Maybe I'm paranoid?

[mamadeb]

Was there a reason that the sign-ups for Yuletide were announced on a Jewish holiday?

Seriously - it was hree days ago. If someone on my flist hadn't said something this morning, I'd never have known. Add to that the fact that nominations were done during the week of Yom Kippur and Sukkot, so I had NO time to do it.

A girl could get a complex.

Comments

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

Of course there wasn't a reason. They'd been saying all along that they were working on this and hurrying with that, and hoping to get the signups open on Friday. I think they'd hoped to get them open earlier than they did on Friday, in fact.

To be honest, rather than planning to do things on days and in weeks that coincide with Jewish holidays, people who are not observant Jews are in general unaware of Jewish holidays. That's a separate thing to be disappointed about, of course, but bottom line, yes, if you think there's a plot, then you're being paranoid. :-/

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I can be annoyed and frustrated, though, can't I?

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

Sure. A person can always be annoyed and frustrated. :-( I just think it's much more fair to be annoyed and frustrated at circumstance, rather than at individuals, in this instance.

(They might also, you know, have expected that people who were anticipating signing up would proactively look and see if signups had been opened - especially since, as I said, earlier in the week there had been at least one "signups should open on Friday" notice. Aren't there things you go to see if you missed, when you come back online -- in the general, non-internet sense -- Saturday nights?)

(Also also - I mean, I'm not on the team, but the deadlines and things are worked out by working backwards from other deadlines. Reveal on January 1. Archive goes live on December 25. Submission deadline December 19. Assignments sent out by the end of October. Signups in enough in advance that they can get the assignments out. Nominations in enough in advance of that that they can correct and streamline and weed out the non-obscure, etc. So it's always going to be in the fall ... and, of course, so are the High Holy Days. But I bet that in future, if you see that a nomination period [for instance] is going to be completely within a time that you can't get to it, the team could be persuaded to adjust things a day or two in one or the other direction so that people aren't logistically excluded from participating.)

[more hugs]

[cereta.livejournal.com]

You can, but I think implying that it was somehow done intentionally is unnecessary. I think the mods assume that people have been reading the "sign-ups soon!" announcements, particularly the ones that have specifically said "sometime around Friday," and that if they're offline for any reason when the actual announcement is made, that they'll check the LJ or website, or, as you did, see someone talking about it. The signups go on for two weeks. It's highly unlikely that anyone will entirely miss that they're going on in that period, especially when there are likely to be plenty of mod posts about them, including warnings about the deadlines.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was deliberate on anyone's part, but I -- so, you know, you can always write to elynross and ask for the Jewish holidays to be kept in mind next year, because it made things difficult for you. More productive, you know?

I guess I feel like this really is one of those situations where mentioning something to the organizers a couple months ago would have avoided the whole problem; I can't imagine they'd fuss about shifting a few days to make things easier on Jewish fen. So maybe mention it now as a thing for next year.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Last year, the Jewish holidays were all on Shabbat and Sunday, so there wasn't much impact, plus things were done later for Yuletide, so it didn't come up and I had no reason to suspect there would be conflict this year.

Next year, the Jewish holidays will all be in October, although, enough for those of us celebrating them, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Which...huh. Will be a problem in terms of the signups, since that'll pretty much kill the entire week.

Yeah, they need to keep that in mind.

[maya-a.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was ignorance and not maliciousness. That said, I certainly understand your annoyance. Why don't you let them know for future reference (as someone else said). Hugs from a shiksa.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

Except, I was...aggh.

It's the holiday season. When did I have time to check on them? I didn't see ANY of those of announcements. I saw a ton of announcements about the nominations, but since I couldn't take part in the nominations, I ignored them.

Given how cramped for time I was, what else could I have done?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I just looked at yuletide_admin.

The one place they mentioned the possibility of Friday signups was buried in a post about Yuletide defaulters. Since I didn't default, I had no reason to read the post. This post? Last Wednesday - erev Yom Tov, again.

I know they're working from a deadline, which is why I didn't grouse beyond one comment about the nominations.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Because, honestly - I don't think it was malicious, but I'm not sure why they'd bother accommodating one person.

[batdina.livejournal.com]

I just don't do Christmas ficathons. Saves me a lot of agony it does.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It turns out that the distraction of a story with a major deadline that time of year (and that time of year only has Christmas-themed ficathons - go figure) is enough to help me stay a lot saner a lot longer, plus I'm part of this LJ-wide thing, and therefore feel less of an outsider.

Doesn't mean I don't still wish it had a neutral name. (And for the record, although I know you know this, pagan *isn't* neutral.)

[prezzey.livejournal.com]

We've been having holidays for 3 weeks!! (OK, with gaps, but still...) It's impossible for them to not coincide with anything, IMO. At this point I feel like I've missed at least a dozen different things =:O So yes, you're paranoid ;]

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

doesn't make it less annoying.

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

It might not be just one person. For all we know, others are just as frustrated and annoyed as you are.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

I think you're certainly entitled to feel frustrated, since the timing of the opening of sign-ups was inconvenient, but I don't think there's any reason to impute malice or prejudice to the organizers.

[indigocat.livejournal.com]

{hugs}

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was malicious, but right now I'm having a hard time getting interested in Yuletide. Just the name (which I've made no secret about how much I dislike) feels very intrusive when I'm in the middle of celebrating my own holidays, so it's kind of hard to work up any sort of squee.

