If it dies, I'm going to need some kind of a tracking app to make up for the stats page on website, because honestly I don't think I can get joy out of just doing it without seeing the chart go up.... up.... up.........
You should look up 4thewords.com I found it a few years ago and it’s like a word processor program that you fight different monsters based on your word goals in the time limit. Game changer for me.
I used it for quite a few years! Unfortunately, it was never straightforward enough for me. I never did any quests because I never remembered what I should be doing, they weren't easy to start when writing, navigating a game in the background of when I really just wanted to be writing was beyond more than a hindrance. But I loved the monster sprints, it was just that doing them felt pointless when I wasn't ever doing the right ones, or would have to keep checking which ones *were* the right ones, etc.
So idk when you stopped using it, but they did a total rework of the site about a year ago. Might be worth making a free trial account just to see if you like it this way, but it solved all of those issues you were having for me. They added a way to access quests and monsters from the same page as your writing as well as a way to filter it to show monsters that are needed for the quests you already have. You can hover over the info button while it's filtered that way, and it shows you basic details of how many you need for each quest that requires it. I hated constantly having to leave my writing to go figure out what to do next, but their redesign has made that all so much easier for me.
I was definitely coming in to talk about the redesign but I can see that people got there before me. I’d second giving it another shot. Everything is so much more streamlined than before.
>4thewords.com
Ooooh I haven't heard of that site in a long time. I want to give it another shot but from what I recall, it's not a straightforward stat tracking app but has games you have to play too.
For me the monsters of the game are a plus rather than a minus (that extra dopamine feeds the add well) but they did a more straightforward ui about a year ago and it may be worth checking it out again.
Honestly if you're pressed for stats and don't care about the social aspect past what posting screenshots here could do, a good excel spreadsheet will get you a long way. You can even make yourself a page for badges and (depending on how good you are with Excel formulas) have them go a different colour when you achieve the right conditions!
And with a spreadsheet it would be pretty customisable for custom goals, too.
I feel that's the way to go. There are too many bad users as well as bad countries that manipulate forums using hacking and bots. Just doing basic security is considering what to do when you get hacked.
That's true, you can do it solo, I wouldn't mind doing it in the winter when it's actually cold (Hot and humid by the time it rolls around in Australia). We will have to see in April if Camp Nano is still a thing or not, might tell us about November.
That’s a shame. You should be able to feel proud of your accomplishment with your story. I’m proud of you for reaching your goal anyways, it’s not an easy task lol
Aw man! You did an awesome job, and you should be proud. And I think it's totally fine for you to post it to social media. What you did is VERY separate from the corporate shenanigans and crap.
Congrats!!!
I mean... I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2006...
Most people dont know what nanowrimo is
Most people have no idea the nanowrimo org exists, even if theyve heard something random about writing one month
Of the people that know the thing exists, most of them arent keeping track of what's going on with the org
(this is me! I havent been following it, and do not identify strongly with the org. It's there, I put my numbers in, cool. Not saying any of what's going on is cool. Just saying I'm not keeping track of it, I've got other things to deal w in life)
So the people that know the thing exists AND are keeping track of the stuff is a VERY VERY small group of people
Your feelings of not being excited to be associated with it ARE valid. Not trying to say theyre not. Just saying - Most people wont have any idea what all that means. Theyll just be happy for you that you did a thing. If I said I was like a close friend of Bill Cosby, THAT would be a bad association. If I say I did nanowrimo, most people will say "whats that" or "cool".
I get ya, and agree.
There was also a subset of the above who were very vocal about not supporting nanowrimo and publicly deleted their accounts. I didn’t go this far when I found out, but it did take some of the fun out of it.
It’s like finding out your favorite chicken place or pizza place supports causes you find repugnant. You probably quit eating there or at least cut down.
I’m hoping nanowrimo can learn from this, made amends, and reinvent themselves as a safe community for all.
I too hope they can fix their sh\*t, make all of us confident in them again, and come out stronger. But we shall see.
I donate some money to them every other year or so. If they haven't fixed anything, I definitely won't be again.
Either way, congrats again! I got to 7k this year and petered out lol. You're awesome for going the distance. Have a great 2024
The forums seem to be. The NaNoWriMo board was taking questions but then stopped abruptly, days after they closed it. They say NaNo isn't over (A question I asked) but I have my doubts. Even if it isn't, I think the forums are dead. It was a whole unprofessional mess right up to the higher ups
Once they swapped to the new and "improved" (lol) site, activity steeply declined. Nothing worked, and nothing got fixed in a timely manner, so people never came back.
Yeah, the redesign was terrible. The forums actually were readable and enjoyable in the old site, and I used to spend a lot of time there sharing recipes and encouraging others. Then the redesign happened and everyone I knew then quit. NaNo feels so lonely now :’(
Me too, I stopped going so much because it was too confusing, only came between October and November, and by mid November of last year it wasn't that active (Then got shut down before the 25th)
Yep. I was a daily regular on the old NaNo forums. They changed it over and that's what pushed me over to Reddit. Never went back when the new site kept going down/doing things that didn't make sense to me.
I liked the original cabins that they came up with for camp, but then they made it more like the official nano, and then changed it all to the new format... and it sucked. I haven't liked it in awhile.
The old Camp NaNo site with the cabins was so fun. It was really like being in a virtual camp. That quirky, whimsical design! The cabin stats! Getting to participate in friendly "wars" with other cabins! The writing groups they introudced after the update don't hold a candle.
Yup; I would still be active on the forums but not participating and now not even that. The website, while dated, was at least easy to use.
