THINGS BOF LEFT OUT

OMG, Cap’n Susan Reads Every Story Published Here

Notes from the long Mudditor meeting of 11.22.2021

Gadzooks, I wrote 2 minutes of this last Monday. Why didn’t I finish & publish sooner. I blame Thanksgiving? I’ve been busy? BLTN.

Are Mudditor meetings like Brady Bunch episodes? At this rate, Susan needs an Alice. Our 1-hour meeting kept going for 50 more minutes as editors began dropping out, one by one. Amy left abruptly to keep her son from running away to sea.

Many points of discussion throughout the meeting became prompts for one or more of us. Everything led back to butts and asses and it’s BOF’s fault, so he was officially assigned to notetaking. Robust — robots — robooby — robutts. Everyone chimed in with RO-BEE words. How old are we, again? Could I possibly be funny about RO-B-WADE? No, but that’s where my mind went.

I reiterated that I always take notes and sometimes can be counted on to publish before the next Monday. As of now, I have 9 hours & 6 minutes left of Sunday in which to publish, before facing the dreaded plank.

TMI? I think not

It’s hard to remember not to end bullet points with periods. I do it in exchange for my prized semicolon & colon pass. You scratch my foible & I’ll scratch yours, Susan.

• Andrew spent yesterday cleaning toilets
• Rachael talked about The Office
• Gary’s house is heated by a woodstove. His wife does all the chain-sawing and he wields an ax. They have 6 cords of wood. He’s afraid of chainsaws
• Susan fears the Brudditors are learning the secrets of the female Mudditor majority
• Amy said, “You never know when something old will get off its ass,” not referring to dilatory publication of Mudditor meeting notes. We briefly discussed languishing stories that revive and earn money
• Susan opined, “It’s getting more and more obvious Medium doesn’t care about writers or editors.” She has papers to write about AI. Will writers not be needed in future? Someone brought up “An AI Wrote This Story,” perhaps by Ryan Fan, which I couldn’t find
• Rachael fears the loss of subtitle quirkiness if/when AIs do the writing

Featured and other images in stories

We discussed a story in the queue with unsourced/unattributed pictures, each modified by the writer in a certain way. Medium’s algorithms don’t appear to check picture status but, to avoid hassles for MuddyUm,

Susan

• Ruled that all images a writer doesn’t own or pay for must be free use, including images manipulated by the writer via Canva or other means
• Cautioned that some companies are Nazis when it comes to checking because they don’t want to be taken to court. Our risk is low, but we want to do due diligence as much as possible when editing
• Brought up the quote below, regarding pictures — I can’t remember the details but it’s a great axiom for Outlaws

It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. — Grace Hopper

• Mentioned Scott Dikkers regarding “cease and desist orders.” We do not want to get any of those letters
• Stated “any image on a .gov site is free use.” I discovered a .gov website yesterday where this isn’t the case — the Library of Congress — drat. They had a nice 3 Stooges pic I wanted to inflict on the Brudditors
• Briefly discussed Canva and a new Medium audio feature that I didn’t note the name of

Newsletters

Susan caught Rachael up on newsletter happenings in her absence.

• Lucia Siochi was reliably Real Dirt-y. Most recently, she handled Thanksgiving X2 and Medium’s MWC entries published on MuddyUm X2
• Anu Anniah takes point for “Top 3 + 1” newsletter distribution the first week of each month
• Sara Zadrima haunted the Halloween issue from whence my inspirational yoga-plant skeleton picture was stolen
• BOF and I each hatched newsletter one-offs

Future newsletter topics

• Mudditor & Brudditor “Who Am I” stories
• Another round of butt humor? When’s the last time you scanned your butt? Kids are wondering, what app would I use? MAGA! Bring Back Butt Prints. Send Hogan butt pics not dick pics!

Comedy Camp & Zoomathon

• Yes, BOF has glanced at the embryonic CC website since our last meeting. Susan will send BOF a calendar link so they can work together
• We’re now looking at June for Comedy Camp, so kids will be out of school
• Will a rating system be needed — PG vs. kid-friendly? Gary assured us his kids are OK with bad language
• Carol once managed a rock band. Why did she tell us? Can’t read my own writing. Something about a 19-year-old who impressed her with a fascinatingly creative sentence made up of all forms of FUCK. I was forced to type FUCK. Now you know why this took so long
• Amy thinks it might be more offensive NOT to swear. When? Am I in trouble?
• Susan aims to reschedule our Zoomathon for early 2022, January or February, and will have a cohost

Prompts and Books

Prompts

• Thanksgiving. It’s the prompt BOF’s Mudditor’s Monday Marauding Madhouse story mentioned
• “Don’t volunteer or you’ll end up responsible” prompt — Amy’s on point
• Mudditors prompt related to crediting images
• MuddyUm’s ongoing MWC, our pirating of the MWC tag¹
• Zoomathon prompt! This was the last thing we talked about. Details far, far below

We talked about prompts more than that. Do you feel prompted to write about FUCKY words, for instance?

