Anybody doing NaNoWriMo 2024?

[Avery Moore]

It would not be professional of them to make public false accusations, and release names and such, and to not do so may look like a cover up. So...without any special knowledge, I'd hold fire on that.

That's true. I think that the main outrage is that the moderator in question was allowed to continue being a moderator (and a moderator of forums specifically catered towards minors) while the investigation into the allegations was taking place (if there even was an investigation).

 

[pmmg]

Just a guess, but...suppose the site admin came in, and read all his mail...and was like, there wasn't anything here.

He should be removed for doing nothing?

If I do that, then I leave my self open to having to jump at every spurious claim.

Which is to say, I dont know what happened, but probably no one else does either.

Do the types of people who get the reigns at nano seem like the types not to jump on such causes?

Maybe they are run by Disney.

 

[Avery Moore]

And it does matter what the Executive Directors (or an organisation committee) do or don't do. If you're going to have an organisation with an ethics policy, if you're going to have an organisation which is aimed at young people, then you also have a responsibility and, for the young people, a legal obligation to ensure that the organisation is safe and ethical in it's practices.

I think Diana means that she gives zero fucks about what the NaNoWriMo organisation does in relation to the NaNoWriMo event. Which, I completely agree with. People can still write 50,000 in November without supporting the NaNoWriMo organisation... Or at least that's what I think she means, I could be totally wrong.

 

[Avery Moore]

Do the types of people who get the reigns at nano seem like the types not to jump on such causes?

Maybe they are run by Disney.

From what I understand, the events regarding the grooming allegations went as such.
1. Concerned members of the NaNoWriMo forums contact the NaNoWriMo HQ with concerns that allegedly, one of the NaNoWriMo moderators (who specifically moderates at least one forum that is aimed specifically towards minors) hosts a fetish website that contains material involving minors. Allegedly, there is evidence to suggest that he has been trafficking minors from the NaNoWriMo forums to his fetish website and that he has been trafficking adults from his fetish website to the NaNoWriMo forums in order to communicate with minors. They send the NaNoWriMo HQ an email with all of the evidence they have gathered to support these allegations.
2. The NaNoWriMo HQ acknowledges that they have received the email and that they will look into it.
3. While they are "looking into it" the moderator in question is allowed to remain a moderator and continues to moderate forums that are aimed towards minors.
4. Eventually the moderator does get demoded for his behaviour on the forums, but not as a result of any of the allegations.

The allegations may or may not have been true. The mod could have been completely innocent. Still, if there were allegations of child grooming made against him, it would probably have been a good idea to at least demod him while they were looking into the allegations.

 

[pmmg]

If you host a website involving minors, the FBI is gonna be looking at you, so....you're problem are gonna be beyond modding some website.

Nano can do what it wants. I dont care about them or their mods. But...i'm not gonna jump on a bandwagon cause people are upset. I'll need the evidence.

If all of that is true, I hope there was more than he lost a modship.

 

[Ban]

All that controversy sounds like a great opportunity to get rid of the "national" part as well as the organization, and make it just the November Writing month or something of that sort. Never thought it made much sense to name an international event (always really has been) "national." Alternatively, shift the whole thing to October. Even less of an association then!

 

[Ned Marcus]

If you host a website involving minors, the FBI is gonna be looking at you, so....you're problem are gonna be beyond modding some website.

Nano can do what it wants. I dont care about them or their mods. But...i'm not gonna jump on a bandwagon cause people are upset. I'll need the evidence.

If all of that is true, I hope there was more than he lost a modship.

Accusations are not proof. That's true. But for many people, their aggressive endorsement of AI-generated fiction is enough reason to abandon them.

 

[Ned Marcus]

We could always turn this NaNoWriMo section of the forum into a November Novel Writing section and have our own writing event here.

 

[ThinkerX]

I have entered NANO many times. 2023 was the first time I 'won.' I combined that book with two others and expect to hit the 'publish' button around Halloween.

I expect to be revising another book for a December release this November. So, NANO appears unlikely.

 

[Finchbearer]

I think it should be pointed out that the accusation of something does not necessarily mean the occurrence of it. Perhaps it was looked into, was found to be nothing, and that was that. It would not be professional of them to make public false accusations, and release names and such, and to not do so may look like a cover up. So...without any special knowledge, I'd hold fire on that.

Yeah but accusations like that don’t come from nowhere.

 

[Prince of Spires]

My personal opinion on the AI thing was that they were simply dumb and gave exactly the wrong argument. Now they tried to blame the world for disliking AI and somehow tried to turn it into this chivalrous quest to protect people who didn't want to use AI.

Instead, if they'd simply said something like:
NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge. We believe everyone has the right to create their novels in the way that fits them best. We don't prescribe how people write, or why. Instead, we support all creators. As such, if an author feels he needs to use AI to create his work, then from our perspective he is free to do so.

then instead of this whole controversy, they could have turned it into a supportive message few people could take issue with. Add in a few words about NaNo's mission, and being open to everyone, and you've got a blog post that makes people like them more, not less.

The other points though, not such a great thing...

