Hm...
This is real question, IMO. Given he has a position in the government, Semichastny's agenda explains why he would be elevated. It doesn't explain why he was allowed into the government in the first place.
New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
Hm...
This is real question, IMO. Given he has a position in the government, Semichastny's agenda explains why he would be elevated. It doesn't explain why he was allowed into the government in the first place.
Wow, so if the purpose of a TL is entertainment rather than maintaining an exacting standard of plausibility defined by you, then it doesn't belong in this forum? Good to know...
Yeah, it does seem like a move that happens at the end, rather than the beginning, of a Glasnost type process.
I don't think we're to that point. People are expressing concerns because they like the TL so far and want it to keep up in quality. But yes, if the goal was just to entertain without concern to plausability, it's place wouldn't be here.
Here's the basic rule of Post-1900 vs. the Writer's Forum (at least as I understand it):
If you put something in Post-1900 the TL has to make at least a minor effort to be plausible, and more importantly if readers feel something is implausible they can call you out on that. Saying "Well this is just supposed to be fun and we don't need to worry about plausibility" doesn't fit here. If you don't want plausibility to be an issue/you just want feedback on your writing you post in the Writer's Forum.
Posting in Post-1900 and then going "How dare you question my plausibility you Plausibility Police," is trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want the views and discussion that Post-1900 gets (and also avoid the, somewhat unfair, stigma attached to the Writer's Forum) without having people call you out on implausible things. Different people have different standards on what is plausible, but in Post-1900 you have to at least be willing to listen to criticisms from people who feel that what you wrote is implausible.
If you put something in Post-1900 the TL has to make at least a minor effort to be plausible, and more importantly if readers feel something is implausible they can call you out on that. Saying "Well this is just supposed to be fun and we don't need to worry about plausibility" doesn't fit here. If you don't want plausibility to be an issue/you just want feedback on your writing you post in the Writer's Forum.
Posting in Post-1900 and then going "How dare you question my plausibility you Plausibility Police," is trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want the views and discussion that Post-1900 gets (and also avoid the, somewhat unfair, stigma attached to the Writer's Forum) without having people call you out on implausible things. Different people have different standards on what is plausible, but in Post-1900 you have to at least be willing to listen to criticisms from people who feel that what you wrote is implausible.
Based off the previous pages of discussion, it's not just him?
Anyways to reiterate the others, if you want to write something and not have it be criticized on plausibility the Writer's Forum is always an option.
Left-libertarians are more likely to abolish taxes or implement a negative tax than to implement a flat tax. The cornerstone of left-libertarianism is social justice and a flat tax is injust for working people.
If minaprogressives seized power they would be more concerned with implementing workplace democracy and employee-ownership than tax cuts (which is more of a right-libertarian fetish).
First, you seem to be unaware that I'm not in fact the author. Second, I was under the apparently erroneous impression that the post-1900 forum was in fact for timelines with a POD after 1900 that were not outright ASB, and the writer's forum was a place for alternate history stories. This was the board standard when I joined back in 2007 and I'm not aware of any guidelines to the contrary. Still, I'll take your word for it that they exist.
I'd say there's a difference between writing something primarily to entertain and not being concerned about plausibility at all. You can, as you say, "make at least a minor effort to be plausible" without necessarily providing elaborate justifications for every single action you take as a writer, which Shiftygiant implied was the standard for post-1900. Given some of the other things that have been posted in this forum, The Congressman's work easily meets the criteria.
Frankly, a lot of this could be fixed with threadmarks so that those of us uninterested in the rather tedious, annoying and repetitive knit-picking can actually just read the story.
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I know this, the wording of what I said was very vague.
In my defense I am the least aggressive poster here.
So when are we going back to the US?
shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
Most of the response I would have given has already been articulated better by Napoleon and Danderns, but you know, it's always nice to have the accusatory 'wow how could you think that' be thrown at something which isn't out there. At a baseline though, yeah. I mean, the plausibility isn't and shouldn't defined by me personally (which is a rather dishonest stab at me and a bizarre thing to take away from what I've written), but instead by the consensus of the readership. If the readership finds something implausible, and the author disagrees, then it falls on them to argue why such a thing is plausible and convince the readership that it is. Even if it's one reader having an issue, then they should still be addressed reasonably and not dismissed with 'butterflies' or told 'if you don't like don't read'.
Now, if the purpose of a TL is to simply entertain without maintaining a broad sense of plausibility, then yes it should be in the Writers Forum. If it's in the post-1900 discussion forum, however, then it should be maintaining broad plausibility, even if there is a goal to entertain- which, despite the issues surrounding it, is what Congressman seems to be trying to do and which is why people are coming in to comment on the issues surrounding the plausibility of certain things.
