Nice, Karl. Very clear.

the current mail system will need to be replaced by one that has provisions for rolling retention windows and other corporate necessities.

Translation: "You are going to have to spend some resources. Time, money, energy. Remember the saying 'Good, fast, cheap: pick any two.'"

Thanks, dcp. Got feedback from some folks I sent this out to for beta, and the consensus seems to be, "Very nicely written, but no one on the Board is going to care about either the vaccine card retention or the creeping autoritarianism inherent in one person calling himself the Compliance Oficer and then ordering us all around like we're a bunch of minions. Yeah, corporate compliance is a pain, but we have to do it and he's the only one among us who knows how."

Hope everyone else is having a better Friday than I am.

Even so, having your letter lay it out for them might lead someone who doesn’t presently care to eventually do something.

I've steadfastly avoided running my own mail server because it is such a PITA. They were lucky to be able to lean on you for so long.

A draft of something that may become a blog post, or worse, the header to my LinkedIn profile:

Ok, here's the thing. If you're a white man, don't assume I'm going to agree with you because of what you can see of me when I appear on the Zoom call. If you're not a white man, I already expect that you will rightfully ignore any "statements of allyship" and pay attention to what I do and who it benefits; I don't have to tell you how all this works.

"My people" are not all people who look like me. And not all people that I recognise as "my people" recognise me as theirs. That's ok.

I shouldn't have to disclose to you which communities are "most" important to me. I shouldn't have to disclose to you what my mother did for a living when I was a teenager to "justify" my feelings about cops. I shouldn't have to refer to any religious basis when I tell you that my people are the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.

If your space is visibly dominated by white men with beards, it won't be welcoming to me even though I am, in fact, a white man with a beard. Yes, even if most of them are queer.

If your space isn't welcoming to GNC folks (non-binary people or anyone else who doesn't perform gender "appropriately"), it won't be welcoming to me, even though my gender presentation is about as Silicon Valley-typical as you can get.

If your space isn't welcoming to Black trans women, it won't be welcoming to me. And if your organization is claiming to want to do good in the world and you don't have a single Black woman in leadership, I am going to side-eye you and your organization forever. This is table stakes, people.

These all apply whether your space is online or off.

I have always felt most comfortable, most welcomed, most valued as a colleague, when in the company of furries, queers, trans folk, and self-described freaks with their own self-described 'freak flags.'

And finally, though I can't believe I actually have to say this: I am not interested in "winning hearts and minds" of people who want my people and me out of their sight or dead. This includes the vast majority of US Republicans and right-wing Europeans. The rich and selfish are not my people; they mean harm to me and mine.

(Stands to applaud)

I'd love to see that as a LinkedIn header, or really anywhere.

Reminds me how often I am told awful things about people on benefits or who are poor...how long it took me to complain(Because I was Special at being special..) and how much I've had to brush aside "I didn't mean *you*--which, incidentally, sucks as a compliment,

Legendary Sci-Fi Magazine Halts Submissions Amid Deluge of AI-Written Stories

Argh. I don't know why that takes me by surprise but it does.