[dangus]

I think the silliest part about this “saga” is that Jason is leading a one-man boycott at his own detriment. He’s depriving himself of a social community meeting place for his passion because his donation to the organization that facilitates those meetups wasn’t put to some kind of completely unspecified use.

> A number of years later, I contacted the Vintage Computer Federation to ask how the magazines were doing, if they were part of a project, or if I needed to transfer them elsewhere.

If you read between the lines on that quote, it’s clear that Jason doesn’t even know what someone is supposed to do with all this stuff, but he called up years later in hopes that someone else came up with an idea.

If he wants the materials to be part of a project, he should have spent the time needed to make them into a project. But really, Jason doesn’t know what to do with them, that’s why he donated them in the first place.

It’s not much different than dropping off an attic full of miscellaneous paintings to the Met and expecting them to put them in an exhibit.

If you want to make a qualified donation, make a qualified donation. Write up a contract that tells the organization what it’s allowed to do with your donation. Otherwise, anything is fair game.

[xoa]

This has to be one of the lamest, or if you prefer "silliest", possible responses.

>If he wants the materials to be part of a project, he should have spent the time needed to make them into a project. But really, Jason doesn’t know what to do with them, that’s why he donated them in the first place.

>It’s not much different than dropping off an attic full of miscellaneous paintings to the Met and expecting them to put them in an exhibit.

>If you want to make a qualified donation, make a qualified donation. Write up a contract that tells the organization what it’s allowed to do with your donation. Otherwise, anything is fair game.

First, as he wrote and of course you read, that is indeed a lesson he has taken:

>"Finally, this is all relatively minor in terms of the work I do and projects I focus on, an event that brought me some fury but which has mostly played the part of filed under “life lessons”. [...] My conversations with people and organizations I shift materials to are much longer, much more involved, and with much more contingencies as a result of this event, and things are better for it.

So apparently he's doing exactly as you say in response. He, rightly or wrongly, felt he'd trusted where he shouldn't have and will be more explicit about expectations going forward. That's good?

Second, trying to shift to legalism from a social complaint is crappy. He never said it wasn't "fair game" or that he'd be talking to his lawyer or any such thing. He never even implies there was a contract to the contrary, that didn't have every "right" in the legal sense to do whatever they wished. It was a terms-free donation. But just because the law lets you do something doesn't mean you're free of social reactions. If people feel you've treated them badly, even if it is totally allowed, they may exercise their freedom to tell others about it and refuse to associate with you further. Others may then react in turn, or not depending on how they judge the event. "You didn't have a contract so haha too bad for you" is not the greatest take in the world.

[dangus]

For such a "silly" response from me, it's interesting that the author is doing exactly what I said he should do, as you pointed out. Doesn't sound all that silly to me if we all agree on that point.

But also, it's a bit surprising to me that a professional archivist didn't think of this possibility way before this incident occured, considering that pretty much every philanthropist organization on the planet handles gifting with stipulations and guardrails as a very well-known practice.

> If people feel you've treated them badly, even if it is totally allowed, they may exercise their freedom to tell others about it and refuse to associate with you further.

Related to this quote, I emphasize how my comment is in the context of the perspective of someone on the side of the organization. That person believes there wasn't malice involved and had some points that I thought were well-reasoned.

I am similarly free to criticize that person who is telling others about their bad experience. I'm free to say "that guy on Yelp who is boycotting Taco Bell forever because one franchise location gave him stale cinnamon twists is wack."

From the outside looking in it looks kind of ridiculous. Like, here's a guy with a picture of a bunch of unmarked plastic bins in his back yard next to a bunch of other discarded items like a Chevy Blazer, used tire, and some kind of rusty metal barrel, so forgive me for questioning whether these bins contain anything of value. And then there's another picture of the still-unmarked bins in a dingy looking warehouse full of also-unmarked over-stacked cardboard boxes, and the guy leaving his stuff there acts shocked that a place that looks like that didn't do a good job with preservation.

If you didn't know Jared was a well-known archivist you'd probably assume this was another case of my Grandma asking me to go through her record collection or take her fine china because they're "valuable."