Secure from battlestations…

I really hate when things go nuclear.  It happens all too often these days…especially online.  Neither party wants to give an inch, each believing he or she is in the right and the other is a total git and knee-biting jerk.  People start taking sides, arguments get heated, “evidence” is collected, and folks generally begin gettin’ real pissy.

That was yesterday.

JAMES HAMS and I went toe-to-toe, mano-a-mano for much of the day over what amounted to three words in a recent blog he wrote.  Granted, they weren’t just any three words, but the point is that the world wasn’t ending.  And yet, you’d never know from all the urgent text messages and e-mails I had to read and write throughout the day.  I’m sure James had a similar experience on his end.

Vance Major – peacemaker, diplomat, good friend

Enter VANCE MAJOR.  Vance is a friend of both James and myself, and he’s also one of Trek fandom’s calmest and coolest heads.  Think of Vance as Switzerland…only with a beard.  Not liking the escalation of tempers he was witnessing between his two friends, Vance stepped in, spoke to us both separately, and negotiated a “cease fire.”

In short, James will be removing those three words from his blog (along with half a sentence that will no longer make sense with the three words gone).  I’ll be telling the folks on SMALL ACCESS (and here on FAN FILM FACTOR) to stand down, secure from general quarters, cancel battlestations…whatever you want to call it.  We’ve both agreed not to mention the other—or their blog(s) or Facebook group(s)—on our own blogs in any negative way on a go-forward basis.

We’re both in agreement on this, and there’s no hard feelings.  There were definitely hard feelings yesterday, but it’s nice to know that things can, with a little give and take, be worked out without going to DefCon 1.

I’d like to thank James for being part of the solution…and also Vance for making that solution possible in the first place.  I much prefer writing a short blog entry like this one over writing a long entry like yesterday’s!

20 thoughts on “Secure from battlestations…”

      1. Maybe Vance should try his hand at settling the political scene, but that might be too big a job, even for Vance. ;>)

  2. Is the guy going to print a retraction or let his readers know that his information was in error? Even the New York Times admits it when they get facts wrong and prints a correction.

  3. There will always be situations of disagreement. It’s how you choose to reach a resolution that you decide to be adults or children. Congratulations on you, James and Vance for first rate adulting.

  5. Incidentally, Bearded Switzerland is the name of my ZZ Top cover band…

    😀

    Glad things worked out VERY well!

    Doug

  8. I’m sorry Jonathan, but I don’t buy it… He’s one of a handful of people trying to maintain an argument that is over and done with Not only as far as not only the general star trek fandom is concerned, but CBS/P as well. Anyone who continues the Axanar argument, doing so in a pathetic bid for relevance as far as I am concerned. And I will not support them. Last night I realized that Hams was admin of another FB page, so I said that’s no bueno. Quit the page, and moved on.

    Things like this are a distraction from what we should be doing. Which is supporting fan films and the people who make them. (Like Vance Major) So that they can make them the best they can be under the new guidelines.

    Speaking of which, we should be focusing in on The guidelines, and either how to help producers work within them to make the Best Trek Possible with what there is to work with. Or to change them. Then there’s then the bigger question of are the Guidelines even relevant? Star Trek continues would seem to say no. Can others do the same? Who would take that chance? Apparently not those so called Renegades.

    Jonathan, from what little I know about you, you’re an honorable guy, almost to a fault. As are the rest of the Small Access admins. No one as far as I know has EVER advocated, any sort of piracy, aside from those few disgruntled fans who would probably be torrenting anyway even if they weren’t so disgruntled. And that my friend is just the reality of the modern world.

    I know you’re a free speech advocate, but Small Access has an agenda it’s trying to accomplish, and not a lot of time to do it in, so if that means editing or eliminating disruptive influences, to me that’s the price of doing business.

    And As far as Media Piracy goes. Personally I don’t see any need for it. The individual apps to watch what you want IE: Netflix Hulu, HBO etc. are cheap and you can get them on an as needed Basis. Anything that’s not available there like Dr Who S-10 is available cheap on Itunes/amazon etc.

    It’s funny how those on this side of the fence, never the ones continuing the drama…

    1. “Jonathan, from what little I know about you, you’re an honorable guy, almost to a fault…”

      I will admit that I once stole cilantro from a Baja Fresh restaurant. True story…and my wife still holds it over my head! No, seriously. It’s ten years later, and she still brings it up.

      Aside from that, though, I’m pretty honorable.

    3. I don’t think the debate over Axanar is over going to go away. People still talk about the TrekUnited debacle more than a decade later.

      I think for as long as Alec Peters continues with Axanar in some guise or another his critics will still be there. Hell, for as long as he is active in fandom that is likely so. Plus, long after he has gone quiet the impact he has had on fan films in the guise of the guidelines will still be felt.

      I think you’re not going to see the back of it all any time soon.

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