Written Whispers

If you haven’t read the post before this one… well, you’ll still probably understand this one since I tend to repeat myself a lot but it’ll make even ‘more’ sense if you read the prior post- just a theory but still, you never know.

Alright, in a better mood now. A few hours ago… not so much but that was before I’d found all these shiny new buttons to play with. [More on that later.]

My Yahoo account is still deleted. It’s looking less and less like I got hacked and more and more like they just deleted me without any notice or warning whatsoever. I’ve lost a lot of important information, contacts, messages, and whatever else you can imagine that might tick me off. I’ve contacted them but aside from a message saying they received my complaint… I’ve yet to hear anything.

I’ve signed up for a Google account, something I’ve never done before and I’m still not sure if I like it or not. I guess it’s one of those things that will just have to grow on me or something but I’d really started to like the set up of the new yahoo.

Getting my chat back was the worst part. See, about a year ago I abandoned Windows Live Messenger because it just had too many bugs and instant messenger is my big form of communication with family, friends, and everyone who frequents my community website. During that time I swapped everyone over to a new yahoo account, one with a more professional name for when I sent out business emails. Through YMessenger I could keep in touch with everyone! It was great.

Then this crap happened.

It took me a few hours to figure out how I was going to do it but I’ve managed to keep all my contacts under one email. First I signed up for Gmail (feeby123atgmaildotcom if you’re interested) and then I went to the Windows Live website, because I absolutely refuse to sign up for another Yahoo ID after this happened. I signed up for a .net passport which allows me to sign in to any Windows service without actually getting ‘another’ email or username. This allows me to sign into Windows Live Messenger with my Gmail account.

Now, remember I said I totally gave up on WLM earlier? I still have. Like the new YMessenger it’s turned into a beautiful program over the past two or three years but WLM is buggy as hell and no good for someone like me who’s constantly massaging multiple people several of which are in different accounts (like aol, yahoo, etc., not that WLM doesn’t handle those, it does, it just doesn’t always handle them well) which is why I downloaded Pidgin.

Pidgin is a multi-messenger sort of thing, the best I’ve come across so far and it looks nice. Back to everything else though…

So, now through my Gmail which is bounced through MSN, I can chat with my Yahoo people. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Either way, despite how terribly long it took me to work this out and re-add over thirty people back to my messenger list, and about fifty to my email list, and mourn the loss of about fifteen (two of which are family)… I’m happy with the set up now.

I still don’t really like the Gmail setup but I think that’s because I’m not used to it but it’s safer and so far… according to my research they have a lot less of the problems I’ve had with Yahoo. My Hubby looked into a few things and it seems this ‘accidental’ deletion is happening to a lot of people more and more often. I know for a fact I never violated my account, it was fairly new still, not even hitting the one year mark yet, and I checked it almost every day. There was no reason for what happened.

I’ve uninstalled Yahoo messenger and now that I won’t be logging on to my email on their homepage I also won’t be reading the news through their site. Because I won’t read the news on the homepage I won’t search and rate through the news (out of sight, out of mind). Because I no longer message with them I will no longer use their software which means I will no longer read their software blog.

What am I getting at?

Because they’ve screwed me over on one of their services they’ve lost me for all their services. That’s almost 100 web hits down the drain and while I’m only one person in the billions that still use Yahoo for one thing or another… a loss is still a loss. From a website manager’s stand point, every loss is a decline in traffic and if you lose five people that’s five people using other services who will in turn each tell five other people about the services they like and encourage them to join. Each of those twenty-five will pass the word along.

I know, it’s a long, long, probably pointless circle, but focusing on how I’m not doing Yahoo a favor makes me feel better about this whole situation.

If you use chat please message me sometime. You can add me on Yahoo, Windows Live, and AOL as a Windows Live user even though it’s not a WL email. You can also reach me through GoogleTalk and oddly enough Myspace IM (though you’ll have to find me first).

Warning of my language as this post continues.

My main email was hacked. I don’t want to go into details right now because my whole good mood has gone down the drain but for those you who have me on messenger- please refer to my old account (type akchculaif backwards for yahoo, same goes for msn those it’s @yahoo). For those of you who need to email me please send any and all mail to written-whisper at peacemail dot com.

I can’t believe how impossibly peeved I am. It wouldn’t matter so much if my email wasn’t connected to all the websites I manage as well as my writing queries… it wouldn’t matter so much if there was a possibility that yahoo didn’t just ‘accidently’ delete my damn account… it wouldn’t matter so much if I couldn’t log into messenger and talk to my family.

It wouldn’t matter so damn much if it hadn’t happened right after I woke up.