It wasn't like this last year because things are different every year. Next year, if they're similarly, um. Frustrating. I may not get a chance to sign-up at all.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* back.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

But they're not saying anything, so they might as well not exist.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Maybe you're paranoid? You imply, publicly, that there's an anti-semitic conspiracy behind the timing of Yuletide activities and maybe you're paranoid?

I get that you're frustrated, and I'm sorry that the timing has been bad for you, but I find this post incredibly offensive. There's enough legitimate, hurtful prejudice in the world without pointing fingers in the complete absence of evidence.

You could have pointed out your concerns to the people running Yuletide, you could have asked them your "question", but I suppose that is far less dramatic than a public post that implies they are intentionally excluding Jews from the sign-up process. Never mind that sign-ups will be open for two weeks, specifically to ensure that everyone who wants to has a chance to participate. Never mind that this year, just like last year (http://community.livejournal.com/yuletide/2006), there will be multiple clarification posts and reminder posts going straight up through close of sign-ups to make sure that everybody is kept informed.

No, forget all that - clearly the right thing to do is publicly imply prejudice on the part of the challenge runners. I know them personally, and I can guarantee you that they would have talked this over with you, and engaged with you on it, and done so in a culturally sensitive manner if you'd given them that opportunity. But where would the fun be in that?

I've defriended you as a direct result of this post. I will lend my wholehearted support to anyone who has actually been insulted or disenfranchised due to their race, religion, or sexual orientation. But this? Is not that. This is an unfounded, hurtful and potentially reputation-damaging accusation against people who have never wronged you.

You owe them an apology.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

That's your choice.

(I am a trifle confused in that you have presumably read my posts for the past several years, so you know that I don't tend to post just to make trouble, but if you want to assume that I've had a major personality change over yom tov, fine.)

My prior experience with this issue occured the day the nominations closed, when I complained (yes, jokingly, and yes, with acknowledgement of timing issues) on the post announcing the closing of nominations. I received absolutely no response.

My prior experiences with dealing with the intersection of fandom and my religious observances? Well - there have been a number of NYC get-togethers in the last several year. All of them on Saturdays. My requests (straight-forward, pleading and joking) to have them on Sundays have been ignored more than anything else, unless I was flat-out told that Sunday wasn't convenient for one person or another. I've given up. (And, yeah, there have often been good reasons, like that particular person will only be there on Saturday. Not being entirely irrational, those don't bother me.

So, while I believe the best of people, I have to believe that the moderators of yuletide cannot accomodate me, whether or not they wish to do so. That being the case, why should I take up their time asking for something they cannot give? Even if they would respond to me?

Instead I vented on my LJ. And I included the word "paranoid" in the post so people would understand that I knew I was being unreasonable. Clearly, I failed in that. I should know after all these years that sarcasm and humor often do not translate on the screen.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry merry, but I have to disagree with you, I don't think that deb was implying a semitic conspiracy or even prejudice to the degree you're talking about. I think at most deb is implying a lack of concern and awareness and possibly knowledge and experience all around. If you're not an observant Jew it's hard to know what those weeks are like You come out behind and exhausted and running to catch up on the million things you missed.

And honestly it's pretty easy to miss a "we are open!" post or even a "we are going to be open!" post prior to and during the weeks of the holidays. It's not a small period here, it's four long weeks or so.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

If I could think of a *reason* -- which is what she asked for, a *reason* -- for the yuletide admins to deliberately arrange for signups to open on a Jewish holiday, that did not involve purposely excluding observant Jews? Maybe then I could say, okay, fair enough, a misunderstanding. As it stands, it's a blatant suggestion that the date was deliberately chosen because it's a Jewish holiday. And there's only one reason I can think of that anyone would do something like that.

And if I could think of anything that the maintainers could do, short of picking up the phone and notifying her in person, that would trump the many, MANY posts that have been made and will be made throughout the two weeks of sign-ups, I'd be all for it. elynross and astolat are doing everything they can to give people more time for signing up AND for writing; aside from moving the whole thing to July, I can't see what more they could do.

Deb's post made it sound like two people who have been knocking themselves out every day this month to do something good and fun for fandom -- and sacrificing their own real-life time for work and family to do it, for no personal gain -- have deliberately chosen to make the challenge operate when observant Jews can't.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, because that is rude at its very best and offensive at its worst.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Deb said: Was there a reason that the sign-ups for Yuletide were announced on a Jewish holiday?

I think we're reading reason the in different ways.

You said: for the yuletide admins to deliberately arrange for signups to open on a Jewish holiday,

I don't think either of us mean deliberate actions at all. I see the reason as easily being "Simply not having thought to check". To me that's as good a reason as any for the signups to end up on a jewish holiday. No one thought to check.

To me, Deb's post made it sound like two people who are very busy with this big thing forgot. And that's a perfectly valid reason, if wearying one after a while. There's a difference between carelessness and purposeful offense and Deb does describe (in one of her comments)dealing with a history of carelessness in fandom.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, because that is rude at its very best and offensive at its worst.

And some people might think it's rude not to check the calendar more carefully or try and make alternate arrangements. Or lots of other things that may or may not have happened. It's all in the POV you look at it.

I understand how you might feel like it's an attack on the mods given how much work goes into yuletide and how much criticism most things like this get, but a complaint that affects good number of people in fandom shouldn't be taken lightly. Carelessness sucks, no matter how it happens or with what intentions were behind it but nothing gets better unless people talk about it.