Saturday, June 28, 2014

Why I love websites like ED

Encyclopedia Dramatica is one of my favorite websites. Yeah, it's offensive, perverse, filled with a lot of exaggerations and hyperbole, and did I mention offensive?

I have Aspergers, yet I found myself laughing my ass off at their article on autism because it does a great job mocking the hell out of everyone who tries to use autism as a crutch or an excuse for their behavior. I also found myself laughing at their articles on tropers, which I found hilariously spot on. Hell, like Something Awful, they also accused us at All The Tropes of being porn/pedophilia havens, an insult I'm so used to these days it's practically passe.

I'm also greatly amused at all the idiots and retards that try to vandalize ED. All ED does is laugh at information already available to the public, so when someone gets pissed over having their publicly available actions given a savage mocking and tries to remove it, I just laugh louder because it just goes to show that somebody struck a nerve.

I do have to admit I don't find everything there funny. Some of the articles there do come off as offensive to me, some greatly so, but I'd rather let people say whatever they want to say as opposed to being mad about it because everyone is entitled to their opinions, and trying to silence offensive speech strikes me as a greater evil than letting it go.

In conclusion, the internet really doesn't need to be taken so seriously, and I laugh at ED because it's a great reminder why.

Friday, June 27, 2014

To The Goons of Something Awful, Part 2

This is more of reaction to the first post, but for any Goons reading this, there some stuff for you too.

I was not surprised the actual substance of anything I had to say was not refuted by the goons, merely written off as a rant at best, but then I realized they have that "don't touch the poop" rule that forbids them from responding, lest they import drama and get their whole mock thread shut down.

Frankly, I'm disappointed. Didn't Something Awful make a point of launching raids on other websites? Was I not mean or spiteful enough? Did I say stuff they just couldn't argue with? Are they so afraid of being kicked out of their forums just to engage me in a civil conversation?

I don't expect anyone there to change their minds about me, but if it makes you feel any better, I know some shit stains have been making horrible jokes about Lowtax letting his daughters get raped (or something to that effect), and while I think the man is an indolent pill and booze abusing loser who is NOT funny in the slightest (and never was), I'm disgusted anyone would stoop as low as to drag his children (complete innocents) into their hatred for him, and if Lowtax ever manages to get wind of this, I'm sorry you have to deal with the kind of gutter slime would would taunt you with such horrible accusations and am horrified anyone would wish that on your family.

That said, if any goon wants to email me, chat with me on IRC, make an account on any wiki under my purview, or leave a comment here, please, feel free, I welcome your input.

Besides, I admittedly have a bias, but who knows, I might be wrong and I'm willing to admit that.


Thursday, June 26, 2014

To The Goons of Something Awful







As you can see, I was mentioned in their TV Tropes mock thread, and since I now know the Goons are reading this, I've got a few things to say.

I don't hate Goons simply for being Goons. I DO hate the hypocrisy of the Goons who call other websites depraved, fetid hovels of depravity while ignoring their own.

For example: Aatrek, moderator of TVIV for almost five years, convicted child molestor.

For all the bitching done about pedophiles on TV Tropes, you are the first community to actually have a no shit pedophile in your community, and to my knowledge, while there have been a bunch of creepy assholes in the troping community (like Chagen, ColonelMcBadass, etc), you guys have yet to find someone in major position of power and influence on TV Tropes who had or has (to my knowledge) a history of raping children.

Do I also need to bring up Eggplant Wizard, the ringleader of the porn writing for profit ring on Amazon? Apparently, as long as she wasn't exposed for what she was doing, her spreading smut and perversion was A-OK, but everyone else on the tubes, tropers especially, were evil incarnate for doing the same.

tl;dr - I despise the hypocrisy of the Goons on SA.

However, I consider myself a fair man, and unlike Fast Eddie, I'm willing to be civil to any goon who is willing to do the same, and while I don't agree with many of the things the Goons have said about tropers, you guys have highlighted some truly disturbing shit in the troping community that was nine types of fucked up, so my hats off to you all for that.

Also, if you just want to call me a porn and pedo pandering enabler and refuse my invitation to discuss our differences in opinion in a civil manner, that's your choice.

As for the JesuOtaku situation, I stand by what I posted, with the exception of what I issued a retraction over, as those words were posted without knowing all the facts and JesuOtaku has my apologies.

I do hope the paywall doesn't go up anytime soon, though, as I do find a lot of threads on SA legitimately interesting, and if any goon want to stop by our IRC channel, wiki, or even here to say hello, you have my word I will be polite and hear out what you have to say.

Who knows, maybe we can understand each other better?

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that no, I am not a former moderator at TV Tropes. I was a one time member of TV Tropes, but I became disenchanted with how they changed things and thus took over the Tropes Mirror Wiki on Wikia and later helped found All The Tropes on Orain (and the Wikia version will soon be replaced with an import of data from the Orain version).

The Fall and Return of Something Awful's forums

Around June 22 Something Awful's forums died, and it wasn't until June 25 did they come back up.

Annoyed they couldn't post there, some goons went to Reddit, some gave Lowtax a hard time on Twitter, and some even went to Something Sensitive (the anti-SA forum).

Upon the revival of the forums, Lowtax and the SA mods started lashing out at any thread mentioning any of the above, blatantly punishing people for "defecting" to other sites, and most of the bans reasons boiled down to pure spite.

As someone who runs a website myself, that's pretty damned childish.

Also, the SA forums are apparently, up in a crippled, halfassed state where a lot of people can't log in, the paywall is up for some people even though it should be down in most places (save FYAD and QCS, among a few others), and is still running the same outdated vBulletin software they had before everything went to hell.

To be blunt, I really hoped the SA forums died, not because I hate goons, but because Lowtax is obviously using that place to further his indolent lifestyle as a manchild, and given how all the funny left those forums years ago and has instead become an echo chamber for social justice warriors (which I am not fond of) and moderators just as despotic and jackassed as the egomaniacs on TV Tropes, the place really needs to die so Lowtax can finally grow up and his sycophants can quit acting like the same pricks me and a bunch of other people founded an entire website to get away from on TV Tropes.