It wouldn’t matter so much if it was something more important- I really shouldn’t be so upset over something as simple as an email but come on! I don’t talk on the phone, I don’t live near anyone! This is my communication here!

And finally- I wouldn’t be so damn ticked off if… never mind. I’m done.

Scanning my laptop. Resetting all my passwords to something I’m probably gonna forget and be ticked off about later.

I’ll upload my other, better mood posts, when I’m not so ticked off. In the mean time I’d love if someone would just IM me and chat for awhile.

[Edit: Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! DAMNIT! *wants to mentally pound the fricking keyboard* Now it won't allow me upload my posts. *cries in frustration because I have nothing else to do and because... damnit.*]

[Second edit: Alright, it was just my password that was bad. *blares music intensly loud* because... because my Hubby rather play computer games than... oh, never mind. I think I'm going to go to sleep or scribble through a phone book until my pen comes out the other side.]

[Third edit: Calmer now. Still ticked. Still stuck inside my head alone and frustrated as hell about it. I'm not spell checking this post and I warn you now if one single person sends me a single comment correcting my spelling on it... it better darn well be anonymouse or I'm going to forward you my unchecked spam folders from my other functioning email addresses. Got it?]

I am still alive everyone and still reading blogs even if I haven’t been commenting. Yesterday I went to the doctor to get checked out for both my sinus infection (I thought it was the flu, lol) and my ovarian cyst (see one of the car accident updates if you don’t know what I’m talking about). They had me run over to the big hospital to get some ASAP blood work done to check my white blood cell count and make sure I wasn’t falling drastically anemic (blood test came ba good as far as both go).

The blood test went as far as to prove it wasn’t secretly my apendics, we were worried it’d escaped notice in the CAT scan somehow. So, now I’m sitting here waiting for the people to call me so we can schedule an ultrasound to see if maybe the cyst never properly ruptured, new ones have formed, or if it’s something else all together. Yay for me.

Anyways, I’m still around and I’m feeling pretty good but the next few days I might be a bit antisocial as far as comments, email, and chat go. I’m not really even into answering my phone right now because I have a few things on my mind that may or may not be related to all this jazz.

PS, I didn’t spell check this and I don’t care right now. :)

I’ve a bone to pick and a choice to make. The part of me that’s grown in more ways than one since simple high school protests would like to say that I shouldn’t get involved for many reasons. Two more than others:

1. It in no way, shape, or form effects me.
2. I know it’s going to make vindictive waves and a small but possibly poignant ball of stress that I don’t need.

Let’s start with that first one- it really doesn’t effect me. Sure, someday this person could try to do the same thing to me that they’ve done to countless others but other than that… and even if they did… it still doesn’t change anything in my life. A mere inconvenience- if that.

So, why am I even thinking about this? Frankly? It’s the right thing to do. Maybe I’m wrong but if I’m wrong and standing up for these others and saying something to these… wannabe oppressors isn’t what I should be doing then why does thinking about it feel so right?

Perhaps I need to time to let things settle in my mind but I fear that won’t make the matter simmer down within. I’m not the sort of person who ‘just’ calms down over time. No. Instead I ‘calmly’ begin to plot about what can be done. I’ve always been like that in a self sufficient sort of way. If I can’t find something- I make it, this blog and most of my other websites are a perfect example of that. If I see something wrong and don’t know how to fix it- I teach myself and if I see something like this… I just don’t think I can let it go.

Some of you are probably wondering what the hell I’m typing about but I’m not certain I’m yet ready to say. Knowing myself I’d be very tempted to take what starts as a simple in post rant and turn it into vigilante recruitment article of some sort.

This gist of it, in the vaguest of ways, goes something like this:

I was on a writing site today, not a site ‘about’ writing but a site where people of all ages and backgrounds can come together and post stories known as fan fiction. The site is for people to get together share their love of characters from their favorite books, movies, and television shows. On this site authors of fan fiction can give and receive reviews on each other’s stories.

Now, I’ll admit, not everyone on the site is that great a writer. I can’t tell you how many times I want to pull my hair out when I see some of these stories, non-distinct paragraphs, poor use of English, and… well, I know I can’t spell but certain errors…

I digress.

Anyway, I was on the site. I have a migraine and even though my laptop screen isn’t very eye friendly it seemed like a good non-stressful way to kill time and it was until I happened along something different. It’s not uncommon for writers to post up ‘author notes’ in the place of chapters especially when they’re apologizing for taking forever to update (not that I’ve been down that road of course).

