QAnon comes to visit

[Labster]

All The Tropes thread XVII

Not sure how much people here know about QAnon, but it's basically a domestic terrorist organization here in the United States, centered on various conspiracy theories.  We've only mentioned it a couple times before, but these are the people behind Pizzagate, where someone killed people in a Washington DC pizza shop because of the nonexistent child sex ring ostensibly run out of the kitchens.

Much of their theories revolve around child sex and pornography happening at the highest levels of government and entertainment -- and that there's a vast conspiracy covering everyone's backs over all the sodomy going on.  And, surprisingly, that Trump is the one trying to fight it, but for some reason he can't expose everyone yet, because he's the mastermind trying to take the perverts down.

The latest theory being pushed by QAnon is that Netflix is airing a child sex film called Cuties.  This film aired in French cinemas, picked up a Best Director award at Sundance, and is showing on Netflix.  It is a problematic movie -- it's supposed to be problematic, like Lolita.  Children imitate adults, in the form of dance routines in this case -- at what point does that cross the line? An article discussing the movie says how the movie plays with tropes in intentionally problematic ways.

So now, we have a bureaucrat on All The Tropes pushing the theory that this is child porn and totally illegal, and is unwilling to even consider why we could possibly want to apply literary criticism to it.  He's been radicalized by the domestic terrorist group, QAnon.  Radicalized to the point that morals aren't worth discussing, that it's his way or the highway.

[GethN7]

All The Tropes thread XVII

Not sure how much people here know about QAnon, but it's basically a domestic terrorist organization here in the United States, centered on various conspiracy theories.  We've only mentioned it a couple times before, but these are the people behind Pizzagate, where someone killed people in a Washington DC pizza shop because of the nonexistent child sex ring ostensibly run out of the kitchens.

Much of their theories revolve around child sex and pornography happening at the highest levels of government and entertainment -- and that there's a vast conspiracy covering everyone's backs over all the sodomy going on.  And, surprisingly, that Trump is the one trying to fight it, but for some reason he can't expose everyone yet, because he's the mastermind trying to take the perverts down.

The latest theory being pushed by QAnon is that Netflix is airing a child sex film called Cuties.  This film aired in French cinemas, picked up a Best Director award at Sundance, and is showing on Netflix.  It is a problematic movie -- it's supposed to be problematic, like Lolita.  Children imitate adults, in the form of dance routines in this case -- at what point does that cross the line?

So now, we have a bureaucrat on All The Tropes pushing the theory that this is child porn and totally illegal, and is unwilling to even consider why we could possibly want to apply literary criticism to it.  He's been radicalized by the domestic terrorist group, QAnon.  Radicalized to the point that morals aren't worth discussing, that it's his way or the highway.

I do not follow QAnon, I am somewhat dubious of their claims at best, and to post this is not only a vile attack on my character and integrity, but you have also just put a dagger in my back and twisted it.

Thanks for hammering the nails in the coffin of what I thought was our friendship.

[Labster]

Friends are willing to hear each other out. By the time my work day ended, you already decided you wanted to leave. Never gave me a chance to share my opinion, you just laid out an ultimatum. So don’t you dare act like you were being a friend in all this.

So you have to realize, that I had to deal with threats against my family because I knew Geth. People posted vicious attacks about myself and other members of my family because I chose to keep his secrets. Because he associated with the wrong people online. And I still kept the secrets. But now he won't even give me the time of day.

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh for god's sake, this is all QAnon drivel? Geth, I thought you were smarter than that.

[GethN7]

Oh for god's sake, this is all QAnon drivel?  Geth, I thought you were smarter than that.

I have no affiliation with them. AT ALL. I came to my own decisions of my own will based on my own ability to think and reason. Any insinuation I was radicalized by the QAnon crowd without proof of my association of them is absolutely groundless.

Where this belief I got swept up in a conspiracy theory to come to a personal moral decision astounds me because it's insulting. This is a claim I basically can't come to a personal moral decision about something without some other party leading me around by the nose, and it stands without proof.

If I'm dead wrong, I will choke down the world's supply of crow for my folly, but I want it on record I find it beyond vile to smear me as part of a group I deny association with as a lazy explanation for a belief I have others disagree with. I came to my conclusions independently and am disgusted to be regarded as a mindless sheep.