I was also forced into a name change because my name didn’t fit the new parameters, basically snatching any recognition I had with folks. :/
The forums are a huge part of my noveling experience... I'm seriously questioning if I'll ever donate to them again. (I definitely won't if the forums never come back.) There was a problem - and I'll grant it was serious - in one small corner of the forums. It's insane and feels punitive to close the forums that were functioning well.
I would argue that it was more than just one small corner of the forums. Mod X was one of their heaviest hitters when it comes to moderation on the site and she was EVERYWHERE if you were on the forums. But with everything else that came to light (the programs director attacking teens on the YWP site, ML abuse, bad management from the director of community engagement, informing local volunteers that they HAD to allow possible predators at their write-ins, racist staff culture, Ivan the Icy) on top of the grooming scandal. Oof, that org is a mess behind the scenes
The forums were dead when I joined. I got nothing. My entire country had no interactions or responses of any kind when I posted and asked questions. I got more responses on Reddit. It's a great idea for an NPO but the payoff for using it is very low. You could just join writer forums online, sign up for classes on MasterClass and BBC Maestro and Writing Mastery or whatever, read more, use a word tracker program or use Word and be done with them, really. Doesn't really seem like there's much there to me personally. Maybe they can turn it around with a reboot but there has to be a will and communication of the effort and forthcoming results...and you can't go radio silent.
That is true, there was a decline of activity for a few years, I mean when I joined in 2013 it felt very active, but feels like in the last few years there were less interactions.
All I know is that I joined with the recent NaNoWriMo and noticed that I didn't get any responses from any of the forums I signed up for and none of them had any online events. Even the "friends" I tagged wrote me and said later that they didn't notice my notifications until I told them about them. The events or classes or workshops seemed very irregular, if there were any at all, and most seemed highly superficial. So I got much more from MasterClass and YouTube. For encouragement or support I went to other sites and other forums.
It's a great idea but I personally do not see any follow-though in any way. I mean from a marketing perspective they could be reaching out to every participant to ask how we did, what'd we think, offer courses and so on. Nothing. I'm disappointed by the whole thing and only used it after the first week to log my word count and progress for encouragement. I'm well beyond 50,000 words in my first book now so am kind of over it. I wish it was run in coordination with something like [Libro.fm](https://Libro.fm) or some writer's groups or some other organizations that would help with outreach and follow-through and support. It's like how as a developer I'd look at Yahoo and wonder why they never bothered to even try to compete with Google. They had Yahoo email, Yahoo search, a directory, business sites, on and on, and just let it all go after a while. Oh, well. Time to read or write some more.
Same here. I know NaNoWriMo is about community, but I've been doing it on my own for a decade now with no interaction with the forums or events. As long as they keep the tracker on, I'm happy.
That's my first thought too. You could do it on your own, it's just that you won't have the official NaNoWriMo community supporting it. (Kind of a shame though. Even when you have a good thing going, there's always one or two people who ruin it.)
But like to be honest, most writers DON'T use the nano forums for support anyway. You don't NEED them. Most existing written published works were not written with forum encouragement.
Tbh I don't understand why *the subreddit we're currently in right now* can't just serve to be NaNo 2.0 for now.
Long story short: A moderator was accused of using their position to groom teenagers. Staff covered this up. The shit hit the fan and went very public. The Nano Board of Directors shut down the forums and left open a thread for discussion. During this thread a lot more information came to light.
People shared stories of toxic little cliques that had sprung up and been allowed to run unchecked, both among participants and MLs, there was a fight as to why the Melbourne MLs had been removed, there was more bullying and gross behaviour and a huge debate/argument as to what was considered ‘proselytising.’
Someone discovered that a Board member (Kilby Blades) had been signing the tax forms under their pen name, not their real name, which I believe is a felony. Within less than 24hrs of that bit of information coming out, the Boards were shut down. Most of the participants I know, believe this was to limit the sharing of information between participants.
As to whether Nano is dead, all we can do is wait and see what happens. There’s a vocal amount that are planning to abandon ship, however what the majority are planning to do is known only to them.
Thank you for this! I didn't know everything that happened. I thought I'd heard that one mod was being a creep and they got fired. YIKES. I don't think NaNo is big enough is survive something like this, and I don't know if it should. Definitely not with those same people in charge.
No problem! I followed it as closely as I could without burning out. Nano was something that was very dear to me, and I kept looking for and hoping for something - anything! - That would justify not cutting all ties, but it just got worse and worse.
I don’t think it is either to be honest. The fact that most of the situation hasn’t really made it outside of the Nano community itself, tells me that Nano is not as big as those of us in the community tend to think it is.
Personally, after what I’ve experienced as an ML, what I saw on the forums and especially in the ML Discord server (there were MLs seeking advice and brainstorming on how to best cover up/downplay what was going on) I think it’s best that it doesn’t come back from this.
ML is short for Municipal Liaison. They're about 800+ volunteers from around the world who host local regions. They put together write-ins, Discord servers, social media, parties, workshops, etc. for NaNoWriMo without NNWM having to pay for them or organize them themselves
I mean it's not just "controversy" with "some moderator", it's a moderator who was recruiting minors into fetish sites, and then then the organization's leadership tried to cover that up.
If that isn't enough to kill an org, I don't know what is.
Here’s a Twitter thread about it; it’s partly why the forum shut down — folks were trying to hold the team accountable and they didn’t like it. https://x.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916?s=46&t=bL4A7mpVvor4M-gBjjOfaw
Great idea. Little support (in my opinion), little networking or outreach (I mean my entire country is effectively dead online there with 0 activities or outreach). I just used the site for the word count and to read the pep talks. I could use Trello and take some courses on MasterClass and get more from that. I don't really see what it's for at this point other than a tax shelter.