I came across one of these author’s notes and skimmed through it thinking I was going to find such a thing when some of what they were saying started to catch my eye and I took a closer look. It seems that someone, let’s call them UWC, left them a really bad review. Whatever, life happens, right? That’s what I thought on the matter at least- not everyone is going to like everything and there are bound to be a few vindictive people out there. Well, as I continued to read a lot of words the author used pulled me in. They weren’t hurt or whining about what the reviewer UWC said but sticking it to them so to speak. It sounded like they were defending their right to write.

Curious and bored I clicked up the author’s reviews and skimmed down till I found UWC’s and started to read.

What I found disgusted me on a level I wasn’t sure could be surpassed (but wait till you read the rest of this post).

I’m not going to go into detail, I’ve promised myself that for tonight because of my headache but the review included ‘mightier-than-thou’ language, telling the person to just stop writing, and some words that even I thought were questionable as far as being allowed on a public site. I mean, yeah, the story wasn’t that well written as far as my standards go but the review was downright hateful.

Still, this isn’t the big deal. Spiteful people are everywhere, they’re like ants. I can squish as many as I want but I don’t have a hope in hell of eradicating the whole nest of them. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve seen an ant either but this ant… is more like a… oh, I don’t know where to begin.

Further curious, yes- the cat is walking closer to the cliff, I went to UWC’s profile to see what stories they’d written. If they awesome and perfect and whatever I was just going to snub my nose and walk away, not my problem and even if they’re rude they know their stuff. If their stories were anything less than perfect my evil twin was going to point out every error I… er… my evil twin… could find but that was the problem. I didn’t find any stories at all. Nope. Instead I found that next level of disgust.

“This place has become a wasteland of shit. Our goal is to get the “SO-CALLED” writers who post here to stop depleting bandwidth here. If you receive a review from us that says to stop, it means you are wasting your time writing. You should get a job or play video games to take up your spare time. The bottom line is: STOP writing! You SUCK! Until you LEARN how to write, don’t post what you THINK is writing where people can review it and give you CRITICISM.”

That’s just a single quote and I think I’ll leave it to that. UWC sounds so righteous it sickens me. There are so many things I have to say on just this itty-bitty little piece but I’m afraid if I start I won’t be able to stop and I’m not even done telling you about this online adventure today.

That’s right. There’s more.

Wondering what sort of person this UWC could be I visited their listed profile and sunk down beneath another level of disgust. Between the site and a LiveJournal account I’m not even sure where to begin. The site included more righteous fervor justifying their ‘mission’ as well as providing a place for their followers to gather.

My thoughts were that this person must be some serious grammar, spelling, Nazi with a penchant for dirty words and belittling others. Once more, it’s still not my problem. This person has never once stepped in my path nor I in theirs but as I traveled further down the roughly dug rabbit hole I started to see I was on a path of no return.

It happened when I got to the LiveJournal.

With each review used to tell others they should never pick up a pen there was a corresponding post boasting about it along with links to the victim saying they pitied whatever poor souls happened upon the ‘trash.’

One post made mention of a user who’d stood up for themselves at one point in time and finally decided they just couldn’t handle it anyone and changed their user name and other info. The post contained a link to the old account and the old name as well as a link to the new account and the new name- they were encouraging their fans to continue to harass someone who’d clearly had enough and wanted nothing more to do with the subject!

The whole page reeked of bullying and encouraging others to belittle these writers and yes they are writers. Even if they don’t write well, even if it’s only fan fiction. If they are expressing themselves, their imagination, or their thoughts through use of the written word then they are writers and they have every right to express themselves in a non-hostile environment!

I believe UWC has every right to say what they say. Like I said, it’s not my problem if they give harsh reviews and they have as much freedom in speech as I do. Yes, they are harshly belittling writers who don’t deserve such treatment, once more not really my problem it happens to everyone at least once and it’s what makes some of us stronger (I don’t like it but it’s life) but when UWC starts to encourage harassment like that, causing others to close their accounts and stop writing forever- a line has been crossed and something must be done about it.

I’ve read numerous letters and author’s notes where writers have stood up for themselves only to be put down further and ganged up upon by these self proclaimed judges. I’ve looked at handful upon handful of links that lead to now inactive accounts from people who were just happy testing the waters of the writing world. I’ve read and researched and found myself moved by those who stood and by those who ran.

I’ve thought long and hard about it and I find myself plotting.

Each of those writers were just a candle by themselves. Standing tall only to be blown out in the wind- but what if all those candles were gathered together at once? How tall would that blaze be?

Even a tornado will only spread the flames once they grow so big.

I need to put a day or two worth of thought into this before I make my move. Nothing drastic, just a few well placed letters to the right people. Ants can always rebuild their nest, yes, but it’s damn hard to start a reputation up again in the wake of certain events.