To clear this up, I'm not demanding everything has to be elaborately justified (as that'd be unreasonable), but what I and others are looking for are simply justifications when we inquire about certain things that aren't adding up. Not everything needs to be Rumsfeldia or LTTW levels of complex, but the actions taken by characters still have to be justified within the context of the timelines, and when the reasons for their actions are not clear, questions will invariably rise. And when it is something that isn't plausible, people are going to pull it aside and comment on it. Because, and you've been here long enough so you should know, that's the standard that post-1900 holds.
And can we stop with this 'whatabout [x]' crap? Trying to excuse issues that have arisen with 'given some of the other things' isn't a response, it's a side step at best.
Next updateIn my defense I am the least aggressive poster here.
So when are we going back to the US?
I'm singling you out because your posts have been particularly high-handed, dismissive and non-constructive on this thread and I haven't seen you show that level of scrutiny on other threads. It's not whataboutism to ask why a particular poster has decided to make it a project to attack someone else's work while ignoring unarguably less plausible TLs set in analogous time periods. Since you don't like the Rumsfeldia comparison, how about Losing the Peace, which has massive plausibility issues? When you take aim at a particular TL it's reasonable to suspect you have an axe to grind.
As far as standards for the post-1900 forum, I can tell you the level of plausibility knit-picking I've seen here was not present in the past, and in fact the only story I've ever seen knit-picked to this degree in the ten years I've been here was, ironically, in the writer's forum.
But that's literally what whataboutism is, redirecting all criticism and saying "Well I haven't seen you attack [insert TL] here."
Whataboutism is claiming that standards don't matter in case X because they didn't apply in case Y. For example: "My preferred presidential candidate's infidelities don't matter because your preferred presidential candidate was unfaithful".
My argument is that a different standard is being applied to this timeline than other analogous timelines with plausibility issues by a specific poster/posters. I'm essentially arguing that this is hypocritical. That argument may be wrong, but responding to an argument of unequal treatment with "that's just whataboutism" is as non-responsive as you both claim the congressman is being.
Look, provide some basic evidence of TLs with a different ideological slant of which y'all have been equally critical and we'll move on. I don't even need a link, but as someone reading comments in the post-1900 forum I have a right to demand this basic level of evidence; commenters have a sacred obligation to satisfy the objections of other commenters to their comments after all.
Oxford Dictionary said:
If you have criticisms of specific TLs, bring it up in those TLs.
I'm sorry, but so far you have responded to every single criticism of this TL with "well why haven't you criticized [Rumsfeldia/Losing the Peace/insert TL here] which has nothing to do with actual criticisms we mentioned and quite literally fits the dictionary definition of whataboutism.
None of the criticisms regarding NDCR mentioned in the thread are motivated by ideology, rather because we are confused about some elements of the TL.
This is a public forum, and we have a right to ask questions/criticize when a TL is put in a place like here.
For example, "How did Julie Nixon become the Queen when she's a Quaker and members of the Royal Family must be Anglican" is a perfectly valid question, and it's something I can ask here because we are in a public forum, and plausibility and is something to keep in mind in this section of the forum.
I think NDCR is plausible overall and is not especially implausible for After 1900. You have the right to disagree but I have the right to like and enjoy this work. I have yet to see a valid justification that a NDCR is somehow any more implausible than most TLs on After 1900. Authors are justified to have certain twists that may require some suspension of disbelief-it's alternate history for a reason. I don't think the way The Congressman's work is being attacked and abused is called for, persuade me otherwise. And I am sure The Congressman will endeavour in the future to take the constructive elements of your criticism and make this TL even better.
I gave very long and substantive responses to the points that were raised on apartheid. I also constructively raised my own plausibility concerns on East Africa, Brazil and Argentina. I have moved beyond giving long and substantive responses to things because the level of criticism here is ridiculous.
Since you brought up the point about Nixon's daughter becoming queen: she wouldn't be the first person to convert to the C of E for political reasons. [Though if The Congressman decided to use the marriage to pursue disestablishment at that time period I could see that being completely plausible as well].
To be absolutely clear: my reason for bringing up other timelines is that I believe the standards to which several posters are trying to hold NDCR are artificial. As in, are not consistently applied to TLs in this forum and, hence, do not exist. I am asking for those who have put forward that standard to provide basic evidence that they have held any other timeline in the post-1900 forum to the same level of scrutiny. You cannot have a standard that applies only to one thing. Like I said: drop the name of any timeline in this forum that you have scrutinized to this level and we'll move on.
Because religious conversion for exactly that sort of thing is totally unheard of
Bookmark1995
Banned
Well I don't think Julie was raised to be a particularly devout Quaker.
As one OTL quote about Richard Nixon went, "(Nixon) inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."
I know of at least one thing Quakers and Anglicans have in common, which is that there are atheists who "belong" to both, ie the Nontheist Friends and the Sea of Faith, respectively.