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Desperate, angry, pathetic. That is all I can think when I read this. What happened to Steve? I think his obsession ran away with him and he honestly can’t separate fiction from reality anymore. ( I wonder whether he thinks he wrote the books?) This is actually pretty sad. Melissa, I can only imagine what this makes you feel like and while I’m sure a part of you wasn’t surprised, it still has to sting. I am sorry you have to even go through this. This is a sad period for the HP fandom. Remember guys, we need to try not to been juvenile or mean toward Steve though, whatever he says. That’s just not what Potter People are about. He’s done enough damage to himself anyway.

I now know what my HP book will be “The Sad, Lonely, Fall of a Once Mighty Harry Potter Superfan” the unauthorized story of Steve Vander Ark.

First Chapter

From his meager beginnings as a Star Trek fan Steve learned he was a dime a dozen amongst those catalouging, ship detailing, red shirt counting uber fans. When Harry Potter came Steve realized he could do what every star trek fan does for their passion, catalouge everything, for the Harry Potterr series. But instead of having to sit through and transcribe endless hours of videotape he could just scan books into a computer and cut and paste. Thus the Harry Potter Lexicon was born.

Hey Melissa, you could add a last chapter to your fan book “The Fan Devide”, “A fan’s Final Fate” or “The Dangers of Obsession and Ego.”

Personally I blame myself and others for Steve’s fate. In Star Trek fandom he is a dime a dozen. Also unlike Star Trek that has many people involved from actors, designers, costumers,etc. that helped shape that world HP has one author, and since JKR could not be at HP events Steve stepped in. In the beginning of HP fandom we crowned him a God. We let him shape our opinions and speak for us as a collective. Wheter we meant to or not we supported Steve’s ego, and unlike his Star Trek book, the published Lexicon would have made him rich selling much more than only 40 copies.

I now know what my HP book will be “The Sad, Lonely, Fall of a Once Mighty Harry Potter Superfan” the unauthorized story of Steve Vander Ark.

First Chapter From his meager beginnings as a Star Trek fan Steve learned he was a dime a dozen amongst those catalouging, ship detailing, red shirt counting uber fans. When Harry Potter came Steve realized he could do what every star trek fan does for their passion, catalouge everything, for the Harry Potterr series. But instead of having to sit through and transcribe endless hours of videotape he could just scan books into a computer and cut and paste. Thus the Harry Potter Lexicon was born.Hey Melissa, you could add a last chapter to your fan book “The Fan Devide”, “A fan’s Final Fate” or “The Dangers of Obsession and Ego.”

Personally I blame myself and others for Steve’s fate. In Star Trek fandom he is a dime a dozen. Also unlike Star Trek that has many people involved from actors, designers, costumers,etc. that helped shape that world HP has one author, and since JKR could not be at HP events Steve stepped in. In the beginning of HP fandom we crowned him a God. We let him shape our opinions and speak for us as a collective. Wheter we meant to or not we supported Steve’s ego, and unlike his Star Trek book, the published Lexicon would have made him rich selling much more than only 40 copies.

I agree with Splinched. The things he is saying are getting more and more unbelievable, but any attack on SVA at this point is just going to garner him sympathy, so leave him to lie in the bed he’s made. Besides, I don’t WANT to see anyone suffer like this, I desperately wish he would shut up because he keeps making things worse. Dude, don’t screw yourself over so bad!!! I keep thinking he can’t make things any worse, and then BAM, he finds a way.

all i can say is that this thread just makes me feel very uncomfortable. having gone to cons and wrockstock, i’m constantly amazed by the amount of love and acceptance this fandom has. this whole issue only shows me that we’re still as petty and mean as the rest.

Re: Comment originally posted on April 17th, 2008 @ 3:57 p.m. to the article, “JKR/WB vs. RDR Books Trial: A partial settlement reached; WSJ summarizes day three of testimony.”

In some ways, fan sites, supplemental books, and critical analyses, are being portrayed as utter “boiler room” transactional money makers, where an industrial, sterile environment employs drones who work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, “shooting out” something that is “reverse-engineered” based upon the original Rubik’s Cube®. That concept is a bit hard to grasp, especially when a fan site, or other supplemental material, is largely audience driven, or the material may be produced or posted by a fan (to be fair this includes SVA for the most part). While the site or publisher themselves expend resources to switch on electricity, many of the images, or other intricacies of Harry Potter have already been paid for, or are going to be paid for by the audience user, through purchasing DVD’s, books, etc., a million times over; what you are left with is a Harry Potter Club that is exchanging baseball cards. When indexes, references, or reports are created for Legal or Academic purposes, that is one thing, even then they can be reduced down smaller and smaller to the original creative source, be it a Statute or Judges opinion, or directed back to the originator of the light bulb, because citation is given to the originator. On the other hand, I too, would have found it highly useful, in a utility sort of way, to take J.K. Rowling’s books that I paid for and scan them into a computerized format; if anything so I could read the pages, save them, search for words, numbers, and sentences, count words, index, and rearrange until I squeezed every little thing out of Harry Potter that I could. But, therein lays the value. Most every Harry Potter fan congregated religiously to squeeze every little thing they could from each other once a new Harry Potter book was published. Those things were largely offered back and forth without barter. Every new thing that came about, idea, concept, theory, waited in limbo and docked somewhere in the ethereal universe, until it was trumped by what J. K. Rowling wrote in her next book; even J. K. Rowling’s intermittent comments left hardly anything for Cannon. What is being muddied is the fact that timelines and characters can be discussed until we fans are blue in the face, and that the fact will still remain that within J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter there is a “timeline”, all fancied up and storied as it is, and there within Harry Potter, the characters are developed, as storied and unalphabetized as they are. It is a bit peculiar, any questions in the form of “Do you the author receive entertainment value from what I’m giving you? Do you find what I’ve done useful?” On the one hand, one is left wondering if the Harry Potter brand would be as big as it is for J. K. Rowling, if there weren’t the movies, or the extensive discussion of the material on fan sites. On the other hand, it would be rather annoying if you drilled a water well and laid a driveway across my property, then tried to encourage me that it is somehow useful to me as well. If one were to get into comparative legalities, surely there is some legal discussion as to when the property owner loses “title” to the underlying property, maybe after a period of time has elapsed?; let’s say, for example, 15 years. Maybe there is other discussion as to the property owner giving an “‘A’ for effort” as “consent,” therefore never really losing actual control in title of the property that holds the water well and the driveway, no matter how much time has elapsed. Further those trains of thought might say that any further embellishment, addition, change of circumstance, could lead to the original property owner enforcing the rights that were established. It really isn’t much different with this Harry Potter case. Let’s say that there was any consent to the existence of any fan website whatsoever. Does that allow for the creation of a publishable, bounded material from the one who was given the hypothetical consent? Yes, I too, would love to have scanned each of J. K. Rowling’s books into a computerized format, to analyze and rearrange, but I can’t go out and present that to the blue chip executives that have some interest in what the latest Harry Potter clothing trends are these days. As to fan sites, and Rubik’s Cubes®, I would say that it really does help J. K. Rowling tremendously to have fan sites, commentary, and critical analyses lurking about, when the overall effect of the audience’s interaction actually adds value to what she is doing. If something I do deserves a marking of “ ‘A’ for effort”, I’d do what I could to keep the status quo. What does the “ ‘A’ for effort” actually mean? Well as any Harry Potter fan is aware of, it could mean anything. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean perform the “Sectumsempra” curse on my material, and it doesn’t say anything about re-publishing in revised form all J. K. Rowling books “Years 1 through 7.”

This all makes me uneasy. I can’t wait for it to be over.

To be honest, I remember reading about Steve and his “celebrity status” a while back and thought he had a nerve parading himself as a HP celebrity, when he did nothing but quote the book online.

But lets be fair, he did have to type all those quotes manually, you can’t copy and paste from a book, so poor Steves fingers must have been all sore and tired. He has some nerve.

It all seems to have lowered itself to an immature level really. He’s courting the media in the hopes of gaining sympathy (poor me, Jo didn’t look at me, Jo didn’t hug me, sob sob sob, Melissa’s not my friend) and its back firing, but surely only within the fandom? There are people out there who don’t read Leaky, Mugglenet etc and who will take the media’s misrepresentation of the proceedings as fact.

Some fan you are VDA, I’d hate to see what you’d do to someone’s work if you weren’t a “true” fan.

Oh Melissa, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he would say that about you.

Well if JKR is God and SVA’s been ‘cast out’, then I guess that makes him Satan?

Don’t pay any attention Mellissa.. that was such a cheap shot. Saying that you went against him because you enjoy your status too much?

We all know that’s not true.. heck, even he does.. he knows what kind of person you are I’m sure.. which is why that remark was both low and untrue.

You can’t pay attention to comments like that; the comparison between your book and his is also untrue.. yours is full to the brim of original work -whilst as we know his is plagiarism. Keep faith, this will all be over before long!

To inform those who may not know: Wu is not a journalist. He is a lawyer associated with the Fair Use Project (which is funding RDR in the case). It all stinks of a PR job. I don’t know why…Steve is already the media’s darling.

- low whistle -

Do you reckon ‘no way’ on page 8 could secretly be SVA?

Comment was pretty harsh though. Fair enough if you want to express your opinion, but if you’re going to speak about Melissa like that then maybe you shouldn’t do it on her site. Just a suggestion.

And I know there must be others who have said similar things in these comments but noway’s is the only I have come across so far – I have not got time to read through every single comment on here.

@medea callous

that’s one of the cleverest things i’ve come across all day!

but, nah, not so much satan, i’d say. just a 50-year old king-of-the-nerds.

