All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXVI

[Bob Schroeck]

Previous thread.

Since I just closed the last thread, let me repeat Labster's post from its last message:

Yeah.  My nightmare scenario is someone doing something that causes the Stewards to push the TOS to full-TVT where we can't even acknowledge the existence of NSFW works.  I'm worried that even without someone doing something, they're going to inevitably creep into that territory.

Given how absolutely useless some of our alleged features are as things currently exist -- just try to use typeahead in the search prompt, or expect pop-up link suggestions while editing; you'll be waiting forever -- not to mention the random and all-too-frequent 50* errors, I agree that it's time to start shopping around for a more reliable host.

I've talked to them.  Apparently they're all freaked out by the way a former steward was dismissed by recall; even though that was a special case, no one wants to make any controversial rulings now.  They're also afraid of vote brigades.  So this is a way of forcing the vote on to everyone else before triggering the controversy, so that they can implement the moderation that was already against policy but required an (obvious) judgement call.  (I have told them that the people who are unhappy now will still be unhappy later because that's what moderation is like.)  So really, we should see this as a null policy change, but a vote to actually implement the existing policy.

I hate to admit it, but I now think my original policy was flawed because humans are cowards -- or morons, or otherwise despicable.  Is it really so hard to do the right thing when the vast majority of people support you doing the right thing?

[Bob Schroeck]

And now I will suddenly and totally change the topic. I was looking at uploading an infographic from Statista.com when I noticed its license was the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. The NoDerivatives part caught my eye because we had that whole kerfluffle a while back about getting rid of ND images because we weren't allowed even to resize them, and I thought that was an odd restriction on charts basically intended to be used by other outlets, so I went and took a look at actual terms for CC BY-ND 3.0 (well, actually 4.0, because that's where Statista's link sent me), and found this:

Section 2 – Scope.
a. License grant.
...
4. Media and formats; technical modifications allowed. The Licensor authorizes You to exercise the Licensed Rights in all media and formats whether now known or hereafter created, and to make technical modifications necessary to do so. The Licensor waives and/or agrees not to assert any right or authority to forbid You from making technical modifications necessary to exercise the Licensed Rights, including technical modifications necessary to circumvent Effective Technological Measures. For purposes of this Public License, simply making modifications authorized by this Section 2(a)(4) never produces Adapted Material.

Am I misreading this, or does this actually allow us to resize and do other simple changes necessary for convenient display of CC BY-ND images, unlike what we thought some months back? I mean, that final sentence sure looks like it says things like resizing doesn't count as "derivative" versions.

[robkelk]

I seem to recall that "technical modifications" means the minimum to be able to use the image - for example, format conversion from TIFF to GIF. Resizing... I don't know.

[GethN7]

Would it be possible to ask for clarification, or would we need to get lawyer to do that?

[Labster]

Honestly there's such a gap between what the person thinks when they are doing when they create a no-derivatives license, and what they are actually doing, resizing probably doesn't matter. My official legal advice, as a person who has no legal qualifications whatsoever, is that these kind of mechanical transformations, with no real editorial intent (though there are still decisions like JPEG quality to make), are probably accepted by the license.

What would probably be more dangerous, and not allowed by the license, is embedding it in a wiki article to produce adapted material. You're producing an entirely different document in a wiki, using the no-derivative license as a subset. This is different from, say, showing it on a File: page, or on danbooru, where you're putting website material around it as a technical adaptation to display and index the content. The wiki article uses editorial choice, thus it is an adaptation. You can still use it by asserting a fair use exception to copyright -- in the United States, that is. Since the wiki is in the UK, you'd need to assert fair dealing instead -- most likely "copyright infringement for the purpose of non-commercial research". It could also be covered under "criticism or review", but only if the no-derivs work itself is the work under review.

The no-derivatives license is the equivalent of a museum that has a free admission price. You can come in all you want, but photography is forbidden, you can't rearrange the pictures, you can study it for your art class, but if you want to make a jigsaw puzzle of the art you need to buy it at the gift shop like everyone else.