However, I guess it's better they remain up, if only to contain the worst dregs of humanity before they shit up the rest of the internet. 

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Message to Nate Spidgewood: Grow up and get a life.

I occasionally visit TV Tropes, mostly because I like to to take notes on what they do poorly so I can do better, and sometimes, I occasionally see Nate Spidgewood (ED article, NSFW) being a vandalizing jackass.

For those who don't know, that ED article I linked to will fill in most of the blanks, but my personal experience with this idiot has been one of constant butthurt from him over how TV Tropes has become a sterile Wikipedia clone, and while I don't entirely disagree, his biggest bitchfest seems to be over the idea of "namespaces"

In PmWiki (what TV Tropes uses), they have main namespace (Main/Pagename, for example), a namespace for site specific stuff (Site/Pagename), and you can make as many other namespaces as you want to keep things separate.

Part of the reason TV Tropes does this is because their incredibly customized fork of PmWiki is so different from the official distribution they cannot take advantage of the fact you can have custom titles without retarded hacks in the official version, and because they found it was easier to separate works and other sections of the site by namespace, and while I use the latest MediaWiki, which has no reason to use this sort of system (it has custom titling support built in and it's namespaces work much differently to the point you could put almost everything in the main namespace that is related to content if you want to), I understand why TV Tropes is forced to use the system they have in place to keep track of stuff.

Unfortunately, our friend Nate is an imbecile that doesn't realize that (A) they aren't going to change their minds about organizing stuff and (B) vandalizing TV Tropes using tons of sockpuppets will not wear down their resolve to ignore his batshit insanity and do what he wants.

Further, it took me having to block this guy on my own wikis and very clearly explain the facts of life to him to make him realize how much I did not care for his shenanigans, and while he has mostly gotten the hint on any wiki under my purview and follows my rules (of which I try to be as fair as possible on), he still goes back to TV Tropes, vainly trying to force them to turn back the clock to get them to change their minds, let him back in, and undo their namespacing schema to something he prefers.

And this is where I directly address Nate himself:

Nate, get a life, drop this petty grudge against TV Tropes, and move on. You are repeatedly harassing a website where you are no longer welcome, foolishly thinking you can wear them down into doing things your way, and you been doing this stupidity for over two years now.

Accept being banished from TV Tropes like a man and quit causing them grief, act your age, and find something else to do instead of rage against a website that doesn't give a shit about you.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

In which I critique the Goon perspective on TV Tropes Content policies

This post sums up the Goon position on TV Tropes content policy, and below I've decided to comment on it.

Post text in italics, mine comments in bold.

----

Administrivia: There Is no Such Thing as Notability

All works are notable. posted:

    Wikipedia tries in many regards to be the opposite of what we are. We want to be fun, interesting and a cool place to sink hours of time. Wikipedia wants to be a compilation of previously published facts from respected sources. Serious business. Presented with a choice between serious and fun, we went with fun.


I always felt this was a sensible enough guideline.


Citations from respected sources = Serious business

Cataloging every instance of surprise sex in recorded media = Just for fun


This is disingenuous BS that ignores the whole point to listing trope examples in the name of moralistic whining based on a partisan and biased anti-troper Goon talking point. For instance, the trope "Rape As Comedy" is a trope about the concept of rape used for humor within a story, and the examples should explain how (insert work here) uses this trope as a story element. Being perverse and going into voyeuristic detail should obviously be avoided, but in the interests of literary analysis, how this trope is used within the story should be explained for context.

However, if the Goons had their way, all of this would be avoided in the name of not offending anyone and because they think anyone talking about rape for any reason (except what they have defined as "okay") is a filthy pervert (i.e. - what they consider tropers), which makes me facepalm pretty hard.


By, For, and About Fans posted:

    TV Tropes Wiki was started by fans. People, that is, who like stuff. You will see that articles work better here when they are about something you like. This is a little bit of a shock to folks that are used to cynicism about the media. It takes a minute or two to get used to.

    People who come looking for a place to bash stuff and rant about how dumb this or that is are in for some disappointment. Here, anyway. There are plenty of places on the 'Net to bash stuff. Shouldn't be too hard to find one.


In this case, I partially disagree. Unlike TV Tropes, which strives to avoid negativity, that just leads to a hugbox mentality. You can criticize something without being an ass about it, and this should be done where warranted in the interests of honest criticism. However, the overly discouraging attitude to anything that might seem negative has strangled and mocked the concept of being able to do this on TV Tropes.

"You jerks can go on all those other sites to make fun of how dumb my favorite cartoon series
ostensibly aimed at children is. I'll be here on TV Tropes, a hugbox full of people who actually like stuff. "

YAY, more partisan BS. Alright, I agree with the hugbox part, but I'm an admitted enemy of most of the creepier aspects of the My Little Pony: FIM fandom, but even I don't think it's impossible for a grown adult to give literary criticism of it in a mature manner, especially if they enjoy it. Also, the not so subtle indication that an adult should not be fan of a work made for kids in any circumstances because their age forbids it is just idiotic. After all, a lot of children's stuff is produced by adults, many of which enjoy creating the material, so I have a counter question for the Goons here:

Are those people creepy, pathetic manchildren if they enjoy similar material themselves?


Just Because It's Notable Doesn't Mean It's Safe To Host posted:

    We consider every work notable. But works that are nothing but porn aren't appropriate to host on this site. We don't need porn in order to understand storytelling.


 This is a semantic question that is defined in three seperate ways depending on who you ask:

1. TV Tropes: By a censorship panel that arbitrarily decides what is and isn't porn or pandering to pedophiles and by advertisers even Fast Eddie and the TV Tropes staff have admitted are terrible at figuring out the difference themselves, not that the former are much better.

Administrivia: The Content Policy and the 5P Circuit is just full of an insane/inane number of that could easily be summed up in one sentence: STOP POSTING PORN AND PEDOSHIT YOU ASSHOLES!


2. Goon mockers of TV Tropes: *insert moralistic posturing even though this is the same forum whose front page has a series of articles on hentai games where Zack Parsons admitted despite his disgust that certain aspects of some of them turned him on, which is something Goons condemn tropers for doing, apparently blind to their own hypocrisy*

It shows just how immature and ill-equipped tropers are at being able to discuss anything even remotely sexual without needing several huge loving articles walking them step by step through the reasons why porn and pedophilia is no longer allowed on the site. And there are still many, many discussion threads dedicated to what should be a simple concept for them.


3. All The Tropes: We use the legal definition of pornography and pedophilia as defined by the United States as the stopping point for what is legal, if not moral, to discuss (i.e. - the same standards used by Wikipedia, more or less). These limits are not exactly pleasing to those who are easily offended, but have stood the test of time far easier, are more clearly defined, and less arbitrary when it comes to discerning what counts as a story and what counts as something without serious literary merit. 


quote:

    Q: Is the content policy going to change?
    A: Certain aspects of the policy might be relaxed in the future (e.g so that works that are porn get locked instead of cut) if the circumstances that lead to the implementation of the policy disappear (i.e if we get better page curation and more reliable sources of income), but for now, there won't be any changes to the policy.


In the case of All The Tropes, we decided freeing ourselves of the shackles of advertisers and not letting them or a bunch of moral hypocrites (hello Goons) dictate what we can talk about would obviate this issue.

In other words, they would totally still have porn on the site if Fast Eddie had a different source of funding than Google AdSense. Makes me wish he would win the lottery or something so TV Tropes could be 100% independent and self-sustaining.


In this case, the Goon position should be amended to "they would totally have pages on works with strong sexual content that would ordinarily be considered porn on a case by case basis on TV Tropes or whatever Goons feel you should feel dirty for enjoying regardless of its legality or level of story quality if Fast Eddie had a different source of funding than Google AdSense."

Also, the second sentence is hilarious. All The Tropes is ad free and will remain so for the foreseeable future, and according to the guys at Orain, this doesn't cost them tons of money to pull off in this era of cheap bandwidth/hosting space.

quote:

    Also, in the case of H Games, there is this questioning to fill up:

    When are the sex scenes located?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?


    Are they spread out over the game?

  
If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?

    How much gameplay is there between sex scenes?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?

    Are they only at the endings?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?


    How hard do you have to work to get an ending?
 

If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?

    Are they in every ending? Every good ending?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?

    Are the sex scenes optional via a choice in the menu?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?  (though in this case, whether this is the case could make the plot harder to follow, so this is a legit point to trope)


    Would the story make sense without them with minimal or no rewriting?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?  (though in this case, whether this is the case could make the plot harder to follow, so this is a legit point to trope)


    Are the scenes made up of stills, or are they animated?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant? 


    How explicit are the sex scenes?


If it's part of the story, why is this relevant?

So, wait: porn is still allowed, but only if it fits our arbitrary criteria?

  
Finally! Something I can agree with the Goons on wholeheartedly!  


To finish this post off, I'm going to make a confession: I have sampled many of the works banned by TV Tropes, including "Kodomo No Jikan" (what those spineless cowards on SA called "The Anime That Must Not Be Named"), just to see what was so bad about them. In that anime/manga's case, hell yes, I can see why it would made people offended, but as long as it doesn't violate the law to discuss it's existence or its story elements, I see no reason to bar people from doing so as long as they don't violate our site policy or any legal limits, and to be blunt, I could care less if anyone, the Goons especially, have a meltdown over it.

Friday, June 20, 2014

In this post, I critique a Goon perspective on how to handle tropers with Autism

Recently, the SA paywall dropped, so I went into their TV Tropes mock thread to see if they had anything to say about All The Tropes.

Nope, just walls of tl;dr about how much bronies are creepy (okay, I can't say I disagree) and tropers are perverts and pedophiles (SA's stock accusation about tropers.....though they seem to want to forget they had an actual pedophile on their own mod team for almost five years).


However, I did find this post interesting, since it mentions a member of our site I'm quite pleased with, and who had a bad time on TV Tropes.


Below is the content of the post, post text in italics, my comments in bold.

----



That was something that stood out to me about Miss Aspie, 23, Desperately Seeks Husband, actually.

The thing is, if you're modding on a site that's pretty much Let's List Things Dot Com, you're going to get a certain amount of ASD in your natural readership. Being able to handle that should be a basic skill for mods. But if you look at the exchange... well, let's look at the exchange.

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    If it's because I've been moving some several DMOS posts to their own DMOS pages, then I apologize. I was giving the DMOS pages some clean up.

    I promise I'll put them in folders instead.

At this point, she's being polite, if a bit confused. This would be the moment to say 'Thanks for your courtesy but the ban stands' and shut down the discussion before it escalates.




Ecclytennysmithylove is a troper on All The Tropes who is basically doing the organization on our site she tried to do on TV Tropes, which is much appreciated, but given how TV Tropes uses a different organization scheme, I can mostly understand why her actions upset the mods, but a ban for something done in good faith strikes me as ridiculous. However, since it's their site, their rules, I can't say I disagree with the logic of the above statement on how the situation should have been handled.

quote:

    Fighteer posted:

    ~Ecclytennysmithylove: Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but you've been continually drawing attention to yourself by doing things that aren't necessary or are straight up incorrect, then disregarding people asking you to stop. Recently there was a flap over you getting Needs More Love confused with Needs Wiki Magic Love, and just now the DMOS thing. Just because three examples is the minimum for a subpage doesn't mean you need to make one every time a work acquires that many.

    This keeps happening. You're on your third suspension, and there was a separate report after the last one that you were posting cut Real Life examples from the Panty Shot article on its Discussion page.

    I'm just not seeing a pattern of understanding our rules.


Ahhh.....Fighteer, one of my favorite TV Tropes mods. Only second to Fast Eddie in being a douche to people. However, he is being fairly polite at this point, so I can give him that. As for the stuff he's complaing about, I always hated the "three strikes you're out" rule on TV Tropes, especially for people who are trying to edit in good faith, which, based on my own examination of her edits on TV Tropes, she was. I especially hate how unlike Wikipedia, which bends as many efforts to help newbies past their mistakes until they improve or prove unwilling to learn, TV Tropes has a hard limit of three chances, no matter what, which I feel is unrealistic as a limit for how long it takes before an editor learns proper wiki etiquette.

All right, it's an explanation. Fair enough. Considering the ASD-attracting content, though, you really need to add 'So the ban stands' to make it clear, otherwise it sounds like an argument, not laying down the law.

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    I've became a member of Tvtropes since November 2013, so I'm new to the rules. sad

    As for the Needs More Love, why can't we just make a new trope Needs More Episodes?

    And as for the Panty Shots, I didn't post Real Life examples, I posted Anime/Manga examples in the discussion page. Somebody must've hacked into my account and posted Real Life examples.



Since the discussion page in question had this info hosed, I can't tell one way or the other who's telling the truth here, but considering how terrible TV Tropes' password security is, I'd be willing to buy her explanation until proof otherwise presents itself. Also, she admitted she's new to the rules, and I'm a fan of the Wikipedia "Don't Bite The Newbies" guideline, which TV Tropes lacks.


And sure enough, she picked up on the explicit content of the mod's reply, not the implied 'no'. This is the point to say, 'Sorry, but this is not up for discussion. I've explained the ban, and it stands.'

quote:

    Fighteer posted:

    I've talked to the other mods and the consensus is that it's not worth it to deal with your messes. Six months is more than enough time for most people to learn how the site works, so the fact that it's taken you this long to figure it out — after two prior suspensions, no less — is indicative of a problem on your end, not ours. We're not going to go through it a fourth time.

    Sorry, your suspension won't be lifted. You may read the wiki, but may not edit.

    Edit: I erred in the Panty Shot thing. It wasn't Real Life examples; it was examples, period. The article is under an examples lockout, so circumventing that by putting them in the Discussion page is an intentional rules violation.


Given how Fighteer is merely enforcing the censorship forced on TV Tropes by their advertisers, I can't exactly say he's wrong here, but he could've been less of an ass about it.


Okay, well done, Fighteer. That was the right course of action. Now, considering that she's clearly desperate to get her editing privileges back and tends to argue with the reasons while ignoring the 'no', this is the point to stop engaging with her. You've laid down the law, leave it at that.

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    *sigh* Fine... But that also means I'm not going to continue moving some marked tropes to YMMV/Trivia pages. sad *bangs myself on the wall until theirs blood coming out of my head*.

    I didn't know that putting the Panty Shot examples in the Discussion page was an intentional rules violation. You could've at least insert the rules about no inserting examples in the Discussion page in the first place.


To be fair, her reaction is a bit melodramatic, I'll admit that, but she does make a perfectly good point about how discussion pages for problematic pages should probably have notes about this sort of thing.


Oh dear. This is the point where you might start to worry about her, what with the blood and all. Either tell her to get help or stop engaging: prolonging the extinction burst isn't going to help either of you.

quote:

    Fighteer posted:

    This is exactly what we're talking about. Most people, seeing a message on the article reading "No examples, please" would realize that we mean No examples, please. Not you, apparently, which is part of the reason we're here. You aren't the only person who's able to transplant YMMV and Trivia examples, either.


In this, I'm going to again give Fighteer some credit. "No examples, please" is a good warning not to post any, but a better idea would be the post WHY you don't want any examples. Yeah, that might seem a little unnecessary to some, but just a brief message not to post examples does little to explain why you shouldn't. Also, to eliminate ambiguity, a better message would be "Do Not Post Examples For This Trope".



No, no, no. You've made your reasons clear and anybody sensible reading them would understand your point. Repeating them only lets her know that you're going to keep talking as long as she does. Does she really come across as someone who'll let you have the last word? The girl is escalating. For her sake and yours, stop now and give her some space to calm down.

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    Well, since this is the third I've been suspended, I take responsibilities for my actions, and I'd rather be better off moving marked tropes to YMMV/Trivia pages than not realizing that I'm breaking the rules.


On this one, I have to agree with her. She realizes what she needs to avoid and wants to stick to something safe and even recommended to do by the TVT manual of style in return for being able to edit again. Since she's trying to help out in good faith, this is the point where I'd let her edit again and tell to stick to doing that.



This, Fighteer does have the sense to ignore. But then she gets it going again...

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    Ok, after a long hour or two of reading the TVtrope Rules, I'm ready to be un-suspended. I vow myself that I will NOT do anything else other than moving marked tropes to the YMMV/Trivia pages.


At this point, I'd give her another chance. Then again, unlike Fighteer and the goons, I believe in good faith.

LEAVE IT ALONE. LEAVE IT ALONE. This discussion isn't going to go anywhere you want it to, Fighteer. She's telling you loud and clear that she either doesn't accept or doesn't understand that mods can ban people for whatever reason they choose and it's not up to the ban-ee to change that. The more you talk to her, the more you confirm her impression that it's negotiable.


Alright, score one point for the Goons here. TVT mods can ban you for whatever reason and do so quite often, and the logic they present is hard to argue. However, she did not know this.


quote:

    Fighteer posted:

    @Ecclytennysmithylove: Not only are you not persuading me, sending me PMs pointing out issues with the wiki that you "could be fixing" is only going to make me turn off those privileges as well. If you want to retain any ability to access the wiki, you would do well to accept our decision.


Fighteer, yet again you prove all that crap on that page you have on ED is actually true.


Just stop. You are talking to someone who ignores every 'no' and every warning you give her and verbally self-harms at you. You do not have to reply to her PMs. Either ignore her or ban her. Telling her not to do something does not work, it keeps her engaged.


I'm torn at this point. On one hand, this is sound logic. On the other hand, agreeing with the Goons on this topic makes me feel like I'm condoning Fighteer being a jackass.

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    ....then I'm going to regret that I joined TV Tropes.... sad

    UPDATE: Last night, I sent an email to the thestaff@tvtropes.org to appeal my suspension. If the resulting decision doesn't turn out what I expect, then I regret that I became a member of TVTropes.

    I thought you guys weren't suppose to make me feel bad and distance myself from the site. I trusted you. I'm 23 years old single woman who's desperately searching for a husband. I was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome at the age of 10, and I sometimes lose my temper whenever things don't go right, though I'm slowly getting better.