Edit: This is why I decided to surrender my mod powers on ATT Miraheze. If I'm supposedly the crazy one here who is convinced his crusade is so just he can do no wrong, why am I conceding the field to avoid conflict? Nuts who aren't rational aren't willing to do that. From now on, I have no power there at my own request so I can't be accused of being power mad and any decision I made prior I now have no ability to change there.

I retired the field and I'm still getting my retreating body bayoneted here.

[Labster]

No one is saying you're affiliated with QAnon.  It's just that you've been taken in by some of their theories.

I've had this talk with you before, about Kiwi Farms.  So the thing about them is that they're not good people.  They spend their time in judgement of other people -- and whether that's about lolcows or righteous crusades, you just end up with people who build themselves up by tearing other people down.  I think you eventually learned that, but I knew it all along.  But you can't judge a person by who they associate with.  I have my own shames, which is why it was so easy to recognize this to me.

Except, well, you've had a very extreme reaction on this one issue, and you've found a lot of far-right sources to back you up.  Who are your friends now?  Who are you listening to?  You're not associated with QAnon, but it sure seems like you're spending time around people who do, at least online.

I had a friend I met at community college.  Really bright guy.  When I knew him, he always used to talk about how stupid conservatives were, and he had pretty deep liberal values.  It actually got him into trouble when he tried to say something anti-military, which didn't go over so well in my family.  Well, he graduated from university with a geology degree, went up to Alaska for a while to work in a gold mine, and I got to meet up with him six months later.  Turned out he was arguing the exact same way, but from the conservative side.  Talked about how dumb liberals were on some issues, even reversed himself on things that seemed really deeply held.  It turned out that his principles were in fact all shallowly held, and were easily replaced when he joined a new social group.  The only constant was thinking himself on the smart, right side.

The point of that story is that it makes me doubt my own moral and political judgement.  A lot.  And in this case I saw something of the same in you -- you say that Lolita should clearly be permitted, but this movie clearly should be prohibited -- both for moral reasons.  And it feel like one comes from the "no censorship" moral framework, and the other one comes from the "no perversion" moral framework.  Why do these views seem so deeply held but incongruous?  My best guess is that one or both views is held socially, rather than from some underlying moral framework.  That you've let yourself be influenced by them -- and/or by us.

And while I was still trying to work through the moral conflict, you basically threw up your hands and left.  Moral clarity isn't easy, and sometimes it's simply impossible to follow all of our morals.  It's why we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves.

[Dartz]

The problem with Qanon is it's possible to come across it's shit without coming across Qanon. The controversy over the film was aired on the radio here on RTE1 - because there were questions over Netflixes poster for the thing. From there, Googling with the right keywords leads down the rabbit hole. Your opinion isn't your own, it's really googles - and google's showing you what it thinks you want to see to confirm your biasses.

Anyway

I can only offer a relevant Irish meme.

[GethN7]

No one is saying you're affiliated with QAnon.  It's just that you've been taken in by some of their theories.

I've had this talk with you before, about Kiwi Farms.  So the thing about them is that they're not good people.  They spend their time in judgement of other people -- and whether that's about lolcows or righteous crusades, you just end up with people who build themselves up by tearing other people down.  I think you eventually learned that, but I knew it all along.  But you can't judge a person by who they associate with.  I have my own shames, which is why it was so easy to recognize this to me.

Except, well, you've had a very extreme reaction on this one issue, and you've found a lot of far-right sources to back you up.  Who are your friends now?  Who are you listening to?  You're not associated with QAnon, but it sure seems like you're spending time around people who do, at least online.

I had a friend I met at community college.  Really bright guy.  When I knew him, he always used to talk about how stupid conservatives were, and he had pretty deep liberal values.  It actually got him into trouble when he tried to say something anti-military, which didn't go over so well in my family.  Well, he graduated from university with a geology degree, went up to Alaska for a while to work in a gold mine, and I got to meet up with him six months later.  Turned out he was arguing the exact same way, but from the conservative side.  Talked about how dumb liberals were on some issues, even reversed himself on things that seemed really deeply held.  It turned out that his principles were in fact all shallowly held, and were easily replaced when he joined a new social group.  The only constant was thinking himself on the smart, right side.

The point of that story is that it makes me doubt my own moral and political judgement.  A lot.  And in this case I saw something of the same in you -- you say that Lolita should clearly be permitted, but this movie clearly should be prohibited -- both for moral reasons.  And it feel like one comes from the "no censorship" moral framework, and the other one comes from the "no perversion" moral framework.  Why do these views seem so deeply held but incongruous?  My best guess is that one or both views is held socially, rather than from some underlying moral framework.  That you've let yourself be influenced by them -- and/or by us.