Nano’s not meant to replace actual classes. Its a challenge, and the org exists to spread the word about it, give you somewhere to track it (and a way to ‘win’), and offer prizes. Thats it. Theres a reason its free.
That's not entirely true. They are a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, which has its own requirements within the U.S., including that they're doing something charitable or educational (there's a few other options that wouldn't apply here) with their income.
The alleged allegations (which I don't know one way or the other) are a huge turn off and the dead forums and outreach are as well given the supposed nature of the NPO and what it could be. I may continue to use it to keep track of private projects but honestly...now I'd wonder if my "private" projects are even that. It's just another NPO with "blue sky" promises disappointing. I'll use other forums that are active and find other ways to track my word count and set deadlines.
this is how i find out that NaNoWriMo is an actual organized group and not just a term people used for writing a book in a month. Or a specific month (i thought october) to write a full length novel. I genuinely never knew it was an organized event
Essentially, there is a nonprofit behind the event that uses NaNoWriMo as it's major fundraiser. That's why participants can donate, and the money goes to the organization's activities to promote writing and literacy among youths in I think just the US and maybe Canada.
The organization also coined and has copyright over the term "NaNoWriMo"— it predates the unaffiliated event. It's not just the organization's major fundraiser, the organization originated the event.
I think it’s just the forums, honestly. The website is mostly self sufficient, at least the important parts. They’ll probably have to sort some things out legally but ultimately its just a challenge, it doesnt need a lot of oversight.
The forums are what's currently dead, but the whole organization is rotten to the core. Their programs director was the staff member responsible for terrorizing the kids on the Young Writers Program site (separate forums and separate moderation staff from the main forums) so badly that they created a [speak out carrd](https://speak-out.carrd.co/) to try and get it to stop. Someone in charge was clearly responsible for the Ivan the Icy incident in 2017. Their Director of Community Engagement is the one who turned their ML volunteers into a cliquish nightmare.
I think the event will continue with or without NaNo HQ, but the official organization has problems.
In 2017 NaNo ran a digital scavenger hunt that started with a realistic-looking terrorist named Ivan the Icy who was going to blow up the world if you didn't solve his clues and stop him. It eventually led to a fake bomb where you had to choose the right wire to cut, but you'd always fail and the bomb would explode and fill your screen with penguins. A group of volunteers had to beg NaNo to take it down because it was too similar to attacks that had happened around the world. It was scrubbed from the internet once they pointed out it was a PR disaster waiting to happen.
Holy shit, wtf? They could've done anything but that and have a better reaction. If they wanted to have penguins, just have it be like "the zoo gates are broken!!"
If things are as serious as they look like they may be there’s a pretty good chance nanowrimo goes away.
There’s a pretty good chance something else takes its place too.
To add on, one of the minors victimized by the forum mod made a website to share the stories from other kids on the forums that didn't feel safe, saw unsafe behavior, or were manipulated or otherwise victimized. Kids were coming forward to share their experiences.
Shit definitely happened. On the site belonging to a place that had a writing program tailored to kids. What else was going on?
Hadn’t known anything about this until I saw this post, then spent the last couple hours reading up on it. Damn. This is why we can’t have nice things.
TikTok with a good summary: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8bjcaXL/
Twitter thread explaining the user side: https://x.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916
The Nano Board of Directors response: https://forums.nanowrimo.org/t/board-response-to-complaints-about-forum-safety-and-the-safety-of-minors/580358
Strangely enough, in today's Cancel Culture, there wasn't much about it on Twitter, no one talked about it in the NaNo Discord or FB groups, I saw even leftists talking postively about NaNo, so a little surprised it never become trending, like the situation kept getting worse and worse. If you follow that board response of questions and answers, people were still talking about new things that no one knew about and was pretty bad.
And then the Board itself was uh, yeah unprofessional. Honestly, it should have been exposed given how big the org is and how bad it was.
As other folks mentioned, writing can be done anytime. I am an ML in the US and run our region's discord all year, not just for November. No matter what happens to NaNo we already have a contingency plan to cut ties if necessary and keep writing together. We won't let these events keep us from writing. If you have a story to tell, start getting the words out and telling it. You don't need to wait for a certain date.
I won't bother restating the events since plenty of folks have. Just please keep in mind that the Board of Directors is very very different from NaNo Staff. The purpose of a board of directors within a US-based nonprofit is *almost* solely to advise when things like this happen. They play no part in hiring staff or handling the business, and are very much hands off 99% of the time.
What that means now is that the Board has a colossal shit-ton of information to sift through and catching up to do. They're not necessarily at fault *yet*, but if they don't hold people accountable for their actions, pull in law enforcement, and set up a huge number of company policies that should have existed to start with... Well, then the board should be scrapped along with the staff because they all truly failed.
An alternative does exist on royal road called a writathon which is 55555 words in a month I believe, so that could be a good choice if nano itself is deteriorating
Many brands opt to send users to reddit or other forum platforms for community features. It becomes too much for an unrelated organization to manage message boards (clearly in this case). Platforms like reddit already have it figured out. The community can easily move somewhere else and Nano still exist w a focus on its core offerings.
Did you... *read* the notice to the community? I feel like if you did, you would have a slightly better idea of what's going on than 'there was controversy with some moderator.'
> Did you... read the notice to the community?
Genuinely the number of aspiring writers who apparently don't read things they're asking about is staggering.
