I would like others to join me in this. One of our writer friends has felt that this site would be better off without them here. I challenge that. I know I am NOT alone in wanting efindumb to remain here as a contributing writer, reader and commentator! For a one who gives you grief, I know there are 4 or 5 more who enjoy you being here. I ask you to stay here, my friend, for if no other reason; I enjoy reading your works. If you want an even better reason; I enjoy talking with you just as much.
Join me in support
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Comments
I agree fully
I have enjoyed everything that efingdumb has written. I do want them to stay and keep writing. I do not respond or write comments very often, but I do read and watch from a far.
RL Hearn
I did my best, without forcing him to stay.
I want him back too! He is a damn good writer and commenter! But he, at that moment, could not see that our policy of allowing authors to express things that might be distasteful to others in their stories for all to read is really a freedom. He took offense to things one author said in their story. I tried to explain to him the same policy allows him to do the same thing. His choice, if it so offends him, is to NOT read that author's works. That is the solution.
For this site to work, it is essential all the authors have the freedom to express their writings without fear of removal. There is only a handful of reasons for removal, and they are absolutely essential we have them. But what I have been trying to show you, is not the propagation of one author's beliefs in a story is being allowed to run rampant with; what I have been trying to show you is the freedom that all authors here enjoy in being able to integrate their beliefs within their works.
Sadly, I could not convince him to see that.
To Efindumb,
you are welcome to return at anytime. Your family of friends here, fellow authors, and myself wish to see you come back. There is no shame for leaving how you did, and we will not hold it against you when you come back. We all have bad moments.
You are loved and I personally want you back home here. You have the courage to express things in a way none of us can do. And I want to keep reading your comments and getting to know more of the soul that you are behind the screen through it. I cannot know that if you are not home.
I would like to see you enter my Christmas contest too. I would really like to see your entry in it and have you express yourself and answer me within it.
Still awaiting for your return,
Sephrena
Quote Source: Illusions - The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
An author's right to write what they believe in
Everyone,
I cannot stop one author from saying something within a story without having to tell every author what they can and cannot write and then it opens a can of worms about who is allowed to write about what. I cannot do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone has to have the freedom to write what they want in a story or this site has no purpose whatsoever. They have to be allowed to write about things we disagree about. Yes we can have XXX stories written here. Just because most of us do not like that type of story does not mean it CANNOT be here. It has every right to be here along with potty training stories, Identity Death stories, BDSM, and everything else.
And everyone here has the right to choose to read them or not. Those who read them also have the right to choose not to finish reading them, nor leave a comment if they want. But readers DO NOT have the right to tear an author down for posting what they wanted to write about. Every author has the right to write material for all different kinds of audiences or towards a specific subset. That is the purpose of our site.
You may not like the material. I may not like it, but someone may like it.
And that is why we are here.
Sephrena
Agreed
Wholeheartedly!
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
I totally agree
I like to think that I have a thick skin, but I understand that negativity really hurts others. I have enjoyed efindumb's stories and I would really miss them. I wish I knew what I could say to keep from losing someone I have never spoken to but consider to be a friend.
Please reconsider staying!
ef
Please stay and share your stories with us. Words hurt and I hope my simple words help.
((((((HUGS))))))
Jeri Elaine
Homonyms, synonyms, heterographs, contractions, slang, colloquialisms, clichés, spoonerisms, and plain old misspellings are the bane of writers, but the art and magic of the story is in the telling not in the spelling.
I need all of our site's help!
Please pm Efindumb and try and convince him to stay or at least contact me!
His course of mind has me really worried this may go beyond a rage quit.
I cannot do this alone...
I cant write for toffee but
I cant write for toffee but you are very good .I love the stories you do. People will always say things sometime they don't know they are saying it.End of the day there is an old saying. You can call me anything you like as long you don't call me late for my TEA.If you jack it in a lot of punters will miss you.As for dising Yanks near Oxford there a place call Madinly my dad took us there it US ARMY AIR CORPS Graveyard so sad and lovely.When you see that it makes all the dising of the US so bad.Yes Yanks sometime do dumb thing so do us Brits .Stay the course you are great writer.Ps may of spelt Madinly wrong.
efinddumb going
don't go, youre too good a writer to let all those people run you off.
robert
Me Too!
I agree fully with what all the others have been writing - STAY!
Hugs,
Miriam
Please continue to share your stories!!!
I appreciate the work you put into your stories and have enjoyed reading many of them.
This site exists to let each of us express ourselves in our own way.
I don't always find everything I read here to my taste, but it makes reading here a richer and more interesting experience.
I hope you reconsider posting your stories here, but if not, I still wish you the best.
Gillian Cairns
I feel like I missed all of this but Effingdumb was a very....
welcome presence on my stories and really helped cheer me on into getting momentum built back up.
Bailey Summers
In summary
The blog post seems to be gone now, but efindumb reacted to apparent anti-American sentiment in a recent Bike by deciding to leave - feeling that if attacks on cultures are allowed in stories then he does not feel welcome. Angharad, in reply, asserted the views expressed were intentional satire of the views of a stereotypical British highborn and weren't meant to be taken seriously by the cast of Bike nor the reader, and felt no need to change anything.
A Long Time Ago,
I tried posting ecological concerns and worries about climate change / global warming, but Erin took them down saying this was not the venue for such discussions. I also recall that other topics to which we should not go were politics and religion. I thought this was a fine idea; I have not seen much in the way of political tracks, but maybe Erin has removed them.
On religion, I've been disappointed for quite some time. 10 years ago, I don't recall stories blatantly shoving a particular sec down our throats or ascribing much of what happened to a character to supernatural actors as if these things are true not fictional. Stories with devils and demons, or with Norse, Greek, etc. gods and heroes are fine because the author (subtly or outright) indicates the story is fantasy. The stories often contain lots of humor, which is great, too.
It seems that people generally stayed away from or down played religion and politics for quite a while. The enforcement to stay away from religion apparently slacked off and some authors started packing as much of their particular religion into their stories as possible. Sephrena, Erin and others will continue their policies for what they think is the good of all. I think this is proper. I may be alone or in a minority and I don't expect changes just to make me less stressed.
It might be nice to have 'religion' or the name of the type of religion in Warnings. The right thing for me to do with stories with upsetting themes is not read them, however once I start reading something well written, I usually try to read as much as I can out of curiosity, just to find out what happens next. It might be my biases, but, it seems with many of these religiously slanted stories, the religious acts start out minor and rare, but as the action heats up, drawing me in, more and more supernatural tweaking of everyday events occurs. If I were warned, I wouldn't have started the story in the first place.
I would not think of criticizing a story for religious content, mainly because Erin has trained me to be nice and if I don't have something good to say, just say nothing. I think this is the correct way to act; not just because of the way Efindumb is now reacting, but because constantly reading flame wars gets boring to the point of sickening. I don't want the (mostly excellent) authors here hating others, stopping posting stories or leaving altogether.
And I'm sticking with BCTS and donating what I can. I really appreciate (almost) everything you all have done to make this such a great site.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
...
The Weird Person
When you "see" the large group going against you, you leave.
So I don't think any PM will help, they will (probably) not be read.
Maybe if some one got some real life info such as e-mail, that person can pass the message.
Do not pass info (e-mail, phone, address) around. Please.
Only time can tell.
Wishing efindumb Peace and Love.
Big Hugs to all, tmf
I agree
I agree! I've enjoyed every story and would hate to see them go.
thats just
efindumb to think we want you to split ooooooh
I get it
ed
ed