#nanopocalypse 2023

[shadelorde]

Hello,

I’ve been a participant of NaNoWriMo for six years now, and a forums participant on the Young Writer’s Program for three years.

You might be wondering what’s happening on the forums, either on the YWP or the main NaNo site.

As far as I’m aware and have been involved, we brought up some concerns about neglectful moderation behavior on the adult site. Several adults supported us, and came out with their own allegations about neglectful or abusive moderation (for example, a moderator luring teens to a fetish website, who was fired but not banned, another one posting openly about porn who is still a moderator, and similar concerns.) On the YWP, our moderators, Rob Diaz and Marya Brennan have allowed open bullying and instead tone-policed those who fought back. They have allowed predator behavior on the site in several circumstances under the statement of “it does not explicitly violate our Codes” (despite it being open predatory behavior), and Rob Diaz has said racist things to another user in response to a Thanksgiving PSA.

The Board of Directors has now said that they did not know there was a separate YWP forum in the first place.

On the YWP side of things, the forums are being shut down indefinitely, and we are awaiting another response from the Board of Directors.

Please do not donate to NaNoWriMo.

Contact local schools and make them aware of the situation, and discourage advertising the YWP to kids.

I will reblog other posts from my fellow YWP users that h give more specific details.

[petit-procrastinator]

this was me. i said damn the mods. i said motherfucking damn the mods. and you know what marya did? she removed my post and messaged me,

“I have removed one of your posts for profanity and also being abusive. If I see that happen again, I’ll temporarily block your account. Let me know if you have any questions about what’s okay to post or not.”

she called me, abusive, for saying fuck the mods.

and of course naturally, considering the forums were shutting down anyway so i had nothing left i repeated my message. it was one minute after i posted that, i got banned. guess what? still they let a predator go unbanned, still they don’t prioritise the ACTUAL danger, but they ban a 15yo kid who’s hurting their ego.

[full-of-malice]

what a lovely day i bet everything on the nanowrimo forums has been resolved and there's no wild new information that's going to make me hate the staff even more...

[trigger warning on the last two images for bombing and terrorism]

here's some screenshots of brand new info and a testimony that came straight from the nanowrimo forums. this is only one part of the testimony. there is so much more.

each day the staff is revealed to be more and more corrupt. we're not gonna go down silently.

i'm going to spread the word as much as possible because everyone who has been part of nanowrimo deserves to know

[i will be updated this with text version for each image later, i'm currently unable to but i will later]

[abearthatwrites]

NaNoWriMo just released their survey.

You'd best believe I called out HQ every chance I got.

[abearthatwrites]

And the NaNo forums are shut down. The last forum thread, which had somehow escaped notice, has just been locked.

Ah well. At least I caught it before it got locked. I didn't find out until after the other threads were locked that Ivan the Icy came up in conversation yesterday, so it gave me the time to share my own testimonial with that particular game...

[full-of-malice]

here is a copy pasted for what the post said warnings for bombing and terrorism.

Image description [I’ve been gone from NaNo since 2019 and I honestly never expected to return after everything with HQ. Guess I was wrong. Early November a former wrimo got in touch to explain what had been happening. To say I was both horrified and yet not at all surprised at every story coming to light, is sadly an understatement. Because we predicted much of this. Not the exact outcomes, not the child abuse, but how the problems left ignored would only continue to escalate.

I’ve debated about posting this. Whether I had anything to add that wasn’t already being said. Yet as more keeps surfacing, it became clear that most people are talking about, and may believe, much of this is from 2020 onwards. I think it is important to make clear that the roots of all of this run back much much further.

I warn you this will be long. I’ll try to make it as easy to read as possible. But I do not want to sacrifice the scope of the issues for brevity, if you want to TL;DR skip to the Ivan the Icy part since that’s a microcosmos on its own. Also my memory is obviously not perfect. So feel free to contradict or add to fill in the blanks. The more detailed this picture becomes, the more we know where to cut out the rot.

For context I’ve been here since the Baty era. I’ve been an ML, a mod, a mentor, seen every corner of this place. For years several us tried to communicate with staff. Voice concerns, offer suggestions, even help them cover up what could have been a PR nightmare. Yet, each time we got waved off or straight up ignored. Nothing ever changed.

. First off, Sarah’s handling of ML issues have always been poor. Toxic MLs were left unchecked. As a mentor I had several mentees who were being bullied and abused by their co-MLs. As did other mentors. When we urged them to contact Sarah, when we warned her ourselves, the bullied MLs were told to get along or ignore it. “Mediation” happened that boiled down to “just play nice everyone”. The abusive MLs were allowed to stay, no consequences, no oversight. Often ending in passionate hard working MLs dropping out because they could no longer take it. Leaving the bullies in their place.

At least twice I had wrimos contact me about their region being run into the ground. When I put them in touch with Sarah, HQ’s answer was “just organise your own events and apply to be a co-ML for your region next year”. Co-ML. Not replacement ML. They were expected to work with someone who had proven to be unreasonable and tyrannical.

Mentors who pushed too hard for Sarah to step in got a verbal smack down and forevermore no longer got direct answers if it could be avoided or any reply would be underlined by hostility. Once more pushing good people to quit because they felt severely impacted by how HQ treated them.