@mugglequeen

wow, you’re spot on… that was a ridiculously harsh comment. i hadn’t seen it until i read yours… i doubt that it was sva, but i would wager it IS someone who wouldn’t have the gutz to say that if he/she wasn’t hiding behind their computer… excessively rude and, in the end, the mark of cowardice.

I suppose Melissa is going to give her book away. That’s the only way she won’t profit by it, which seems to be a major sin. Well, let’s wait and see!

If melissa’s book was plagiarism, it would be.

JESUS CHRIST SUE AND MELISSA!

OMG, what the hell do you think you are doing? I mean come on, Melissa doing that with Rowling right in front of him, you and Vanderark have been allies for years. And Sue, saying that behind his back, come on you are better than that. For shame.

Harry Potter fans are allies for life and should never be angry at others for writing what they have always wanted to write. The only reason that you (Melissa) are not being scolded the same way is because you are friends with Rowling and Vanderark isn’t. You are lucky that it wasn’t you on trial and you shouldn’t scold Vanderark for being where you could have been if you never met Rowling.

Come on!

To correct my above statement: I’m not sure if Wu is a lawyer, but he’s definitely associated with FUP.

@ akemi:

Steve’s wife’s most damning comment about Steve’s personal life was actually deleted. I remember commenting on its deletion.

As for those calling us lemmings, where is your evidence? Just because we side with Jo, we automatically did so because we have no brains of our own? Well, how about those who only pay attention to the mainstream media and believe everything it says? I’d say that’s more lemming like. At least Leaky’s coverage has been as unbiased as it can be and based around the facts. They even inform us of articles that contradict our views. If they were truly trying to brainwash us, as you so claim, then it’d be fairly quiet as the mainstream media seems to have hopped on the “Jo is evil” bandwagon.

@ noway on page 8:

“Oh please. We are not all with you Melissa. I personally find you an insufferable kiss-up who’s always flaunting her advantages, and your commentary annoying. And, as for Sue Upton making the aforementioned comments, she still did so with Melissa’s blessing, so give us all a break here kids. Furthermore, anyone who says that Melissa “worked” on her book and SVA did not is simply a moron. You’re all playing a cliquish playground game and you should be ashamed.”

Posted by noway on May 06, 2008 @ 09:13 AM

I don’t know how you’re under the impression that Melissa has any power over what her fellow hosts say. Also, if you had truly listened to the episode, you’d realize how torn Sue is and that she remained pretty quiet throughout that episode. The fandom has vilified Steve in some places. Sue was pointing that out. She did not say “I vilify Steve.”

If you are so annoyed by Leaky and PC, why come here? Why listen? Something must have appealed to you. Or are you just a bitter SVA supporter or (as someone above suspected) Steve himself? I doubt the latter, but the former is fairly likely.

@ Brett Morgan

” ‘It’s her world,’ Annelli said. ‘She lets us play….’

Now go buy a Leaky Mug, & kneel before me, you lemmings!”

Well, it’s true. She could be Anne Rice and shut down all fanfiction sites and who knows what else. It would be perfectly within her rights. I think some people in fandom have become spoiled and have an entitlement complex.

Wow, reading that article in the New Yorker was really surreal: My worlds are colliding! Melissa and John and Sue (or, at least, Sue’s words misattributed to Melissa), and a sketch of SVA, in the New Yorker! Too bad it wasn’t for something more pleasant.

I’m curious about who this writer (Tim Wu) is and how much he knows about the HP fandom. (Thanks, mollywobbles23, for pointing out that he is a lawer and not a journalist. Along those lines, I’m not sure it’s accurate for this Leaky post to call him “Tim Wu of the New Yorker,” because this seems to be the only thing he’s ever written for that publication.) On the one hand, he seems to know a lot: He quotes PotterCast, he knows about Steve’s “it’s our sandbox now” talk, he tosses off words like ‘Ravenclaw’ and ‘Gryffindor’ with an air of familiarity, he knows that Melissa is “a Gryffindor” and seems perhaps to have recognized her by sight in the courtroom (since he knew she sat in the back). On the other hand: He can’t be a regular PotterCast listener (or even a halfway-careful onetime listener) if he confuses Sue’s voice with Melissa’s, can he? And (unless he’s being wilfully opaque) he seems oddly unaware of the difference in content between Melissa’s book and Steve’s.

Finally, I want to say thank you to Leaky for drawing this piece to our attention, even though it depicts this site and its staff in an unflattering way. All of you Leaky staffers, including Melissa, have my great respect. I hope that everyone involved with this thing, and everyone who’s having fingers pointed at them, can make it through without too much suffering.

@ mollywobbles23

(which is an awesome name, by the way), you write, “I think some people in fandom have become spoiled and have an entitlement complex.”

man, i agree 110%... it’s so well-said i don’t have anything to really add, but i just wanted to voice my support.

i’m getting fed up with the rudeness of people, and, as a 28 yea-old guy, i have better things to do than feel pissed at nameless, faceless people hiding behind screennames. that’s why i just wanted to say that i agree with you, and don’t let the obnoxious, venomous comments get you down!