User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-31010985-20191101112654/@comment-24894325-20200110230259

Not for the first time, the first to react to a question regarding commercial interests of Arcbeatle Press was NateBumber, even though a question was to Revanvolatrelundar. I copy the response of NateBumber for the whole community: "Hey Amorkuz, I know that you'd prefer that we forever forgo any semblance of friendly conversation, but I think I could provide some helpful context about the timeline of the Cwej anthology. Namely, as you can see in the initial tentative announcement, the anthology didn't originally have any connection with Arcbeatle; instead, it was expected that Andy Lane would be releasing it in his own publishing house. If you scroll down, you'll see also that the Arcbeatle connection wasn't announced until December 20th. As someone who was pitching a story to the anthology throughout the initial debate, I wasn't even informed by the Cwej editor about Arcbeatle's potential involvement until after the deletion of the first thread, and I would be somewhat surprised if Revan's experience was any different! Since you expressed your frustration that you could no longer see a way to maintain good faith in Revan, I just figured you'd be interested in this information, as it provides an easily-accessible explanation that doesn't involve accusing Revan of deliberately concealing his involvement.

PS: It was my understanding that T:FORUM indicates that kudos don't count as contributions to any conversation, since they are not counted by admins for the counting of opinions. But just in case, I've gone through and carefully expunged my kudos from Thread:260549."

- NateBumber's response to the questions to Revanvolatrelundar

Several points in this message are worth noting:
 * It is not clear why NateBumber thinks he is sufficiently aware of business arrangements between James Wylder and Revanvolatrelundar to respond on the latter's behalf.
 * It is not clear why NateBumber treats the description from T:FORUM of "a statement of being for" as non-participation. T:FORUM does call it unhelpful. In this particular case, NateBumber's kudos were also against the explicit requests of FANDOM. But expressing one's support for validity is very far from not participating in a validity debate.
 * NateBumber misrepresents T:FORUM. There it is stated that "your [kudos] will likely be discounted in the final closure of the thread", which is not the same as "are not counted by admins" as stated by NateBumber. All T:FORUM does is gives an admin an option not to take kudos into account. The closing admin may equally well take them into account, especially if kudos look overwhelmingly in favour of validity, an effect that is easy to achieve if all collaborators "non-participate" by giving kudos to every pro-validity post.
 * It is not clear why NateBumber thinks that removing his kudos well after Thread:260549 was closed changes anything. However, I appreciate him being public and clear about what he did and why.
 * NateBumber's link to Gallifrey Base is not "easily accessible" because the link does not work without a login. Accordingly, I did not verify whether the details provided by NateBumber match the link.

More importantly, NateBumber fails to mention two important chapters in the fate of this anthology.
 * 1) In May 2019, Hunter O'Connell  (aka "Cwej editor") unsuccessfully tried to crowdfund this anthology . The crowdfunding page never once mentions Andy Lane or his publishing outfit Slow Decay Books. Neither Lane's Facebook/Twitter nor the website of Slow Decay Books ever mention the anthology either.
 * 2) In May 2019, the back-cover-artist of the anthology called it a "charity book" here. As a reminder, charity books are explicitly prohibited by our validity rules.

Whatever the source of information supposedly provided at Gallifrey Base and whatever NateBumber meant by "it was expected" above (expected by whom? expected based on which evidence?), that information does not seem to be independently verifiable, unlike the unsuccessful attempt by the Cwej editor to crowdfund a "charity book".

NateBumber's post creates more questions than answers:
 * Were Andy Lane planning to publish the book, why would Hunter O'Connell collect money for it without mentioning Andy Lane as the publisher?
 * Was Andy Lane planning to publish a charity book of his own character with zero publicity?
 * How and when did this charity book become an allegedly fully commercially licensed regular book?
 * Just like with all other future projects of Arcbeatle Press, what is the evidence that commercial license was granted by all copyright holders?

Finally, given the provided evidence of the project considered a "charity book" by one of its participants and the lack of evidence of commercial license from all the rights holders, was it not premature to create the page for this anthology?