Criticism of HQ and NaNo were not allowed. While the rules did not state MLs and mods could not have a dissenting opinion, that is how they were carried out. Mention any even mildly frustrated opinion on the forums at large and you would get a reprimand and your post deleted. Even on the ML forums behind closed doors it was barely allowed. Often meeting with ire and closed threads. Or direct orders to play nice or get out.

In fact in my entire time I was active. The only time an ML was depowered was if they directly insulted HQ or Sarah herself, often rather mildly I might add. MLs who were toxic, who were proven not to have even looked at their region all month were left to return the next year. But “insult” staff and you were out the door within the hour. Either with no explanation to the rest of us or with the cookie cutter “we decided they were no longer suited to the task”. With a very clear unspoken vibe of, if you are seen defending them you could be next.

The mentality was always any ML is better than no ML. Even when we pointed out that a filled seat deters other people from stepping up. Especially if the prospect of working with the one in that seat seems worse than having no region.

MLs and their regions also always came in a sort of caste system.

MLs who were favoured by Sarah first

US MLs close to HQ second

US MLs further away third

Elsewhere regions and regions outside of the US, especially outside of northern America dead last.

You got less answers, help, consideration. None of the perks. Often you were lucky to get stickers since by the time you woke up in your timezone and saw the link they might already have been all gone. As there was no limit to how many you could order (other than the vague rule of don’t order more than you need please).

Not to mention the one reward you got for volunteering was to be able to order the 100$ donation poster for one cent + shipping. Once again this favoured those close to HQ, above those far away. Not to mention that you had to play Russian roulette with anything sent by their warehouse. Because they frequently declared things wrong for customs, hitting you with unexpected steep fees. For things that should have been free like stickers, or donation goodies.

Ironically one of the only suggestions they did ever take was to make the ML gifts more egalitarian. Before then you got the poster and a special gifts per X amount of years volunteered. A shirt, a pin, a pen with your name on it, a keychain, a plaque at nano. We understood those had been implemented when there were few MLs and the cost grew excessive. So we offered alternatives. They took one of them (the pins, which can be fun), but then dropped the previous system with zero warning. No grandfathering in those who had been working towards their 7 and 10 year gifts. When MLs expressed grief over this, telling HQ that pen had been the only thing they’d been holding on for (and you’d be surprised and saddened to know how common that was at that point). They were told they were unreasonable and to cut it out. Side note there were few MLs at that point that hit that many years, so they could have easily been grandfathered in.

Those of us who modded got looked down upon by staff and especially Sarah talked about it as if it was easy and we just had to try a bit harder. We were given little notice (if any), guidelines and any real training beyond what Heather was able to provide on top of already being heavily over taxed herself. She herself also frequently got thrown under the bus. Treated as lesser than the rest of staff. Often she wasn’t even included in meetings that made decisions about the forums. When staff messed up she was left to take the ire and try and appease people, because they only ever saw her in the forums. With an occasional drive by visit from Tim. She became the face of things she had no say in. With little backing, guidance, and at times HQ even stepping in to contradict her last minute. All of this worsened with the new site, but more on that in a bit.

As a side note I want to talk about the problem children threads mentioned earlier. I have no idea how those threads evolved after I left. But historically they had three main goals. Give us a way to make all mods aware of people to keep an eye on because they were becoming an issue. To vent, usually with humour, so we could blow off steam and return to modding as fairly, impartially and even tempered as if we hadn’t been driven to exhaustion. And to trouble shoot.

I will not claim we never made mistakes. But generally this was at most a post or two before it switched to brainstorming how best to fairly deal with things. Considering we had little recourse to deal with people who were actually being toxic on the forums.

I cannot tell you how often we were forced to sit on our hands and see certain people run amuck from thread to thread. Leaving argument after argument and hurt people in their wake. But until they crossed a big enough line we could do nothing. To the point where the community was often left to deal with them instead. One such person had the community start posting recipes to drown him out. When they finally did get banned, they often returned the next year. At which point the “game” started again, with having to wait until they revealed themselves an alt (despite it being incredibly obvious) or to once again cross a big enough line. So yes, we sometimes needed time to seek support so we would not lose our cool in the middle of the forum, or against innocent bystanders.

Most of the time though it was a collaborative place to double check wording and to ask if we were reading something wrong, or getting too wound up. It was our form of checks and balances, since HQ offered none. Even Heather regularly asked for second opinions on a modding decisions she was about to make. Unlike the rest of HQ she encouraged us to be honest and speak up if we thought she was making mistakes. Frequently taking our suggestions on board.

But let me momentarily return to the kerfuffle about the problem children thread. It was Stephanie who raised the argument. Also claiming chatnano to supposedly be a toxic place.