 Okay, bit too much TMI here, but being autistic myself, we find it bit hard to restrain our urge to say this kind of stuff. Not an excuse, we do need to control that better, but I understand her motivations here. From her perspective, she's trying to explain herself emotionally, not realizing it would not have the intended effect of making the other party sympathetic.

Ohhh dear. At this point all becomes clear: she's Aspie and very possibly depressed, or at least miserable, and is not going to let go of any hope of a place she might belong. Continually telling her 'no' isn't going to get through. What it is going to do is make her more upset. She's going to have to go through a grieving process, and you need to let her start on it.

We make fun of people on this site, yes, but this is the moment where a Something Awful mod would do two things: ban her to put everyone out of their misery, and add a note in the banning saying 'You should get some psychological help.' Because that's what she actually needs to be told.


And this is the part where the Goon who wrote this wins the Shithead Awards. First off, as someone with Aspergers myself, I object to their derogatory use of the term "aspie". Yeah, I have laughed at it in other circumstances, won't deny it, and I'm not pissed over being called this myself (I have a fairly thick skin), but in this case, using it as easy reason to dismiss someone as needing psychological help and saying they should be cast out on their ass with a "go away you lunatic" message is just the height of asshattery.

Also, you lying bastards, you're members of the same site that has viciously trolled people to suicide in the name of a few laughs at their expense, don't even pretend to have any moral high ground here.


quote:

    Madrugada posted:

    You thought wrong. Our job isn't to make sure you don't feel bad. Our job is to protect the wiki. And what your life is or isn't is not really anything we can do anything about. The "poor me" card has no value.


Alright, this is somewhat less assholey than Fighteer's responses, and I can't say I disagree with this.


Oooh, oooh, I know this one: she's using the 'poor me' card! It's a trope! Categorise it!

Really, this is just lovely. You don't have to comfort her, but you're supposed to be a hugbox - the least you could do would be to say 'Sorry for your personal problems, but...' And considering that this is a list site that purports to be all nice, you really ought to have a few standard places like autism support groups and the Samaritans' e-mail at the ready for situations like this. It'd save you trouble, and it might help someone.


This is actually a pretty good point, and I must acknowledge the Goons have unassailable logic here.


gently caress the person, save the tropes!

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    Well, you guys are really helping me getting over my problem. smile

    And you're right about the "poor me" card having no value, but it's the truth about me. I've also been a victim of emotional abuse in past (as mentioned in my Doctor Who DMOS post on the episode "Father's Day"). Example: being insulted by someone because of my poor communication.


This kid needs help. You don't have to give it, but at least tell her to get it.


I'd be a less of a dick about this sentiment, but fair enough.

quote:

    Madrugada posted:

    We're not going to lift your wiki-editing ban. The point that matters is that however well-intentioned you are, you're making messes that have to be cleaned up by someone else. That doesn't make the wiki better, it makes it worse and it means someone else has to do extra work just to bring it back to the condition it was in before.


And this is why I laughing my ass off at the fact TV Tropes uses (a heavily customized) PmWiki, which has no easy rollback features or fine grained revision control. Those two features alone would make any messes she makes effortless to clean up on that, so giving her grief over TV Tropes horribly customized software limitations is just a douche thing to say.

Also, it's a wiki. I would just keep advising her what mistakes not to repeat and being patient with her....oh wait, I have done that with her on our wiki and she's turning out to be a great editor.......who knew a little patience and compassion could go a long way?

Madrugada, Fighteer told her that exact same thing already. Did it solve the situation?

quote:

    Ecclytennysmithylove posted:

    What did I just say before? "I vow to myself that I will NOT do anything else other than moving the marked tropes to the YMMV/Trivia pages." That is a promise. I've changed for good.

    And because you turned down my appeal, I'm going drown my sorrow and regret that I became a member of TV Tropes the whole time. My mother was right. I should've NEVER trusted anybody on the internet, especially you guys. SOME HELPFUL MODERATORS YOU ARE! >

    (Unless you've changed your mind.)


Alright, in defense of TV Tropes, this reads like "Flouncing a Website.txt", but in her defense, they weren't all that nice about how they handled things. 



I honestly can't blame her for keeping on arguing by this point, because they've given her every reason to assume they'll keep answering her as long as she keeps posting.


Honestly, I can't disagree with this.

Anywhere on the Net is going to get some ASD-issues people, some of whom will be able to cope and some of whom won't. A site with this much traffic and this much about categorising nerdy stuff ought to have a well-established protocol for dealing with an Aspie meltdown. If they were new to modding you could understand some mistakes, but they've had years of practice. If they were a mock site, they might be excused for not caring at all when someone says they're terribly unhappy, but this is supposed to be a fun happy place. And this is the way they deal with it.


This is actually a great conclusion and a good point. When I founded All The Tropes, I was aware we might get some tropers with autism, especially since I have it myself, and being one myself, TV Tropes really should have a way of dealing with this easier, and as this points out, they've had long enough to figure out how to deal with this.

-------

Thankfully, it does seem that Goons do have enough self awareness to realize when they cross a line, as illustrated by these words from the very next poster, Namtab.

Apple Tree posted:

A site with this much traffic and this much about categorising nerdy stuff ought to have a well-established protocol for dealing with an Aspie meltdown. If they were new to modding you could understand some mistakes, but they've had years of practice.

It'd be nice if they did and all, but they're honestly under no obligation to plus, frankly, people don't properly understand learning disabilities and difficulties.

I can make fun of TVTropes for many many reasons, and I have done for several years, but (and this is me speaking as a nearly qualified Learning Disability Nurse) I can't fault them for not tailoring their moderation to suit people with AS. Your breakdown of her behaviour and reactions is quite good, and you're right that TVTropes is likely to have a higher population ASD population, but expecting moderators anywhere to be trained in handling ASD issues is wishful thinking. This is especially true seeing as it's a free gig that you just do as a fan of the community.


True enough all the above, but it still would not kill the TV Tropes mods to realize us autistic types are drawn to this sort of site like files to honey and when it becomes obvious you are dealing with one, don't be such an ass about it.


