I’ve paused the Decalogue posts, but I will resume them. In the meantime:
It was TW day on Friday. My first TW day that I was paying attention to; I’ve been on Quora since August 2015, and I wasn’t attuned enough to the community last time round.
I’ve said some stuff about me not getting TW on this day, in Who deserved to get “Top Writer 2017,” but was not named in the January announcement?
I’m not going to say anything about the choices or methodology or manner of announcement of TW over at The Insurgency. I’ve already said plenty in Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why do some Quorans reject the Top Writer title? Besides, I’m now not impartial.
But you know, even my Who deserved to get “Top Writer 2017” answer isn’t quite sappy enough. So I’m going to post some reflections on my TW day.
My TW day started with me checking my notifications, as I do every morning, and finding a dozen under Edits.
That’s odd, I thought. I don’t make that many typos.
Hang on. I’m subscribed to the TW 2017 questions. That must mean…
… scan scan scan…
… that I didn’t get it.
Oh.
Yeah, I knew that was a possibility, but it still smarted. I was downcast for maybe an hour.
So who did get it?
… scan scan scan…
Harrumph. I didn’t get it, and they did.
That… was an unworthy thought. The they, after all, is a friend. The harrumph was because they’d teased me about seeking a TW.
But no, I’m not going to succumb to that kind of adversarial thinking.
And the notion that popped into my head, all of a sudden, was Evangelicals saying that “Dissension is of The Enemy”.
No, I don’t believe in Satan. Odd I know, since Robert Todd has taken to calling me “Old Nick”. I do believe though, uncontroversially, that bad thoughts, including resentment and dissension, of are the worst part of our natures. And I shall not let The Enemy make me despise those that I love. That is beneath me.
(Why no, I did not mean Quora Inc. by “The Enemy”. Whatever gave you that notion?)
So I put aside my harrumph. They’re a good poster, and they earned that quill.
And then Audrey Ackerman got the quill. And I smiled, and I congratulated her.
And then Dimitra Triantafyllidou got the quill. And I beamed. I honest to God beamed.
You know, I bantered to someone a few months ago that the only outcome worse than me getting the quill and Michael Masiello not getting it, would be if Michael got it and I didn’t get it. 🙂 We’re brothers, and it would be a horror if the quill separated us.
But I neglected that Dimitra is my sister as much as Michael is my brother. (She hasn’t been as visible lately, because of her studies.) And no, the quill doesn’t separate us. I’m pleased to have found it. Her recognition is all of our recognition.
Same goes for all the other TWs I already count as my friends; it’s just that I rank Michael and Dimitra that one step ahead as friends.
Same goes for Audrey, for that matter. Her success in the linguists’ posse is Zeibura’s and Clarissa’s and mine too. And Neeraj’s and Steve’s and Brian’s for that matter. Because we’re a team.
Later in the day, a bunch of people, in comments and posts and PMs, said that I should have gotten TW, and some TWs even said that my loss tarnished their gain.
Shut up, Some TWs. Thank you, but shut up. This was your day, and I want nothing to detract from it. I share in your joy. Without reservation.
The rest of the day, I spent curating the answer wiki at Who are the new, first-time Top Writers named in January 2017, and what should we know about them? And reassuring a few of my peers who were also upset at not making TW.
I hate it that The Enemy has spread discontent, on what is supposed to be a day of celebration of good community. (I don’t think that’s just The Enemy’s doing; but this is not a The Insurgency post.) I don’t want my peers to get hung up on a quill. Like I said to one of my peers (and I’m expurgating the salty language):
Write because you love to write, not because someone gave you an award.
And write because they love to write: that’s what my peers do.
Congratulations, once again, to all January’s TW recipients. And to all non-recipients who are also, in the appreciation of their peers, Top Writers.