All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XVII

[robkelk]

No need. I just did. And I gave him the official warning to go along with it.

[Bob Schroeck]

I saw. And I expanded the "no ads" passage in "What We Aren't" to match.

[Bob Schroeck]

On another topic entirely, I just discovered that TV Tropes has a page for Fenspace. It's not a word-for-word copy of our page, and is in fact much smaller, so I wouldn't normally bring it up, except... all it has in the way of main text is a single large quote from the FenWiki, with this note under it:

(Intro text from the Fenspace website used with permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License.)

If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't this run into the same copyright issues that quoting from ATT on TVT would? I mean the licenses are incompatible in both directions, aren't they?

[Bob Schroeck]

And back to the previous topic -- I've just noticed that XM98 is misusing Rated "M" for Money as some kind of synonym for "emo-ness". I'm trying to track them all down and remove the links, but I just wanted to let everyone to know about it in case you're watching his edits too.

[GethN7]

On another topic entirely, I just discovered that TV Tropes has a page for Fenspace.  It's not a word-for-word copy of our page, and is in fact much smaller, so I wouldn't normally bring it up, except...  all it has in the way of main text is a single large quote from the FenWiki, with this note under it:

(Intro text from the Fenspace website used with permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License.)

If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't this run into the same copyright issues that quoting from ATT on TVT would?  I mean the licenses are incompatible in both directions, aren't they?

On the copyright thing, actually, for once, they are using CC copyright sensibly, specifically identifying the quoted material is under a certain license and thus is not reproducible for profit even when they were under a CC BY SA license.


As for our attention whoring troll friend, I'm willing to run the risk of us tossing him, burning his garbage down if need be, and him trying to spread the word we are just as bad as TVT. We have different standards than TVT, but we still have standards, and those who don't like it can fork us and do their thing or they can get used to our standards.

Here's a case in point from our True Tropes spinoff, where I exiled some idiot who kept trying to play the autism card and tried to use the religion card to butter me up:

https://the-true-tropes.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:63993

Even Doc told the dude to grow up and quit expecting people to cater to his whims, autism or not.

[Bob Schroeck]

I see that Doc still can't mention ATT without getting in a little slam.

I've gone through all of XM98's edits and found fewer misuses of the trope than I thought I'd seen; I removed the links. I also noticed for the first time that he marks every edit, regardless of size, as "minor" unless the wiki simply doesn't give him the option (page creates, specifically). I am coming to the conclusion that he is an unusually patient and subtle troll, and maybe we should just say thanks but no thanks.

[GethN7]

I see that Doc still can't mention ATT without getting in a little slam.

I've gone through all of XM98's edits and found fewer misuses of the trope than I thought I'd seen; I removed the links.  I also noticed for the first time that he marks every edit, regardless of size, as "minor" unless the wiki simply doesn't give him the option (page creates, specifically).  I am coming to the conclusion that he is an unusually patient and subtle troll, and maybe we should just say thanks but no thanks.

NOTE: BANNED HIM WITH PREJUDICE, SEE BELOW FOR WHY, PLEASE CLEAN UP HIS MESS.

Based on what I found, I think we are better off tossing this guy, burning his crap to the ground (and salting the ashes to be safe), and not giving him the time of day, we aren't the only place he's crapped on with his garbage.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tvtropes/commen...tions_not/


https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_hist...ess&more=t

(search for "xandermartin", not the first time this deviant has jacked off to his own writing)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?di...800&page=1 (more troublemaking from this assbag)

I agree with Fighteer:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?pa...2&type=att

This man is SERIOUSLY deviant:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comme...underlust/ (check comments)


Basically, he's definitely a troll, burn his works to the ground, ban his ass, and don't think twice is what I'm gathering, currently seeing if I can dig up more, but this is more than enough to convince me to toss the man and salt the earth over his deviance.

Sockpuppets on Reddit, been suspended multiple times, man is a cringelord and revels in it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UndertaleCringe...ntingency/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UndertaleCringe...him_again/


Even Kiwi Farms notes this guy is a deviant:

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/obscure-la...77/page-75

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/xandermart...tin.37406/

I suggest sending this to Miraheze if he causes them trouble and getting him global banned, this guy is an unrepentant rule breaker wherever he goes.