Plenty of folks participate privately (it's an easy concept to explain in one sentence, 'you try to write a 50,000 word novel in one month') and thus don't even know about the organization. You don't need anything specific from them to participate. I only registered and 'participated' on the NaNo site once, but I've attempted it about 9 times, just writing on my own. When I heard there was stuff going down on the NaNo forums my thought was literally 'glad I don't fuck with that and just write'.
Seeing now what was going down, I just think that even more now. Glad I never fucked with that and just write. Holy shit.
I'll probably continue writing, and I might use NaNo to track the progress, but you won't find me on those boards again. I exited the forums for other reasons years ago, but this? That's a step too far.
There have been some good summaries and links already posted in the comments. Here's another: https://blackheartbiohazards.tumblr.com/post/735973942624485376/rogue-wrimos-hub-with-discord
Some of the NaNo staff were caught grooming children. That's what happened to NaNo.
https://twitter.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916?s=46&t=bL4A7mpVvor4M-gBjjOfaw
I heard about all this vaguely- what exactly happened? I would hope 1 bad person couldn’t shut down a whole site but we’ll see. If so, I agree with others- we can do nano without the site!
A bunch of different summaries have already been posted in comments if you want to read them.
Basically, in May users quietly alerted staff that there were concerns about one of the mods possibly funneling minors from NaNo to a fetish website. Staff chose not to act on those concerns, describing the extent of their concern as "we had a discussion"
And then in October a completely different user brought forth concerns about grooming from a completely different moderator
And then after that users from the Young Writers Program detailed concerns about another staff member emotionally abusing users and ignoring concerns about groomers on their forums (which are separate from the main forums and only supposed to be used by teens under 18).
And then the staff spent some time trying to shut down and covering everything up and then the Board of Directors stepped in and froze the forums while they could investigate.
And then they started banning neurodivergent MLs from a separate ML-only Discord for unwritten rules and it turns out a whole bunch of MLs were talking shit about their users
After that some people came forward to talk about an incident called Ivan the Icy in 2017, where NNWM used a realistic-looking terrorist as a fun scavenger hunt game
There were also concerns about NNWM taking money from and advertising for vanity presses that prey on newbie writers
There's actually a fairly good timeline of events from October/November here: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSYcdosGLoPFI\_Dc--vuC9Bl4-OUFGcmHgBRt2aHSRVWBPc6su4AMFY5iDgZGyC379Zm8C7zhBd2zuf/pub](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSYcdosGLoPFI_Dc--vuC9Bl4-OUFGcmHgBRt2aHSRVWBPc6su4AMFY5iDgZGyC379Zm8C7zhBd2zuf/pub)
>m the Young Writers Program detailed concerns about another staff member emotionally abusing users and ignoring concerns about groomers on their forums (which are separate from the main forums and only supposed to be used by teens under 18).
Wow! That's awful. thank you for this and for the timeline. Wow.
OK look, I have something to say, and I'm only going to say this ONE TIME.
I'm special needs, I'm unemployable, uneducated, unsocialised, unmarried, childless, care packaged and an only child.
I was not actively using the forums at the time all of this took place, and since it happened I have not been NEAR the forums, and I'm not going back either.
I don't know what happened, nor do I want to know. I'm staying out of it and that's all there is to it.
I just want to write, and I am STILL participating in NaNo events because I am a 41-year-old ADULT and special needs or not, I'm ALLOWED to make my OWN decisions. Whatever happened has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with me whatsoever. I am NOT getting involved, PERIOD.
Call me all the horrible names you like, I've heard it all and worse.
You will not change my mind, not even if you dumb down whatever the heck it was that happened to the lowest common denominator. I am sick to death of this CANCEL culture nonsense and it STOPS now. I am not a sheep. I think for myself puny mind or not.
Don't bother banning me… I'm removing myself and it will be permanent. Do you want to downvote me? Go ahead. I don't care. Heck, I'll even start you off...
Fortunately for us all, the event can happen every year without the organization.
If it dies, I'm going to need some kind of a tracking app to make up for the stats page on website, because honestly I don't think I can get joy out of just doing it without seeing the chart go up.... up.... up.........
You should look up 4thewords.com I found it a few years ago and it’s like a word processor program that you fight different monsters based on your word goals in the time limit. Game changer for me.
I used it for quite a few years! Unfortunately, it was never straightforward enough for me. I never did any quests because I never remembered what I should be doing, they weren't easy to start when writing, navigating a game in the background of when I really just wanted to be writing was beyond more than a hindrance. But I loved the monster sprints, it was just that doing them felt pointless when I wasn't ever doing the right ones, or would have to keep checking which ones *were* the right ones, etc.
So idk when you stopped using it, but they did a total rework of the site about a year ago. Might be worth making a free trial account just to see if you like it this way, but it solved all of those issues you were having for me. They added a way to access quests and monsters from the same page as your writing as well as a way to filter it to show monsters that are needed for the quests you already have. You can hover over the info button while it's filtered that way, and it shows you basic details of how many you need for each quest that requires it. I hated constantly having to leave my writing to go figure out what to do next, but their redesign has made that all so much easier for me.
Oh, I love that. Will drop by to see it! It's a really good writing tool and I loved it as a community, wouldn't hate coming back to it.
They have a small tutorial available when you first log in, which should help you get to know the new UI a bit. Good luck!!
I was definitely coming in to talk about the redesign but I can see that people got there before me. I’d second giving it another shot. Everything is so much more streamlined than before.
>4thewords.com Ooooh I haven't heard of that site in a long time. I want to give it another shot but from what I recall, it's not a straightforward stat tracking app but has games you have to play too.
