We'd like to pick your brains about TBAY

[erinellii]

Hi, everyone,
Well, I wasn't going to post my reply to this thread until I finished 
the last part of the TBAY I'm writing now (Evil!Bill), but I'm sort 
of stuck on that, I was discussing it offline with someone, and they 
pointed out that my biggest canon point for what Bill might do in the 
future was flawed, so I'm having to rework it.  And as it's the 
Holiday season, and I'm busy with RL....

I have been reading to see what everyone was saying on this issue, 
though, and decided I'd better post what my opinions before the 
thread died down and I lost my chance.  Disclaimer: Everything that 
follows is my opinion and should not be taken as fact unless 
otherwise stated. So first, the original questions:

1. We'd like to know how you perceive TBAY. How would you describe
TBAY messages? What do you feel is the most important aspect of a TBAY
message? What does the term 'TBAY theory' mean to you? What, if any, 
is the difference between a TBAY theory and a regular HPfGU theory?

Erin:
So many people have already said this better than I would have. The 
explanation I most identified with was that TBAY is the theories 
people have thought about for so long that they almost seem like real 
physical objects or persons to the thinker.  


2. Do you read TBAY messages? Have you ever posted a TBAY message? If
you have, what prompted you to do so? Have you ever wanted to respond
to a TBAY thread but chose not to because of the format? What about 
the TBAY format made you reluctant to post?

Erin:
Yes, I read them all the time, and have posted a few now. The first 
post of Evil!Bill was my third ever TBAY post.  What prompted me to 
do so?  In a word, Elkins.  The first post of hers I ever read was 
one someone directed me to, on Redeemable!Malfoy and was non-TBAY, 
but it was so good that I went looking for others she'd written, and 
many of those turned out to be TBAY and I was hooked.


3. How accessible do you find the TBAY format? Do you find discussions
of older theories (such as MAGIC DISHWASHER) on TBAY more or less
accessible then discussions of older theories in regular posts (such 
asEvil!Lupin)? Do Hypothetic Alley (home of several major TBAY 
theories)and Fantastic Posts help to make TBAY posts more accessible? 
What can veteran TBAY-ers do to make newbies feel more welcome?

Erin:
Well, I found it a bit intimidating just because many times the 
standard of writing there was so good.  And I think my own writing is 
adequate, but not exactly fantastic.   I also wasn't sure what the 
rules were when it came to having another theorist speak. But I am 
someone seeks help when I need it, and before my first post I emailed 
Abigail, a veteran Tbayer, and she was really helpful.  Hypothetic 
Alley was also very helpful.


4. What do you find confusing about TBAY? What would you like to know
before posting? What would make you more likely to post in a TBAY 
style?

Erin:
I guess the thing that confused me most was the other theorists and 
where they stood on the various theories- who has what badge or 
belonged to what ship. Just a couple days ago, I got an email from 
Melody (to whom I've not yet responded- sorry, Melody), one of the 
members of the Magic Dishwasher Defense Team, worried that I had 
mistaken Pippin for Pip!Squeak.  I did know that they were not the 
same person, but I actually had thought Pippin's TBAY self lived at 
the Safe House also, because she has a spy theory (ESE!Lupin) and the 
Safe House is the place for those.  I correct that in the last post, 
if I can actually get around to finishing it.

But should something be done to make that easier? A map of 
theorists?  I don't know... because some theorists (like Elkins and 
She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named [oh, all right, Cindy] are no longer around 
and so it might be akward if someone who didn't know them decided to 
drag them into a TBAY.  Maybe those who aren't willing to do the work 
and talk to people offlist just shouldn't post TBAY.  If a few 
mistakes are made that way, they can be corrected in responses if the 
subject has something else to say, or offlist in private email if 
they don't. 


Now, on to the discussions (not to say character attacks) that have 
taken place since :-)  Or, really, just what one guy has said:

Shaun Hately said:
> The point is, the presence of TBAY posts on the main list IMHO, do 
*exlude* people. Injokes (and TBAY is, IMHO, full of injokes) serve 
to exclude anyone who isn't in on the joke.

Erin:
Well, yes, I would have to say that was a true definition of the word 
injoke. The thing is, anyone who wants to be in on the joke can be!  
I am a case in point.  I joined HPfGU in April, posted enough to get 
off moderated status, and then ignored the group for months until the 
end of August.  So I would say I've only been an active poster for 
about four months.  Yet I had no problem comprehending TBAY or the 
injokes. I simply used the archives and Hypothetic Alley to look up 
what I didn't recognize.  So no one has to be excluded- if they 
choose not to take the time to look these things up, that is their 
choice, and a perfectly valid one.  But no one is preventing them 
from doing so except themselves.

Yes, TBAY *is* full of references to past theories and acronyms. But 
is that a bad thing?  Not in my opinion.  I included several in my 
Evil!Bill posts purposely, in hopes that it would make people curious 
enough that they would *want* to go and look up these great old 
theories and see some of the best writing ever done on this list.  I 
included message numbers specifically in order to make it easier for 
the people who were interested in doing so. I think it enriches the 
whole HPfGU experience for posters to have a working knowledge of the 
more basic theories here.