[robkelk]

And back to the previous topic --  I've just noticed that XM98 is misusing Rated "M" for Money as some kind of synonym for "emo-ness".  I'm trying to track them all down and remove the links, but I just wanted to let everyone to know about it in case you're watching his edits too.

{{context|reason=How is this an example of the trope?}} is a tag that I've had to apply on more than one occasion over the years.

[robkelk]

I see that Doc still can't mention ATT without getting in a little slam.

Which is why I, personally, won't add a link to his wiki on the Complete Monster page. He has to learn how to play nice before I'm willing to give him the time of day.

[GethN7]

I see that Doc still can't mention ATT without getting in a little slam.

Which is why I, personally, won't add a link to his wiki on the Complete Monster page. He has to learn how to play nice before I'm willing to give him the time of day.

I'm not gonna throw stones in a glass house. Need I remind anyone of OUR page on TV Tropes?

So long as Doc keeps to himself he can be as grumpy as he likes, he's got his sandbox, we have ours.

[GethN7]

Also, seems our deviant friend sent me this via email:

Xander Martin <xandermartin98@gmail.com>
5:18 PM (3 minutes ago)
to me

I understand calling me a "troll" of something like Reddit, but when it comes to ATT, You Keep Using That Word. The whole point of me calling myself New XanderMartin98 on ATT was for me to show that it was a website that I was NOT, in fact, trying to be a troll on (I just happen to be quite bad at avoiding coming across as a troll no matter what website I am on, or even what real-life place I am in.

My "rule breaking" came from naive-ness, not an actual desire to break rules; on top of that, the pages that I made about my own works were (overall) decently made and were NOT false information about the fics that they were talking about at all (by the way, you only deleted the pages themselves rather than trying to also delete the fics that they were about, right? Also, the pages themselves ARE at least recoverable using ATT's moderator privileges, right?)

Ultimately, I made pages about my own works for the exact same reason for which I made all of my other ATT edits; to inform ATT's other users about the things that said pages were talking about. If you had actually seen the fics that said pages were talking about, then you would have known how incomplete said pages would have been without their "vulgarity", believe me.

Outside of said pages (as Looney Toons has mentioned), there isn't even anything terribly wrong with my edits outside of the fact that I make too many of them (as for the whole "labeling edits as minor" debate, paying more attention to what you were talking about in that one, you would have seen that I label edits as "minor" when they are small (one-to-two-sentence edits and the like) and generally do not label them as "minor" when they actually are...well, large (the length of huge five-sentence paragraphs and the like).

Oh, and as for you thinking that I'm going to yell at Reddit about how I supposedly think that you "are no better than" the utterly sadistic idiots that the moderators of TV Tropes generally are (widely considered to be)...well, I'm actually a lot more disappointed about that assumption than I am with you, to be honest with you. While I definitely do not approve of what you have just done to your own website, at least it doesn't currently involve...

...oh, wait, now it DOES involve mass-deleting extremely obvious and important actual-pop-culture-related examples of tropes (even including an entire page about one of the most iconic tropes in cartoons) just because you don't like the person that made them. Please stop this immediately (I know for a fact that the non-page-deleting parts of it are very-easily reversible) if you actually do have any actual respect for your own website. If you're going to actually allow me to contact you (unlike the TV Tropes moderators), then you should also have the common sense and human decency that they lack. You are NOT the literal machine that TV Tropes's "system" edit reverter is. I'm not going to rant about this yet, but if you push me far enough with this absolute ridiculous-ness, then I definitely might do so later (just for the record).

And my response was:

Rant as much as you like, your ban is final, we do not want you back, you have a known history of starting trouble elsewhere, and you were obviously doing what got you kicked out of other places, and you are not welcome to do that on my site because on top of your policy breaking, we also do not accept troublemakers.

So rant, scream, do what you like, this decision is not going to be appealed.

And for the record, I will be publicly posting your comments to my fellow admins so they can see why you just proved why I was right to make the above call.

