muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### comments-on-muckrights-tips
original: (jan 2021)
=> https://wrongwithfreesw.neocities.org/muckrights-tips.html
*originally posted:* apr 2021
> ### important preface (mar 2021) while these guidelines may help (far better than nothing) they are no longer considered sufficient.
sort of speaks for itself.
### 1. praise is fickle; ignore it completely, just say "thanks" or whatever
> if you do things ron likes, you will be led to believe you part of the community. "fresh meat" is probably more realistic. you will receive gratitude at first.
when i wrote this i had only watched it happen once or twice. there are some old regulars who still help out, but watching newbies get groomed is interesting.
this isnt a deliberate or organised process; people are welcomed in and fitted for service and contribution. bullshitting a newbie isnt technically different from bullshitting anybody else; bullshit is bullshit.
### 2. dont be fooled-- you have no real status
> you have to define what the muckrights community is in order to say whether you were ever part of it, because at a certain point ron my tell you that youre "practically part of the family now" and 6 months later he could be implying to key people in the free software movement that you were more of a passerby (or troll). its that old history-rewriting thing that is oh so important to creating a narrative.
oh, and then after pretending you were never there, someone may weeks or months later invent a story about you coming back, which has nothing to do with reality.
simply leaving wont stop you from getting used for their purposes.
### 3. due to the above, do not give any personal information out-- not even a personal email address
> use an address that is solely for the purpose of dealing with muckrights. do not give your reputation OR EVEN your position on a matter to ron to fiddle with, misrepresent and creatively re-tell on a whim.
> if you want to share information with muckrights, it COULD help the broader community, but be cautious. do not do it under your name, your handle, do not say where you work, do not tell him what you do on the side-- give him nothing about YOU, because it wont be treated fairly.
just assume youre going to be screwed over or bullshitted one way or another. short of that, this advice wont do.
### 4. dont offer to do anything extra
> understand that youre only going to be well-treated while you serve a purpose, and after that you wont even be able to leave in peace. this was written as a warning to people in general, it has since been demonstrated (in part) at least once more. i could have done more to gain a lot more trust, but i didnt want to get myself into too much. ive sort of been in that kind of situation before, where the trust ive earned is actually turned around against me, like its my fault.
this is pretty solid advice.
### 5. ignore requests as well
> under the circumstances i had every reason to believe were so, i was asked many times to add to something or do something again, or do something new. dont. only do what youre comfortable doing-- DO NOT let anybody else make you "more comfortable" and try to get you away from your instincts. bottom line: you have no control over what ron does with this stuff. sometimes he will do exactly what he says. other times will be a surprise.
when you become less comfortable, that will be spun around and used against you. if you like getting misrepresented, having things you said twisted, being gaslighted about it and getting further insulted for your concerns-- by all means, try to work with muckrights.
### 6. every picture tells a story, dont it?
if after reading these tips you still decide to contribute an article, be sure to include a picture. if you dont, you cant guess or imagine what kind of crap will be thrown in at your expense.
> usually they were fine, which made it all the more intriguing when they were dramatically different.
this is a huge opportunity for fuckery. in my opinion its not worth the pageviews, which is all you get for submitting to muckrights instead of just hosting it yourself.
### 7. never believe in perfection
> there are many claims made-- about censorship, about protecting privacy, about fairness-- when you get past the hype to the reality of the thing, you cant read that a website that boasts thousands of posts per year has never had to issue a retraction-- and take it seriously. it doesnt mean theyve never been wrong, it means theyve never been legally forced to retract anything.
sometimes stuff gets fixed. this shouldnt be taken as a sign of anything at all.
> you dont necessarily have to boycott boycottnovell, you just have to go in and not get fooled by the hype. if you can do that, you can submit your story and get out.
no, i dont even recommend that at this point. this was written in january in hopes of helping people salvage the good about muckrights and avoid the bullshit.
the truth is that the only sure way to avoid the bullshit is to not participate in the first place.
### 8. host it yourself, first
> host it yourself, then when ron tries to act like he suffered your writing to exist on his servers, you can say "whatever, hes the one that asked to republish this".
just host it yourself. if youre looking for people to promote your work, start an arbitrary group of individuals with similar interests. or just create your own blog or website and worry about promoting it after-- but i no longer recommend muckrights to anybody.
too many double standards, too much lying to your face and behind the scenes, really just a lot of fuckery i avoided most of for TWO YEARS, just to deal with months of bullshit later on as a "thank you" (or the "you" part, at least) for everything.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org