Alright Sherlock fandom. I have a couple important things to say, but first I want to give you a little background.
SBP started in the spring of 2013 during a particularly wank saturated moment of the Great Hiatus. I wasn’t a part of the blog’s inception, but joined soon after. (Actually, I’ve been a mod here for 2 years as of this past Sunday. °˖ ✧◝(○ ヮ ○)◜✧˖ °)
Since then my goal and the goal of this blog has been to provide a space for people to anonymously thank and praise members of the Sherlock fandom. I (naively) thought a consequence of this goal was that SBP would be a wank free and safe space. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Over the past month or so there’s been a sharp uptick in the number of messages that are more about scoring points in fandom battles or passively-aggressively attacking the “opposition” rather than about the people they’re supposedly for. People are creating sock puppet accounts so that they can add nasty comments to cards. I’m getting messages arguing about the content of cards and/or telling me that so-and-so is actually a horrible person.
None of this is okay. And even though the vast majority of people aren’t a problem, these few bad apples are ruining the batch. I’ve heard from a few people who no longer feel that this is a safe and/or welcoming space for them because of the above or messages that have been published. Quite frankly, I’m not sure this is currently a safe and welcoming space for me.
So since the inbox and queue are empty as of this morning and my co-mod is already taking a break, I’m going to put SBP on hiatus for the next couple of weeks. The inbox will remain open; we just won’t be responding to or publishing anything before June 15.
But before we go dark for a bit, I wanted to let everyone know what a generally rewarding and wonderful experience this has been. There were days and weeks when curating this blog was the only thing reminding me that I had some sort of purpose. Even now it continues to be an honor and a privilege to help spread joy and happiness.
Finally, though I wish it didn’t have to be said, please do not go on a crusade to call out or black ball the people who you think caused this. I’m responsible for this decision, and I absolutely do not want wank—even well-meaning wank—to be a result.
Please be kind and good to each other and may your days be filled with squee and delight.
tl;dr: SBP is on hiatus until June 15. Inbox will be open, but we won’t be responding. Why? Fandom wank and bullying gets to the best of us.
