All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXXI

[Bob Schroeck]

One of the problems here is that, intentional or not, your more extreme edits give every impression that you are pushing a political agenda, and more than that, you are comfortable expressing a homicidal rage at the very existence of people who don't share your opinion. Your review of the Barbie movie in particular was so vitriolic that it resulted in a new rule for the wiki, one of the very few explicitly defined-and-written-down rules we have. You were banned not by a single administrator's whim, but after discussion and debate among the entire wiki staff because we felt that outside of simple mechanical edits, we could not trust you edit without the explicit intent to subvert the wiki's established neutrality in favor of a viewpoint where if white males don't get the best of everything 100% of the time as god intended, they are victims of eeeeeeevul librul oppression.

You need to realize that you don't need to convince the rest of us to overrule Robkelk's ban, you need to convince all of us that our collective opinion of you is wrong and you won't start ranting the next time you come across a work that doesn't fall at the feet of the idol of the White American Male and worship it slavishly.

[MorningDaylight]

Well, I no longer write reviews on the ATT site either. And I wrote a very aggressive review of Deadpool 2 where I called Ryan Reynolds an annoying clown. I do not worship any concept of "white male".

To be honest, this post comes to as a shock to me because most of the time I'm writing about japanese videogames, manga, television or VNs which definitely don't star white males.

I admit I get very annoyed if I perceive some work as racist or sexist, or just plain dumb. I guess if it's for the best for me to not write about things that bother me. I was banned temporarily before for using very aggressive language about ships on Naruto ten years ago on another forum. I stopped entirely talking about ships since and I look back on all that discussion as something pretty stupid I engaged. I think this is gonna be the first time I wrote "Narusaku" on the Internet in ten years, and it feels somewhat painful to mention I used to be one of them, like some embarassing political extremist movement I took part.

So all I can promise is also to not make edits about works that I dislike so I do not engage on unfair biases that go against the principles of neutrality.

[GethN7]

Well, I will try to write something that will not waste much of anyone's time;

I am human, I'm prone to error. Errors happen. I admit I'm often anxious and write things before thinking about what exactly they mean.

About the "Human Resources" edit, I didn't intend to create legal problems for the wiki. I thought the information was factual, it was not factual. I don't read a lot of gossip news, and I thought by the point where articles on "The Guardian" were quoting it, I thought it was real. I did not intend to create legal problems for the wiki.

I promise I will abstain from troping on real things to avoid future errors.

About the "Oppressed States of America" edit, I admit, I didn't watch the credits of the movie. I don't read movie credits. Ever. Apparently, "CSA: The Confederate States of America" is not a parody of anything, despite being a mockumentary.

About the CSA example, I do not know what to say except "I had incomplete information". Honestly, I found the movie so poorly made and so absurd in its premise( I do not think any country in the proximity of Britain's sphere of influence would hold on to slavery more than my country Brazil did, that was 1888) that I thought it was a comedy; some bad movies like "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau also made me think they were intended to be comedies, but they were not. I promise I will refrain from saying a work fits a genre or not unless I have a source that is not myself.

 I do not think this last error was so big, but I suppose with all the errors I committed all those years this was the last straw to most of you.

And that is all I could write in my defence.

I am going to be against reinstating for some time, a bare minimum of six months to a year would suffice before I would reconsider, and I'll explain why.

First off, I hate having to throw anyone out who wants to edit in good faith. I helped found ATT in part because of all the hoops TV Tropes made (and still makes) people go through to bow and scrape for the mercurial whims of people who frankly, by my standards, come off heavy-handed at the most charitable.

At the same time, let me be clear: I have to hold you to the same standards I hold myself or anyone else, and frankly, you have stirred the pot numerous times. There are many persons, works, and ideas I find utterly abhorrent, and their being flung off a cliff to their doom would not displease me in the slightest. At the same time, I help run a wiki where we have to be mostly objective, and even where opinion is allowed, it has to be civilly expressed and based on a firm ground of fact with as little insult, invective, or name-calling as possible.

And that is why I find it hard to just welcome you back with open arms. No offense, you cannot restrain your passions. You have found it very hard to stay civil. You have repeatedly let political and social venom leak out far beyond levels our rules find acceptable. If you can stay away a bare minimum of six months, with no further attempt to sneak back under the radar, and then politely make your case for reinstatement, I will be more than willing to give you a fair hearing. Until then, I remain firmly convinced, for both our sakes, we need time to pass on both sides for good faith to be established, and for passions to cool, before the question can be considered.

[MorningDaylight]

Well, to be honest, I was trying to be reinstated because I already did my efforts to calm myself down and they are working. I no longer go to a certain social media website, and I no longer do a certain thing with my body because it was making me frustrated, not relaxed.

But I guess like an alcoholic that didn't consume alcohol for one month I'm still considered on the constant danger of relapse. I'm logging out of this forum and not logging in back until All Saints Day.
If nothing horrible happens to me until there I will be asking for my reinstatement again in November. Have a good day, good evening, and good night.

[MilkmanConspiracy]

Writing this is difficult. I’ll start by saying that I genuinely value your non-problematic edits. You did good work updating and improving aspects of the wiki that had been left untouched or underdeveloped since the fork. I’ll also acknowledge that you chose to approach us to discuss this, rather than attempting to make another alternate account. I often enjoyed reading your edits, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed your alt was using your writing style if I didn’t.

There is no problem with editing pages for works you don’t like. I do it frequently, and I even write pages for works I find distasteful or somewhat disturbing (I may as well get something out of the consumption). Keeping your personal opinions close to your chest is where potential problems arise. My primary concern with letting you back on the wiki is the potential for libel. If you are allowed back on after having a known history of making edits that walk the line, I worry how a court would see the action of letting you edit once again should it come to that. Since this has been an issue in the past, and because you have ignored directives by wiki administrators before, I have a hard time seeing any future where you could be let back on the wiki directly, especially with automoderation, and not risk culpability with letting you back on as a result. Understand that this probably protects you too. I don’t know what it’s like in Brazil, but many countries have punishments for libel if someone pursues the issue and prevails in court. I’m not strictly opposed to your return, but the issues would need to be addressed, and I’m not sure how they could possibly be in a matter that is satisfactory to all parties, including potential litigants. That said, I’m not a lawyer, nor capable of providing legal advice or proper legal analysis, so I would defer to more experienced voices on this.

People do change, and I believe you are being genuine with us. However it hardly any time has passed since your ban. Do you truly want to re-enter troping at this wiki again? There are other trope wikis, and even other non-wiki troping projects online such as /r/topcharactertropes on Reddit. Outside of troping, your skills and experience could make a lot of difference and provide opportunities for personal growth. If I may make a suggestion, have you heard of the academic journal ROMCHIP? They are dedicated to preserving game history in an academic publication, but you yourself don’t need to be an academic to contribute. In fact, as a Brazilian gamer, your perspective and knowledge as a gamer capable of cultural critique is especially valued. If you know a language other than English such as Portuguese or an indigenous language, they also look for translators to help spread gaming knowledge. Your submissions would be subject to review of course, but as a journal, that applies to everyone. Give it some thought and consideration.