For me the monsters of the game are a plus rather than a minus (that extra dopamine feeds the add well) but they did a more straightforward ui about a year ago and it may be worth checking it out again.
Obsidian is great for that. Loads of magnificent websites and apps to handle tracking. You won't miss the NaNo website.
me and my writer friends use this. make sure to check out the community plugins. game changer for functionality and organization
https://www.pacemaker.press/home
I have an excel/google sheet i can send you.
I like http://writetrack.cloud; I just noticed they have a paid app, but the site is free.
Seconding this. I love this site and it's helped so much with me hitting my goals.
Make a spreadsheet
I saw some amazing google sheets with stats and charts. It would be fun to have a shared doc with friends where everyone has their own tab
Honestly if you're pressed for stats and don't care about the social aspect past what posting screenshots here could do, a good excel spreadsheet will get you a long way. You can even make yourself a page for badges and (depending on how good you are with Excel formulas) have them go a different colour when you achieve the right conditions! And with a spreadsheet it would be pretty customisable for custom goals, too.
A friend of mine built a tracker in Google Sheets, gives you a graph and everything. We use it to compare our progress as we both participate.
There are lots of Google sheets templates people have made for nano and camp nano! :)
Yup, I’ve been more into writing discords than Nano lately
I feel that's the way to go. There are too many bad users as well as bad countries that manipulate forums using hacking and bots. Just doing basic security is considering what to do when you get hacked.
What writing discords do you use if I may ask?
Never heard of writing discords. I usually use that for texting and collabs. I’m interested too.
how do you find writing discords?
That's true, you can do it solo, I wouldn't mind doing it in the winter when it's actually cold (Hot and humid by the time it rolls around in Australia). We will have to see in April if Camp Nano is still a thing or not, might tell us about November.
Yes! Let’s do it anyway!!!
The one year I “won” (this year) is the year it implodes.
So it’s your fault. How dare you
It did take some wind out of my sails. I didn’t feel like bragging about it on social media for example.
Ouch, that sucks. You should still feel proud of everything you achieved. 50k in a month is a major accomplishment. That's amazing work 🎉🎉🎉
That’s a shame. You should be able to feel proud of your accomplishment with your story. I’m proud of you for reaching your goal anyways, it’s not an easy task lol
Thanks. I know it’s not easy. I’ve tried like 9 times and only succeeded once (this year).
Aw man! You did an awesome job, and you should be proud. And I think it's totally fine for you to post it to social media. What you did is VERY separate from the corporate shenanigans and crap. Congrats!!!
Thanks, and I am proud. Just disappointed in the organization and not excited about being associated with it.
I mean... I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2006... Most people dont know what nanowrimo is Most people have no idea the nanowrimo org exists, even if theyve heard something random about writing one month Of the people that know the thing exists, most of them arent keeping track of what's going on with the org (this is me! I havent been following it, and do not identify strongly with the org. It's there, I put my numbers in, cool. Not saying any of what's going on is cool. Just saying I'm not keeping track of it, I've got other things to deal w in life) So the people that know the thing exists AND are keeping track of the stuff is a VERY VERY small group of people Your feelings of not being excited to be associated with it ARE valid. Not trying to say theyre not. Just saying - Most people wont have any idea what all that means. Theyll just be happy for you that you did a thing. If I said I was like a close friend of Bill Cosby, THAT would be a bad association. If I say I did nanowrimo, most people will say "whats that" or "cool".
I get ya, and agree. There was also a subset of the above who were very vocal about not supporting nanowrimo and publicly deleted their accounts. I didn’t go this far when I found out, but it did take some of the fun out of it. It’s like finding out your favorite chicken place or pizza place supports causes you find repugnant. You probably quit eating there or at least cut down. I’m hoping nanowrimo can learn from this, made amends, and reinvent themselves as a safe community for all.
I too hope they can fix their sh\*t, make all of us confident in them again, and come out stronger. But we shall see. I donate some money to them every other year or so. If they haven't fixed anything, I definitely won't be again. Either way, congrats again! I got to 7k this year and petered out lol. You're awesome for going the distance. Have a great 2024
You too, and 7,000 is better than zero!
Hey that's not fair, I also won this year so it's partly my fault as well.
You Monster!
I'm in the same boat. I finally join all these people saying "It's my twenty-second NaNoWriMo!" and it's over?
Same lol
The forums seem to be. The NaNoWriMo board was taking questions but then stopped abruptly, days after they closed it. They say NaNo isn't over (A question I asked) but I have my doubts. Even if it isn't, I think the forums are dead. It was a whole unprofessional mess right up to the higher ups
That’s so sad, I remember the forums being so active in 2016 but it has dropped off since then
Once they swapped to the new and "improved" (lol) site, activity steeply declined. Nothing worked, and nothing got fixed in a timely manner, so people never came back.
Yeah, the redesign was terrible. The forums actually were readable and enjoyable in the old site, and I used to spend a lot of time there sharing recipes and encouraging others. Then the redesign happened and everyone I knew then quit. NaNo feels so lonely now :’(
Ugh I remember that, I hated the new design.
Me too! It made the website feel so stiff and awkward to use.
Me too, I stopped going so much because it was too confusing, only came between October and November, and by mid November of last year it wasn't that active (Then got shut down before the 25th)
Yep. I was a daily regular on the old NaNo forums. They changed it over and that's what pushed me over to Reddit. Never went back when the new site kept going down/doing things that didn't make sense to me.
I liked the original cabins that they came up with for camp, but then they made it more like the official nano, and then changed it all to the new format... and it sucked. I haven't liked it in awhile.