Either way let's stop here. Remember rule 5:


quote:

5) Don't try to psychoanalyze tropers.
These posts are boring. No one cares about how you learned what the Dunning-Kruger effect is in Intro to Psych. There is a perfectly good psychology thread is SAL you can post in for that.

when you get to this point

quote:

Ohhh dear. At this point all becomes clear: she's Aspie and very possibly depressed, or at least miserable, and is not going to let go of any hope of a place she might belong. Continually telling her 'no' isn't going to get through. What it is going to do is make her more upset. She's going to have to go through a grieving process, and you need to let her start on it.
you're going too far. You're going beyond the words written down and trying to diagnose, which isn't really a good idea and is frankly quite unprofessional to do online wrt someone you've never interacted with

Hats off to you, Namtab.  Seriously, if all Goons had this level of reflection, maybe I'd think better of Goons as a whole.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

About our recent copyright changes

We recently changed our copyright on All The Tropes to include the option for CC BY SA 4.0 licensing. In fact, here's the relevant excerpt from our Copyrights page:

All The Tropes uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC-BY-SA). All text on the site is licensed under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted; images may or may not be under this license -- you'll have to check each image individually. This is part of our Terms of Service

All CC-BY-SA content is also available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, i.e. the previous revision of the same license. This is a compatibility mode with Wikipedia and Wikia. 

To explain what this means, we have dual licensed our content for redistribution. CC BY SA 3.0 still applies to everything, but now you can license to the newly created CC BY SA 4.0 when redistributing the content as well. All content on our site since the change is now available under both licenses, and for compatibility with sites that don't have CC BY SA 4.0, we have retained 3.0 licensing for places like Wikia and Wikipedia.

This is legal by the following terms from the Creative Commons website:

The Adapter's License You apply must be a Creative Commons license with the same License Elements, this version or later, or a BY-SA Compatible License.

Basically, any derivative of the CC BY SA license is covered, so dual licensing is as legal as the licensing for CC BY SA and the GDFL is on Wikipedia.

However, this applies to redistributed material. Porting 4.0 licensed material to All The Tropes (Orain) is another story.

If you wrote it under 4.0, you will have to redistribute it to us with the understanding it is being relicensed with the CC BY SA 3.0 license as well. If the material is someone else's work under 4.0, they must give consent for this to happen, or we cannot accept the material in question.

We elected to add 4.0 licensing to our material to allow others to take advantage of the newer licensing if they choose, and we are retaining the older 3.0 licensing for compatibility and redistribution to websites that do not have support for or do not wish to use the newer licensing.

Please contact the ATT administration if you have any questions or concerns about this change.

P.S. - Our plan for any future modifications to this change is to follow any changes done by the Wikimedia Foundation to their own, assuming they make any changes to their own licensing regarding the 4.0 CC license.

Also, neither I nor anyone else on the ATT staff are lawyers and we cannot give legal advice on this matter, though we tried to make sure this change is as legal and non infringing to our site and its contributors, and are prepared to retain legal services should any questions or concerns arise in the future concerning this change.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Shitposters piss me off

As the title might inform you, this is going to be an angry post, just trying to give everyone fair warning.

Anyway, I hate shitposting, and by that, I mean in the "what the hell is this nonsense?" kind of shitposting sense, though I can laugh at the types who are really good at this on forums, where it can usually be entertaining in limited doses.

However, I run a wiki, and thus I have zero tolerance for that, and I consider it the most ridiculous idiocy you can ever do on a community project. Shitposting in a wiki sense means posting inane BS that has nothing to do with the wiki subject at hand. In fact, it's very similar to spam, except in the case of spammers (whose graves I consider worthy of pissing on), those assholes are deliberately trying to pimp their worthless sites by Google Bombing their BS wherever they can find a place with an editing function.

Shitposters tend to be less deliberately malicious, and some even do so out of utter ignorance, but the following are the types of shitposting you will find on wikis:

1. Treating the wiki like a scratchpad - This is where they shit out whatever they are thinking about at the moment or trying to fieldtest their ideas somewhere, and this is typically "out of project scope" nonsense the wiki does not care for, and is thus deleted for wasting everyone's time.

Memo to these types of shitposters: MediaWiki is free software you can run with XAMPP off a USB stick. Use your own personal wiki to daydream on instead of posting your mongoloid drivel where it's not appreciated.

2. Trying to pimp their inane ideas - These shitposters are slightly more directed in their goals than the first type. For instance, let's say some idiot has a story idea he hasn't finished but wants to drum up interest in it, but instead of going on a writing forum like a smart person and starting a discussion in the appropriate fora, these dipshits think it's good idea to whore their unfinished work around as if it's legitimately available to the public at large like some sort of half assed PR campaign for a politician who has yet to announce his candidacy.

This can be on topic for a wiki, and TV Tropes (where my wiki forked from) even has a massive landfill for this retarded faggotry called "Unpublished Works" (we tell users to keep this in their userspace, as we thought TVT was stupid to have this idiocy), where every wannabe fanfic writer too lazy or stupid to hew their headcanon into published material craps out a half liquified turd of ideas they'll never finish to grow fetid and rank in the sun.

Wikia even allows these assholes to make entire wikis for shitting out this faggotry, called "fanon wikis", mostly because you can have a wiki for anything that doesn't violate their ToU.

Memo to these asspirates: Follow the instructions I gave to the first group or find a wiki farm that will let you spew your BS without pissing off people who don't care about your retarded dribblings.

....okay, rant over, but in all seriousness, the less shitposters on this planet, the better off the entire human race will be.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

On TV Tropes' PR issues and my feelings on Something Awful

One of the things I realized when I, Brent "Vorticity" Laabs, and Bob Schroeck realized when we were ironing out how ATT would work was that TV Tropes is absolutely TERRIBLE at public relations.

For one, TV Tropes is an insular community. Sure, it has social media outlets, but the moderators of TV Tropes have very little presence on them. Also, outside of the site itself, there are almost no blogs, forums, or discussion of any kind of TV Tropes policies, site goals, or culture with input from any currently active moderation staff.