For context I was a mentor when Stephanie started her first year. From moment go she was very set in her ways. She had an idea of what being an ML was supposed to be like and would not budge in inch from it. There were multiple mentors gently trying to explain to her why decisions she was making were not beneficial to the region. Like how Stephanie was incensed that someone in her region dared to organise a write in when they weren’t an ML. We tried to explain this was a good thing. That this showed passion and engagement. That it didn’t overlap with her write-in and wasn’t even in an area she was able to get to. That this would help the region. That maybe they could help her organise someday. She would have none of it and from what we learned later not only forbid it, but possibly drove off the person who had tried to do so. (not confirmed) She literally once “joked” about how MLs should rule their region with an iron fist. We contacted Sarah about how several of us mentors were worried about this. Sarah did not reply. So Stephanie was left to return for her second year. At which point she apparently decided MLs should be nice.

She took aim at chatnano. Like the problem children thread, the ML channel was a place we could let off steam. We did not name names, always speaking in terms of “the problem child in my region” unless we had to warn someone about possible splash damage. Again I’m not going to say we never made mistakes, but most of the time venting was a matter of minutes before the conversation switched to brainstorming and diplomatic mode, or just another topic. What we also did there was voice concerns and frustrations with HQ, especially around 2016/17. I very much believe that more than anything rubbed Stephanie the wrong way. She tried to lecture us about being nice and how we “were not acting as MLs”. And when we were not responsive to her reprimands, she went to HQ. Because soon after staff who had never been in chatnano, despite being invited yearly, suddenly wanted an presence in there. They never interacted, but it was logged in, presumably to log the chat.

This started a pattern of her reporting to Sarah and in turn getting preferential treatment and allowances. For the record I’ve seen the screenshots floating about on what was said in her discord server these past weeks. And I can tell you that some of things said in there would never have flown in chatnano. We frequently tempered each-other or called out the ML/mod that had a tendency to cross the line, yet still did not reach those levels. Nor did we start a baseless witch hunt after it was clear we’d been “reported” to HQ. We just continued as we were.

When all of this apparently did not have the wanted effect she started pushing hard for people to switch to discord. As mentioned above, she and mod X (who also seemed to dislike chatnano for reasons unknown to me) pushed HARD for and eventually created the ML discord. Officially everyone was invited, but especially early on the only ones invited where those that agreed with and were friends with Stephanie and mod X. That was the basis upon which that server was built, upon which the power was held.

Now I want to make it clear I don’t think Stephanie for all her faults was aware of what mod X got up to. From what I hear they later on had a major falling out and she got the full ownership of the server. But I find it very unsettling that knowing its origins, HQ never bothered to investigate the server after the mod X business came to light. Especially since it seems it had become the only place to really reach Sarah. But those are issues from beyond my time.

Last note on this. The year we got slapped on the wrist for being too mean, we may have been, I will not argue that. But the context is also important.

It was the trump election year. Vocal arguments about this were breaking out left right and centre, all over the site. Mods were left to soothe and handle, but couldn’t ban. Because everyone was welcome. And saying Trump was a swell guy with great ideas was not the same as outright saying you thought many in the community should not exist. Yet we also had to explain why we weren’t banning them. We were overworked, overrun, and for all its faults discourse has much better modding tools than the old site ever had. Where flags frequently became untouchable by anyone but supermods. We were burning out hard. So yes, I fully believe and admit we likely have crossed the line on occasion back then. Especially since there were a few mods who did have a tendency to push things. (Which from what I hear later on became an issue when they no longer got the pushback from the rest of us.) But we tried. The mod team back then was far from perfect. Even then with far more mods compared to what the team was here, we were too few. We had no training, no clear cut rules. But we did our best.

Now that’s mainly the Sarah and Mod issues, then there is the grander org and the culture within.

. When Grant stepped in the winds at HQ changed. At first we still had Lindsey and others around, but they slowly started to step away and their replacements were people who openly admitted (in their very intro) they had never done NaNo. Or it they had that they never engaged with the forums or its community. Under Grant’s leadership HQ slowly started to remove the whimsy and community that had been such a corner stone of what NaNo was built upon. This feeling of one big group of people all over the world undertaking this big weird challenge. Instead they seemed to want to change NaNo into a Brand Name.

Communication was made “more professional” and lost most of its joy and humour. The new style corporate and clinical both in formatting, imagery and writing. The site styling slowly inching in that direction too, culminating in what became the current site. None of HQ seemed to ever bother visiting the forums any more. Many of them barely even went through the motions of seeming to participate in the challenge. Tim was the only one who showed up and only when HQ had messed up to offer a non-apology.

Donation mails become more aggressive and frequent. With such tactics as wishing you a happy birthday in one line and then spending several paragraphs telling you why you should donate to them. Or sending daily mails that could not be turned off. Both of these things made people start to disconnect and stop reading the mails. Barely skimming them. Donations started to go down noticeably too. As did participation numbers. Yet they would not listen when we pointed this out or offered suggestions on how to adjust course.

This was true in general. They refused to listen to the community. At times even came across as having a certain disregard for the community and most certainly the forums.

They refused to listen to their volunteers. When we reached out with suggestions or help we were at best ignored, at worst reprimanded for trying so. Almost as if they were scared if they let us help we’d realise how bad things were at HQ.

There is a line that any vocal ML/mod of that time has burned into their memory. “We hear you and will take it into consideration.” They never did.

Some egregious examples.