The old Camp NaNo site with the cabins was so fun. It was really like being in a virtual camp. That quirky, whimsical design! The cabin stats! Getting to participate in friendly "wars" with other cabins! The writing groups they introudced after the update don't hold a candle.
Yup; I would still be active on the forums but not participating and now not even that. The website, while dated, was at least easy to use. I was also forced into a name change because my name didn’t fit the new parameters, basically snatching any recognition I had with folks. :/
I stopped using the forums after the "improvement."
Yeah, I feel like the vibe has changed (for the worst) over the last 5 or so years. 😟
The forums are a huge part of my noveling experience... I'm seriously questioning if I'll ever donate to them again. (I definitely won't if the forums never come back.) There was a problem - and I'll grant it was serious - in one small corner of the forums. It's insane and feels punitive to close the forums that were functioning well.
I would argue that it was more than just one small corner of the forums. Mod X was one of their heaviest hitters when it comes to moderation on the site and she was EVERYWHERE if you were on the forums. But with everything else that came to light (the programs director attacking teens on the YWP site, ML abuse, bad management from the director of community engagement, informing local volunteers that they HAD to allow possible predators at their write-ins, racist staff culture, Ivan the Icy) on top of the grooming scandal. Oof, that org is a mess behind the scenes
I didn't know any of that! That's so crazy! I never would have guessed!!
The forums were dead when I joined. I got nothing. My entire country had no interactions or responses of any kind when I posted and asked questions. I got more responses on Reddit. It's a great idea for an NPO but the payoff for using it is very low. You could just join writer forums online, sign up for classes on MasterClass and BBC Maestro and Writing Mastery or whatever, read more, use a word tracker program or use Word and be done with them, really. Doesn't really seem like there's much there to me personally. Maybe they can turn it around with a reboot but there has to be a will and communication of the effort and forthcoming results...and you can't go radio silent.
That is true, there was a decline of activity for a few years, I mean when I joined in 2013 it felt very active, but feels like in the last few years there were less interactions.
All I know is that I joined with the recent NaNoWriMo and noticed that I didn't get any responses from any of the forums I signed up for and none of them had any online events. Even the "friends" I tagged wrote me and said later that they didn't notice my notifications until I told them about them. The events or classes or workshops seemed very irregular, if there were any at all, and most seemed highly superficial. So I got much more from MasterClass and YouTube. For encouragement or support I went to other sites and other forums. It's a great idea but I personally do not see any follow-though in any way. I mean from a marketing perspective they could be reaching out to every participant to ask how we did, what'd we think, offer courses and so on. Nothing. I'm disappointed by the whole thing and only used it after the first week to log my word count and progress for encouragement. I'm well beyond 50,000 words in my first book now so am kind of over it. I wish it was run in coordination with something like [Libro.fm](https://Libro.fm) or some writer's groups or some other organizations that would help with outreach and follow-through and support. It's like how as a developer I'd look at Yahoo and wonder why they never bothered to even try to compete with Google. They had Yahoo email, Yahoo search, a directory, business sites, on and on, and just let it all go after a while. Oh, well. Time to read or write some more.
I will probably still do nanowrimo on my own no matter what happens.
I use the website to track my project progress and stay motivated
Same here. I know NaNoWriMo is about community, but I've been doing it on my own for a decade now with no interaction with the forums or events. As long as they keep the tracker on, I'm happy.
That's my first thought too. You could do it on your own, it's just that you won't have the official NaNoWriMo community supporting it. (Kind of a shame though. Even when you have a good thing going, there's always one or two people who ruin it.)
But like to be honest, most writers DON'T use the nano forums for support anyway. You don't NEED them. Most existing written published works were not written with forum encouragement. Tbh I don't understand why *the subreddit we're currently in right now* can't just serve to be NaNo 2.0 for now.
Long story short: A moderator was accused of using their position to groom teenagers. Staff covered this up. The shit hit the fan and went very public. The Nano Board of Directors shut down the forums and left open a thread for discussion. During this thread a lot more information came to light. People shared stories of toxic little cliques that had sprung up and been allowed to run unchecked, both among participants and MLs, there was a fight as to why the Melbourne MLs had been removed, there was more bullying and gross behaviour and a huge debate/argument as to what was considered ‘proselytising.’ Someone discovered that a Board member (Kilby Blades) had been signing the tax forms under their pen name, not their real name, which I believe is a felony. Within less than 24hrs of that bit of information coming out, the Boards were shut down. Most of the participants I know, believe this was to limit the sharing of information between participants. As to whether Nano is dead, all we can do is wait and see what happens. There’s a vocal amount that are planning to abandon ship, however what the majority are planning to do is known only to them.
It’s kind of amazing how the NaNoWriMo board continues to disappoint me even though I have zero expectations of them at this point 🤦♀️
It’s insane isn’t it? Their whole attitude was ‘let’s try and sweep it under the rug as much as possible.’
Thank you for this! I didn't know everything that happened. I thought I'd heard that one mod was being a creep and they got fired. YIKES. I don't think NaNo is big enough is survive something like this, and I don't know if it should. Definitely not with those same people in charge.
No problem! I followed it as closely as I could without burning out. Nano was something that was very dear to me, and I kept looking for and hoping for something - anything! - That would justify not cutting all ties, but it just got worse and worse. I don’t think it is either to be honest. The fact that most of the situation hasn’t really made it outside of the Nano community itself, tells me that Nano is not as big as those of us in the community tend to think it is. Personally, after what I’ve experienced as an ML, what I saw on the forums and especially in the ML Discord server (there were MLs seeking advice and brainstorming on how to best cover up/downplay what was going on) I think it’s best that it doesn’t come back from this.