Book Recommendations

Andrew requests that book suggestions continue to be posted on Slack in the #books channel.

• Nine Nasty Words — English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever, by John McWhorter
• Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, by Amanda Montell

Brudditor Questions & Other Mudditorial Matters

Gary is understandably wondering

1. Why do MuddyUm editors publish their own stories? Do other Mudditors still edit them? 🦜 Yes, engagement of other Mudditors with your story is expected, encouraged, and usually appreciated! Publishing yourself is a perk. Only you can be sure your story is done, ready to publish. Also, if another Mudditor publishes your story, it messes up the paywall. Amy went into technical details here, blah blah blah.
2. Why was the first story I edited published by someone else when I turned my back for a minute? It had unaddressed issues. 🦜 Bow down to Cap’n Susan. Cap’n Susan trusts that writer to deal with the issues after publication. Cap’n Susan had her reasons for publishing it, which I won’t repeat here except Mudditors, feel free to manage “above the fold” story placement.

Susan encourages writers to edit their stories after publication as needed.

Edit any of your pieces you want, any time you want.

She was alarmed by some technical details Amy shared and “mad if we have to police Medium’s ass.”

• Houston, We Got A Problem? Mudditors are supposed to check and report back on Slack if they find the problem Amy described. Suspect I’d’ve already noticed if I had that problem, but just half-assedly did a quick spot-check, finding bupkis, Cap’n
• Let’s start a campaign of complaining about Medium. Oh wait. Not sure whether I should include ‘Houston We Got A Problem’ under “Prompts” or not. D’you think one or two writers may already be hogging the topic?

Andrew says he feels feisty & bold today — two somewhat underrated emotions² — then continues

As a new editor, I’ve noticed how often writers mess up their titles and subtitles. I’m concerned I’m risking hurting their deepest, most intimate feelings by pointing out their shortcomings in humor, errors in MuddyStyle, and repetitive banality, however tactfully. The canned language you provided didn’t work for me, sorry really sorry. If you won’t let me hold a fucketyfucking Zoom training session for these idiots, why can’t we at least publish a bunch of putatively piratical “helpful” stories telling them what to do?

Susan then illuminated us all, so kindly,

Umm, we’re getting a lot of newbie writers, and that’s a good thing. Have you read anything on the Outlaws tab, Andrew?

Which led to, do you know how much Medium content is redundant? Susan’s new catchphrase is

This Is Redundant

I think I knew that, yes. I couldn’t stand it anymore so reminded them all, so kindly,

Umm, y’all told me ABSORB THAT OUTLAWS TAB when I joined up. During the osmosis, I wrote THIS FUCKING STORY as an index to everything on that tab. It’s ON the tab. It’s up to date. It’s the only story I wrote that month because, like Gary, I get fascinated by things.

I remain fascinated by the Muddyverse.

Which led to discussion of who had written what when, and why, and we should update these stories where feasible instead of adding new ones, because we should be more organized. WHAT a grand idea!

We spoke of being neurodiverse and of the desirability of presenting info at different levels — 101, 201, 301, TO the reader, not the uncool For Dummies, Intermediate, Brilliant, which is ABOUT the reader.

We’re revisiting the pathway to learning for our writers topic at our next meeting. We’re supposed to have identified the stories we think contain the most useful information.

I feel unprepared, but I have my trusty Outlaws Guide to MuddyUm list to guide me. Full disclosure, there’re >42 guidelines & tutorials therein now. Mayhap we can whittle the # down, mateys.

Postgame Show

BOF was zoomed out, then Amy disappeared. Remaining participants brainstormed about the Zoomathon prompt. I noted down COVID test, waiting room, driver's licenses, passports. Security guards — start applying now! How to qualify. 42 personal references. To prevent zoombombings, no bribing. Provide their genomic code — lineage — 23andMe, Ancestry.com. A Brudditor, I think, said, We’re the boss! Ask for what we want! — proof of vasectomy and/or circumcision.

My final note was “we started with redundancy and ended with redundancy.”

Zoomers included Susan Brearley, new self-described Brudditor Andrew Rodwin, Lucia Siochi, newest Brudditor Gary Chapin, Amy Sea, Rachael Ann Sand, vintage Brudditor Baskerville Old Face (BOF), Nanci Arvizu, Carol Lennox, and me.

¹ Susan needs Mudditorial help with choosing Bingo winners for November & explained the bingo card system in depth. Mudditors are recused from helping with categories they’re entered in.

².¹ My edible kicked in here so I’ll plan to publish Monday morning after at least one other Mudditor weighs in.

².² Rule #1 — don’t publish while under the influence. Rule #2 — don’t publish while under the influence unless Hogan stamps his little foot.

².³ Andrew’s considering writing a Mudditor meeting notes story if it qualifies as a Brudditor Bonding Opportunity.

Hasta la vista, baby! Past meeting notes are here:

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