And while I was still trying to work through the moral conflict, you basically threw up your hands and left.  Moral clarity isn't easy, and sometimes it's simply impossible to follow all of our morals.  It's why we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves.

First off, politics has nothing to do with this. I am morally opposed to live-action child porn, and that "Cuties" movie is a road to Hell paved with terrible intentions in that regard.

I'm a social conservative, but otherwise classically liberal, but that's beside the point. If that "Cuties" crap was animated or otherwise not depicting incredibly sexualized real kids, we wouldn't be here and I'd be defending it's right to exist despite my moral reservations because no real-world kids are being harmed. If I have any legal or moral dog in any fight, it's drawing a hard line on not crossing the threshold into accepting live-action child pornography, and that movie may not wholly be devoted to it in it's whole, but there is enough sexualization of REAL children I don't want to condone giving it the time of day.

I was under the mistaken impression not wanting to open that particular Pandora's Box was a politically agnostic position, and if it isn't, then if the right-wing is the only side that has a problem with it, then while I don't identify with all their positions, on that yes, we do agree.

That is not a new position for me. Even back in my younger days when I didn't care about politics half as much (and these days I usually still don't get invested in them too much), I've always opposed censorship except where we cross the line into turning real-world children into sex objects. When something crosses that sort of bright red line, politics goes out the window and basic intrinsic morality comes to the fore, meaning I can't condone giving it a voice beyond saying "it exists", and even when doing that, I don't want to give even passive acceptance of condoning it beyond that, but this situation put me in a position where that was at odds with my own principle of not forcing my personal morals on others through a potential abuse of power.

I quickly began to realize I was the only one who felt this way and decided to surrender in advance, losing on my own terms, rather than losing by fiat. It was meant so I could remove myself from any position of conflict, let those who dissented make decisions without my influence and input (and overturn my decisions without my dissent), and let me have the ability to sleep at night taking a moral stand while defusing conflict before it went nuclear. I've sacrificed power before to preserve peace, and that's what I did here.

That said, ATT Miraheze is now free of my influence for the indefinite future. There is no need to worry I'll go Fast Eddie because I admit I did pull rank and made a unilateral decision that smacked of one of his. Done with the best of legal and moral intentions, but I won't deny what it looked like, and I realized if I'm going to feel that strong morally while still not being a hypocrite, giving up that power while remaining true to my own deeply held principles was the only way to square the circle, walk away before causing more drama and being able to work through the turmoil without causing grief for anyone else in the process.

That said, I'll stick to ATT Wikia. I'm the sole admin running that side of things, and I'll mind that side of the fence while removing myself from the side where I cannot have any say without running into conflicts where I might be tempted or accused of ruling by fiat despite our agreement to run by consensus.

I get to sleep at night, everyone else is free of drama. Win-win if you ask me.


P.S. - If we are going to drag politics into this anyway, I'm glad to see I was right about the revulsion I feel being bipartisan:

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/...3584226305

[classicdrogn]

I think I'm going to have to side with Geth on this one. There is no context in which the sexualization of minors (as in actual children made up and dressed and dancing around in intentionally provocative ways) is okay. No, not even to protest and raise awareness of similar actual events, if you're still filming children in a sexualized manner to do it. I am glad that the level of heat in the argument was able to be damped down so quickly, though.

[LynnInDenver]

I can also understand Geth's reaction to the whole thing. The whole thing slides a little too close to material that may render any artistic merit null and void, even if it contains a proper "this is wrong" commentary on the youth pageantry culture. And a Tropes wiki is likely the wrong place to have any sort of academic discussion of it.

And remember that the children involved in the making of this don't have sufficient agency; there's enough former child actors with tales of being manipulated and abused by their parents in the process of exploiting their labor that I have some issues with their use in the project anyway.

Has Geth overreacted by resigning from Miraheze? Possibly. But there is a possibility that the courts may look at the movie and determine that it crosses a line that shouldn't have been crossed. The subject matter is by definition problematic in our country. Artists are definitely capable of doing things without considering whether or not they should have been done. And if it skirted too close to the line, it could always spur a "guilty by association" reaction to academic discussions (including potential legal liability of promoting problematic material) from a lot of people that Geth wanted to avoid staining Miraheze and resigned so that overriding his decision to not allow the movie to be talked about wouldn't result in him being put in an untenable legal position.

