“I thought I had something there. I did. I had a lot of trouble.”

Charles Bukowski

Last night, Miss L requested that I stop participating in the writers forum at Craigs List because the environment there has become toxic; not momentarily toxic, the way some public forums are known to get when hostile trolls stop in for an extended visit, but venomous and mean-spirited for a long time now. And Craig Newmark? He’s hopeless. I don’t know how many times that schmuck will have to face a lawsuit before he begins enforcing his own Terms of Use. A TOU is pointless if left unenforced, merely a set of suggestions for acceptable community behavior.

I first started particpating in the online Literature and Writing community at Craigs List — fondly referred to by regulars as “The LitFo” — in 2000 when I found myself living in the lonely little town of Vacaville, California, 50 miles north of San Francisco. I was far from L.A. and starved for conversation about books and writing, which was not to be had anywhere in Solano County.

In the beginning we had a good community in the LitFo, a balanced mix of professional freelance writers who used the board for networking and workshopping their speculative work, there were talented amateurs in need of a little grooming and guidance (one of them, Jen Wills, now runs her own very successful writers workshop online called Literary Mary), and just folks who wanted to chat about what they were reading. Most of the folks in the first demographic — the professionals, like my friend Octavio Solis, perhaps the most prominent Chicano playwright in the U.S. — are long gone, chased away by the trolls and the freaks and the naysayers and the vindictive real-world enemies who found a platform at the LitFo to anonymously snipe and smear and defame.

It’s not as if we didn’t beg Craig Newmark to do something about this. We did and we did so individually and en masse to absolutely no avail. The writers forum is not moderated; we tried that once a few years ago with one of the regulars at the time, Tamar Love, a professional freelance editor, but her efforts at keeping things running on a relatively even and peaceful keel were … well, they were not appreciated and Tamar, like Octavio, is no longer around but sorely missed by the few, like myself, who foolishly stuck around long after the water in the pool had been drained dry.

Not only is moderation verboten at the LitFo but so, too, is the notion of making the forum “registration only”. Folks who want to become regulars on the board are encouraged by others to register a handle (mine is Brimmer, the pseudonymous surname I used in porn) to foster a sense of responsibility for what one says; people are apt to be more responsible and reasonable if their real names, e-mail address, and blog or website URL are visible. Users who post without a handle (referred to as “grays” or “anons”) are highly suspect and are legion.

Over the last three years, starting around the time I waged an online and real-world war with Lori Scheirer (documented at the website Women Who Kill), the LitFo became a hazardous place to workshop material but I persisted in doing so anyway for one simple reason, as I explained to Miss L:

Ones detractors can sometimes, inadvertent to their actual purpose, be your best critic and mentor. They are looking for any loose brick they can find in your foundation. Their animosity can be the best teacher you ever had.

But I believe Miss L is correct. My infrequent visits to the LitFo these days are met with mostly venomous contempt; often, within seconds of posting a speculative work, I’ll be greeted with comments such as:

Must we continue to be burdened by your tripe? § < -justsayin > 12/25 15:46:45

and …

Jesus Christ. Find a new whore other than writing already, will ya?

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/forums/?ID=111473731

The game is getting old and stale. The trolls have become the regulars and they are often there 24/7. They are obsessive and their attacks are personal. Sure, several handles often come to my defense, pointing out that the detractors are displaying unpleasant obsessive behavior, but those are becoming fewer and further between as time goes on.

At present I can count off no less than three real-world enemies that I have acquired who lay in wait for me in the LitFo; one of them even made the mistake of coming here to Carver’s Dog to snipe at me in the comments on the Coming Through Slaughter thread and then ran back to the LitFo to crow about their efforts. Someone who was once very close to me, and who has suffered her whole life from untreated Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, once admitted to me that she “cannot resist trolling” the LitFo; at the time she made that unfortunate remark her target was Miss L (whom I met through the Craigs List Lit Fo).

When I was down and out in late 2006 there were some marvelous people from the LitFo who came to my aid via Pay Pal to prevent what was then an almost inevitable situation: homelessness. They know who they are and I love and admire each and every one of them; my detractors in the LitFo still speak of that dark episode but with derision (“Good old Brimmer with his hand out and his palm up,” they love to say).

And so it goes.

The LitFo can and will continue on without me and my detractors will undoubtedly find a new venue for spewing their venom. I know who most of them are and their sorority is far from unique: bitter, aging, insecure and hopeless hags sailing a broken ship with no horizon in sight. Keep searching, ladies, but for you there is nothing bright on the horizon, just more darkness and more storms until at last you find the solace you seek in the grave.

That is all.