Green Room - Week 39 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I can hear the sounds of them working on the Banquet Hall. Putting all the tables in place... Making sure the ceiling perfectly reflects the night sky… Keeping the House Elves in line…cueing up the dogs to take care of your meddlesome kids once and for all… oh wait, that was my outside voice! Nevermind about that last bit.

The actual thing is that the time of the Green Room is about to pass. So if you have left any personal belongings behind, make sure that you pick them up/try to get them off the ceiling fan. The staff will be coming in soon to clean this place. Although I have no idea how they are going to get some of those stains out!! We may just have to set fire to the whole thing and hope the wind is favorable!

But for now – you are still here! There is still time left to gather together in the Green Room, read the entries as they are posted: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/603168.html and enjoy what you have, before the door closes and the eternal darkness consumes all of you!!

3

Comments

Re: Question for the Community

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Going on 2 hours of sleep for the second night in a row here, so apologies in advance for any incoherent nonsense.

People are gonna wank at you no matter what you do, because you are The Mod, and as such, you are He Who Shall Be Wanked At simply because if something happens that somebody doesn't like and it even tangentially relates to Idol, it's Automatically Your Fault. If some of the urban legends are true (death threats? really?!) then this is nothing new. Sure, involving finances might draw a few additional wankers out of the woodwork, but any time a mod of any large or well-known online comm so much as breathes too loudly (or not loudly enough, or too deeply, or not deeply enough, or just about anything else), somebody's up on their damn soapbox ranting about the Injustice Of It All. Bottom line here is, wankas gonna wank, no matter what you do. So eff 'em.

I don't think anyone can really say you're "wrong" for feeling X or feeling Y about Idol, since it's your feelings about your creation. With that being said, I'd definitely be willing to guess that a sponsored\financed version of Idol is a matter of "it depends on how you do it" as opposed to "it's a bad idea." I don't know jack shit about copyright law, so I couldn't begin to speak to any legal issues involved with the terms "LJ" or "Idol" (heh, classify it as a parody and skate by on that maybe? IDEK), but as far as functionality is concerned, I think lrig_rorrim has some really good points\ideas, as does whipchick. I also agree with the various voices upthread that there are plenty of people who you've sucked into your evil cult of suffering and death brought along on the Idol journey who would be willing to pitch in. As for concerns and potential wrenches in the wheels and whatnot - the first thing that came to mind for me was that if money were involved as a means to sponsor the contest, would it somehow limit what people could or wouldn't write? I'm just thinking of the whole brouhaha back when LJ first started using ads and they tried to "clean up" the site by ban hammering pr0ny fan art comms and whatnot (and claiming to have altruistic motives, but that's another wank for another day and doesn't apply to Idol anyway - we already KNOW this place is a den of pure evil!) If it was straight-up donations, then probably not a problem, but I'm just tossing that out there because it popped into my exhaustion-clouded mind. Also, the offering of prize money was mentioned upthread - IMNSHO that's probably a shitshow waiting to happen...there's the already-mentioned legal issues, plus if you thought the catfights about cheating\pimping\etc are bad NOW...*hides in nuclear fallout shelter.* That ain't yo grandma's wank fest! Also, I might be alone on this, but I think one of the neatest things about this contest is that there is no prize other than bragging rights - it sets the vibe for the whole place, I think, that everyone who's here is here simply because they want to be - that writing their way through your sadistic obstacle course and making it to the end in one piece *is* the reward, not a means to an end.

I think what I'm attempting to say (once again, me = teal deer, SURPRISE!) is that as long as Idol stayed recognizable as Idol, even if it did involve a shiny new copyright infringement free name or summat (just think of it as a superhero secret identity), it's an idea worth exploring.

Re: Question for the Community

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm used to your incoherent nonsense! ;)

"If some of the urban legends are true (death threats? really?!) then this is nothing new"

When someone tells you exactly what they want to do to you, is extremely unset and erratic - has your address and a way to get to you, to the point of creating a credible fear of "this might actually happen" I think that qualifies. *sigh* ah, the good ole days!

"don't know jack shit about copyright law, so I couldn't begin to speak to any legal issues involved with the terms "LJ" or "Idol" (heh, classify it as a parody and skate by on that maybe? IDEK)"

One of the advantages of knowing attorneys who work with entertainment and copyright is that you can sit down and say "I KNOW you can't give me any legal advice. BUT let's play out this scenario... is my gut right about this?" Parody is definitely an angle that could be played. It's certainly part of the over-the-top foreign-hating hippie-kicking persona. It would be pretty difficult to look at that and not realize it's a parody. Granted, people do it all the time! So, what the hell do I know? ;)

"the first thing that came to mind for me was that if money were involved as a means to sponsor the contest, would it somehow limit what people could or wouldn't write?"

That's one of the reasons why I like the "money coming to me, 'thanks Gary'" more than I like "and here's a word from our sponsor" or even (somehow) becoming officially sanctioned/on the LJ payroll. I don't want people to second guess themselves. That runs counter to everything we do here.

re: Prizes. You are 100% correct. That's not a "shitstorm" (to borrow your phrase) that I have any interest in wading into! You get into that, and it all becomes a mess, and you're right, it changes the very vibe that I set out to create in the first place!