DW culture, AO3 collection moderation, Jiang sect motto

[extrapenguin]

Stuff relating to social media: There has been something of a kerfluffle lately about Tumblr natives wanting a reblog functionality on Dreamwidth, which I discovered via tozka's Fandom meta shortpost collection; the comments have a nice discussion on DW vs Tumblr etiquettes and interaction modes, as well as on the role of comms on DW. It's interesting.

The AO3 collection moderation queue quest continues. AO3 Support replied to us all with copypasted boilerplate; it and the not-actually-a-workaround they suggested was hilarious as a reply to my e-mail, which had explained in detail why the not-actually-a-workaround they suggested was not, actually, a workaround. morbane's amended the original post with the text of the e-mail, and comments have reawakened. There is also some discussion over at trobadora's post.

Courtesy of rustycol, the Jiang sect motto comes from Confucius' Analects. 知其不可而为之 by itself is "to keep going resolutely despite knowing the task is impossible" (as per MDBG). The wider context, from R. Eno's teaching translation:

14.37 The Master said, Worthy are those who shun the world. Next are those who
shun a particular place. Next best shun lasciviousness, and the next best shun speech.
The Master said, There have been seven able to do this.

14.38 Zilu stayed the night by Stone Gate. The morning gate keeper said, “Where are
you coming from?”
Zilu said, “From the Kong home.”
“Is that the man who knows it can’t be done and keeps doing it?”

14.39 The Master was striking stone chimes in Wei. A man passed by his gate, shouldering baskets ung from a pole. He said, “What heart there is in the playing of these chimes!”
Then he said, “How uncouth, this clanking! If none recognize you, then simply give up.
When it’s deep, you wade straight through;
When it’s shallow, you lift your skirts.”
The Master said, “Is it really so? There’s nothing hard in that.”

Eno interprets 14.37 through 14.39 as being about withdrawal from engagement from an immoral human world. The gatekeeper's comment, 是知其不可而为之者与？ and the underlined bit (which is the Jiang sect motto) get often used to describe Confucius.

rustycol translates it as:

Zilù (a student of Confucius) stays overnight at Shímén. The guard asks: “Where do you travel from?”. Zilù answers: “From Master Confucius’ place”. The guard says: “Isn’t he the person who knows his ways/thinkings to be impossible [yet still persists in pursuing it]?”

and notes that 知其不可而为之 is [one/I/you] know that it [what one/I/you think is right] is impossible, and the Jiang sect motto thus approximately “do what you think is right, even if it hurts”.

This translation by William Edward Soothill (admittedly ancient) translates the relevant quote as "Is he not the one who knows he cannot succeed and keeps on trying to do so?"
D.C. Lau renders it as ‘Is that the K'ung who keeps working towards a goal the realization of which he knows to be hopeless?' (K'ung is the Wade-Giles romanization of Confucius's surname 孔, the pinyin of which is Kong.)
James Legge's translation of the quote is "It is he, is it not?" said the other, "who knows the impracticable nature of the times and yet will be doing in them." though due to the age of the translation (1861!) and the fact the English language as well has moved forwards with time, the other ones are perhaps more reliable.

All of them have "doing the impossible" as an aspect of it, but it is all more in the spirit of "attempt to do the right thing, even if you can only fail" than "do impossible stuff for shits and giggles". The implication of retiring from the immoral world as best one can is also interesting in the context of the sect's founder Jiang Chi – was he retiring from the immoral world to his very own demesne?

Fandom, OTOH, seems to think that the Jiang sect's motto means "YOLO".

Comments

[trobadora]

I thought it was really interesting that Morbane didn't get the "actually, we wish you hadn't emailed us in the first place" part of the boilerplate email.

(I find this whole issue so frustrating!)

[extrapenguin]

I got the same boilerplate as you did; I didn't actually notice Morbane not getting that bit? Wow, that was ... um. WTF.

I wish AO3 would just actually listen to feedback and maybe, oh, hold back on "fixing" the bug and ask moderators what it's actually being used for, and perhaps spend a few minutes thinking about whether it actually counts as "abuse" and how to resolve this in a way that won't leave the (volunteer!) moderator community in a lurch.

[trobadora]

Morbane edited hers into the initial post, and I saw it when I was replying to a comment there earlier. And that paragraph really felt like a slap in the face.

Compeltely agreed about them listening! They're not even trying, which is the worst part of it all.

[morbane]

I was puzzled by that too. Especially since as a rebuke that does seem aimed at me. I've added my original support ticket number to my post in case that helps.

I was concerned that my post would be seen as "O malleable masses, get angry at AO3 on my behalf," and I can understand feeling frustrated if on the receiving end of that.

But it puzzles me that multi-signed documents are seen as preferable. Different people writing in with their own opinions seemed more authentic and verifiable. I didn't want people to write in just because they liked me or something! I was asking for moderators who were affected by this issue to let AO3 know it affected them. It seemed to me that that's more relevant and valid than me saying "I, a moderator of these specific exchanges, believe that my experiences represent all mods." And, okay, also more likely to get me what I wanted... but because it was more valid. I have learned more about how other moderators used this "bug" since posting.

Ohhhh well.

[extrapenguin]

I'd have expected (hoped for) some generic "Thank you for e-mailing us with your concerns, we will forward your e-mail to the relevant people and inform you when a decision is made." template, instead of what we got, which was simply regurgitating information we already knew. Sigh.

[morbane]

Yeah, me too. Well, I guess it is indicative that they don't want to budge on this one. =/

[chromemuffin]

Thank you for pulling all those excerpts together! It would be interesting to compare the Lan sect's motto with the Jiang sect's motto - they're similar on the surface level.

[extrapenguin]

The Lan sect motto is 雅正 (yǎzhèng) – MDBG lists a bunch of translations:

• correct (literary)
• upright
• (hon.) Please point out my shortcomings.
• I await your esteemed corrections.

I suppose the intended meaning is more "upright" and less "I await your esteemed corrections"... On their own, 雅 means "elegant" and 正 means a bunch of stuff, mostly along the lines of "straight / upright / proper / to correct".

[chromemuffin]

Ah, that makes sense now. It's just like my favorite, 义/義. It can be translated as 'righteous', which is what MDZS's translators went for, but there are drawbacks to that meaning in English even if it isn't wrong per say. The motto probably points to upright and proper conduct, as you said. lol I find righteousness, which is more automatically tied to ideals of justice than proper conduct in English, to be somewhat messy to work into translations because of that.

[extrapenguin]

Yup! We get "Be righteous" and "Attempt the impossible", when we should probably have gotten something more along the lines of "Proper and upstanding" and "Do what is right, though it may be impossible". I'd actually be really interested in a pro translation, for these reasons as well as others.