Is it the end of PP? No. Is it worth getting into such a huge tizz over? No. Is it worth picking fights with total strangers for? No.
What is worthwhile will naturally vary from person to person. Pseudopod is something I value. In the past, I have seen it as meaningful and pleasurable. I am saddened that this is no longer the case. I find it worth my while to express in detail why this is so disappointing to me. It's possible my data point could be useful to someone else somewhere along the way. Even if it's not, I gain from thinking critically about the story, about my reactions to it, then organizing my thoughts well enough to post on the topic. For me, it's worthwhile. If it is not worth
your while to read what I have posted, then don't. To suggest what is worth my while and what isn't, even if it is not worth yours, is patronizing. Please don't.
I'm not really expecting a rational response, as she seems to expect a personal apology from the editors for running one story which she thought was rubbish.
I have no idea what would constitute a 'rational response', and am not pretending that I am offering one. However, I will correct the record on one small thing, which is my expectation of personal apology. I was quite specific about not expecting that. If I may quote my own self, I said: "Mind you, I'm not calling on the editors to make any kind of statement here. They hardly ever do, and I appreciate how they allow the forum conversations to proceed unimpeded. They're not answerable to me, and I don't think they should be." To be clear, I also expressed some wish to understand where the editors were coming from and what they were thinking when they chose this story. That was not a request for an apology. It was the hope that if I better understood their choice it would fire my mirror neurons and I'd be all 'oh, I can see where one might do that' and be able to put the whole thing to rest. I can understand fuckups, for example, we all fuckup. I can understand 'Yeah, maybe I didn't think that one through the way I should have.' And because I
want to like Pseudopod, I said that if I knew it was just an error I could get past it. But I have nothing. And this story, in the absence of any other context that mitigates it, crosses a line for me. I'm done.
Everyone has those lines. Whether it takes one story or twenty, there's a point beyond which people aren't willing to flex any further. I've reached mine. If you think it's worth mocking me for my low threshold of resistance, feel free to carry on (though eytanz, who has read many a post of mine, astutely notes that I have been expressing dissatisfaction with Pseudopod's offerings for a while now).
I'm not asking that Pseudopod change one single little thing. I'm not asking for any kind of accommodation. Perhaps I should have slunk away without saying anything, but I kind of felt I owed PP some honesty and I thought the editors could take it. If someone tells me they're crying over their beers because I won't be listening/commenting anymore, I'll probably feel guilty. My guess is they'll be doing little tapdances, instead, since I've been pretty consistently brutal in my critiques (though I do try to praise when I can).