In 2016 after lacklustre response to the previous theme(s), MLs thought to help HQ and brainstorm some themes that might be exciting. I don’t remember who started the thread or who made the suggestion, but we landed on dinosaurs. This got a huge response from the MLs. We were brainstorming and thinking up ideas and getting excited. The response from HQ was baffling. It went from terse posts from Sarah, to Tim being called in when he rarely came into the ML forums. The tone of them telling us no, despite us trying to explain how fun it could be worsened with each post. Eventually it resulted in the thread being locked and being forbidden to continue. We never got a decent explanation of why. If they had simply told us “we don’t think this would work because X” we could have understood. But instead we were slapped like unruly children.

One year they added rules around handling of slurs and bigotry at write-ins. This in itself was a good thing and we applauded them for actually giving us guidelines for once. Only, the problem was the wording of those guidelines. And how it demanded we called it out, in the midst of the group. When we tried to explain that the wording didn’t work for non-English regions. Also how while yes effect matters so does intent. Sometimes putting a victim on display does more harm than good, sometimes someone makes a mistake through lack of knowledge and it’s better to handle it off to the side. How it would help no one to smack down those not meaning harm. In fact might cause those with mental health issues to feel unsafe in the worry they may make a mistake and face the same overblown reaction. When we tried to explain this, not to stop the rules but to slightly amend them we were told no. Sarah became defensive and we got told, only effect matters, not intent. Over and over. No exceptions. If you didn’t want to sign the agreement (and stopped speaking up about it right now) you could step down as an ML.

Similar arguments were had when again non-US regions pointed out that the part of the ML agreement obligating us to ask for donations at write-in was an issue. Because it was actually illegal to do some in some countries. As were the then suggested lotteries as a way to get more donations.

But there was so so much more. Many times we were not notified of changes, plans or the sudden reversal of them (see the site part about more). Frequently we only found out things happening at the same time Wrimos did. This caused the aforementioned PR nightmare, but I’ll talk about that last as I think it’s a microcosms of all things wrong at HQ. All of this worsened as the years went on.

. So many learned to shut up and hold their peace. To try and keep the nano spirit alive on their own in their regions and not make any fuss. Those of us who cared so much they couldn’t… well I can’t be certain there ever existed an official problem children list at HQ, but the way those who had ever tried to speak up or help were treated, it certainly felt like it.

We were never allowed to stray outside the strict box they had fit us in. Despite the wealth of global knowledge and skill base, if you tried to offer aid or suggestions you were ignored. Good enough for busywork, but not getting chances to be heard, or considered when staff was hiring. Examples:

MLs with experience in the field of shipping for small businesses offered aid to sort out the exorbitant costs for both HQ and Wrimos got ignored.

An ML offered multiple times to help coding. Notably to integrate chatnano or build an official chat system for them, and various other tools. All for free. They never even bothered to reply to these offers. When they were hiring for tech staff, he barely got considered.

One of the long running MLs at the time built an entire ML wiki with his own resources and knowledge. But the offers to convert that to a basis for an ML knowledge base and tools were ignored.

After the PR nightmare event several of us wrote up an extensive document describing all the problems, concerns, issues and solutions that had been voiced and brainstormed over the years amongst MLs, Mods, Mentors and Wrimos alike. Though HQ initially seemed appreciative, little to nothing came of it. A comment made by Grant this November hints he likely did not even read it.

. Then came the site launch. It was a mess start to finish. A blogged about trip to Google offices for inspiration, that made many question where the donations were going. A site deadline that anyone could see was too soon and the inevitable delay, obviously leading to it being push back a year. Us begging them to delay longer the next year, especially after having seen some of the test build barely standing up a mere month before launch. Severe oversights in basic features like MLs needing a differently coded role. A barely functioning site with critical bugs, privacy issues, and missing most features people associate with NaNo. All round confusion, stress, and panic. It was a failure of project management top to bottom. Made worse by the fact the few years earlier YWP launch had gone badly too, and they seemingly learned nothing from that. There honestly are too many issues to list for 2019. Some that stand out though.

We were told to give feedback and beta test and then were ignored and often scolded for suggestion to delay further upon seeing what was “ready”. Pointing out that the setup as it was for discourse was confusing and would make many not tech savvy people struggle as well as those with ND or disabilities that seemed to really clash with how things were set up.

We did not get told properly when the site would drop, finding it out alongside the wrimos for the most part.

MLs and Mods were thrown in the deep end and left to fend for themselves without guidance.

Mods especially. We went from all having our own forums to watch over to suddenly having to deal with an entire forum. A forum that we had not been taught to use properly. Where all our old ways of handling threads no longer worked, and none of us knew what to do. Handed so much power it divided the few of us left into those of us worried to even breathe wrong lest we accidentally delete the entire forum, vs those who took the lead with no such worries. Including mod X. Not to mention being left to weather the valid frustrations from wrimos about the state of things and how they were not being heard. We were told we had to stop people from venting their very real and valid frustrations. Lock threads, merge threads that offered criticism into an unwieldy mess, ban threads to the deep freeze. Because they were being “toxic” and we couldn’t let that be fed into.

