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Is NaNoWriMo Dead Yet?
So, ah... it's halfway through October and I have seen nothing from NaNo. Last email from them was at the beginning of August, shilling for ProWritingAid.
Last year, I got 12 NNWM emails between Aug 1 and Oct 16. (And 4 more in the last 2 weeks of October.) Nov 1 hit, and they started sending out "30 covers in 30 days" emails, plus the general writing inspiration posts. 16 emails in the first week of November... until the board sent out the email about the forums.
I hadn't been paying much attention to my local group last year, but I know they also had discussions in October. Nov 1 always had a write-in, both an online "we start at MIDNIGHT SHARP!!!" and an in-person event, either at an all-night spot, or early morning.
Of course, they can't do that, since they removed all (800+) the Municipal Liaisons. They're supposed to be retraining some of them, but... that whole setup seems to be delayed.
For anyone who doesn't know the history, NanoScandal.com links to a Google doc with a timeline and lots of details.
Short version: There was corruption and drama related to the forums, including the Young Writers forums. (As far as I can pin down, there was no physical interaction of any sort. It's possible teens got invited to an adult kink forum, but I haven't been able to figure out if it was that, or the mod talked about inviting teens.) The Board stepped in and froze the forums except for one spot for feedback, and the feedback resulted in "um we're gonna... change some things. Lots of things."
Which mostly meant: we're going to remove all the social aspects and focus on fundraising, which we need for... uh, background checks for staff.
(Many people demanded background checks. Nobody brought up any problems that would've been fixed by having background checks, but many people apparently think petty tyranny or general creepiness will show up on a criminal record.)
Anyway. This is NaNo's 25th anniversary year, and it is very sad to see an event that's brought so much happiness and creative inspiration collapse.
Last year, I got 12 NNWM emails between Aug 1 and Oct 16. (And 4 more in the last 2 weeks of October.) Nov 1 hit, and they started sending out "30 covers in 30 days" emails, plus the general writing inspiration posts. 16 emails in the first week of November... until the board sent out the email about the forums.
I hadn't been paying much attention to my local group last year, but I know they also had discussions in October. Nov 1 always had a write-in, both an online "we start at MIDNIGHT SHARP!!!" and an in-person event, either at an all-night spot, or early morning.
Of course, they can't do that, since they removed all (800+) the Municipal Liaisons. They're supposed to be retraining some of them, but... that whole setup seems to be delayed.
For anyone who doesn't know the history, NanoScandal.com links to a Google doc with a timeline and lots of details.
Short version: There was corruption and drama related to the forums, including the Young Writers forums. (As far as I can pin down, there was no physical interaction of any sort. It's possible teens got invited to an adult kink forum, but I haven't been able to figure out if it was that, or the mod talked about inviting teens.) The Board stepped in and froze the forums except for one spot for feedback, and the feedback resulted in "um we're gonna... change some things. Lots of things."
Which mostly meant: we're going to remove all the social aspects and focus on fundraising, which we need for... uh, background checks for staff.
(Many people demanded background checks. Nobody brought up any problems that would've been fixed by having background checks, but many people apparently think petty tyranny or general creepiness will show up on a criminal record.)
Anyway. This is NaNo's 25th anniversary year, and it is very sad to see an event that's brought so much happiness and creative inspiration collapse.
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BTW, your link is not resolving to anything.
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A mod (the mod?) of the Young Writers Program also ran an adult kink forum, and she talked with friends about "I should invite this person to the forum" based on their discussions/fic submissions.
It is unclear if any minors were actually invited to the kink website. It is unclear if any minors actually joined the kink website, which has the standard "Must be 18 to make an account" disclaimers. It is unclear if there was any creepy behavior going on, rather than forum moderators being condescending and biased. There was "yes it's okay for you to write smut if you want to write smut," which some people will take for grooming on its own.
There were ALSO mentions of in-person meetups in which minors (or a minor) were semi-encouraged to read smut. This had no connection to forum moderators.
But wow they sure did botch all the followup communications on everything.
And yeah, the AI mentions of "you're ableist and racist if you speak out against AI" followed by a "oops we didn't mean to insult anyone; we just meant that AI is not evil and people shouldn't categorically hate it" did not help.
(Link is now fixed - nanoscandal.com, not .org.)
from your mouth to DuckDuckGo's (or Google's) ear
I want
petty tyranny or general creepiness won't show up on a criminal record
to be the first result in any search for a background check.
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Otherwise, it's a random online writing challenge. That might've been enough 20 years ago; there are now swarms of those. (And maybe many of them owe a nod to NaNo, but the point is, they exist; NaNo is no longer alone in that.)
The Board should've stuck with, "yes, the ML system needs some revisions; no, it does fucking not need criminal background checks for every volunteer offering to be the point person for Let's Meet At A Cafe With Laptops." Especially since all of the complaints of shady behavior were the kind of thing background checks would miss. (Encouraging teens to read porn; giving preferential treatment to friends; running unauthorized fundraisers, etc.)
I'm used to seeing a wave of "I'm doing NaNo! Are you doing NaNo?" throughout October on Tumblr, and there's just... crickets.
I gather many of the NaNo Discords have also dissolved or shifted focus. And like any social hub, once it's broken, there's a diaspora, not a big shift to any one new place... there are new writer Discords, Bluesky has "Novelemeber" or "Novelvember" or "Novelmber" (great, three clashing tags for the same thing); Tumblr seems to be ignoring the whole thing in favor of various Blorbo Shipping Weeks.
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