Please go elsewhere and find somewhere else more willing to accept your shenanigans.

[Labster]

OMG, what an edgelord.

I was thinking of changing our terms of service to add: If you post a work on So Bad its Horrible, and you own the copyright the that work, you are required to remove the work from the internet, remove it from sale, and you are further required to send DMCA notices to anyone else hosting the work.

[GethN7]

OMG, what an edgelord.

I was thinking of changing our terms of service to add: If you post a work on So Bad its Horrible, and you own the copyright the that work, you are required to remove the work from the internet, remove it from sale, and you are further required to send DMCA notices to anyone else hosting the work.

Forgot the best part. Said edgelord actually signed up here (Xandermartin98) and was apparently hoping he'd get approved to post so he could have the last word, which Bob no doubt had zero inclination to let him do.

[robkelk]

I was thinking of changing our terms of service to add: If you post a work on So Bad its Horrible, and you own the copyright the that work, you are required to remove the work from the internet, remove it from sale, and you are further required to send DMCA notices to anyone else hosting the work.

I think the comment that I added to So Bad It's Horrible should be good enough:

Adding your own work - fan or pro - to this list is effectively an admission that you are (or were) a bad writer.

[robkelk]

...even including an entire page about one of the most iconic tropes in cartoons...

I just double-checked the list of pages that Geth deleted, and I didn't see anything that could possibly have been accurately described by that phrase.

[GethN7]

I've taken an extraordinary step here, but I consider it legally the only sane thing we can do.

This page is protected against creation because there is no way in HELL we can legally talk about it

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Cuties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuties

From what I've read of descriptions of the content, this is child pornography by any definition, and I have zero desire to court legal trouble. I am extremely loath to do something like this, but given the descriptions of it's content describe all sorts of child sexualization and even includes child nudity, and I have no desire whatsoever for us to be associated with this.

You can defend Nabokov's Lolita. Lolicon and shotacon are not illegal at least in the US albeit morally vile, but purposeful live-action sexualization of children to the extent this does crosses a line I do NOT want to consider touching.

Note: TV Tropes does have a page on it, but it comes with a warning to NOT use the US cover, is sanitized to the point of being a stub, and still describes child sexualization as a plot element. I don't care to risk even that.

[robkelk]

I know nothing about this film except what I read in the Wikipedia article. So, assuming that the article is correct...

Other reviewers noted that the film is intended to criticize "a culture that steers impressionable young girls toward the hypersexualization of their bodies" and "seems to want to provoke censure"

We don't need those headaches right now - we just dealt with a troll - but I'm hoping that we can take another look at this ban later, once the immediate knee-jerk response has died down. I know that what the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children" crowd say isn't always what really is.

Has anybody here watched the movie itself? I have not, and based on the premise given in the Wikipedia article, I probably won't - I'm not in the target audience.

[GethN7]

I know nothing about this film except what I read in the Wikipedia article. So, assuming that the article is correct...

Other reviewers noted that the film is intended to criticize "a culture that steers impressionable young girls toward the hypersexualization of their bodies" and "seems to want to provoke censure"

We don't need those headaches right now - we just dealt with a troll - but I'm hoping that we can take another look at this ban later, once the immediate knee-jerk response has died down. I know that what the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children" crowd say isn't always what really is.

Has anybody here watched the movie itself? I have not, and based on the premise given in the Wikipedia article, I probably won't - I'm not in the target audience.

Here's all the proof you need:


http://archive.md/sIAyf (IMDB page describing content)

The Netflix Internet Defense Force later tried to whitewash it into this:

https://archive.md/B81W7 (after trying to scrub it so it omits the child porn level details, done after Netflix got backlash for it)

[Bob Schroeck]

Forgot the best part. Said edgelord actually signed up here (Xandermartin98) and was apparently hoping he'd get approved to post so he could have the last word, which Bob no doubt had zero inclination to let him do.

Oh, yeah, he has, hasn't he?  I hadn't noticed a second account request (I have another pending, waiting on a response to the "prove you're a human" email that doesn't look like it's going to arrive, surprise surprise) until you pointed it out.  No, I suppose I won't let him in.  I was already suspecting him of being a troll on ATT, I'm not letting him in here to cause trouble.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm hoping that we can take another look at this ban later, once the immediate knee-jerk response has died down. I know that what the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children" crowd say isn't always what really is.

Agreed.  I only learned about this when I saw Geth's lockout in Recent Changes, and went to Wikipedia and a couple other sources to find out what the big deal is.  I think calling it "child pornography" based on a poster is not only premature but (as Rob said) nothing more than knee-jerk reaction; from what I took away from my reading, this doesn't sound any more extreme than the various "baby beauty contest" shows a few years back.  It's just that it's not about nice white American 11-year-olds with Southern accents, which as we all know are automatically wholesome, while anything by foreigners featuring Ambiguously Brown children is automatically filth.

[Bob Schroeck]

The Netflix Internet Defense Force later tried to whitewash it into this:

While you may be right, I'd rather not trust anonymous reports. As Rob and I have both noted, there are and always have been elements who are never above exaggerating and outright lying about a film's content in order to justify censorship. I have seen the most innocent moments painted as explicit sexuality by some of these "crusaders". What you portray as "whitewashing" here may well be replacing deliberate misrepresentation with a more accurate summation of the content.

I think we all know just from ATT that "first to post" does not equal "most authoritative source".

I'm also going to trust to the enlightened self-interest of Netflix and their lawyers. Genuine child pornography would never get on the service simply because they'd immediately become a target of every jurisdiction they transmitted to. Their own legal and standards departments would never put the corporation at risk in that way. If I'm wrong I'll gladly admit it, but I'm feeling the way to bet here is that the whitewash is on the accusation side, not the filmmakers' side.

[GethN7]

The Netflix Internet Defense Force later tried to whitewash it into this:

While you may be right, I'd rather not trust anonymous reports.  As Rob and I have both noted, there are and always have been elements who are never above exaggerating and outright lying about a film's content in order to justify censorship.  I have seen the most innocent moments painted as explicit sexuality by some of these "crusaders".  What you portray as "whitewashing" here may well be replacing deliberate misrepresentation with a more accurate summation of the content.

I think we all know just from ATT that "first to post" does not equal "most authoritative source".

I'm also going to trust to the enlightened self-interest of Netflix and their lawyers.  Genuine child pornography would never get on the service simply because they'd immediately become a target of every jurisdiction they transmitted to.  Their own legal and standards departments would never put the corporation at risk in that way.  If I'm wrong I'll gladly admit it, but I'm feeling the way to bet here is that the whitewash is on the accusation side, not the filmmakers' side.

I'm willing to risk quite a bit on the position I've staked out, and if you want to find the uncensored footage to verify what I said, feel free to legally stick your neck out (though I advise against it), I have every reason to believe you WILL come away feeling incredibly soiled. While I have studiously avoided trying to hunt down the raw, uncensored footage, I have found more than one account from bipartisan sources on multiple fora willing to risk things legally coming away absolutely repulsed as having viewed what any rational person would called child porn. Multiple countries have either banned it outright or banished it to being rated as adult as possible to the point no theater has the legal right to show it.

It's so bad, to my knowledge, that 4CHAN AND ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA both refuse to allow uncensored clips and even most stills, even to show how bad it is, with immediate promises to ban anyone for child porn, and when internet troll sites take that kind of moral stance, I have every reason to believe them when they drop all pretense of joking and say with unvarnished seriousness it's legally beyond the pale.

Based on a DuckDuckGo search (which filters searches through an anonymizer so I get no particular bias based on previous searches), there is an overwhelming amount of bipartisan sources that will condemn this movie as child pornography, and while defenders insist it's a "right-wing" conspiracy trying to smear the content, there is more than enough evidence I've seen from all sides of the political aisle there is fire to justify the smoke.

I reiterate I am usually willing to be openminded from a legal and objective standard even if something is morally vile, and I would not even begin to not even consider giving something the time of day if I believed it legally was defensible, but in this case, I will IMMEDIATELY resign my position over All The Tropes on Miraheze rather than be known as something who gave the mere pretense of allowing coverage of this.

