in large part due to the fact that librarians are constantly having to justify their right to exist. Either to politicians who want to cut funding or to members of the general public who don’t realize there’s more to be found in a library these days than dusty reference books and back issues of National Geographic
It’s in that constant “need” to justify our existence, that we jump on whatever bandwagon comes along. So yeah, we embrace IM, blogging, wikis, Twitter, Facebook and what have you to show the naysayers how “cool,” “hip,” and “with it” we are. I’m not sure we’ve been 100% effective, but it has helped and at least knocks down the stereotype of gray-haired spinster ladies wearing sensible shoes and shushing people all day.
You can celebrate my friend – you were shortlisted for Best Romance Blog and it is well deserved! : D
Congratulations!
Aoife wrote:
Meljean wrote:
I wish I knew how to create a widget or badge, like the national security one (on which this is obviously modeled). I wanted to do it just for fun. Any idea what kind of program I would need?
@ Meljean:
Re: #3. I agree and disagree as well. I do think the genre constraints are (obviously) limiting, but I also think a lot of Big Deal issues cna be addressed within them.
Wendy wrote:
I tried to picture the least flappable person in Romanceland and there you were!
Re: Librarians — do you agree that the reference piece is diminishing while the “creating a forum for social exchange” part of growing? I wasn’t sure about that, based on my own library. I see patrons at the computers, but I don’t see debate taking place.
Ana wrote:
I got shortlisted! Vote for me! Squeee!
I see I am up against Katiebabs, AnimeJune, Marg of Reading Adventures, and The Book Binge.
I have already voted for myself several times.
Well reference has certainly changed. From my personal experience, we’re not answering as many heavy-duty reference questions and the ones we are? Business-oriented and “social work” oriented. “Where can I go to get rent assistance etc. etc. etc?” Questions like that. And certainly the computers are in hot demand – but debate? Yeah, not so much. The only “debating” going on involves patrons wanting more computer usage time
um – you totally oversold me.
I want more blogs about hot men and LOLCats and body parts that go on cute adventures ala My Milk Toof.
Oh. I forget we are at war with one another because we are in the same BBAW category. Down with Racy Romance Reviews!!! I will now spread the word about your devious underhanded ways and enter into the Severe category.
My fingers are getting sore from clicking on the Tumperkin blog … I’m in “severe” pain … LOL! So is there a place where a civilian can look at the nominees? Is this a vote early vote often Chicago election style operation … my fave! I’m probably not eligible to vote, sadly, because my votes could be had for an arc of Balogh’s upcoming A Matter of Class. A cit marries an aristo: one of my fave tropes!
ROTFL on the advisory system. This has definitely been needed for a while now.
As to the quote regarding HEA, people are brainwashed I tell you, brainwashed. And I’ll say that to my dying day. ;p
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for an ending that isn’t so-called happy, and it’s generally to make a point, but there is also nothing at all wrong with a happy one for goodness sakes. That’s what gets me. The almost complete dismissal of endings that provide hope and uplifting impact to stories.
Whatever genre they are. Because they’re not all found in romances, you know. Most truly popular fiction has happy endings because people don’t typically mass consume stories about characters that fail.
You might try Dijit or Widgetbox. Both have free services (I forgot that Sprout went to a paid model.)
I’d suggest making up just five small .jpgs for your advisory levels, putting them up on an image server, and then simply using that image link for your widget. When you want to update, you just have to go in and change the image address.
I haven’t used either of those widget-builders. If you seem to be having a lot of trouble with them, I still have a free Sprout account, and I’m only using two of the three available widgets. I don’t mind sharing if those don’t do what you want them to.
What a fun and wonderful variety post!
First, I love your system! The meta-kerfluffles in status severe! Oh, and thanks on the safe harbor call-out. You could make a widget at Sproutbuilder. Could you please get on that? Because, I know you have all kinds of extra time. I will be the first to post it.
