My theory, for which I have very little support: the folks who founded NaNo did it out of love for writing and the fun of writing together. It got huge. Great! But eventually the founders moved on. The new folks don't love writing, they want to make $$$ - ThreadSky

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annleckie.com • 184 days ago

My theory, for which I have very little support: the folks who founded NaNo did it out of love for writing and the fun of writing together. It got huge. Great! But eventually the founders moved on.

The new folks don't love writing, they want to make $$$

Comments

marrije.eend.nl•184 days ago

It was *so* wonderful at the start, I absolutely loved it. And there were many, many good years!

shellbryson.com•183 days ago

This makes me very sad, but I fear its true.

fredfred.bsky.social•184 days ago

Ain’t that just the way

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•184 days ago

Nods. Agreed. I participated in one of the early versions to break through a toxic critical editor voice and...timing never worked after that. But I had fond memories until recently...and it started sounding weirder and weirder.
Your theory makes a lot of sense to me.

annleckie.com•184 days ago

Now, of course, we all need $$$ to live, and big projects need $$ to keep going, so they need sponsors etc. But when you don't love writing and only want the $$ you don't care if your sponsors are actually antithetical to what your org is doing.

annleckie.com•184 days ago

And it doesn't cause you cognitive dissonance to say things like "being against AI is ableist! We're just trying to help disabled folks realize their dreams!"

Because they actually don't care about the writing, let alone disabled writers.

annleckie.com•184 days ago

Basically, they're grifters, and NaNo is now a grift.

dashwallkick.bsky.social•184 days ago

they have sponsorship deals with tech. it's almost certainly the case.

mxwoermsin.gothgeek.org•184 days ago

Their sponsors this year (https://nanowrimo.org/brought-to-you-by) include ProWritingAid (https://prowritingaid.com/), whose website says that you can "Unlock your potential with our easy-to-use AI writing assistant."

ass.golf•184 days ago

I think "sponsored by an LLM company" is pretty clear evidence

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