HQ was frequently absent and when Sarah did come to the forums it was to again scold and to tell everyone they couldn’t voice criticism, not even in the hidden ML forums. MLs were told if they did not like the changes they were being unreasonable. This mentality was strongly backed by Stephanie and her clique. Who at this point had almost entirely evolved into an extension of Sarah.

Literal gaslighting of MLs. And no I do not use this word lightly or wrongly. We were told early September in a group chat by Sarah, after much prodding I might add, that region mails were definitely certainly absolutely coming. And soon! Only to find out a few weeks later that no, they were not coming soon, they would not be coming at all. When questioned about this Sarah kept insisting it was never promised, we must have misheard, she never said that and we must have just misunderstood, that in fact, it had never been the plan at all. This was the last straw for many of us.

These are by no means the full range of issues that took place, but they are the most representative and dire ones that happened over the span of nearly a decade. This is of course only concerning the main site. None of us had access to the YWP and all we knew was HQ telling us how safe the YWP was. How we should always refer teens in our regions over there for their protection. Which feels quite horrific in hindsight. In later years, there were rumours, but nothing concrete. What we learned now sadly far exceeds anything we could have imagined.

. IF YOU READ NOTHING OF THIS POST, READ THIS. Lastly I’ll go into the mentioned PR nightmare. TW for terrorism and bombings. If either of those topics upset you please skip the next bit. For everyone else

. The Ivan the Icy incident. In 2017 the staff decided to roll out an in-office game they had apparently played amongst themselves to the wider public.

This game was a treasure hunt type activity, where one had to stop a terrorist called Ivan the Icy from blowing up NaNo and the world.

This hunt included a now removed video of a very convincingly dressed man monologue at the camera about how he was going to bomb NaNo. So convincing in fact it took very long into the video before signs of it being fake emerged.

Several faked emails sent to you, in that same vein that eventually led to a hidden page on the site where you had to disarm a bomb. Failing to do so would make it explode. Granted, upon exploding it filled your screen with penguins, but until then it was far too realistic.

Some key points

This was not communicated to MLs prior to sending out. Nothing had been mentioned. If it had we could have told them why this was a bad idea. The game might work in office where everyone knows each other’s sensitivities and humour (although even then one can wonder why this topic), but on a global scale this is tone deaf at best.

MLs were the ones who raised the alarm and contacted HQ as quickly as we noticed. We had to explain in detail the potential ramifications, after which action was taken. We then helped NaNo cover this up. (Something I’ve often wondered if it was the right thing to do.)

Note that at this point we had already lost so much faith in HQ that we were actively brainstorming how we could potentially flag it to youtube and facebook to get the video taken down if HQ would not respond to us as they often didn’t.

. To explain just how tone deaf this game was.

The very convincing video was posted (not used) on 9/11.

This was the year after the bombing in Brussels during NaNo. Two years after the bombing and shootings in Paris that had the Parisian Wrimos stuck in a write-in near the bomb site and active shooters for hours. And the same year a bomb had been detonated in the Manchester arena.

After it was taken down, HQ barely offered an apology. The ML “apology” of which I have records, was one paragraph in an entire mail about donation day. There was also the offer to voice our feelings as MLs to HQ via video call. But the times offered were that very same evening. Meaning few could free up time on such short notice. Me and several others did, culminating in us offering to write them a comprehensive document with suggestions and ideas and point out problems.

. For those who wish to know, some things included in that document were:

A detailed comparisons to OTW and how they run things. Especially since they are very similar in how they both rely on donations from their community, and also have a lot of volunteers to do all the work.

Detailing how their “management” structure could translate to nano, as well as their training and their dedicated wiki collecting the knowledge base. How nano could learn from the OTW attempts at being more international. And so on and so forth.

We advocated for more serious vetting of MLs and mods. Training periods in which they were taught all the basic tasks and evaluated. Pointing out issues with Toxic MLs and mod and co-ML abuse and the lack of handling of all those issues.

We advocated for ML and community councils (which I heard they attempted in name only, not in fact how we had suggested it should be implemented) Suggesting ways to have trusted people be voted in by the community, to help oversee regions. So Sarah would have more eyes on everything and could be directed to focus only on the issues instead of getting bogged down by routine tasks. Or to offer advice, feedback and expertise to HQ. Hopefully preventing another Ivan the Icy.

We outlined suggestions for how the forum moderation could be built out. Making for clearer stronger CoC that would allow for banning toxing people. Yet leaving room for honest mistakes or bad days.

We talked about ways to become more international. To get more and better communication between HQ and the MLs the mods and the community. To build a clear and transparent knowledge base. Possibly make meeting notes open to be viewed, so decisions could be understood. To let MLs with expertise in things like shipping or coding help out.

And so much more.

In the end none of it was really used. The bits that were, were so wildly out of context and broken beyond recognition. So in the end… we gave up.

Many of us left in 2019. Many of us burned out, lost hope, broke a little inside. I saw so many passionate amazing people being driven out. Discouraged, hopeless, blaming themselves.

