Ruling on the ban of DocColress Wrote:I've had to think about what to do here quite a bit. I suppose I could have asked more questions, but I think I have a good measure of the situation. At least as far as it goes, I can draw a line between your current request and your previous activity on All The Tropes.
The current punishment is a bit over the top for what you did. Mouthing off to a moderator isn't that big of a deal, really. I was permabanned from TV Tropes for less, so that's something I'd like to avoid. I think possibly a week ban would be appropriate response from a moderator for these actions.
But, there are also aggravating circumstances here.
The first thing that tipped me off, that something might be wrong, was how fast you returned the email. In every interaction I've had with you, I've asked you to slow down. But here you returned one email with four, the first and second an hour after I sent my own. On its own it doesn't mean very much, but it is circumstantial evidence that you're not being terribly reflective on what happened.
The content of your letters didn't help so much, either. The apology you offered is very transactional. A lot of offers to behave a certain way in exchange for some restoration of status. For some people, this might have worked. But it's consistent with other previous apologies that you made, that seemed to be made in order to get what you wanted.
The problem with ethics is that other people doing something wrong is not an excuse for you to do something wrong. And you continued to name other moderators as the cause of all of the problems. While their behavior is suboptimal, you had a history of trying to escalate the problem. Any attack, real or imagined, would always be answered.
You did make a major tactical error here in shaming moderators. I knew every member of the moderator team you attacked before I even started All The Tropes. It's hard to read an attack on one's friends. Even if a part of it is true. But it also makes it easy to sort out the false claims, too. I suppose it is a little unfair to be judged by someone with so much conflict of interest, but they all agreed that I'm the only person left who isn't at their "wit's end" with you. So I'm afraid I'm who you get.
The letter you wrote seemed designed to try to create a good side and a bad side, and get me to side with your side against the other moderators. The argument why doesn't matter, this is prima facie a reason to consider restricting access. Sowing division amongst the ranks to get ahead is not good for the long-term health of the wiki community, and a violation of ATT:FUN. Trying to solve problems, and backing off when getting too angry, is mandatory under policy. Just becase you like the trope of the Complete Monster, doesn't mean you need to assign other editors into teams of heroes and villains.
And while not really an aggravating factor, I worry about how much of your identity you've wrapped up in managing the Complete Monster pages. You've set yourself up as the great conservator of the health of the trope against a horde of others. And while in some ways that's a bit true, you've also crushed other editors making good faith edits in violation of ATT:1WAY.
The design of the Troper's Code on All The Tropes is that there are two sets of balancing policies, so as not lose our direction. The first pair, educate and entertain, means that we should take troping seriously -- but not too seriously. The second set, have fun and play nice, says that we should allow people to experiment and create, but not in a way that violates the rights of others. The fact that you've managed to step out of line with both halves of that equilibrium means that you were seriously out of balance.
The fact remains that you were making a good faith attempt to keep those pages in what you believe is the best possible condition. I really don't think you were doing it for petty power. These are mitigating circumstances.
There's also the fact that, as I hear, you are planning to set up a competitor to All The Tropes if you don't win this appeal. There are several ways this could be interpreted, so I'll set it aside for now.
And then, of course, there's the issue of autism. From where I am sitting, you definitely have an obsessive focus on the Complete Monster trope. It's okay to have have a focus, as with Greta Thunberg's superpower. But when that focus starts to antagonize other people who aren't doing anything wrong, it becomes a problem, as it has in this case.
You stated that there couldn't possibly be two interpretations of the Complete Monster trope, effectively saying that it's not your fault if everyone else is wrong. This is just not the way the world works. Boeing made a perfectly clear tiny warning light on the 737 Max and yet the pilots had no idea how to not crash the plane when it came on. The world seems to have settled on Boeing being at fault. Part of my day job involves UX design in software. If a lot of people get something wrong, it usually means my design sucks.
The other element I see here in your behavior that matches things frequently seen on the spectrum is an emphasis on fairness. And indeed, a decent part of what people have said about you is unfair. But All The Tropes isn't run based on an idea of fairness, however construed, it's run as a quasi-democracy.
You've tried to construct a single interpretation of the rules, then apply those terms to everyone, and when people suggests something different you see problems with being treated unfairly. It's just, like, your opinion, man. People have different opinions. And we need to make room for people to express different opinions, and decide as a group what is acceptable content. You can't win just because you think you're right.
Like, every single trope out there has shit examples. And sometimes, you just have to let some through. Because it's not worth it to fight everyone based on a single notion of what is allowable.
Which leads back to the point from the previous email. You don't know when to lose. You refused to compromise on one little subpage. All of the rest of us compromise every single day. It was a poor choice of a battle, and it cost you friends. It cost you soft power. So that now, when a lifetime ban comes up, you don't have any highly respected on-wiki friends to support your cause, despite all of your positive work on the wiki.
Even now, you're still bargaining, still hoping for some sort of influence on the process. The transactional apology, the multiple emails, the tarnishing of other moderators, the threat to start a competitor.
It's time to consider the judgement. Under normal circumstances, I'd recommend that the ban be two weeks for a repeat offense. GethN7's lifetime ban was a clear error in judgement, based on an overreaction to your trolling comment.
However, there are significant aggravating circumstances. Also, I feel that it's unlikely that a ban of such a short duration will teach the lesson we're looking for here. Nor will a short-term ban give you a chance to become a little less focused on a single trope. The previous ban proved that.
It's clear that in order for you to learn that lesson, you can no longer trope with us for the remainder of the decade. Hopefully, after that time for reflection you will be able to rejoin us and help make our wiki and community the best it can be.
Therefore the ban duration for DocColress is hereby set to four months, beginning today. Any attempts at ban evasion may increase this penalty, as appropriate. It is so ordered.
I um, may have been having a bit too much fun with the legal terminology. I kinda caught that bug from my friend.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto