SFW-ness, the ad server, and Naughty Tentacles

Teeth, I don't see much of a point of outlining exactly what I disagree with to FE. He's been demonstrating a marked unwillingness to listen to what we have to say on the subject, no matter how politely we say it.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:51:21 PM by FringeBenefits

@974: There are a couple of reasons historical record among them. Also consider that we don't know what will be cut next, so we can at least help mitigate and undo damage if some cut pages ever get to see the light again. Worst case scenario, we have copies of articles and tropes to move to another wiki, even if with the cost of reformatting work; after all, the license explicitly allows it.

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?

@ 973: Mass lock sounds good. In fact, why not lock everything with the mature content banner? Some, maybe even most, can be unlocked later, but we can deal with that in the special efforts thread.

We did get Fast Eddie to change his mind once, didn't we? When he changed how bullet points work, deliberately making bullet points to bullet points to bullet points look ugly so as to encourage people to merge them?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Temporary mass locks of tropes about, and works featuring, rape or pedophilia, I understand. Permanent locks for those that warrent it I would also understand.

But the policy won't work for the wiki if it leads to deleting big chunks of cultural heritage, such as Classical Mythology. So many tropes originated in it, so many widely-disseminated Public Domain characters and stories and ideas come from it, so much western culture still refers to it even after centuries of mostly being Christian. You can't claim to have a remotely comprehensive analysis of fiction if you can't talk about something like that.

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

OK. Here's my suggestion:

• The new policy should be clearly and completely stated somewhere permanent, so we can point people to it.
• Works reported under the new policy should be locked or temporarily blocked until the work can be reviewed; it should not be an immediate cut.
• Works that are readily available in the USA from major brick-and-mortar vendors like Barnes & Noble should be exempt.
• Works that have received major literary / artistic recognition should be exempt.
• Historical works that are subject to Values Dissonance should be exempt.
• Works that are generally studied in K-12 education (and I would argue college) should be exempt. (thanks, deathpigeon)

edited 11th Apr '12 5:56:53 PM by lebrel

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but is it practical to hold a Kickstarter to raise funds?

Woohoo, this is a nice time to not be a pedophile!

Unless you respect Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov as an artistic work. But TBH our userbase probably isn't mature enough to intelligently analyze it anyways, so it's not much of a loss.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:53:14 PM by PDown

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

@Arcades: Since you keep bringing it up, what myths contain rape of children? I can't think of any offhand. (I know we can discuss most Greek myths without mentioning it.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

To add to that:

• Works that are generally studied in Public Schools should be exempt.

@Feo and Lebrel: Sounds like a good plan to me. It's a good cross section of various "Better safe than sorry" plans. And yeah, "It's readily available at book outlets" should be a pretty good litmus test, as far as I can tell.

@P Down: It's always a good time not to be a pedophile.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:55:24 PM by JapaneseTeeth

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Kickstarter's policies don't allow "help us pay for operating costs" fundraisers. It's supposed to fund creation of works.

I didn't write any of that.

"Works that fullfill X should be exempt" refers to the cut, right?

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?

Yes.

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

Right. Like Lolita would get a pass for its literary merit.

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@984 Well, let's see. Gods and men frequently rape females, because the ancient Greeks honestly didn't consider rape even remotely immoral. And their idea of the age of adulthood for women was 13, or just first mense. And pederasty was a major part of their culture. So really, it's fairly frequent.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:58:50 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

@Japanese Teeth: Is that sarcastic? I can't tell. (Wikipedia lists a bunch of accolades for it.)

@Arcades: Okay, I understand. That would go under the proposed Values Dissonance exception, so let's try to get Fast Eddie to accept it.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:57:55 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Lolita should get a pass because it actually condemns, not celebrates pedophilia. Its literary merit would merely be a bonus.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:57:41 PM by Octo

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

@Feo: I'm being serious; that book is generally considered one of the most important works in the English language. This wiki would be incomplete if we didn't acknowledge its existence in some way.

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Indeed, anything that was written in, or takes place in, a culture where girls were/are married off at first mense would automatically fall under this policy if it mentioned marital sex, or marriage, at all by default. That's not just Real Life examples, that's any work set in such a culture.

So that axes a lot of historical fiction and nearly all mythology, and anything set in rural India or most African or Middle-Eastern countries. It probably axes the entire Bible, in which characters "know" their wives all the time, even though it's already locked. Seriously, Fast Eddie. The Bible. I don't need to explain how significant this work is to Western culture.

edited 11th Apr '12 6:08:25 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

See, that's the thing. Anyone who's actually read Lolita can vouch for the fact that's it actually has a pretty staunch anti-pedophilia theme going for it. Removing all the subtlety, symbolism, allegories, and literary in-jokes from it would effectively leave you with a huge banner reading "this is why you shouldn't molest children".

Anyway, all I'll say on the matter beyond that is that there's a right way to appease Google and a wrong way, and deleting articles at the drop of a hat due to the mention or inclusion of an underage relationship , while ignoring how it's portrayed or how explicit it actually is

, is definitely not the former.

edited 11th Apr '12 6:04:18 PM by DoctorThunder

Perhaps a good solution would be to move all of the work pages that are questionable to a sandbox, temporarily blanking the actual page, and then the mods, and/or trustworthy tropers, can go through the pages with a fine toothed comb removing all creepiness, then move it back to it's original place.

I'm with Death here Sounds like a reasonable solution.

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.

I think that is a good idea.

Alt account of Angeldog 2437.

I agreeth. That is perhaps the best solution that is offered here.

edited 11th Apr '12 6:10:14 PM by Psyga315