I’m not rehashing all of this to kick HQ when it is down. I’ve processed a lot since I left. I’m doing it because I believe in what nano was and could still be. I believe in its spirit, it’s whimsy, its community. I even believe Grant and co once upon a time meant well, but they were not skilled managers. They were managing a brand, when what they should have been managing was a community.

In the end I decided to post this to make it clear that the problems ran deep. This started long before 2020. If there is any chance to be had to save nano, or to give people who leave from here tools to not repeat the same mistakes in future endeavours, I think it needs to clear what happened here.]

End image description

hi it's your regularly scheduled 'nanowrimo is insane', screenshots from a post in the board response overview thread by user Elyndra (in case you're wondering, no, that's not me, I've just been watching the situation spinning out of control). disclaimer that I obviously don't know this personally and hence there may be incorrect details.

anyway. I wonder if we'll have nanowrimo, as it currently exists, next year?

[full-of-malice]

me and my friends are being bitter about ai and nanowrimo again. as one of the kids who was part of the group that made the tag of "#nanopocalypse" as a term for what was happening on our website as we were silenced and groomed and our lives went to shit. our lives were falling apart. it was the nanopocalypse for us. that's why we called it that and have referred to the entire situation as that. and we were the only ones who actually put anything in the "#anti nanowrimo" tag to begin with to talk about our hatred and struggles with being groomed. a desperate and ignored attempt to call awareness

so as someone who put in the work and lost days of my life and will not be the same person again and put tears and long days while trying to juggle my school and personal life, checking in on my friends and ensuring that they were okay, it feels really shitty honestly to watch tumblr take the nanopocalypse tag so they can make themselves feel good by talking shit about the ai policy. it's Exhausting. you guys are a solid year late in support and hatred for nano that we could've used when we were trying to get the website halfway shut down. we have been Trying to tell you. there were tiktoks, twitter, threads, youtube videos, tumblr posts, and it's just exhausting that suddenly the trendy hatred of ai is what gets popular. idk if feels like you all just jump on the trend to be the cool savior and hate on ai and write their posts that do nothing informative of helpful and just say "fuck nanowrimo" instead of hating on it for the actually important reasons.

nanopocalypse was the specific instance a year ago in november of 2023, when ywp (young writer program) website users were sick of being abused, neglected, and being in the dark. the mods started banning us just for voicing our issues and wanting change. we took to. the adult forums and talked to adult users who were in the midst of the own issues as well. we finally found adults who believed our struggles and were on our side. on their website there was child grooming involved too, the fbi was allegedly getting contacted it was so bad. after years finally someone was listening. yet within days they turned on us and told us we were too young and had no place in "their home" of the website and that our concerns for our community and wanting to be involved were no necessary. they started twisting our words against us and picking us apart. i spent days fighting with adults just for basic things, adults who claimed not two or three days ago that they supported us and would fight for us and were so sorry for the way we were treated only to turn around and treat us remarkably the same. there was one nanopocalypse.

it's exhausting to have to reiterate our struggles to people on the internet who don't and won't listen, but don't use our terms that we a group of abused and groomed teens made for a one time occurrence and tag that was for us and our struggles a place for us to talk and raise awareness. a place that got ignored until a year too late so ai issues could talk over us.

so fuck nanowrimo. not for the ai, but for the children who suffered for years in silence. the ai should be an afterthought, not the front of the problem.

if anyone's interested either in a separate post or in the reblogs i'll make an extensive list of any youtube videos, tiktoks, tumblr post links, and twitter links that i know of on the situation if you want. i will gladly answer any question anyone has because i've tried to educate people on this for a long time and no one will listen

[full-of-malice]

hello hi so nanowrimo has been a bit. of a cesspit.

on nanowrimo there are two branches. two separate websites. the ywp [young writers program] and the main nanowrimo site. both have forums, moderators, and a challenge in the month of november.

the moderation on both sites is bullshit. they allow predators to run free, racism to go unchecked. for the ywp the moderation is actually done mainly by minors who run around correcting problematic things, flagging malicious users, and begging the mods to do something. as a member of the ywp this has been going on for years. children and teens working as unpaid moderators.

we recently brought our stories forward to adults about having to fend off predators and pedophiles while being ignored by those in power who were supposed to protect us. turns out that the adult site has it just as bad. we learned there is an fbi case because a now fired mod was allegedly guiding minors to f3tish websites.

mods have constantly silenced those who try to talk back and have abused their place of power. the staff is incompetent and cannot stand the laughing stock that they've made of themselves.

my friends and i do intend to make a large post in addressing what is happening and spread the word to a larger broader audience with as much details as possible. there's a twitter thread in regards to what has happened here that has some ywp testimonies on it

long story short it's. a shitshow and us minors are finally getting adults and the board of directors involved in hopes for change.