[hazard]

If the behaviours in the movie are no worse than the behaviours of contestants in child pageants I see no issue with the movie depicting them. I see issues with the behaviours, but addressing them requires more than banning a single movie, and the movie would be helpful in showing why those behaviours are problematic.

[robkelk]

The community reviews on IMDb are indicating that there's an issue with the cinematography - if the reviews are correct (I haven't seen the movie), some of the actresses' actions were filmed in a way that hypersexualizes those actions. It isn't the behaviour that's causing the hubbub, it's the way they were filmed.

[Rajvik]

i actually ran across this story on Town Hall yesterday,
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoco...e-n2576034

now, i'm not, (surprise) going to side with the author on blaming the Obama's for making money on Netflix and thus in the authors words, legitimizing this, however, from what has been described, (and as the story's author calls it) this movie is soft-core kiddy porn. I don't care what awards it wins overseas, by US law, what it is recorded as showing classifies it as child porn. Period, end of story

[Labster]

...

... Sundance is in Utah, Rajvik. Deseret is not a thing. At least not now, but let's talk again in six months.

[Rajvik]

thought the article also mentioned Caen, but i can accept i made a brainfart

[LulzKiller]

Sorry for being late to this whole situation, but per the film, did any of us just contact Miraheze Legal just to find out their take on this?

Why make legal assumptions when we can find out exactly what we can or can not do per the inclusion of such a film?

[Labster]

No, we don't have to contact their legal department, or lack thereof, because we already know that academic discussion of any work of fiction is legal in every first world country.

As the person who wrote the Content Policy for Miraheze, I think I'm qualified to interpret it. "A wiki must not create problems which make it difficult for other wikis." - everything under it is based on the predicate that the content creates problems for the wiki farm as a whole - legal, resource usage, DoS, etc. "Discussion of illegal activity" is honestly intended to cover piracy sites, communities for prostitution, link farms for CP sites, and DRM bypasses. The scope was never intended to cover all discussion of illegal activity -- police using the wiki to share crime statistics is totally fine, of course.

The server country is OVH, based in France, which already saw cinemas release the movie. So it would be extremely unlikely to cause any problems there. It may become illegal here in the U.S. after Trump is re-elected, but that's a whole other can of worms that doesn't belong in this thread.

[Labster]

I finally feel like I've thought about the issue enough to respond.

I didn't even notice that it was the politics thread, so I'll explain my last comment.  If Trump wins re-election, or barely loses re-election, I expect Trump's next presidency to start a crackdown of these sorts of things.  He's already done things like demand journalists be fired, and his attorneys have threatened to revoke the licenses of those who air information critical of the President.  Once he loses the restraints of running for election, and surrounding himself with sychophants like Bob Barr, things are going to get really bad really fast.

How likely is this?  Well, Nate Silver predicts a Trump victory in roughly 25% of the models.  This is not lopsided like a 75-25 election, this means that in one quarter of universes, Trump wins.  It's like rolling a d20, except that 1-5 all count as a critical failure.  And, since he's been spreading rumours that the election is rigged, 6-8 count as an ordinary failure, and give Trump a path to keep the White House.  And if I can extend the analogy using the Alternity RPG system, 9-13 count as a marginal success for Biden, that still leaves the country deeply divided.  Only on 14 and up does the outcome look good for America.  I don't want to roll that die.  It's freaking scary.

If you are at all left-leaning, you should make sure you have a current passport before the election.  You do not want to wait until they start implementing exit visas.

Outside of the political background for this discussion, things look a little worse.  So from my perspective, GethN7 comes in talking about some obscure French arthouse movie, demands that we all agree to ban it, and when we don't agree immediately, cites his morals as a way to get out of it.  Seriously, morals?  Is he just looking for an excuse to quit?  I get that he has a conservative mind, and the disgust part of his brain activated, and maybe he doesn't understand why it didn't immediately activate in our brains too.  But I had never heard of this film before, and didn't even have much time to consider what to do before he up and left.

This is what I like to call borrowing trouble.  Nobody made a page, nobody even talked about making a page, and he banned it and demanded immediate action from the rest of us, as if it was some kind of crisis?  Why?  I have no idea.  I know that there are people passing it off as a crisis now, and they're in QAnon, a group so lost in postmodernist conspiracy theory that everything is true.  And apparently QAnon has never heard of the fucking Streisand effect -- now millions of people who have never heard of the film might consider watching it.  Including the kinds of pedoes who shouldn't see it. Thanks a lot, assholes.

And all of this is happening when there's real goddamn crises happening right now?  I go outside, and the Sun looks to be about the same color and brightness as an orange Union 76 ball in the sky.  The fires are far away, but I haven't seen a clear sky in weeks, and the last time I did it was 120° around here.  Because everything is on fucking fire right now.  And as bad as it is, the motherfucking fire season is just beginning, right?  We're not even to the peak of the season yet, and there are millions and millions of acres burned.  And my President, damn his soul, is telling us to rake our fucking forests.  We are children of a dying planet, and we need to rake our forests?  Fucking seriously?

I need to go for a walk and calm down.  But hey, guess what?  Can't do it.  Air pollution is five times normal, I'll just get sick.  Just walk indoors somewhere?  Fucking wrong!  Because there's a pandemic going on, and two hundred thousand of my countrymen have died.  Just going to a mall is as risky as going to a war zone.  Gryphon's hometown, Millinocket, Maine, is a goddamn disease outbreak center, like that makes any goddamn sense.  So I can't go anywhere without risking my life, making myself sick.  Stuck inside with a stir crazy puppy and being a stir-crazy human.  Trying to wrap up a work project I'm months behind on, worried about my job.  Worried about my parents who both made visits to the hospital this month.

And here GethN7 comes with his fucking demands to ban discussion of a movie I haven't heard shit about.  People are dying, the world is dying, and you want to force an immediate decision on this?  What is wrong with you?  On what planet is this important?  I can tell you: it's not my goddamn planet.

So if you want to leave, fine.  If you can't have the maturity to act like a human being, just go fuck yourself.  Go fuck yourself in the ass, okay?

[classicdrogn]

I suspect that a lot of the hue and cry going up may well be people having something they can bitch about that is important but has nothing to do with the things actively threatening their lives, when you put it that way, because stamping out kiddie porn is something almost anyone can agree on and get an immediate result, which the larger problems cannot even if there was a sudden miraculous wave of consensus with whatever their particular positions happen to be.

Right now we've all got way too much fucking stress going on. I'm sorry to hear that it seems to be putting more on you rather than being a way to burn it off, Labster. I can't seem to find any6thing else to say that doesn't sound trite, so I'll end it here.

[robkelk]

I don't want to roll that die.  It's freaking scary.

Well, you're required by law to roll that die in November.

If you are at all left-leaning, you should make sure you have a current passport before the election.  You do not want to wait until they start implementing exit visas.

Since it's come up: Government of Canada: Refugees and asylum

[GethN7]

I finally feel like I've thought about the issue enough to respond.

I didn't even notice that it was the politics thread, so I'll explain my last comment.  If Trump wins re-election, or barely loses re-election, I expect Trump's next presidency to start a crackdown of these sorts of things.  He's already done things like demand journalists be fired, and his attorneys have threatened to revoke the licenses of those who air information critical of the President.  Once he loses the restraints of running for election, and surrounding himself with sychophants like Bob Barr, things are going to get really bad really fast.

How likely is this?  Well, Nate Silver predicts a Trump victory in roughly 25% of the models.  This is not lopsided like a 75-25 election, this means that in one quarter of universes, Trump wins.  It's like rolling a d20, except that 1-5 all count as a critical failure.  And, since he's been spreading rumours that the election is rigged, 6-8 count as an ordinary failure, and give Trump a path to keep the White House.  And if I can extend the analogy using the Alternity RPG system, 9-13 count as a marginal success for Biden, that still leaves the country deeply divided.  Only on 14 and up does the outcome look good for America.  I don't want to roll that die.  It's freaking scary.

If you are at all left-leaning, you should make sure you have a current passport before the election.  You do not want to wait until they start implementing exit visas.

Outside of the political background for this discussion, things look a little worse.  So from my perspective, GethN7 comes in talking about some obscure French arthouse movie, demands that we all agree to ban it, and when we don't agree immediately, cites his morals as a way to get out of it.  Seriously, morals?  Is he just looking for an excuse to quit?  I get that he has a conservative mind, and the disgust part of his brain activated, and maybe he doesn't understand why it didn't immediately activate in our brains too.  But I had never heard of this film before, and didn't even have much time to consider what to do before he up and left.

