Question of the Week: The Ray Wars?

[cin1607]

One of the other things that came out of our CON.TXT panel was the idea of posing a "Question of the Week" as a way of hopefully digging a little deeper on some topics that either have been only lightly covered, or have happened long enough ago now that it could take a group discussion to jog everyone's memories when it comes to details. One of the first examples that got batted around the room was Due South's Ray Wars.

What happened?

Those of us on the committee who spent time in Due South came in, as cordelia_v noted, after the smoking corpses were already cleared from the battlefield and we understood that it was really bad, but people were tired of it and just wanted to get back to the fun aspects of fandom in whatever safe zone they had chosen. And maybe people are still weary of all that? Or still leery of it? Because if you look at the entry on the wiki, it's very restrained. It sounds a little like an argument over tea. (I suppose Fraser would downplay it a bit.)

There are a couple of great perspectives from some fans that also came into the fandom towards the end of the war, but for those of you who lived through it all, what really happened? Who joined the fandom at the start of season three with the new Ray?

Comments

[akamine_chan]

The last bit of unpleasantness was a little over a year and a half ago, and like drlense mentions above, very unpleasant. Fans fled the fandom or went into hiding, mass defriendings occurred and very bitter feelings were left behind.

I did keep track of the various posts that were detailing the issues here, if you want to see some of the arguments first hand.

The whole Ray vs. Ray thing is still a very volatile, touchy subject and most fen are afraid to even mention it for fear of sparking another angry debate.