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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[skullergeist]

hi. i’m also another user from the ywp site. my name is moth. i have been using the site actively since i was 13.

in my time on the site, i have encountered horrific racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, misogyny and ableism, among other issues. i have been bullied by other users to the point of attempting to take my own life MULTIPLE times and ultimately landed myself in a children’s psychiatric hospital. i have tried so, so hard to get justice for myself and for other victims and the mods have done almost NOTHING.

when i was 15 i experienced cruelty at the hands of another group of users like nothing i have ever before. it was genuinely one of the worst times of my life, and i have been through a lot of bad things. i went to the mods in hopes that i would be protected, and they waved me off. i brought them evidence and told them my story, and i got no help. the only reason i didn’t leave the site entirely was because other users rallied to my cause and forced the people who hurt me off the site.

in another instance, i got in an argument with another user over racism faced by indigenous americans (of which i am one). Rob (who is not indigenous) came in and told me that i was wrong for speaking up for myself and he told me that the racism i was facing could be solved by sitting down with my abusers and hearing them out. this happened many times to not only me, but other kids.

i have so many horror stories i could share. literally just this morning we dealt with a user telling another YWP member that they hoped they would be fucking bombed and the mods didn’t do jack shit until it was too late. AND then they removed posts by the victim that were informational and relevant to the topic. and they didn’t punish the aggressor in any way. fucking disgusting. they don’t care about us, and they never will. me and other older YWPers have devoted hours of our time to try and do their job for them. did you ever hear about the strike we organized? the speak out campaign we ran? that happened. i headed those operations. we still have the website we created.

i am known on the YWP as a sort of guardian angel. this isn’t a title i have given myself; it is one bestowed on me by the other users. i fight tooth and nail for them. i have stayed up well into the early hours of the morning comforting children who were hurt and then ignored by the mods, tracking down emergency services for kids who hurt themselves out of frustration from the abuse, researching anything i could to try and fix the issue. do you know how many of those kids i’ve had to talk down from killing themselves? how many panic attacks they’ve had? how many of them have had to take it upon themselves to fight back against the very institution meant to protect them?

nano has been a great comfort for me for a very long time. but it is also one of the things that has hurt me most. i will never forgive the YWP mods for the abuse they have allowed to occur on their watch and the blame they have routinely shifted from themselves onto the userbase

Hello,

I’ve been a participant of NaNoWriMo for six years now, and a forums participant on the Young Writer’s Program for three years.

You might be wondering what’s happening on the forums, either on the YWP or the main NaNo site.

As far as I’m aware and have been involved, we brought up some concerns about neglectful moderation behavior on the adult site. Several adults supported us, and came out with their own allegations about neglectful or abusive moderation (for example, a moderator luring teens to a fetish website, who was fired but not banned, another one posting openly about porn who is still a moderator, and similar concerns.) On the YWP, our moderators, Rob Diaz and Marya Brennan have allowed open bullying and instead tone-policed those who fought back. They have allowed predator behavior on the site in several circumstances under the statement of “it does not explicitly violate our Codes” (despite it being open predatory behavior), and Rob Diaz has said racist things to another user in response to a Thanksgiving PSA.

The Board of Directors has now said that they did not know there was a separate YWP forum in the first place.

On the YWP side of things, the forums are being shut down indefinitely, and we are awaiting another response from the Board of Directors.

Please do not donate to NaNoWriMo.

Contact local schools and make them aware of the situation, and discourage advertising the YWP to kids.

I will reblog other posts from my fellow YWP users that h give more specific details.

[mysteriousubstance]

Hi! I'm a YWP member and have been since I was 14 (3 years ago now) I go by Kins and Cori int he site and I guess I can go by that here toi. didn't know about the issues with the mods until this last year. I should have seen it sooner.

I have spent many many hours on that site and I call it my home. I have only a few horror stories because I was one of the lucky ones (who also isn't POC). I didn't go through as much as this but I should have seen it.

I remember vividly when someone told us to kill ourselves. The mods took forever to do anything on the situation to the point where this is where it escalated to.

I remember when someone manipulated and treated people like shit. They threatened their sibling with their parents who were unsupportive. The mods didn't do anything for a long time.

I remember the Speak Out movement, where people criticized the mods and were silenced. When they tried to go to the main site, they were told they were cross posting things that didn't belong there. So people left the website for 2 days until the mods actually listened. Things improved but only for a bit. The mods started a public moderation record. But that's not what we needed. We needed consistent moderation. We needed someone who would actually help in those situations.

I remember hearing that there was a predator and that the mods did nothing for a LONG FUCKING TIME. I lost some of my sense of safety on a place I kind of grew up in.

Right before the forums shut down, some people were criticizing the mods. They were threatened by being banned. People were swearing and were banned. But I swore too and didn't even get a warning. There was clear favoritism and I think my friends deserved more than this.

And now I hear about the main site and that there was a predator as a mod and at this point I'm not even surprised. I have witnessed so much harm done and no one deserved it. NO ONE DESERVED IT. They were valid and deserved to be listened to.

I love the place I've spent so long in. It's helped me get through some of the most difficult times. But that wasn't by any help if the mods. It was by the help of my friends who were there when few adults were. I am a stronger person because of it, but I don't think it should have gone this way.

Hello,

I’ve been a participant of NaNoWriMo for six years now, and a forums participant on the Young Writer’s Program for three years.

You might be wondering what’s happening on the forums, either on the YWP or the main NaNo site.