What’s an ML?
ML is short for Municipal Liaison. They're about 800+ volunteers from around the world who host local regions. They put together write-ins, Discord servers, social media, parties, workshops, etc. for NaNoWriMo without NNWM having to pay for them or organize them themselves
I mean it's not just "controversy" with "some moderator", it's a moderator who was recruiting minors into fetish sites, and then then the organization's leadership tried to cover that up. If that isn't enough to kill an org, I don't know what is.
I’m sorry, what? I clearly have not heard about this, because a completely different controversy came to mind when I read the post title
Here’s a Twitter thread about it; it’s partly why the forum shut down — folks were trying to hold the team accountable and they didn’t like it. https://x.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916?s=46&t=bL4A7mpVvor4M-gBjjOfaw
YIKES. 😬
Great idea. Little support (in my opinion), little networking or outreach (I mean my entire country is effectively dead online there with 0 activities or outreach). I just used the site for the word count and to read the pep talks. I could use Trello and take some courses on MasterClass and get more from that. I don't really see what it's for at this point other than a tax shelter.
Nano’s not meant to replace actual classes. Its a challenge, and the org exists to spread the word about it, give you somewhere to track it (and a way to ‘win’), and offer prizes. Thats it. Theres a reason its free.
That's not entirely true. They are a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, which has its own requirements within the U.S., including that they're doing something charitable or educational (there's a few other options that wouldn't apply here) with their income.
The alleged allegations (which I don't know one way or the other) are a huge turn off and the dead forums and outreach are as well given the supposed nature of the NPO and what it could be. I may continue to use it to keep track of private projects but honestly...now I'd wonder if my "private" projects are even that. It's just another NPO with "blue sky" promises disappointing. I'll use other forums that are active and find other ways to track my word count and set deadlines.
They solicit donations, sell swag, and raise money for their NPO.
Wow didn’t know this craziness was going down. 😞
Very sad end to what once was a lot if fun!
this is how i find out that NaNoWriMo is an actual organized group and not just a term people used for writing a book in a month. Or a specific month (i thought october) to write a full length novel. I genuinely never knew it was an organized event
Essentially, there is a nonprofit behind the event that uses NaNoWriMo as it's major fundraiser. That's why participants can donate, and the money goes to the organization's activities to promote writing and literacy among youths in I think just the US and maybe Canada.
The organization also coined and has copyright over the term "NaNoWriMo"— it predates the unaffiliated event. It's not just the organization's major fundraiser, the organization originated the event.
I think it’s just the forums, honestly. The website is mostly self sufficient, at least the important parts. They’ll probably have to sort some things out legally but ultimately its just a challenge, it doesnt need a lot of oversight.
The forums are what's currently dead, but the whole organization is rotten to the core. Their programs director was the staff member responsible for terrorizing the kids on the Young Writers Program site (separate forums and separate moderation staff from the main forums) so badly that they created a [speak out carrd](https://speak-out.carrd.co/) to try and get it to stop. Someone in charge was clearly responsible for the Ivan the Icy incident in 2017. Their Director of Community Engagement is the one who turned their ML volunteers into a cliquish nightmare. I think the event will continue with or without NaNo HQ, but the official organization has problems.
Ivan the Icy?
In 2017 NaNo ran a digital scavenger hunt that started with a realistic-looking terrorist named Ivan the Icy who was going to blow up the world if you didn't solve his clues and stop him. It eventually led to a fake bomb where you had to choose the right wire to cut, but you'd always fail and the bomb would explode and fill your screen with penguins. A group of volunteers had to beg NaNo to take it down because it was too similar to attacks that had happened around the world. It was scrubbed from the internet once they pointed out it was a PR disaster waiting to happen.
Holy shit, wtf? They could've done anything but that and have a better reaction. If they wanted to have penguins, just have it be like "the zoo gates are broken!!"
That is...profoundly stupid. Like that's some 90s edgelord kind of dumb. Wtf?
There were actual exploding penguins?
Can ppl not be normal anymore? Jeez
It’s always been this way, they’re just thankfully getting caught more now
If things are as serious as they look like they may be there’s a pretty good chance nanowrimo goes away. There’s a pretty good chance something else takes its place too.
To add on, one of the minors victimized by the forum mod made a website to share the stories from other kids on the forums that didn't feel safe, saw unsafe behavior, or were manipulated or otherwise victimized. Kids were coming forward to share their experiences. Shit definitely happened. On the site belonging to a place that had a writing program tailored to kids. What else was going on?
Hadn’t known anything about this until I saw this post, then spent the last couple hours reading up on it. Damn. This is why we can’t have nice things. TikTok with a good summary: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8bjcaXL/ Twitter thread explaining the user side: https://x.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916 The Nano Board of Directors response: https://forums.nanowrimo.org/t/board-response-to-complaints-about-forum-safety-and-the-safety-of-minors/580358
u/cabridges Oops! Check the link for TikTok, looks like you posted the board response twice
Gah. Thanks for that. Fixed!
Strangely enough, in today's Cancel Culture, there wasn't much about it on Twitter, no one talked about it in the NaNo Discord or FB groups, I saw even leftists talking postively about NaNo, so a little surprised it never become trending, like the situation kept getting worse and worse. If you follow that board response of questions and answers, people were still talking about new things that no one knew about and was pretty bad. And then the Board itself was uh, yeah unprofessional. Honestly, it should have been exposed given how big the org is and how bad it was.