Congrats on the shortlisting. I didn’t get shortlisted. I blame it all on Miss Doreen.
I totally and absolutely disagree with point #3:
“a RGB [Really Good Book] has to be electro-shocky and romance just ain’t.” I think a dark ending can reveal the same ignorant sense of certainty as a lame flowers and butterflies HEA. But when done well, both types of endings can also expand the conversation.
On #4 you said This is why I blog. And I thought it related to #3, and I was trying to figure out the connection. And I decided that you mean a RGB is one that people actually read on a wide basis, and the humanization of the act itself.
Then I realized you didn’t mean to insinuate a connection. Or maybe you did! Either way, I really love that quote!. “…not to tie up or pin down…but to explore possibilities.” And how that is human.
. I love that you would take your blog’s cue from it. You totally stimulate and demonstrate that here!
Brilliant post, Jessica. It truly made me laugh! I vote for the introduction of the R-KAS!
HAH, “Even SuperWendy’s mad”! This is true, SuperWendy is a levelheaded one. There really should be a place where I can check the current R-KAS level at all times. Then I’ll know if the internets are safe or not.
I have come to believe that I am one scary bitch in real life because no one has ever asked me when I am going to write something serious.
I desperately need that system, so I have advanced warning that half the blogs I read are suddenly going to have massively long posts about something everyone else knows about and that I am completely ignorant of and baffled by.
Might I, in a spirit of utmost collegiality, suggest that Romancelandia may be somewhat larger and rather less defined than a few penetrating voices that tend toward the kerfufflesome?
And toward a related end, I should like to propose an augmentation to your most excellent system. ‘Tis the merest soupçon, but would that I had implemented it some years previous! I speak, as you may apprehend, of the UPROAR:DULL ROAR quotient. By this measure I hope to distinguish between those of our sistren blogs who are sucked, protesting, into the churn while striving tirelessly to contribute their daily mote of romance readership; and those who charge repeatedly into the fray for the love of Mike and drama.
Though I grant it will make absolutely no difference. Once the kerfuffling is flung, the chicken cannot be put back into the egg, nor, alas, the egg into the chicken.
RfP wrote:
Snort. Yeah, I was kinda thinking of this yesterday. Although I wouldn’t have put it quite so, cough, eloquently. (I especially liked the chicken and the egg comparison.
)
Honestly, it’s not so much about needing an alert system for avoiding these things completely as it is for knowing when and where they are or were happening in the first place. Sort of like a news alert. Because what RfP is saying about the community being large, wide-spread, but overlapping is extremely true. We are many and have many different and varied interests. And you know what? It’s amazing how calm and tranquil it can be when one decides to not visit AAR, Dear Author and Smart Bitches on a regular basis–mainly just when someone points out a great or pertinent post on some topic or other.
That said, there are times when I only hear about a major brouhaha weeks after it’s happened and I honestly wonder if I want to know about it, too. So, a warning system that keeps track of uproars might actually be of benefit, too.
Or not. ;p
Just depends on how one looks at it, I suppose.
Even SuperWendy’s mad.
ROFLMAO!!!
Uh. You guys know I was totally kidding about R-KAs right?
RfP wrote:
Yes. you are so right.
there a phenomenon, and some psych major reading this will know its name, that we focus on the negative in groups. So if I am teaching a class, and there is one student with whom I have a bad experience one day, I may come away and think, “it was a terrible class, so much conflict” even though the other 20 students enjoyed it and got on well. This phenomenon explains why one dissenter can tank a proposal even though 99% of the others wanted it passed.
What about a post about hawtLOLmen? Holding cats?
As for #3–Interesting that Andrews feels that way. I think I will comment there about it, though. Thank you for the link.
Good one! Let us know when it’s safe to come out. I’ve been hiding at Ramblings on Romance and making LOLcats.
Love it!
Although it is kind of sad that something like this may actually be needed.