[Labster]

So basically you're asking us to trust Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan over Netflix? That's the hill you want to die on?

I know there are some sick fucks in Hollywood, since I've heard a few first-person accounts from friends. But they tend to save that stuff for the back rooms and yachts. This is a film that won a Best Director award at Sundance. It has 88% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. So either there are a lot of fucking pedophiles at newspapers around the country, and Reed Hastings decided to drive a $222 billion company into the ground in exchange for a ride in the FBI Party Van, or you're exaggerating.

Now, we may not want to discuss movie this right now, because people are currently in freak-out mode about it. And that's okay. I doubt an on-wiki discussion about it would be all that fruitful right now. But the point of academic freedom is to be able to discuss these kinds of works that people find problematic.

[GethN7]

So basically you're asking us to trust Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan over Netflix?  That's the hill you want to die on?

I know there are some sick fucks in Hollywood, since I've heard a few first-person accounts from friends.  But they tend to save that stuff for the back rooms and yachts.  This is a film that won a Best Director award at Sundance.  It has 88% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes.  So either there are a lot of fucking pedophiles at newspapers around the country, and Reed Hastings decided to drive a $222 billion company into the ground in exchange for a ride in the FBI Party Van, or you're exaggerating.

Now, we may not want to discuss movie this right now, because people are currently in freak-out mode about it.  And that's okay.  I doubt an on-wiki discussion about it would be all that fruitful right now.  But the point of academic freedom is to be able to discuss these kinds of works that people find problematic.

Based on what I read from other sources besides them (they were far from my first source, just mentioned them in the context of how despite their reputations they won't touch the imagery of the film with a ten foot pole), yes, I WILL die on that hill. I've seen left, right, and center types on various news sites all condemn this, and for the record, yes, I am convinced Netflix is, in fact, that stupid. And, if you check Rotten Tomatoes, note the Critical Dissonance of the "critics" versus the audience.

That said, I'm not unreasonable, this can be reviewed later, I won't try to interfere with that, just know in advance my vote will be a hard NO and that's all as far as I'm concerned and if it's allowed despite my protest then, I want it known in advance I had absolutely nothing to do with allowing discussion of it and if there is legal fallout for it, I will throw anyone who defended it under the bus if ever placed in that position without shame because while I'll make allowance for a lot of things legal under US law, I am absolutely convinced, based on what I've gathered, this would fail the following standard, therefore I do not want to run the risk of being wrong under any circumstance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_test

Anyone here who wants to take one for the team and review it in full, go right ahead and take that risk. If you can come back with an ironclad argument I'm wrong, I will eat all the crow you want, but until that is done, I have every intention of dying on this hill. Further, until we can absolutely sure this is fine to cover on legal grounds, I refuse to consider changing my mind until we can assured of such, and if anyone wants to overrule this decision PRIOR to making sure of that, let me know when I need to tender my resignation and full surrender of any rights to ATT.

[Bob Schroeck]

Now, we may not want to discuss movie this right now, because people are currently in freak-out mode about it.  And that's okay.  I doubt an on-wiki discussion about it would be all that fruitful right now.  But the point of academic freedom is to be able to discuss these kinds of works that people find problematic.

Agreed.  I found the pre-emptive locking of the page very disturbing given our academic freedom policy.  That smacks of TVTropes behavior -- "we don't approve of this so we won't let anyone even acknowledge it exists".  I thought the whole point of ATT was that we didn't do stuff like that, that we were better than TVT and their reflexive "pedoshit" declarations.

But as you point out, people are in full-blown chicken-with-head-cut-off mode.  No one's going to listen to anyone else until it all shakes out one way or the other.

EDIT: But as a note, Geth, it is not illegal to discuss child pornography, or even a specific work thereof. Discussion of obscenity is not obscene -- that's been pretty much solidly established for decades. However, if you're going to unilaterally insist that a work is so eeeeevul that it cannot even be acknowledged by the wiki, let alone discussed, well... I think I have Fast Eddie's hat around here somewhere for you.