So, I went ahead and made all of my filtered stuff just friends-only. I have made all of your comments on past ones invisible, as they were said in confidence. Here, they're going to stand, and going forward. It's all coming out in the open, and if need be, I will make everything public. [ETA: I have made this public and after consideration, screened comments because they were written under friends-lock.]

I had a good chat with a friend I respect who has an impeccable record re: integrity issues, and she told me that I should entirely name names if it comes to it. We'll see, though. It was a good talk, though, and reassured me that people I thought would think less of me after only hearing one side of the story, as she had, don't at all. A big relief.

However, I did want to do a fact-check on things I know Alicia's been saying, some of which you might have seen. This, for instance, was published to a very large crafting group, SFEtsy-- the San Francisco street team, and sums up a lot of what she's been saying in other venues (emails as recent as early summer, etc):

I want to offer a perspective that you may want to at least consider.
I have had my own issues with a copycat. She was a former friend, so
she knew my work and had exposure to my personal blog where I would
show my current work, sometimes talk about ideas, goals, and upcoming
concepts. My suspicions mounted for over a year of "coincidences" in
various things like photography style, phrasing, style of
descriptions, banner redesigns, and derivatives of my actual jewelry.
I chose to take a left turn with my creations and picked up wire work
to get her off my heels (which she, "randomly", started doing a month
later, and again with PMC). At that point, things were getting obvious
enough that over a dozen people, independently of each other,
contacted me with concerns. That's when I knew I wasn't imagining it.
It gets worse, but this is the tl;dr version of it.

Here's the catch: once she got wind that I suspected her of things, we
had a difficult but honest private conversation about the issues and I
thought, naively, that things would get better and we'd both step back
from each other. HOWEVER, that very day she began a smear campaign *on
me*. Suddenly, I am the onecopyingher. For the past year, since last
autumn, has made various blog posts and Tweets that either plainly
(with links to my shop) or passive-aggressively (thinly veiled
potshots) make stabs at my ethics, reputation, and artistry. Funnily
enough, I haven't been to her site at all this year, and Google
Analytics shows her on mine once a week.

Etsy is rife with problems like this, some worse than others.

I just wanted to offer a summary of my story so that you can consider,
and make certain, that you are okay with all the possible outcomes of
taking this more public. I don't want a potential turning of the
tables on you to blindside you if it happens. I was definitely
blindsided.

--
~Alicia

( Fact check on aisle four.Collapse )


So. Basically. That's the last I have to say about this unless I need to make it alllllll public. Don't really want to, but if she continues this bullshit, it'll happen. She's lying, and lying shamelessly and blatantly at that. I am going to kick back, try to relax, and do my best to forget I ever knew her. Never fuck with a Virgo. We have facts.