Oh boy, we're pandering! (an E2 Copyright Changes critique)
Alright, let's start with:
This is a Big Change for E2, but definitely in the right direction. A writer's site for writers.
Now really,
writers? Do we really want writers here? I mean, a lot more than there are here already? The whole site by them and for them?
All writers and nobody else?
Like, ok. This website is and has been the most interesting website on my radar, ever. Over and above any of the other crap that's out there, over your Slashdot, your Livejournal, your Fark, even your suck.com, your Salon. Whatever. E2 -- the old stuff and the new stuff -- has been consistently better. I think there are a lot of people here who would agree with me on that, people whose names I've seen on the other users list, and who've seen me there, for years now.
I can't speak for them, but I at least am not here because I like to read or want to be like some windbag writer. Special effects technicians are good though. Linguists also. And gutterpunks, insurance adjusters and salesmen, graduate students, semi-pro drinkers, journalists, film editors, daycare providers, adventurers, coders of various strains, librarians, bartenders, secretaries. Maybe even a few published, professional writers who aren't trying too hard and don't go on and on about it.
What I am not here to read is a bunch of fucking wankers who really like the sound of the "professional writer lifestyle" but don't (yet) have the right combination of experience and insight to make anything original of their own. People who would love to discover the kind of site that's pretentious enough to bill itself as a writer's site for writers and fill it to the brim with their vapidity. Honestly here. We are opening Pandora’s box, and it is full of long-winded, over-polished, amateurish writeups with poor dialogue and no plot. I've read some of the rest of the internet, the kind of spew that's out there, and I know this to be the truth.
A little bit of raising the bar (or as I like to call it, nuking the crap) is great, and has done wonders for the site. Change in general has been good here, and the administration is as worthy of ass-kissing as, I suppose, any other. Still, this particular paradigm shift is troubling, and I'd hate to see it screw up a site I love so much.
One more thing:
However noders who aspire to become professional writers and who participate in professional writing communities are put in an awkward position. ... What can they say when their friends, who violently oppose any and all unauthorized uses of their own works, see huge amounts of lyrics and stories posted without the author's consent?
Right. Perfect example. If your "author" friends are taking themselves so seriously that some fucking
lyrics writeups are enough to turn them off of the site, then there is every possibility that they are pussies and should go away. I'm sorry, but really.
It's not like I have more than a handful of lyrics writeups and need to cover my ass here. It's more like I think the benefit of lyrics writeups -- of having somebody's thoughts and feelings about a piece of music accompanied by the lyrics to it -- outweighs the benefit of pandering to whatever miniscule percent of the creative population is turned off by the sight of a few measly verses.