As you will recall, I write as Fake Ouimet at the Tea Makers, the unofficial blog about the CBC. Now the only Tea Makers contributor who has ever altered the sense of another contributor’s work has cemented that right in his own exclusive hands.
The following memo went out this afternoon from Alphonse Ouimet:
From now on writers with editing privileges will have them removed.
This means that from today, you will not be able to edit anyone’s posts but your own, and no comments but those on your posts.
Look, this has nothing to do with your editing, this is a flattening out of the editorial hierarchy. Previously there were a few people who were writer/editors, a few who were just writers, and it wasn’t always clear who was what and who could do what, and how were they chosen anyway?
So from now on, you will concentrate on writing, and I’ll take on this editor role myself.
When the Tea Makers switched from Blogger to WordPress and onto its own domain, I asked for and got the right to edit everybody’s posts. I’ve used it daily – for the sole purpose of improving HTML and fixing copy errors. As I’ve explained before, until today every post in the new WordPress Tea Makers has had valid HTML and edited copy.
I have no knowledge of any other contributor’s ever touching anybody’s work. Hence, “writers with editing privileges” really just meant me and Ouimet in practice.
I hunt down and delete personal attacks and a few other kinds of comments. (A comment that seemed legally defamatory bit the dust recently, for example.)
The only contributor who has ever rewritten another contributor’s work is Alphonse Ouimet, who, not coincidentally, has waged a guerrilla war behind the scenes to permit any and all comments. Alphonse Ouimet has never, at any time, acknowledged that the comment section is healthier now, or even that HTML and basic spelling are better.
So the contributor who barely contributes anything, thinks even the most poisonous and hurtful comments are permissible, and rewriters other writers’ work has now cemented editorial power in their own cloister. The only editor who can’t be trusted will now “take on [the] editor role.”
This is another way of saying people can make any comments they want and crap HTML and shitty spelling are permitted.
What’s really been happening is that Alphonse Ouimet and I have been at loggerheads for weeks about these very topics. Ouimet barely contributes anything and let all sorts of shit fester for years, and now has turned the screws for a final time.
What makes you think I wouldn’t report what you’re doing, Ouimet?
Update
(2009.10.29) Having slept on it, I’ve decided what happened here is like being Jonathan Ive at Apple after Steve has a shitfit.
You drive your Rolls to work in the morning like normal and suddenly your keycard won’t let you into the cube. Through the front door and out to the restrooms and maybe the commissary and the gym, yeah, but not the heart of the place.
You walk into Steve’s office. People just let you in no problem, because they don’t know any better. Steve eventually turns away from his iMac and looks at you, though it seems more like he’s looking through you. What gives? you ask. Oh, yeah. Change in direction. Negative people upset me. You’ve been really negative lately.
What the fuck are you talking about?
What can I say? Change in direction. You’re welcome to stay, though. Ja’red’s got a desk set up for you off-campus.
Then Steve turns back to his screen and you cease to exist.
The problem here is I am rather big on principle. Not just general ethics but journalistic ethics are rather important to me. I will not sit idly by, as the saying goes, and allow other people to reëdit my work. Especially not the man who has proven himself to be untrustworthy many times over, Alphonse Ouimet.
I am among the many people who know the identity of Alphonse Ouimet. (This number includes CBC vice-presidents.) I have promised to maintain his secrecy and, again upholding ethics, I will continue to do so. But I never promised not to reveal his gender, or the fact that, at the Tea Makers, Alphonse Ouimet, the Tweet Makers, and most manifestations of Anonymous are all the same person.
Nor did I promise to continue writing for the Tea Makers in perpetuity. I already took one hiatus. Today I deleted all my posts save for the one about editorial interference. I have that right; it’s my work to do with as I please.
The last straw was getting mocked by Alphonse a day after he turned the screws.
Don’t worry, Jeremy. Nothing’s gone down the memory hole. I have copies of all posts, save for a couple of inconsequential links-only posts. I hosted images at my own site with this eventuality in mind, among other reasons. Nothing is “lost.” I’m not that stupid. (Besides, I had previously archived another blogger’s work two different ways when he gave up one site, then sent him the archives. Again: Ethics.)
But given the choice between maintaining my integrity and allowing a man I can no longer trust to alter my work, I choose to burn down the village to save it. Except I have copies of the village cached elsewhere.
Remember, Alphonse: I know who you are, where you work, and where you live. You won’t get to cross me more than once.