Meet the Website Editorial Director…who doesn’t exist

Dr Gayle

This is similar to an issue of self-appointed editors who have no related background and are unable to speak intelligently about the issues to the public, while co-opting the work of others without attribution.

raf

Does this differ materially from unsigned editorials purporting to be the consensus view of an editorial board at a newspaper?

RetiredE9

The Keebler Elves weren’t available for comments

Shawn Levasseur

In the world of Fiction group pseudonyms have been around with little controversy.

The original author of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew used pseudonyms for each series, and the pseudonym continued on as other authors wrote for the series. The text adaptation of the Robotech animated series was written by a pseduonym who was given an “about the author” piece that was a hybrid of the two authors’ bios, needless to say “Jack McKinny” had a rather busy life.

In the non-fiction realm… Now we’re getting into sticky territory. The shared pseuedonym acts as a shield from responsibility for the content.

Darryl Boyd

I thought everybody did this. I’m a building Contractor who generally works alone except for as few Temp employees now and then. I always refer to “us” and “my guys” whan taking to customers even though it’s only me. I figure it pays to look bigger than you are. Kind of like a cat on the offense.

Gypsy Boots

Some companies have always listed fictional employees to blame for lapses in customer service etc.

“I can assure you that Mr. Smith doesn’t work here any more, Ma’am!”

David DesRoches

You’ll all be (un)happy to know that Vibrant Nation executed its imaginary person. Bylines have also been removed. Here’s the updated bio:

VN Editors
VN Editors are the editorial staff of Vibrant Nation, who manage and publish all Vibrant Nation content and contributors. Formerly, the editorial staff was represented by Susan Lee Ward, a composite created and managed by the Vibrant Nation staff to represent themselves and the Vibrant Woman. Since VibrantNation.com is about its community and not any one person, and much of our published work is curated from our conversations originated by our members, we thought it would be best to have the community and our writers represented by a single face and name. Susan Lee Ward was managed by the all-woman Vibrant Nation editorial team: Cara Reynolds, Beth Blakely and several staff writers who work for them. We have never hidden anything about who Susan Lee Ward is or is not.

Over time, some community members have expressed discomfort with the presence of a character in our community who is not a real person. We created Susan Lee Ward early in our site’s history as part of our effort to make VN authentic for all Vibrant Women, but now it seems like the right decision to credit the articles compiled and written by our staff to our editorial team: “VN Editors.” All of our current editors and staff writers are listed above on our staff page.