This is what I like to call borrowing trouble.  Nobody made a page, nobody even talked about making a page, and he banned it and demanded immediate action from the rest of us, as if it was some kind of crisis?  Why?  I have no idea.  I know that there are people passing it off as a crisis now, and they're in QAnon, a group so lost in postmodernist conspiracy theory that everything is true.  And apparently QAnon has never heard of the fucking Streisand effect -- now millions of people who have never heard of the film might consider watching it.  Including the kinds of pedoes who shouldn't see it. Thanks a lot, assholes.

And all of this is happening when there's real goddamn crises happening right now?  I go outside, and the Sun looks to be about the same color and brightness as an orange Union 76 ball in the sky.  The fires are far away, but I haven't seen a clear sky in weeks, and the last time I did it was 120° around here.  Because everything is on fucking fire right now.  And as bad as it is, the motherfucking fire season is just beginning, right?  We're not even to the peak of the season yet, and there are millions and millions of acres burned.  And my President, damn his soul, is telling us to rake our fucking forests.  We are children of a dying planet, and we need to rake our forests?  Fucking seriously?

I need to go for a walk and calm down.  But hey, guess what?  Can't do it.  Air pollution is five times normal, I'll just get sick.  Just walk indoors somewhere?  Fucking wrong!  Because there's a pandemic going on, and two hundred thousand of my countrymen have died.  Just going to a mall is as risky as going to a war zone.  Gryphon's hometown, Millinocket, Maine, is a goddamn disease outbreak center, like that makes any goddamn sense.  So I can't go anywhere without risking my life, making myself sick.  Stuck inside with a stir crazy puppy and being a stir-crazy human.  Trying to wrap up a work project I'm months behind on, worried about my job.  Worried about my parents who both made visits to the hospital this month.

And here GethN7 comes with his fucking demands to ban discussion of a movie I haven't heard shit about.  People are dying, the world is dying, and you want to force an immediate decision on this?  What is wrong with you?  On what planet is this important?  I can tell you: it's not my goddamn planet.

So if you want to leave, fine.  If you can't have the maturity to act like a human being, just go fuck yourself.  Go fuck yourself in the ass, okay?

Brent, I really want to retain something resembling respect for you, but there is a reason I did a preventative measure. And no, I have NOTHING TO DO WITH QANON. Politics and conspiracy theories had nothing to do with what I did, it was wanting to prevent any possible trouble given the dubious legality of this media, at least until a court of law made it perfectly clear it was fine to view and discuss the contents of what we were viewing. If it wasn't a movie with actual child actors being sexualized, I agree, it would be stupid what I did, but given the extreme circumstances, I felt making a stand was necessary because it was not erring on the side of caution that got TV Tropes the reputation it earned for allowing in all sorts of questionable material, forgive me if I took it pretty seriously to avoid us getting tarred with that brush.

I don't care one way or the other about politics, I just want to keep my rap sheet and conscience clean, and given we might wind up troping something that likely is banned from the US eventually as child porn (and I do not want to run the risk of that legal question until it's been answered), I'd like it said we played it safe, or such was the idea until we could be sure.

Was I overly irrational and emotional at the time? Maybe so, I'll give you that. Did I use a cannon to swat a fly? Again, that may be true. Did I feel comfortable with us running any risks until the legal dust was settled? Not in the slightest.

At any rate, I'm out now, and that's fine by me, I'll just stay in my corner, it's no longer my responsibility to be involved in that on ATT Miraheze.


That said, and I want to make it perfectly clear, one last time:

I firmly believe, and I have always firmly believed, when you are in a legally dubious situation, you always play it safe until you make sure you are not playing with fire that could burn you later. That is a politically agnostic position based on trying to be prudent. I went about it in a hamfisted way admittedly, but I was trying to look out for everyone, not just me, by avoiding a possible legal issue until we could be sure it wasn't one.

I for one don't regret that was my motive and I still stand by it being something that was done out of caution in the best interests of ATT, Miraheze, and the users of both, insofar as our reach extended. I have calmed down, realized was overly emotional, and one of the reasons I surrendered my authority was because I was not willing to compromise on the above, but at the same time, realized we agreed to a majority consensus as a rule, and I broke it.

I do not want to be a moral, ethical, or legal hypocrite, so I surrendered any power and left to keep peace in the valley and keep my own conscience clean. I just pray this turns out for the best for all concerned now that I did that.