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Message

Subject: Re: Robert and Me (long)
Date: 19 Jan 2003 09:16:56 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan

>The major example of fan interaction with an author on the internet has 
>to be that of J. Michael Straczynski and the television show Babylon 5. 
>It constitutes another instance where the direct contact of the author 
>with his fans interfered with the storytelling. For Straczyniski, it led 
>to a defensiveness stemming from contact with what were essentially 
>online stalkers. Through a series of events, this culminated in an 
>insulation from criticism and an inability to recognize how he had 
>overextended himself.

Just a point of clarification...the only thing wrong with this thesis, as well
worded as it is, is that it sorta kinda ain't entirely so.

The moderated group was developed for two reasons: 

1) To help protect me from legal problems resulting from people throwing story
ideas my way, which could cause repercussions if I had anything similar already
in mind (and in fact this exact scenario resulted in my having to delay an
episode almost a year when someone scattered an idea similar to what I was
planning in the unmoderated group).

2) There were a number of net-stalkers who were after me, and some members of
the group, whose presence was making the situation toxic and open discusssion
next to impossible.

Thusly, those were the only two areas that tended to get moderated.  To say
that there was "insulation from criticism" is simply untrue; there was never
any requirement that you had to agree with or support anything in the show, or
anything I said...only that you not put in story ideas, or be a nutball. 
Anyone who was in that group then, as now, knows full well that there was the
full range of discussion, both positive and negative, about the show.  You can
log over to jmsnews.com and see all my posts from the last 10 years, and in
plenty of occasions there was no end of criticism, some valid, some not.

As for "an inability to recognize how (I) had overextended (my)self," I said at
the time that I was drowning in the work...I knew full well that I was as maxed
out as I've ever been.  But there was really nothing else I could do.  Having
set B5 in motion, chewing through stories at the rate of 24 frames per second,
you can't just decide to take a year off running, writing, producing, casting,
designing and everything else involved with creating and executive producing a
series.  You're strapped to that horse until it stops.  We had to make 20 eps
per year, rain or shine, for five years, and we'd found that the freelance
scripts in the main just weren't working.  

So yeah, it stunk; yeah, I paid a price, but no, I wasn't unaware of it, and
no, there was no other way to do it.  

Just for purposes of clarity.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)