Shaun Hately:
> Yet, I'm having to deal with people who insist that the canonicity 
of TBAY posts is a proven fact. I don't think it is. And I don't 
think it easily can be shown to be one.

Erin:
You have had to- er- "deal" with some over-enthusiastic TBAY 
defenders, I agree.  But I think there's a reason for that.  You took 
a post that basically asked us for our opinions on how to make TBAY 
more accessable to newbies and started, out of nowhere, talking about 
kicking it off the list altogether.  So I think it understandable 
that many people who love it felt compelled to leap to its support.

I'm with those who think it would be a death sentence to the Bay.  We 
need newbies to be able to see the style and participate in order to 
generate fresh new ideas.  And on its own list, there just wouldn't 
be enough traffic to attract newbies.  In November, there were maybe 
15 TBAY messages, most of them responses to Evil!Bill from people I'd 
basically begged offlist to respond.  (mind you, I *have* gotten 
quite a few unsolicited offlist emails from posters telling me 
they've loved reading it) And that was a HEAVY Tbay month.

So to people who see it as I do, you haven't just proposed moving 
TBAY offlist, you've proposed KILLING this style they love.  I think 
I understand where the snipiness comes from.  So please forgive me 
for any touches of it you may sense in this post of mine.

As for showing the canonicity of TBAYs, the only problem I could see 
would be if your definition of canon was very different from my 
definition of it.  If not, we just go and count the Tbays that focus 
on canon.  I'm willing to do this after Christmas if you'd like.  
It's really not so hard.



Shaun Hately said: 
> I'm seeing an attitude from some people that their opinions are 
facts - and therefore are somehow more important than other people's 
opinions. Well, I happen to think everybody's opinion and perception 
is just as important as everyone elses.

Erin:
Do you seriously think that?  If, for instance, I started spouting 
out my opinion that everyone who ate peanut butter was an evil green 
Satan-worshipping alien from Hell and must be destroyed, would you 
count my opinion as important as that of the guy next to me whose 
opinion was "that lady is crazy"?  Somehow, I think not.

I agree that opinions, by definition, are not facts.  But perceptions 
can be wrong. That is why we have the word "misperception". Because 
sometimes people do have wrong perceptions, wrong first impressions 
based on wrong facts.  I'm not trying to say yours are wrong, just 
that it *is* possible for a perception to be wrong.



Shaun Hately: 
> The number of lines concerns me only because I don't think a post 
that takes 40 lines as a lead up to a 2 line piece of canon is 
particularly canon based. And I personally think that quite a number 
of TBAY posts fall into that type of category - yes, they may contain 
canon - but 95% of what they contain has nothing to do with canon.
 
Erin:
I'm not sure how well percentages go with opinions.  Some might think 
you're sort of blurring the line there.  Can you really have an 
opinion on a percentage?  I've always seen them as cold hard facts.  
And I don't see the percentages you're speaking of reflected in the 
TBAY posts at all.  Perhaps you're thinking of one particular post?  
Maybe the one you read that soured you on TBAY in the first place?  
After Christmas is over, I'd be perfectly willing to count up the 
lines of, say, the last 50 Tbays and get you some real percentages 
instead of ones you have to make up yourself.



Shaun Hately: 
> Some TBAYers seem to take the view that if a TBAY post contains 
even the most minute piece of canon, that makes it acceptable. Well, 
by that criteria, I suspect virtually every single MOVIE post 
contains at least a tiny piece of canon.
> 
> Yet, movie posts have been moved to another list. 

Erin:  
And have you actually *read* the movie list?  Half the time people 
post just to say "OOOh, Alan Rickman is so hot!"  or  "The movie 
comes out in June! Yay! I can't wait!"  That is not the same as TBAY.

Some of the movie posters haven't even read the books. Whereas most 
TBAY posters are ones who have actually obsessively researched the 
books.  And I really don't get how anyone could argue that movie 
posts contain canon.  Movie canon, perhaps.  But not book canon.  
They are two different canons completely. Only if you were comparing 
movie canon to book canon could the post be said to contain real 
canon; that is, book canon.  



 Someone wrote (And Shaun, please attribute these, cause I'm replying 
to your post and can't find it on there, which makes it impossible 
for me to quote without looking through 50 messages and it's already 
12 midnight here and I have school in the morning): 

> > The difference, again, is inclusion vs. exclusion. Those who like 
> > TBAY are not asking for anything (press "delete" or "next" is 
closer to nothing than anything, IMO) from those who don't other than 
to be ignored; (some of) those who don't are after *a change in the 
status quo*, based on *their* idiosyncrasies.
 
>Shaun Hately wrote: 
> Actually those who like TBAY are asking for something. They are 
asking people who receive their messages via e-mail to download mail 
they are not interested in. 
> They are asking people who prefer to discuss matters in a 
straightforward fashion to accept that at any moment, somebody might 
decided to take one of their messages and fork the thread into one 
they don't feel comfortable with.
> 
> What they are asking may be totally reasonable - but the suggestion 
that that they  don't ask anything is simply wrong, in my opinion.