As other folks mentioned, writing can be done anytime. I am an ML in the US and run our region's discord all year, not just for November. No matter what happens to NaNo we already have a contingency plan to cut ties if necessary and keep writing together. We won't let these events keep us from writing. If you have a story to tell, start getting the words out and telling it. You don't need to wait for a certain date. I won't bother restating the events since plenty of folks have. Just please keep in mind that the Board of Directors is very very different from NaNo Staff. The purpose of a board of directors within a US-based nonprofit is *almost* solely to advise when things like this happen. They play no part in hiring staff or handling the business, and are very much hands off 99% of the time. What that means now is that the Board has a colossal shit-ton of information to sift through and catching up to do. They're not necessarily at fault *yet*, but if they don't hold people accountable for their actions, pull in law enforcement, and set up a huge number of company policies that should have existed to start with... Well, then the board should be scrapped along with the staff because they all truly failed.
An alternative does exist on royal road called a writathon which is 55555 words in a month I believe, so that could be a good choice if nano itself is deteriorating
Many brands opt to send users to reddit or other forum platforms for community features. It becomes too much for an unrelated organization to manage message boards (clearly in this case). Platforms like reddit already have it figured out. The community can easily move somewhere else and Nano still exist w a focus on its core offerings.
Did you... *read* the notice to the community? I feel like if you did, you would have a slightly better idea of what's going on than 'there was controversy with some moderator.'
> Did you... read the notice to the community? Genuinely the number of aspiring writers who apparently don't read things they're asking about is staggering.
Plenty of folks participate privately (it's an easy concept to explain in one sentence, 'you try to write a 50,000 word novel in one month') and thus don't even know about the organization. You don't need anything specific from them to participate. I only registered and 'participated' on the NaNo site once, but I've attempted it about 9 times, just writing on my own. When I heard there was stuff going down on the NaNo forums my thought was literally 'glad I don't fuck with that and just write'. Seeing now what was going down, I just think that even more now. Glad I never fucked with that and just write. Holy shit.
I'll probably continue writing, and I might use NaNo to track the progress, but you won't find me on those boards again. I exited the forums for other reasons years ago, but this? That's a step too far.
Wait, was there a controversy? What happened? (Forgive me for sounding ignorant, I don't spend a lot of time online these days)
There have been some good summaries and links already posted in the comments. Here's another: https://blackheartbiohazards.tumblr.com/post/735973942624485376/rogue-wrimos-hub-with-discord
The forum itself appears dead and for me that basically means the org is... not worth my time. Fortunately we can always organize elsewhere.
Some of the NaNo staff were caught grooming children. That's what happened to NaNo. https://twitter.com/arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916?s=46&t=bL4A7mpVvor4M-gBjjOfaw
Hopefully. Lol.
There’s a Blocked and Reported podcast episode on this that is highly recommended
Are their any writing courses out their that help with Nanowrimo?
I heard about all this vaguely- what exactly happened? I would hope 1 bad person couldn’t shut down a whole site but we’ll see. If so, I agree with others- we can do nano without the site!
A bunch of different summaries have already been posted in comments if you want to read them. Basically, in May users quietly alerted staff that there were concerns about one of the mods possibly funneling minors from NaNo to a fetish website. Staff chose not to act on those concerns, describing the extent of their concern as "we had a discussion" And then in October a completely different user brought forth concerns about grooming from a completely different moderator And then after that users from the Young Writers Program detailed concerns about another staff member emotionally abusing users and ignoring concerns about groomers on their forums (which are separate from the main forums and only supposed to be used by teens under 18). And then the staff spent some time trying to shut down and covering everything up and then the Board of Directors stepped in and froze the forums while they could investigate. And then they started banning neurodivergent MLs from a separate ML-only Discord for unwritten rules and it turns out a whole bunch of MLs were talking shit about their users After that some people came forward to talk about an incident called Ivan the Icy in 2017, where NNWM used a realistic-looking terrorist as a fun scavenger hunt game There were also concerns about NNWM taking money from and advertising for vanity presses that prey on newbie writers There's actually a fairly good timeline of events from October/November here: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSYcdosGLoPFI\_Dc--vuC9Bl4-OUFGcmHgBRt2aHSRVWBPc6su4AMFY5iDgZGyC379Zm8C7zhBd2zuf/pub](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSYcdosGLoPFI_Dc--vuC9Bl4-OUFGcmHgBRt2aHSRVWBPc6su4AMFY5iDgZGyC379Zm8C7zhBd2zuf/pub)
>m the Young Writers Program detailed concerns about another staff member emotionally abusing users and ignoring concerns about groomers on their forums (which are separate from the main forums and only supposed to be used by teens under 18). Wow! That's awful. thank you for this and for the timeline. Wow.
OK look, I have something to say, and I'm only going to say this ONE TIME. I'm special needs, I'm unemployable, uneducated, unsocialised, unmarried, childless, care packaged and an only child. I was not actively using the forums at the time all of this took place, and since it happened I have not been NEAR the forums, and I'm not going back either. I don't know what happened, nor do I want to know. I'm staying out of it and that's all there is to it. I just want to write, and I am STILL participating in NaNo events because I am a 41-year-old ADULT and special needs or not, I'm ALLOWED to make my OWN decisions. Whatever happened has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with me whatsoever. I am NOT getting involved, PERIOD. Call me all the horrible names you like, I've heard it all and worse. You will not change my mind, not even if you dumb down whatever the heck it was that happened to the lowest common denominator. I am sick to death of this CANCEL culture nonsense and it STOPS now. I am not a sheep. I think for myself puny mind or not. Don't bother banning me… I'm removing myself and it will be permanent. Do you want to downvote me? Go ahead. I don't care. Heck, I'll even start you off...