OK, I understand now. It's probably better to wait until a more complete explanation comes - I've a shadow of an idea, but I am not going to assume things...

Eddie is not crazy or paranoid. He's shut down attempts of overboard prudishness repeatedly.

Fast Eddie does listen to feedback. But no one's obligated to be swayed by feedback.

In any case, why do you think Fast Eddie going on a rampage and deleting entire sections is even an issue?

How about a posting-by-mod-only thread or page somewhere for reporting admin fiat decisions? So someone finding that there are suddenly no examples on Naughty Tentacles could check it and see "Example Sectionectomy on Naughty Tentacles due to concerns about Google Payments (or whatever the issue is)" and at least have an idea what's going on.

He's still human (allegedly). Anybody can hold a grudge. Shouldn't we have some sort of safeguard in case he has a really bad day or something?

Hell, I run a site. There's been more than one day that I've wanted to say "screw it" and take the whole thing down, I know what I'm talking about. I have friends with backups and moral support in case that happens... but near as I can tell, nobody has the power that Fast Eddie does, and that worries me.

Janitor does. She just doesn't have time to be on as often as Eddie at the moment.

Okay, good. That reassures me, thank you.

Your "safeguard" is the fact that you can always set up your own website with your own time and money to include whatever content you want.

This is Fast Eddie's website. He has been extremely genererous in letting up have as much say as we do in how it operates.

Not to mention that this site is partially a legacy of their friend and co-founder Gus.

edited 5th Apr '12 9:41:07 AM by ccoa

This might be FE's website but the content is not his. He has set up a public service and should exercise responsibility for it.

That said, considering #23, I'm pretty sure we'll get to hear an actually good justification. The thing with FE is more a lack of communication that anything, his management style can be best described as "angered kid takes his ball home" (even though technically the ball is not his, the playfield is).

Oh...he died?

I could certainly understand the motives behind the Example Sectionectomy. However, it does feel a bit sudden and I saw no word on this, not even on the pervertedness-cleanup threads, until now. Is there any way in which this trope can be salvaged, like a sandbox to ensure that the examples are up to snuff and readable without veering towards the creepy side (like we'd do examples in any sex-related trope, as in just-the-facts), or is this just plain unsalvagable?

edited 5th Apr '12 9:57:15 AM by EarlOfSandvich

From the text in ccoa's post last page, I get the feeling that it wasn't just because of creepy stuff, but something much worse than that was on that page and forced the immediate removal.

edited 5th Apr '12 9:55:56 AM by SeptimusHeap

We are only Wild Mass Guessing right now, so let's just wait. I certainly hope it's not something like a bunch of dedicated creepers all editing one page together and linking a bunch of NSFW images.

While I'm patient to let mods reveal as much or as little about the reasoning for certain cuts at their leisure, I will point out that there are completely rational business reasons for cutting such examples.

Basically, there are two things that can, on the business side, cause havoc. One is that a page that ends up with too much NSFW material can start tripping content filters - and those filters can frequently cause an entire site to be blocked just because of one page that is deemed by the software to be "over the line." In order to ensure the widest possible readership, it behooves the staff to make sure that doesn't happen.

Two, ad servers can pick up on content that is over the line and start putting advertisement for materials that the leaders of the site object to for any reason (which may include the ads causing the above-cited problem). In order to prevent that, Fast Eddie and co. would reasonably move to prevent that issue.

Keep in mind, of course, that this kind of thing isn't mere conjecture; the site has had well-known issues in the past related to objectionable ads causing mass blockages. Due to that, it's not only a reasonable explanation, I think it's the most reasonable explanation. So I personally will assume that the decision was made for these reasonable business decisions until otherwise notified, and I think it's in the best interest of everyone to make a similar assumption for this case (unless the mods feel like going into more detail as to whether that's right or not).

Well, we can't blame anyone for not wanting another Google Incident.

edited 5th Apr '12 10:01:02 AM by lu127

I've always seen Fast Eddie and the mods excersize good, if sometimes sudden, judgement. I trust that in this case there was a strong reason for nuking everything with no warning. We may be told about it in due course, which would be nice to satisfy people's curiosity and possible gripes; we may not. If the latter is the case, then the reason for nuking everything must have been really, really good and it is good that it happened as soon as it did.

Yeah, we're having Moral Guardian issues and responding to complaints that threaten the revenues we need to run the wiki. I personally think the complaints are bogus, but we have to keep the advertisers on board.

There may be other tropes that attract out-links which get us in trouble. I'm thinking we can stave off trouble by removing those links before it turns into an example section-ectomy.

Cruise through the Sex Tropes index and see if there are any out links on the pages which could upset a severely prudish Mrs. Grundy, if you'd like to help out. Out-links aren't critical, usually, as the example should be on the page, not in the link.

So Moral Guardians are idiots. No surprise there.

Let's check works with a high fanservice ratio as well. Special Efforts will need help.

Thanks for the update, Eddie. Do you think this is worth a headline so we can enlist help from editors who don't visit the forums as well?

Was it a link to a specific site that was the problem, or NSFW links in general?

Let's see if we can keep it among tropers, or at least among forum readers. I still haven't built a headline utility that only addresses people who are logged in.

Anyway, I've announced it in the Special Efforts thread.

If it's outlinks that are the problem, is there any chance of coding a transition page that all outlinks automatically pass through?

You know, like the ones Facebook puts up (sometimes, when the code works) that disclaim all responsibility for what you find if you keep going.

Or am I addressing a different problem than the one that brought this up?

Possible, but unless the outlinks are necessary it's easier to simply cut them if they bring us in trouble.

Ok I kind kinda understand the cutting of examples 1000000% against it... seriously its Prudishness taken to the extreme... (you give a little they take a mile its a freaken slippery slope that needs to have a rock put in front of the slide.)

But why reduce the description to 1 paragraph? I mean seriously what was the point of that? it is less than a stub right now and it is a gd trope. And we just had a thread on the image to keep the thing.

That at least have a decent description damnit.

And I thought we still had that NSFG warning?

edited 5th Apr '12 1:05:38 PM by Raso