[Bob Schroeck]

I should note that Statista.com does nothing but make infographics for use elsewhere on the web. The graph I downloaded with the intent to add to a wiki page -- I discovered it when I found a slightly different version on a third website, with The Independent's logo on it along with everything else; I went to Statista.com to find a version without the logo. It appears to me that in practice the ND provision of the license is intended to prohibit changing the data, not the size or even branding.

[robkelk]

So, can we use ND images or not?

The more I hear, the less I trust my own judgment here.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm just trying to make sense of how Statista.com uses an ND license. The language is CC's, though, and it does seem to say format and size don't count against "no derivatives", only the content of the image -- you can resize it to fit your site's needs, but you can't draw a mustache on it and call it yours.

Of course, IANAL.

[robkelk]

Previous thread.

Since I just closed the last thread, let me repeat Labster's post from its last message:

Yeah.  My nightmare scenario is someone doing something that causes the Stewards to push the TOS to full-TVT where we can't even acknowledge the existence of NSFW works.  I'm worried that even without someone doing something, they're going to inevitably creep into that territory.

Given how absolutely useless some of our alleged features are as things currently exist -- just try to use typeahead in the search prompt, or expect pop-up link suggestions while editing; you'll be waiting forever -- not to mention the random and all-too-frequent 50* errors, I agree that it's time to start shopping around for a more reliable host.

I've talked to them.  Apparently they're all freaked out by the way a former steward was dismissed by recall; even though that was a special case, no one wants to make any controversial rulings now.  They're also afraid of vote brigades.  So this is a way of forcing the vote on to everyone else before triggering the controversy, so that they can implement the moderation that was already against policy but required an (obvious) judgement call.  (I have told them that the people who are unhappy now will still be unhappy later because that's what moderation is like.)  So really, we should see this as a null policy change, but a vote to actually implement the existing policy.

I hate to admit it, but I now think my original policy was flawed because humans are cowards -- or morons, or otherwise despicable.  Is it really so hard to do the right thing when the vast majority of people support you doing the right thing?

Hmmmmm... Two days, and the questions that I asked haven't been replied to. Is anybody who proposed this policy actually reading the comments?

[robkelk]

Just put together a new navbox.

Amazingly enough, a full one-quarter of the entries were not redlinks. ("Amazingly" because it's a navbox for Canadian content.)

Also amazingly, it showed that we don't have creator pages for Cadence Weapon or Buffy Sainte-Marie, both of whom were big in the USA. (Buffy Sainte-Marie even has Sesame Street Cred.) Anybody want to make a page or two?

[GethN7]

I approved a recent edit to the Kiwi Farms page that modified what they considered biased. Given the modified edit is correct there is no legal evidence on either side's allegations and that, as of yet, the definitive status of the continuation of the site is not known, I thus approved it, since that is all factual up to this point.

For public record, I am a former member of the Farms, thought I left in mid-2020, have elected never to return for personal reasons, and thus have no stake in it's fate either way, though I do admit (hence why I approved the most recent edit) we should avoid definitive statements on legal matters until such is proven in a court of law, if only to prevent our own legal liability.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, now that the future of the KF article seems to be pretty much determined, let us direct our attention to an issue far less likely to get us all swatted by an army of trolls: Peachesandcream2000, AKA Rubyred240 and now Princessleia2000. On her (?) third try -- which is still in the Moderation queue -- she actually learned from the previous two rejections of her edit to Norse Mythology and provided an edit reason -- and one that make sense (I checked and found a citation from the Prose Edda which agrees).

But.

She created a third new account for that third try. She didn't reply as requested in the thread on the user talk page for Rubyred240. And as Princessleia2000 she deleted another trope in the same edit without giving a justification. I'm kind of at a loss how to respond; there are definitely behaviors we want to discourage here (like creating a new user account for every edit), but I don't want to come down so hard that we chase her away, as she may have potential as a good troper. Anyone have any suggestions how to approach her?

[robkelk]

Ask for a checkuser. If this person is going to ignore the rules after having them pointed out, do we really want them?