Me, I think that's counterproductive. If you run a public website, you need to communicate with the public. The Wikimedia Foundation spends a lot of time doing outreach to educators, programmers, sponsors, and the general public because they want to succeed, and they know the best way to do so is by approaching their audience on multiple fronts, and given how they have ballooned over the years, I believe it's more than fair to call them a success story.

Second, TV Tropes is a hugbox, and before I get accused of being derogatory, this is the same website that enforces, by fiat no less: HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY.

Also, they do nothing productive about their external critics. Wikipedia has a notable critic in the forum called the "Wikipedia Review", and while they may not do as much as the Review would like to address their criticism, they at least allow them a page (as it does fit their own notability criteria, they would have to by default) and don't try to pretend like they and their criticisms don't exist.

TV Tropes, on the other hand, refuses to acknowledge their critics as much as possible. Mentioning All The Tropes, Project AFTER, Beyond The Lampshade, fucknotvtropes, and ESPECIALLY Something Awful is forbidden and will be removed. The last does have a page, but only because it does produce other media that also have pages or references that are referenced in other mediums, but the current page is a massively pruned stub of its former self, locked in perpetuity because Fast Eddie cannot stand them (by his own admission), and anything critical they've ever had to say about TV Tropes is removed with prejudice.

On this, I confess some bias: I have contempt for Something Awful myself, but only because while they make some great points about why TV Tropes sucks, they refuse to acknowledge their own biases and flaws at the same time, and from where I'm sitting, calling another website a hive of evil while refusing to acknowledge the depravities spawned from your own reeks of moral hypocrisy, and SA is notorious for this, claiming they are "the smartest forums on the internet".

In fact, just to elaborate, this is the same forum where several murderers got their notoriety (and which spawned the Slenderman meme that led to children attempting to murder another child because they bought into it as real). It's the same forum that had a no kidding convicted child molester on their staff for almost five years when a simple Google search would have turned up his criminal record. This is the same forum that has trolled at least one person to commit suicide, has an entire subforum called 'The Crackhead Clubhouse" for people to talk about how to do all sorts of illegal drugs, and this is the same forum that got visited by the Secret Service after some posters discussed assassinating the US President.

......I could go on, but given the above, I think you can see why I find their proclamations of being holier than thou in comparison to TV Tropes sound more than a little hypocritical.

Regardless, Something Awful deserves to have a page not censored by someone with a bias, and on any site I administer, I would be willing to put my own biases on park to not only let it have a page (and subpages) people can edit, I'm also not going to lock it and prevent discussion of anything negative they might have to say about my own website because it hurts my feelings.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

I would like to issue a retraction

In this blog post, I remarked on how JesuOtaku (a goon) apparently raised a personal army to troll TV Tropes in locking any pages on her out of butthurt and I found that pathetic.

In light of having discovered she was harassed and stalked, I would like to apologize for my ignorance and issue a retraction of that statement.

I deplore stalking and harassment of anyone, and while I'm not a fan of Something Awful at all, no one deserves to be harassed and stalked, and I would like to offer my support to JesuOtaku on the matter, and personally pledge any content about her work on my site will not allow such action to take place.

In response to some Tumblr criticism

I recently submitted a post to the fucknoTVTropes Tumblr about my stance on being criticized and I got a nice reception to it, and I plan to take into account anything they might have to say about how I can avoid the fail of TV Tropes.

That said, I got my first criticism, namely that the 'Breast Expansion" article is one  of our most popular articles, and that that's kinda creepy.

Let me be clear: I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment, but I must correct an error in the assumption we endorsed it in the first place.

I had the DynamicPageList extension installed and added a section to our main page that showed popular articles (by page click views), but due to the Cloudfront caching that Orain uses, it was effectively frozen in time and kept showing the same articles as being highly popular. I know this was the case because tests on my localhost test wiki showed different results after visiting several different random pages.

I have since removed that segment of our front page not only because it's inaccurate data, but because the impression we endorse content like that is not our intention.

I have no plans to remove the Breast Expansion page, as it's as valid a trope as "Genre Savvy" or "Naughty Tentacles", but to reiterate, the administration of ATT is effectively neutral on what is considered popular at our wiki, and I hope by disabling the improperly functioning DPL extension will dispel this impression.

While I have to confess the idea I purposely support anything considered "creepy" does bother me, it did highlight a technical issue I needed to fix, and anything suggestions for what I can do to make ATT come off as less depraved as TV Tropes I will definitely take under advisement.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Why criticism does not offend me

Criticism gets a bad name on TV Tropes, and one of the reasons for that is due to the fact Fast Eddie himself cannot tolerate it.

And that's not an exaggeration: This is a site that has as an actual rule "Happiness Is Mandatory".

Personally, I think trying to enforce that is madness. No one, especially me, is perfect, and even though I'm the chief admin of All The Tropes (and its sister site on Wikia), I'm not a god. In fact, one of the things I insisted on when All The Tropes was founded was that I be answerable to someone so I didn't get to the point I acted like an egomaniacal ass and thought I was above criticism, which is why I try to take criticism very seriously, especially if it points out legitimate flaws in my conduct as a site administrator.

To that end, respectful dissent will never be banned on any site I administer, because if I screw up, I should be held accountable for my errors. Fast Eddie may think enforcing Happiness Is Mandatory is preventing drama, but all he's really doing is silencing dissent on pain on banning and is incredibly hostile to polite dissent, and thus when when he has to deal with impolite dissent (especially by such entities as Something Awful, Beyond the Lampshade, or any other entities with an axe to grind against them), he flips out and gets epically butthurt over it.

Well, considering that this is the same man who (in response to my letting him know our wiki fork was legal thanks to Creative Commons licensing) called me a thief and told me get off his site for not being ashamed of something that was within my legal rights to do, I find that sad.

Seriously, the Internet is a harsh place. I've been called a faggot before, I've gotten called a pedo enabler (all because I don't believe in censorship beyond what is legally necessary), and host of other things that would make 4chan blush, but it's just retarded insults, and life is too short to let that get to you.