 

[pmmg]

Yeah but accusations like that don’t come from nowhere.

The accusation I was responding to was that the admins at Nano did nothing, and tried to cover it up. We don't know that.


I will soften that to, I dont know that, and unless there is something in public to serve as evidence otherwise, I will assume they did something, we just dont know what it was.


Anyway...I dont care for Nano, and always felt it was kind of artificial. I dont need a special month to write something. So...I dont care about their problems. I'm gonna exit this conversation.

 

[Devor]

From what I can tell, Nano handled the AI situation pretty badly - calling people "ableist and classist" for their view on AI warrants an apology. But everyone in the creative industry has gotten pretty heated about AI. It doesn't seem worth all the outrage towards Nano, to me. It's not like they're the ones who made the AI. They're just trying to adapt to an AI world like the rest of us.

The grooming accusation is more alarming. I've heard much less about it, so I can't say too much. But that's a serious issue and should have deserved a serious response from them. Without looking into it, I've no idea if they took it seriously or not, but it doesn't sound like they did.

Accepting sponsors from companies that prey on authors is the more concrete issue, I think. They've become big in the writing community, and rather than pointing people to positive resources, they're advertising scams to newbie writers and making them look credible. Well... so does Opera, and ads for those horrible betting apps are almost universal. I don't like it though.

But - I don't know. These are valid issues, for sure. But are they so serious that the community should move to tear the company down? I don't really think so. I would want to see Nano fix its problems, not be destroyed by them. That's especially true when it's the AI issue that's driving this. They fumbled, for sure, but the company's thoughts on AI is hardly a moral issue.... AI itself, sure, yell at OpenAI and Google and Meta and the others. Write to your politicians, sign on to lawsuits, write op-eds, stand up for copyrights. But let's not scapegoat Nano for a fumble and make the writing community weaker because of it.

Still, our involvement here is just the name of a forum, and we've always had plenty of people participate in the Nano threads and writing in November whether or not they use Nano's website or services. I've always thought having a forum for Nano felt a little odd to me, to be honest, but I didn't want to step on anyone's vibes. It doesn't matter to me if people want to change the forum name (the others are still discussing it). But with everyone turning on Nano this sharply over this, I can't help but feel like the greater writing community is losing something it doesn't need to lose.

 

[Toob Waysider]

I took part in 2022, and it was a great exercise in staying focused while doing research for it and incorporating that almost immediately. I finished a week and a half early and then started thinking up ideas for a prequel to write about the next go round. By then however, I was in the middle of moving and I've since lost interest in the exercise; even more so now, hearing about the controversies. And I like to work at my own pace. But one day I'll resurrect that project because I think it has potential....

 

[ThinkerX]

For me, the 2023 NANO was the opportunity to write a tale that had been on the backburner for a decade.

 

[Avery Moore]

These are valid issues, for sure. But are they so serious that the community should move to tear the company down? I don't really think so. I would want to see Nano fix its problems, not be destroyed by them.

From what I understand there's been a massive staff turn over in the last year and everybody that was involved in the original controversies are pretty much gone, so that's a step in the right direction. On the flip side, they're now seriously understaffed as a result.

 

[dollyt8]

Hi all! Was wondering is there is anybody taking part in NaNoWriMo 2024? Fully prepared for radio silence and tumbleweeds considering NaNoWriMo went and got themselves involved in about a million different controversies over the past year and everybody seems to be drifting away. Still crossing my fingers though since I'm super hyped to take part for the first time this year (I've been planning on taking part for the past 2 years running and ended up having to drop out at the last minute due to family emergencies.) But since the forums are all down, I'm really struggling to find a group of people that are still taking part, or even any accountability buddies.

I was planning to take part and didn't even know there was any controversy!

 

[Adaddinsane]

The controversy was that they decided that AI-generated stories were to be included in NaNoWriMo, and when people complained, they accused them of being ableist and classist. One senior executive left; others have withdrawn their support. Since then, they've tried to walk it back a little bit.

That was not the controversy. (But just to be clear - I won't be doing it, they're dead to me.)

NNWM did not say AI entries are acceptable. Let's face it, it's no skin off their nose if some idiot wants to do that. (You could generate 50K of lorem ipsum easily enough without AI - they don't care.)

What they did was parrot the policy of their biggest sponsor (ProWritingAid), who claimed that being opposed to AI was ableist and classist.

This viewpoint brought derision from every quarter especially people that suffer from ableism and classism who were outraged as being treated as an emotional blackmail pawn.

In addition, PWA does not provide their "AI" option for free so they are fundamentally ableist and classist. You have to pay extra to have your prose turned into the sort of thing a cis-het male would write (because that's more acceptable). And that's ignoring all the other "AI is a Very Bad Thing(tm)" reasons.

So this was not a good look to begin with.

It also runs counter to NNWM goals, which is simply to get the words down regardless of quality so (theoretically) nobody would/should be using a grammar checker (of any sort) at this stage.

Yeah, NNWM sold out but let's not add stuff that isn't true because there's no need, it's bad enough as it is.

I immediately deleted my account.