[GethN7]

Ask for a checkuser. If this person is going to ignore the rules after having them pointed out, do we really want them?

Concur. If they never want to bother playing by our rules, then they should be persona non grata by default.

[Bob Schroeck]

The only problem with that is that edits rejected in moderation don't exist in a way that Checkuser can use to identify the user. We ran into that once before with someone who was ban evading but rather obvious in his editing style. We had to let some of his bad edits through to establish that his various personae were him. And Peachesandcream2000 has been trying to make the same single edit over multiple accounts, so not all of them might even be approvable.

Anyway, I've been trying to be the stern-but-reasonable cop here. Can someone else please play bad cop with her?

[Bob Schroeck]

And on another topic entirely -- do we have a trope for when a bar or restaurant turns out to be entirely populated with allies or the protection detail of someone whom an outsider tries to pressure, intimidate or some other way force their will on, and they stand up and point weapons at the outsider when his intentions have been made clear? One example is the "averted date rape" scene in Nobody Dies when the guy who roofies Asuka discovers that every other person in the restaurant with them is her security team.

I suspect we don't, otherwise it would have been listed on the Nobody Dies page (which is where I went first to check). But I wanted to make sure. Does that ring a bell for anyone?

[robkelk]

So, a Good Guy Bar full of Heroic Bystanders? No, I can't find that as a discrete trope, either.

[GethN7]

The only problem with that is that edits rejected in moderation don't exist in a way that Checkuser can use to identify the user.  We ran into that once before with someone who was ban evading but rather obvious in his editing style.  We had to let some of his bad edits through to establish that his various personae were him.  And Peachesandcream2000 has been trying to make the same single edit over multiple accounts, so not all of them might even be approvable.

Anyway, I've been trying to be the stern-but-reasonable cop here.  Can someone else please play bad cop with her?

I'll do the needful.

Done:

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?tit...sxi3vl5ebq

[Bob Schroeck]

Well. That ought to get some kind of response. <grin>

Thanks!

[Bob Schroeck]

So, a Good Guy Bar full of Heroic Bystanders? No, I can't find that as a discrete trope, either.

Doesn't have to be a Good Guy Bar, it can run exactly the same with the "sides" reversed. But yeah.

[Bob Schroeck]

Just spotted this in Recent Changes:

(User creation log) 01:52 User account Ihatethiswebsite (talk|contribs|block) was created ‎

Anyone care to lay odds on how long it'll take before we have to ban this one?


Speaking of banning, I'm thinking that maybe we should go ahead and block Peachesandcream2000 and Princessleia2000, and leave Rubyred240 for our current troublemaker to use to communicate with us. Any objections?

[GethN7]

Just spotted this in Recent Changes:

(User creation log) 01:52  User account Ihatethiswebsite (talk|contribs|block) was created ‎

Anyone care to lay odds on how long it'll take before we have to ban this one?


Speaking of banning, I'm thinking that maybe we should go ahead and block Peachesandcream2000 and Princessleia2000, and leave Rubyred240 for our current troublemaker to use to communicate with us.  Any objections?

None.

[Bob Schroeck]

Aaaaaaand AmberLovesEverything is back and has made her usual hash of trying to add an example to a page, once again inserting it inside of another example -- and this time on the wrong page, too. Since she got a warning the last time she did this, I'm rewarding her with a tempban -- and because she edits on pretty much a quarterly basis, I'm making it three months so it affects her the way a two-week-long ban would affect a more frequent poster. If anyone thinks this is excessive, feel free to reduce it; I won't contest it.

[robkelk]

Just spotted this in Recent Changes:

(User creation log) 01:52  User account Ihatethiswebsite (talk|contribs|block) was created ‎

Anyone care to lay odds on how long it'll take before we have to ban this one?


Speaking of banning, I'm thinking that maybe we should go ahead and block Peachesandcream2000 and Princessleia2000, and leave Rubyred240 for our current troublemaker to use to communicate with us.  Any objections?

No objections.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'll do that when I get on the wiki in a few, then.

EDIT: And done.