Disgruntled

TODAY, a disgruntled fan posted at the Station 8 Comment room: http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/comment/index.php.

Here's the post in full, and my response will be below it:

I posted this message on AskGreg but it was censored. I guess only sucking-up messages are allowed. Here it is:

Dear Greg Weisman,

I would just like to express my deepest outrage for what happened today (April 17). I'm talking about, off course, the new 5-questions-per-post limit you've pulled out of thin air with complete disregard for your most loyal followers. Yes, I realize AskGreg is not a right, but a privilege, like Greg Bishansky so well put it on the comments room (though he goes out of his way to kiss your ass on every turn), but WE are fans. YOURS, no less.

Basically, up until today the rule regarding the quantity of questions per post one could ask was TEN (http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?rid=925). Changing it after one month worth of answers seems like foul play. And this new limit comes off as a rather draconian and disproportionate edict, because there's no direct correlation between the number of questions and the required time to answer them. Say there is a post with 30 yes-or-no questions and another with only one that demands a more in-depth response. The former doesn't comply with the 5-questions limit, whilst the latter does. However, would the former really take up the same time to answer as the latter? How do reviews and rambles (that sometimes only prompt a three or five worded answer from you) get precluded from this? Don't they consume more of your time than answering 10, or even 20 short questions?

Also, it seems that forcing posters to spread their questions won't solve the problem, but only add to it, because instead of making one big post with 30 questions, they will make six. This will simply increase the influx of posts.

While I believe this to be illogical, logistically speaking, I understand it may seem like a good solution in theory (though I think I've just disproved it) and you feel the need to try something out. But what's really unfair is to enforce this rule as a blanket for all the approved 10-questions-posts that predate it. Those actually complied with your initially established 10 questions limit. How is this fair or even rational? Some posters ask stupid, shallow questions, but others actually take their time to think and write insightful queries, and, not unlike essays, those take time, and throwing them with such careless disregard is very disrespectful. Particularly so when those conformed to the policy, have been stewing for ONE MONTH and now have to be distributed into different posts and take the back seat at the end of a two months' waiting (or longer) queue. Wouldn't it be more logical to close the queue as you've done before so that you can clear it?

I do realize that this very post can be axed under the auspices of some new made up rule to cut down the number of questions, even after and if it gets approved. In case this does get through, I'm sure you won't see it until the next couple of months, and when you do, I'm sure you'll write some well composed answer making me come off as an ungrateful and obnoxious douche, and you'll have the last word, because I won't have a chance for a timely reply. But I felt like I needed to share my disenchantment for what seems to be a gross disrespect of your FANS. You know, the people who watch your shows, buy your merchandise and keep you on a payroll.

Sincerely,
Disgruntled
A disgruntled (former) fan.
posted @ Fri, Apr 20, 2012 12:46:02 pm EDT

MY RESPONSE:

Dear disgruntled (former) fan,

I agree with some of what you've written. Among other things, this post should NOT have been deleted by the moderators. And I'll make sure they know it. Comments, positive or negative, are fair game here. Always were and always will be.

And it's true, of course, that sometimes a post with many questions can be answered more quickly than a post with a single in-depth question, but I have NEVER wanted the moderators to judge or try to guess in advance the length of my response to anything, let alone gauge the time it takes me. Setting a question limit seems like a reasonable way to make things manageable.

I also, as I've stated before, see the unfairness in me reducing the limit from ten to five without warning and applying the rule retroactively to posts that contained 6-10 questions. As I've admitted, I screwed up there. I thought I had said five in the past, and instructed the moderators to erase all posts with more than five. By the time it was pointed out to me that I had said ten in the past, it was too late to recover those questions. TOO LATE. We don't keep a record of disallowed questions, so that's it. I screwed up and admitted it, but it's done. So from here on out, the max is five. And some posts were lost unfairly. And that does suck. And I do sincerely sympathize with your frustrations and disgruntlement, up to a point.

But here's that point: you don't seem to get or acknowledge (or perhaps care) that I'm currently on the verge of shutting down the site entirely. ENTIRELY. You don't have to praise me, my work or Ask Greg, but I'm trying to take measures to make me want to keep doing this AT ALL. Some of these measures, are indeed, as you've noted, 'draconian', forcing you to - horrors - repost your questions and wait even longer for the answers you do seem to feel entitled to. But again, the alternative is you NEVER get your answers. EVER. Now if this response, makes you "come off as an ungrateful and obnoxious douche" - well, I don't know how else you would expect me to respond. But this doesn't have to be the "last word". Normally, I only occasionally stop by the S8 comment room, but I promise for the next week or so, I'll stop by there every weekday and at least once on the weekend, which should give you "a chance for a timely reply". Any post there (like this one) that seems relevant to the current conversation will get pushed right to the front of the line and be published here at ASK GREG in a ramble (like this one).

That's my compromise. It's probably less-than-satisfactory, but it's the best I can offer at this time.

[I also want to state, that you've NOT been privy to the discussions between myself, Gorebash, Masterdramon and Todd. I have RESISTED taking even more draconian measures suggested by them and/or by others at Station 8, because as much as possible, I'd like ASK GREG to remain the open free-flowing forum it has been for like a decade or more now. The measures we are taking, draconian as they may seem, are still less draconian than they might be. But if I am forced to truly make the site rigid, then the fun will go out of it for me in the other direction, and I'll still wind up shutting it down anyway.]

Obviously, I'm not in the business of taking fans and making them "disgruntled (former) fan[s]", but I'm hoping you're a fan of THE WORK I do, more than a fan of me anyway. I mean, face it, you don't know me. I could be an axe-murderer. But if you like Gargoyles or W.I.T.C.H. or Spectacular Spider-Man or Young Justice (or whatever), then the work is the work is the work, and I'd hope you'd remain a fan of that work whether I'm a big of a jerk or not, whether Ask Greg existed or not and certainly whether or not I get to the answers to your questions in one month or six. I mean there have been times when I've been TWO YEARS (or more) behind in answering questions. This lag is nothing in comparison to that. But somehow the discourse associated with the whole thing seems... meaner. And I'm really, truly trying to keep my desire to maintain this site below the boil-over point.