The News
I guess I've put off writing this post for as long as I can. I REALLY don't want to be doing this, but I feel I owe the world an explanation. Let me begin.
As most of you know, for the past three years, I was a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month. (Henceforth referred to as NaNo.) I was, up until March 27, 2024. Well, that's what Kilby Blades will tell you.
A Brief Overview of NaNo and the Scandal
A quick explanation of what that was, what I was doing, and what the heck NaNo is.
NaNo is an annual challenge to ordinary people to write 50,000 words of a new fiction during the month of November. Hence the name, National Novel Writing Month. At it's core, this is just a challenge to do something creative, and the 501(c3) behind it provided a website where those who cared to join in with other like minded individuals could join their forums or surf through the various geographic regions to find in-person events to meetup with other writers. This was provided to the user for free, and in return the average user was asked about 6 times a year to donate to keep the site running. All in all, a fair deal, most of us thought. Along the way, NaNo expanded to have two Camp NaNo events in April and July, and a Young Writer's Program.
Now, I was part of a team in my local area covering my county and the one directly to west of me, that organized online and in-person events.
The Scandal in TLDR terms
The thing is, much to my deep despair, NaNo got itself into a right little pickle during the beginning of November of last year. If you would like to go down that rabbit hole, Google NaNoWriMo and Scandal. You're looking for the Mod X scandal.
The shortest way to explain what happened is some moderators noticed a particular moderator (Mod X) in the Young Writer's Program was possibly luring minors off to the site to some unsavory and adult websites in violation the Code of Conduct all moderators and MLs sign. HQ promised a response. Nothing happened for months. Concerned Mods alerted the public. HQ had no real explanations. A bunch of people got fired.
Our Response (MLs from our Region McHenry and Lake Counites, IL)
Immediately we asked for our forums to be paused and we alerted our users to the scandal. We reminded our users not click on links unless you knew for certain where it was going. We made the commitment to stick it out to the end of our contract, which was supposed to be June 1, 2024. We had writers in the middle of their quest, and we decided to not just abandon them in the middle of their work, we did however, stop fundraising for HQ while we waited for the internal audit to be completed.
Once the audit was completed (in December) we were given highlights from it. It looked for a brief moment like NaNo would actually respond. We decided not to tender our resignations immediately because we wanted to be able to say the site was now safe. We had hope.
Kilby Blades Signs On
Kilby was a member of the Board of Directors. In an effort to save this wonderful idea from extinction, she agreed to be the Interim Executive Director. Her job was daunting. And I don't want to be overly critical of someone who took over an organization which made as many catastrophic mistakes as the prior administration. But...there is no working with her.
She made the good decision to stop allowing minors access to the site, clearing up their legal problems, but almost every decision after that was...problematic, at best.
I know she had a hard job. And I know she wants to save an organization that she loves. But she drove out hundreds of the MLs, some of whom spent decades defending the program. And THAT is on her.
As MLs began to see how different things were, we decided to try and leave gracefully. Regardless of what we tried to do, or how early we turned in our resignations, she fired all MLs on March 27, 2024.
Her job is still open. I know a couple of former MLs who are highly qualified who have applied. Fingers crossed one of them gets the position.
Final Thoughts
NaNo the dare, NaNo the idea, NaNo the place where anyone could show up, write whatever they wanted, and be accepted. Where you could hang out and find some friends. That idea is worth saving.
The organization, as it is now is no. #DontDoNaNoWriMo.
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