In a message dated 3/2/01 1:38:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, Louise.Rutter@btinternet.com writes:

<< I have to say that I took your first two posts to be critical of Jenkins. It wasn't clear whether the fans who were complaining had been directly involved in the study - if so, then Jenkins had clearly communicated poorly with those fans. I now gather from your further posts that the fans who were critical had _not_ been directly involved in the study at all, though I don't think you ever explicitly stated that. In which case Jenkins hasn't done anything wrong at all. >>

I'm sorry that you or anyone else would misunderstand me that way, Louise. Frankly, I don't know how anyone would think I was being critical of Henry when I explicitly stated, numerous times, that both Leah and I knew him, corresponded with him, and neither one of us ever had a problem with anything he did. You can't be more explicitly *non-critical* than that. The fact that I reported that other fans did not enjoy what he or Camille did as much as we did is simply that. A fact that I reported. Please don't shoot the messenger.

The only thing that prompted my posts in the first place was that it seemed to me numerous people were quoting from Henry's book and holding up his opinions as some sort of gospel of fandom that couldn't be argued with. I made the statement that his work was hardly akin to Joseph Campbell. That, again, was not meant to be critical of Henry (or Camille, who also wrote a big book about fandom which I *don't* see being quoted constantly here), but rather a statement of my own opinion that neither book is any kind of "gospel" in my mind. If anything, I was being critical (although hopefully not in a harsh way; I meant no kind of flame) of the people who were quoting Henry's book.

Annie