All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXV

[Bob Schroeck]

Previous thread is here.

Tonight is the expiration for all the pages in the Workshop that I put on notice last week.  At least one was rescued and launched since then, but we need to take a look at the rest before midnight UDT and decide what else has been sufficiently rescued or not:

• The Bully is a Nerd
  
• Faction Mechanics
  
• Fantastic Tribulation
  
• Shield Slinger
  
• Words act more than Actions

[robkelk]

... but we need to take a look at the rest before midnight UDT ...

Which happens to be in the middle of the weekly online meeting for the There's Nothing Better writers, three of whom are mods at ATT.

[Black Aeronaut]

.... Momentary stay of execution? :V

[Bob Schroeck]

It's not like we've not given grace periods because we're busy before.

[Bob Schroeck]

We appear to have a new user trying to pretend to be Scott Cawthon, the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, going by the name "New Scott cawthon fnaf". The "New" in the user name is suggestive -- and a little research seems to indicate that we did indeed have someone else claiming to be Scott Cawthon visit the wiki before the Great Hack of Orain, but who left no real traces behind.

Anwyay, the one edit he's got in the mod queue looks like he just copied another wiki's page (in English and Russian). If it weren't an edit to his user profile page I would have nuked it immediately; as it is I'm still inclined to on copyright grounds. And I'm assuming on general principles he's not really Scott Cawthon, which should merit both deletion and a ban right there.

I just wanted to bring it to everyone else's attention in case there's a reason I shouldn't treat this guy as a drive-by fraud who doesn't care about the wiki as long as he has a place to spew.

[robkelk]

* robkelk takes a look at the edit

Obvious copy of content from somewhere else, with no attribution. Probable CC license violation. Nuke it.

[Bob Schroeck]

Yeah, I'm going to nuke it and let him know why, and see what he says. If anything.

EDIT: It occurs to me as I write the message to him that we ought to have a formalized User Name policy which basically codifies our existing rule(s) of thumb about user names. (Which, if I recall correctly, is basically "don't use a name similar to that of a mod" and probably should now include "don't claim to be a celebrity" or something like that.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Might want to include "Political Figures" as well. While lampooning politicians is all fun and games, it may present a little too much invitation for undesirable behavior. Also, political slogans like, "Let's Go Brandon" should probably also be on the don't-even-go-there list.

[Bob Schroeck]

Not a bad addition. I'll write up a proposal and put it in the forums.... um, soonish. Busy day scheduled for work today, and family stuff set for the whole weekend, so I might not get a chance to do anything on this until Sunday night at the earliest.

[Bob Schroeck]

Utini501 has recently been undoing long-standing cases of TVT copyright infringement. I looked into the history of a few pages he was fixing, and it appears that we should have watched over Ecclytennysmithylove more closely during the time they were active on the wiki. We probably need to go carefully over all their contributions. <sigh>

[robkelk]

Yeah, I'm going to nuke it and let him know why, and see what he says. If anything.

EDIT: It occurs to me as I write the message to him that we ought to have a formalized User Name policy which basically codifies our existing rule(s) of thumb about user names. (Which, if I recall correctly, is basically "don't use a name similar to that of a mod" and probably should now include "don't claim to be a celebrity" or something like that.)

Might want to include "Political Figures" as well. While lampooning politicians is all fun and games, it may present a little too much invitation for undesirable behavior. Also, political slogans like, "Let's Go Brandon" should probably also be on the don't-even-go-there list.

I've just asked on Meta whether Miraheze as a whole has a policy here. If there is one, we may as well leverage it.

(And what's wrong with going to Brandon?)

[GethN7]

Might want to include "Political Figures" as well.  While lampooning politicians is all fun and games, it may present a little too much invitation for undesirable behavior.  Also, political slogans like, "Let's Go Brandon" should probably also be on the don't-even-go-there list.

Agreed. Insofar as is possible, ATT should be as neutral as possible on social, political, and any other grounds that could cause legal trouble or flame wars. If it cannot be mentioned where relevant in a calm, dispassionate manner or we'd just be inviting libel suits by the mere posting of the content in question, we should nuke it from orbit.

[Bob Schroeck]

Good idea, Rob, thanks for doing that.

On a lighter note, my somewhat irrepressible sense of humor has led me to ponder: We already have "Character as Device" for a category. What about a category for robots, AIs and the like called "Devices as Characters"? <grin>

[robkelk]

Is this something we have a use for on ATT? (Maybe on Character subpages?)

[Bob Schroeck]

We could apply that to the character images, yeah, and it would look quite nice. Maybe put it on the boilerplate for character pages to start with.

[robkelk]

I made a slight change to it for the TNB wiki to allow use of named colours in the borders. I'd recommend using that version if we go with this.

[robkelk]

And now a style question: Should we say we prefer consistent border and background colours (the first row in the screenshot below), customized border and background colours (the second row), or state no preference?

   

[Black Aeronaut]

I would say "No Preference" because you have some groups where the multi-color borders are all-but demanded, and then others where it simply doesn't work at all.

Example: Sentai Teams are ALL ABOUT THE COLORS and you'd be very remiss on not having those multi-color borders. However, if you were to present something like Lafiel Abriel and her command staff from Banner of the Stars... Yeah.

[Bob Schroeck]

Agreed, "No preference", but for different reasons. I see no need to unnecessarily restrict wiki users unless there is proven to be a pressing need to do so. And even the worst eyesore is easily fixable with a later edit.

[GethN7]

I concur with LT

[robkelk]

Yeah, I'm going to nuke it and let him know why, and see what he says.  If anything.

EDIT:  It occurs to me as I write the message to him that we ought to have a formalized User Name policy which basically codifies our existing rule(s) of thumb about user names.  (Which, if I recall correctly, is basically "don't use a name similar to that of a mod" and probably should now include "don't claim to be a celebrity" or something like that.)

Might want to include "Political Figures" as well.  While lampooning politicians is all fun and games, it may present a little too much invitation for undesirable behavior.  Also, political slogans like, "Let's Go Brandon" should probably also be on the don't-even-go-there list.

I've just asked on Meta whether Miraheze as a whole has a policy here. If there is one, we may as well leverage it.

Reception123 has replied to my question.

[Norgarth]

there is the possibility of someone actually having the same name as a celebrity (no doubt there's more than 1 Will Smith in the world), slim though the odds are.

admittedly with this guy, even if he is a Scott Cawthon, he's not likely to be the Scott Cawthon he's trying to pretend he is. 

[LynnInDenver]

there is the possibility of someone actually having the same name as a celebrity (no doubt there's more than 1 Will Smith in the world), slim though the odds are.

It's pretty much verified that there's more than one... a Will Smith used to work for Tested.com at one point.

[robkelk]

Following up from this in the last thread.

I approved the edit and fixed the formatting, and left a note on the troper's talk page.

Does the troper's reply look awfully familiar, or am I being paranoid?

[GethN7]

there is the possibility of someone actually having the same name as a celebrity (no doubt there's more than 1 Will Smith in the world), slim though the odds are.

admittedly with this guy, even if he is a Scott Cawthon, he's not likely to be the Scott Cawthon he's trying to pretend he is. 

Yeah, if they have the same name but make it clear they aren't trying to LARP as a celeb, no harm, no foul. Otherwise, they can either cut it out or be forced to cut it out on pain of banning if they refuse to cease and provide no proof.

While I have long since quit being a member of the Kiwi Farms, they had a sensible policy to ferret out fakers. If someone claimed to be someone, they would request proof (like a public post on their known blog or Twitter acknowledging they were indeed who they said they were on the Farms). I believe a similar test would be appropriate if need be.