As for legit complaints, I'm the tech guy at ATT, and I get to field most of the tech complaints there, and while I get a lot of frustrated people complaining about site issues, I chose to be responsible for that, so I have no right to moan about people giving me a hard time over legit problems. Fast Eddie is the administrator of a site that has hosted some questionable content and has had a ton of coding fail (seriously, having used PmWiki, I think the man is insane from a wiki designer perspective trying to run a successful site with that POS as a wiki engine), but his response to these criticisms, no matter how legitimate, has been to get incredibly upset at anyone who would speak out against him, most of the time banning them as Goons or trolls.

Just to be fair, I'm not a fan of being shit talked, and Something Awful, while having many legitimate things to say, they have also engaged in some blatant trolling of TV Tropes (the pages on JesuOtaku have been repeatedly vandalized on TV Tropes thanks to butthurt Goons, Jesu especially, which I find rather pathetic) and having checked out the site Something Sensitive (a forum dedicated to exposing the perversion and fail of SA)  it appears Something Awful has just as much creepy content and depraved perverts as they accuse TV Tropes of, and while I'm sure they would probably hate the air I breathe because I'm an admitted aspie (yes, I have autism) and a troper, I applaud them for exposing the failure of the SA site and administration regardless of their opinions of tropers, and I think they are doing a service by acting as a watchdog on SA's seedy side.

And, speaking of websites that expose the seedy side of other sites, I also follow Project AFTER's TV Tropes thread (I'm even a member there, and I have engaged in some very constructive discussion regarding troping and other topics with the incredibly wonderful community there) and I've also been recently been made aware of the Tumblr fucknotvtropes. Both places have made some very strong criticism of both TV Tropes and All The Tropes, and while Fast Eddie may not agree, I believe it's healthy to have someone from the outside looking in at a community from time to time, and given how TV Tropes has had some seedy content and bad practices that were in dire need of muckraking (and still do), I believe that if either site were to do the same to us, it would be a net positive for all concerned in the long run, and if either community had legit criticism of ATT (and Project AFTER has solicited some with me, which I am grateful for), I would be willing to hear it out and make changes if need be, because I don't want to make the same mistake of rejecting my detractors out of hand like Fast Eddie (part of the reason he seems to be so hated is because he is so hostile to his critics, as far as I can tell).

Anyway, before this post becomes a massive tl;dr, I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not perfect, and if I have something I need to improve on, I will never reject criticism of my actions if said criticism is warranted, and I will try to be as civil and openminded as I can if my critics are willing to do the same.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

My Little Pony....why did bronies have to make it so creepy?

I'm not one of those people who think My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic is a bad show. I've watched it with my nieces and it seems harmless enough, though I just don't get the appeal of the show enough to stick around to watch it on a regular basis.

However, some of it's fans creep me out.

Go on any random image board or 'booru site, and you will find some of the most jacked up MLP Rule 34 in existence. There is a fanfiction saga (in bound book format no less) called "Fallout:Equestria" that crosses over MLP with the post apocalyptic Fallout series, which makes me (as a casual Fallout fan) have a WTF look on my face every time I think about it. There are literal sex toys designed after the characters (excuse me while I bow my head over a toilet on that note) and there are some creepy, creepy people who claim to be married to the characters (who are FICTIONAL TECHNICOLOR PONIES I MIGHT ADD).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive. I know that everything can be someone's fetish. I've been to the "asshole of the internet" known as 4chan. I have read Encyclopedia Dramatica, and I have seen my share of shock images, so I'm not a n00b to the internet, but I still can't look at some of the creepier segments of the MLP fandom and not wonder what drugs you have to smoke to get off to colorful cartoon ponies.

Honestly, this doesn't bother me personally for the most part, but I can't help but cringe every time I stumble across one of this program's more creepy fans or their work across the internet and wonder why such an innocent enough cartoon has inspired so much weirdness and depravity.

Seriously, it really disturbs me sometimes.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Just a little something I wanted to say

Hello, I'm GethN7, administrator of the All The Tropes wiki, and I decided to start this blog because I really miss having a blogging feature on our wiki (which died due to technical issues) and I wanted to vent my spleen.

Today, in-between upgrades to the Orain wiki farm service a troper named Supergod from TV Tropes showed up, made an account, stuck around for ten minutes, made an edit or two, then decided to leave, putting the following message on his user page before departing:

Forget it. This place was a waste of 10 minutes. Found out that one of the main reasons for this site's existence is the fact that some people couldn't bear to not have pages about animated kiddie porn, and I don't want to be involved. It's pretty dead for a wiki that's been around for so long as well.

While I don't begrudge him his opinion and he's welcome back anytime he wants to return, I'd just like to address this message and clear up any misconceptions about our site:

1. Forget it. This place was a waste of 10 minutes. -  Okay, fair enough.

2. Found out that one of the main reasons for this site's existence is the fact that some people couldn't bear to not have pages about animated kiddie porn, and I don't want to be involved. - Either this guy read ED or Something Awful to get his info on us, or he misunderstands why we would have a page on something like "Kodomo No Jikan" (the series those cowards at Something Awful call "The Anime That Must Not Be Named").

Either way, the reason why we aren't censored like TV Tropes is because TV Tropes censored itself to please their advertisers, and we believe (much like Wikipedia) that if we are going to cover all media and the tropes they use, we should not censor ourselves beyond what is legally necessary. We want to entertain and inform, and we feel TV Tropes has diminished it's ability to examine media from a troping perspective by bending over and taking whatever restrictions a third party (advertisers) has enforced on them, hence why we have no ads and we don't remove pages on things like hentai anime just because someone finds that gross.

If it tells a story and its legal to discuss, we see no reason why its merits from a literary perspective cannot and should not be examined.

To be fair, I did check out a lot of what TV Tropes censored, and some of it was quite disturbing and offensive on moral grounds, but none of it is illegal to discuss, hence why we retain the pages for it.

Regardless, if he doesn't want to be involved with a site that allows discussion of that sort of thing, I completely understand and wish him well with whatever he is more comfortable with.

3. It's pretty dead for a wiki that's been around for so long as well.- We started around August 2013, and we don't have nearly as much e-cred as many more well known websites, so yeah, we aren't going to have as much activity. The more users we have = more activity.

Anyway, just thought I'd get that off my chest.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...