I’ve sat on this for the better part of a week now, waiting for my temper to cool so I could communicate more effectively, and also to see if my feelings changed at all. While the former has happened, the latter has not, so…onwards, I suppose.

I’m a little bit miffed with The Anime Fanlistings at the moment, to put it…delicately.

So, recently, one of my wishlisted fanlistings were open for application; naturally I applied. There were a few others that were recently closed that I applied for, as well — not particularly popular characters (does anyone care about Deed-chan? …well, they should, she’s badass :P), but I don’t apply for listings I don’t want. I wouldn’t find the drive to create them, otherwise.

When I got knocked back for the wishlisted one, plus another I was hoping so much to get, I was in a pretty bad headspace, so it was a blow, but I didn’t take it overly personally after the dust settled, and I had the unpopular characters approved (surprise surprise…) but I did say something half-jokingly in an aside on my microblog — I swear, if a staffer ends up with one of those listings I was knocked back for…

…turns out I can see the future.

I’m just…not horribly amused about it. Especially considering that said staffer runs the category the fanlisting is in. They also run a massive number of other incredibly popular character listings, as well, which…

Look, not to put too fine a point on it, that pisses me off. That’s unfair. That seems like favouritism in its most blatant sense. The network in general can go on and on about how of course there isn’t anything like that happening, but…really? Really? It’s mere chance that the staffer for that category runs the most popular fanlistings in said category? Over and over and over?

Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

Like, I don’t think that staffers should be forced to give up all the FLs they already run when they become $CATEGORY_HERE staffers; that wouldn’t be fair. But I think if you’re the staffer…you shouldn’t be allowed to apply for more in the category you run. (If that even happens — I’ve heard some insiders tell me things that make me raise my eyebrows, and I know for all TFL’s prating that they don’t award FLs on a first-come-first-serve basis, “we hold all applications for at least a week!” — that’s an outright lie). They have an unfair advantage in spades right there.

Not wholly sure I had any grand point to make, nor do I think this will result in anything seeing as I have, like…three people who read this thing, and none of them are FL makers themselves, so. Just wanted to vent a bit, I guess. Some things have changed in the wake of Web 2.0, but the general attitude of the anime domain design community never will. If you’d have told my seventeen-year-old self I’d be ticked off with this sort of behaviour this far into the future, I don’t think she would have believed you.

These people are all the same age as I am, no less.

Hooray for the Wired, or something.