Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Airing laundry

For those who've been talking to me on AIM, my frustrations with A1E aren't very secret. It's frustrating, especially since I've been trying to keep a positive head about things and not have them turn out the way they did the last time Jericoholic Anonymous was active in A1E.

One thing, at least, is different. Rather than specifically taking my grievances out in public, I've taken them to the booking committee in e-mail and PM instead. That's helped a lot. Of course, trends in A1E have pointed towards airing dirty laundry in public. I used to cause quite the stir myself, but I've kinda slinked back with my vocal criticisms of the fed, the BC or people in the fed.

That doesn't mean I don't have criticisms. I just choose to e-mail them and discuss them privately.

I think the biggest influence on that philosophy has been Dave Brunk. When I first got to EPW last year, I was the target of a pretty nasty attack by a handler whom I shall not name (Jarret, Brunk and Lindsay know who I'm talking about though) but will say that we have since made up. Anyway, he attacked the JA character for not being "original" enough for him and basically blasted Brunk and Bolich for even letting me into the fed.

Brunk summarily locked the thread (after I got in an explanation defense and Jarret chimed in with a good zinger towards said handler) and explained that dirty laundry like that is not conducive for a healthy environment.

And he's really right. No fed needs to have that kind of negative attention surrounding it all the time.

Yet A1E has had more than a few airings of laundry, from many different sources too. And yet, it's among the most stable and punctual feds around. How is this the case? Seriously, A1E seems to survive in spite of people spouting off in public.

Yet, there's an underbelly to this apparent paradox. In my opinion, the OOC environment is polarizing. Hell, I'd say it has been polarized for the longest time. And even when you have two camps, there's a good portion of disagreement among those in each camp. IT's amazing really.

A lot of times, I really don't know what to believe, or who believes in what. It's easy to pigeonhole the entire BC as participating in groupthink over a stupid booking decision or questionable match result. And it's also easy to lump everyone else outside of the BC as rabblerousers or malcontents. Yet everyone with two braincells to rub together know that neither absolute is the case.

So why did I get angry at the entire BC when I read TNW two weeks ago where JA's heat got apparently obliterated? Because I, like many others, am weak at times. And it's a lot easier to seethe or make blanket accusations in the E-Fed Smarts and Marks forum than it is to IM someone and have a heated debate. I still try to avoid confrontation over e-fedding results and angles, especially in A1E.

But there are times when questions need to be asked.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The main reason A1E continues to survive through things like that is that there is a core group of people involved with the fed. Many of those in that core group also handle multiple characters. Now, when those people get disgruntled and leave, you will see A1E begin to fall apart.

Anonymous said...

And see the second link of Tom starting crap in A1E as an example of our first e-fed disagreement.

Really, it's funny how diametrically different in philosophy you seem in relation to someone when you don't really know them yet and how silly some things look when you look back.

Unknown said...

The big problem is absolutely no one communicates.

When they're part of a tag team, people don't talk to their partners and discuss promoing schedules, or angles they want to run, then complain about the rules when they don't get to promo as much as they want.

If the BC does something different in the results, or if there's a perceived attack on someone's character, or someone says something taken the wrong way in a promo, and someone doesn't like it, the first thing they do is jump on the boards and go on uninformed rants, which only adds to the fire.

If people would simply TALK to one another over these perceived *issues*, then everything would be SO much better. If you've got a problem with a promo, go to the person that wrote the promo and try to work something out. If you've got a problem with a match result, then talk to the match writer or myself or Housefly, and we'll try and straighten things out.

The A1E BC - Housefly and myself in particular - have always gone out of our way to talk to people and try to explain why things are the way they are. It may not always be what you want to hear, but we can at least explain why things are the way they are.

I think part of it might be our booking process - Housefly and I, and Fly in particular - are notorious for doing things to drop hints for things coming down the line. The main thing to keep in mind is that if you see your character get destroyed in a beat down, or if you think that you've suddenly lost a lot of heat, stop and think about the fact that you're going to get it back the next week. That's just how we work.

But the key is COMMUNICATION. If no one talks, then there's lots of ill-advised assumptions going on that lead to misguided feelings, and all that can be easily avoided.

Anonymous said...

If you've got a problem with a match result, then talk to the match writer

So it can be presumed that we will begin getting notified of who writes which matches?

Unknown said...

No, I wouldn't say that we're going to provide lists of who wrote what every week, but feel free to ask one of the BCn who wrote your match and we'll hook you up.