A week or so ago, many of us (now former) Municipal Liaisons noticed that NaNoWriMo had a countdown to November up on their website. I screencapped this a couple of days ago, so the countdown is not up to date for today.
Is it just me, or is this completely tone deaf? There has been a massive outcry in the community against NaNoWriMo's AI statements, and many of us have been exploring alternatives to NaNoWriMo in the weeks since. And yet, with no mention of any of that, they throw a countdown up on the website.
Today, finally, NaNo HQ addressed the issue with an email blast to the entire community. It was, as all the statements posted online have been, a bunch of pandering and gaslighting.
This ignores completely that the major difference between this statement and last year's statement is that last year's statement on AI clearly (and accurately) points out that using generative AI to write your entire novel "would defeat the purpose of the challenge."
Then there was the claim that they've overhauled the volunteer system to bring it into compliance:
I guess technically cutting loose your ~800 volunteers does bring the program into compliance, because now there are no volunteers to comply with any legal restrictions. But at that point you don't actually have ~800 volunteers anymore.
As far as I know, not a single ML has actually been restored as of yet, and it's unlikely to happen in the next month. There's significant speculation within the community that NaNoWriMo is trying things out without the MLs this year to see if they can make it work without the local community representatives and the expense we represent (mainly in the form of free stickers for our region's participants, and ML goodies such as annual pins recognizing our contributions).
The staffing changes claim is a hoot, because the impression I got was that the staff actually unanimously quit, rather than being let go for their involvement. If that's not the case, there was significant gaslighting coming from the Interim Executive Director at the time of the "staffing changes," who told the MLs that our usual point of contact was "on leave," and only informed us that she had quit after she was supposed to have returned from leave.
Also, "staffing changes" is misleading because it implies that staff has been replaced. As far as I know, HQ consists right now of the Interim Executive Director and maybe a programmer or two. And the staff page is also down, which certainly implies that they don't want us to know this.
The email ends with a bunch more gaslighting and a call for donations.
The numbers read like resume bullet points or executive summaries, and are clearly designed to make it sound like NaNoWriMo has been communicating better than they have been. Unfortunately, just because an email has been sent out doesn't mean it has communicated anything it should have. Additionally, the part about it being possible to participate "if" your region doesn't have an ML is noteworthy for a couple of reasons: One, as I said above, I don't believe any region has had an ML reinstated, and two, it seems to support the theory that HQ is seeing if perhaps the community organizers aren't needed after all.
Finally, the call for donations in the signature is, just like the countdown on the website appearing before any communications went out to the community, tone deaf. What exactly are we donating for? I've seen posts indicating that educators may not even have access to the resources of the Young Writers Program anymore, and that program was always a significant part of what we were funding when we donated. With that and the community outreach program in limbo, what exactly is left to support? Right now NaNoWriMo is little more than a word count tracking website run by a backyard nonprofit with a skeleton crew, and as I mentioned in my post regarding NaNoWriMo alternatives, there are other ways to track word count in November.
I will be writing a novel this November as always, but this year my volunteer efforts will be better spent picking up the shattered pieces of our community that HQ left us with when they dismantled the ML program.
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