Erin:
I think you guys pretty much said the same thing, except the first 
person said it was "nothing" for someone to push the delete button, 
and Shaun makes like it's a big deal to push the delete button.

Me, I push the delete button for a lot of things.  Any message 
with "Dumbledore's Gleam" or "Mark Evans" in the title, for instance. 
But I'm not proposing a seperate "Dumbledore's Gleam" list (though on 
reflection, that might not be such a bad idea...)because deleting 
does not seriously inconvience me. Any group as big as HPfGU is gonna 
have some stuff that doesn't interest everyone. But I don't think 
maybe 5 messages a month are gonna cause you finger cramps or 
anything.

And come on, Shaun, do you really live in fear that (gasp!) someone 
might put one of your theories into a TBAY?  Do you honestly think 
anyone else does?  This is a list for adults, everyone on here should 
be able to deal with reading a little bit of roleplaying without 
flipping out. Yes, I agree that it is roleplaying.  But whereas other 
roleplayers make up their own fanfiction as they roleplay, TBAYers do 
so in order to discuss canon.



Shaun Hately: 
> Am I after a change in the status quo? Not particularly. What I am 
asking for is that people don't just assume that the status quo is 
automatically a good thing. 
> Just because things have been done a particular way in the past is 
not a reason they have to continue that way. I'm not asking that the 
status quo be changed - I'm merely asking that the possibility of 
change not be automatically dismissed.

Erin:
Well, the status quo must be doing something right, because we have 
one of the largest memberships for any Harry Potter group online.  
And certainly the most well-informed one, IMO.  I really don't see 
the need to change.  But when you ask that the list be split, by 
putting TBAYs on another list altogether, don't fool yourself, that 
*is* asking for change.

And you know, I think the very reason TBAY is good for the list is 
that it shakes up the staus quo a bit, makes you think about the 
theories in ways you normally wouldn't.  Sort of turns canon inside 
out in an oftentimes nearly subversive way.  If you like shaking up 
the status quo so much, logically you should like TBAY. Unless you 
only like change you've instigated yourself.  Gaah, here I am making 
my own character attacks-- I'm leaving it in as an example of just 
how easy it is to get overworked about something and stick in these 
little snipy bits- that one just rolled off my fingers before I 
thought how it sounded- but I don't really mean it, ok Shaun?  And 
anyone else should be aware that that sort of thing is bad.  I'm 
closing my ears in the oven right now.




Shaun Hately: 
> If TBAY remains on the list, that will be fine with me. I'll accept 
that a decision has been taken by those in authority on the list that 
it should remain.

Erin:
The way I see it, that decision has already been made.  It was made a 
year and a half ago when TBAY first started showing up on the list 
and they had some of the same dicussions we're having now.  I for one 
was pretty flabbergasted when you came out of the blue and proposed 
axing it altogether.  I'm with Eileen when she says TBAY is not here 
on sufference.  What was being asked of us was how to improve TBAY, 
not whether or not it should be on the list at all.



Shaun Hately: 
> Virtually every post I have made in this thread has included 
phrases like 'I think'.  'That's my opinion', 'And personally I 
think', 'My personal view', 'That's not my perception.', 'That's my 
perception, and it may be wrong', and the ubiquitous 'IMHO'.

Erin:
I'm aware that sometimes I don't do this... it runs contrary to all 
my instincts.  I'm just trying to finish up a college education, and 
before that a high school one, where the phrase "In my opinion" could 
get you a zero on a big paper.  I've had countless teachers tell me 
to NEVER EVER use this phrase, because "everyone knows it's your 
opinion already, it's your paper, isn't it?"  So I tend to translate 
that into "it's my post, so of course everyone knows that my opinion 
is the one being expressed".  I've tried very hard to drop the phrase 
from my vocabulary after being told it is unprofessional, and even 
that it is one that women use more frequently, and that men in the 
business world won't take a woman as seriously if her remarks begin 
with "I think" or "In my opinion".  

And then I find out that it is considered polite on the web to throw 
that out there a lot.  Lots of times, I'll have to just go back 
through my messages and sprinkle in some IMO's, cause I don't write 
them naturally.  So if there isn't one where you think there should 
be, I apologize.  IMO, when a poster has an actual verifiable fact, 
they should have to say "This is a fact, and this is where I got it 
from", and everything else should be taken as opinion.  But I 
recognize that I'm not gonna change the accepted practice all by my 
lonesome.

 
 Someone wrote:
 This isn't just about TBAY, per se. For me, it boils down to: Does 
the value TBAY (FILK, FF) has to those who value it outweigh the 
> > antipathy of those who don't? As far as I can tell, leaving it in 
> > penalizes fewer people to a far lesser degree than kicking it out 
> > would.

Erin:
This IMO, states the case perfectly.  Bravo to whoever the heck that 
was.


Erin
"All BB GUN, All The Time"