As far as I’m aware and have been involved, we brought up some concerns about neglectful moderation behavior on the adult site. Several adults supported us, and came out with their own allegations about neglectful or abusive moderation (for example, a moderator luring teens to a fetish website, who was fired but not banned, another one posting openly about porn who is still a moderator, and similar concerns.) On the YWP, our moderators, Rob Diaz and Marya Brennan have allowed open bullying and instead tone-policed those who fought back. They have allowed predator behavior on the site in several circumstances under the statement of “it does not explicitly violate our Codes” (despite it being open predatory behavior), and Rob Diaz has said racist things to another user in response to a Thanksgiving PSA.

The Board of Directors has now said that they did not know there was a separate YWP forum in the first place.

On the YWP side of things, the forums are being shut down indefinitely, and we are awaiting another response from the Board of Directors.

Please do not donate to NaNoWriMo.

Contact local schools and make them aware of the situation, and discourage advertising the YWP to kids.

I will reblog other posts from my fellow YWP users that h give more specific details.

[skullergeist]

@nanowrimo get your shit together

Hello,

I’ve been a participant of NaNoWriMo for six years now, and a forums participant on the Young Writer’s Program for three years.

You might be wondering what’s happening on the forums, either on the YWP or the main NaNo site.

As far as I’m aware and have been involved, we brought up some concerns about neglectful moderation behavior on the adult site. Several adults supported us, and came out with their own allegations about neglectful or abusive moderation (for example, a moderator luring teens to a fetish website, who was fired but not banned, another one posting openly about porn who is still a moderator, and similar concerns.) On the YWP, our moderators, Rob Diaz and Marya Brennan have allowed open bullying and instead tone-policed those who fought back. They have allowed predator behavior on the site in several circumstances under the statement of “it does not explicitly violate our Codes” (despite it being open predatory behavior), and Rob Diaz has said racist things to another user in response to a Thanksgiving PSA.

The Board of Directors has now said that they did not know there was a separate YWP forum in the first place.

On the YWP side of things, the forums are being shut down indefinitely, and we are awaiting another response from the Board of Directors.

Please do not donate to NaNoWriMo.

Contact local schools and make them aware of the situation, and discourage advertising the YWP to kids.

I will reblog other posts from my fellow YWP users that h give more specific details.

[thimblelin]

hey everyone. none of this is going to make a lick of sense if you don’t know me. but for the past few years, @ghostpunked and i, as well as many others who have shared and reposted as well, have been forced to take up jobs as volunteer moderators on the nanowrimo ywp in light of the mods incompetence.

we did not want this job. we had this job forced upon us by the sheer fact that if we hadn’t, the ywp would have fallen apart. many of us would have lost the one place we called our “internet home”. as a teen in florida, where i struggle so often irl with laws and my identity, this was especially hard. i fought for what i knew was right because i knew the mods would never do it for me.

this is wrong. on so many levels, the actions of the nanowrimo organization’s moderation team are wrong. nothing will ever stop me from saying that what they have done is wrong. what they did was inherently harmful to so many kids and teens on those websites.

what did they do? others have already said it, but here’s what i’ll say: they created an inherently harmful environment for kids and teen writers to exist in, advertised it as “safe and fun,” and refused to act upon dangerous situations within the community. and they did this over many years.

i am tired of being silent about this. i will not shut up. i will not let marya erase the words i have said. i will keep coming back.

do not support the nanowrimo organization until this is fixed. don’t donate a drop of your money until they finish their investigation and reform their moderation team. tell your school what is happening and remind them why they should pull out of supporting the program. tell your kids. tell the parents of writers you know. tell your teachers, and teachers tell your students.

i will not sit down and shut up any longer.

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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[full-of-malice]

thank you, i really appreciate it. right now we're waiting to hear back from the board of directors before we decide on any major moves. but one of the best ways currently is to just not donate money, spread the word, and contact local schools or sponsors to let them know that it is unsafe and make them aware of what is happening

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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[skullergeist]

the nanowrimo staff failed us as a whole. at this point they should just give me mod permissions and be done with it considering the years of work i did for them as a user bc they wouldn’t do their fucking jobs

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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[full-of-malice]

reblogging this Again as a boost and reminder but also because things aren't going well on mainsite. surprise !

the board can't do much legally. can't even say much legally. can't say names can't give dates on if or when things can or will change, which i understand and know but it's leading to a lot of confusion and uncertainty along with a lot infighting. the board can't seem to handle mildly aggressive or angry responses. it's a lot for them to handle on their own which i understand as well but. yk ! little silly !

a common conclusion come to by many adult users and some teens is that potentially the forums could be completely shut down and never reopened. which is fine but i know there are better options out there if they bothered to put in the work. a lot of users will keep fighting til the end to ensure that they at least try to bring back the forums and make change. we'll see.

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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[jacobitajoe]

okay mutuals this is going to make absolutely no sense to you because you probably aren’t even aware that I’m a writer but please don’t donate to National Novel Writing Month and spread the word. literally so many things have happened both on the YWP and adult forums that this post sums up great and I have witnessed most of this stuff. I don’t have the right words to say it in a professional manner it’s just super bad.

and thanks to people who support us in advance because the mods sure didn’t.

Days since the NaNoWriMo staff has disappointed its community:

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