Page Restoration Petitions

Originally, yes. I believe Eddie cleared the list when the flagging tool was implemented.

@Bad Wolf: Gilgamesh is actually talking about the trolls who are putting up every even-slightly-borderline work for full review in the hopes that it'll cause raaaaaaaage. Which, of course, is succeeding.

Trolling is the problem, not Moral Guardians as such.

What I'm talking about is the mechanism put in place for random users to flag articles for review of content violations. I'm not saying Fast Eddie is the Moral Guardian I'm speaking of — I'm talking about all the people making use of this service for any old work they disapprove of, which brings up a lot of issues where mature topic articles have to additionally strongly clarify the areas where they're not strictly pornographic, or risk getting cut. When you're legitimately editing an article, and someone out of blue says "This is flagged as possible porn, let's discuss cutting it," it's especially galling if the work is nonpornographic or predominantly nonpornographic, but it invites random people to take issue with it for lots of other only loosely related reasons. Such as furry, or gay, or nudity, or not "family friendly". Questions of public decency and what is considered obscene to whom, are not why a lot of us edit at TV Tropes in the first place. It's...a bit of a can of worms, that can feel like an assault on editors' shoulders. We are concerned first and foremost with the tropes and the works. Some are mature topics, and some aren't. But when we nitpick over what's too mature and what's not, we spend more time debating and less time troping, and it raises our wikistress.

(EDIT) Ramidel could be correct. I tend to try to assume good faith in editors, but it is possible that a lot of these flaggings are by trolls instead of by people who genuinely morally disapprove of something. And yes, the stress that results from this is quite, quite real.

edited 27th Apr '12 8:48:56 PM by Gilgameshkun

Okay, now that is a pretty good point. Not completely certain I agree with it, since unless something is shameless Plot? What Plot? boinkfests we can always discuss compromises short of full-on cutting the page, but its still a good point.

I was finally starting to think that this could work out okay, and then a roleplay where sex isn't even allowed got a "porn" vote (because of the name?) and one of the panel members has stated that any explicit sex makes the work "porn" regardless of the rest of the content. Now I'm nervous.

edited 27th Apr '12 8:50:18 PM by InsanityPrelude

And yes, you could call me a bara fan. I'm interested in the appearances, and beauty, and affections as a legitimate work of erotic art. I'm not so concerned about whether you can get off on it, because not everyone is so desperate. Morenatsu is legitimately bara both in the Japanese and the slang sense, and it has far more plot than porn. The men are attractive, their personalities are interesting, you learn about them, their lives, their interests, their hopes, etc. It's a Romantic Comedy with double entendres thrown in, and its only sex scenes are in its endings, after a whole lot of story and character development and chemistry along the way.

edited 27th Apr '12 8:54:47 PM by Gilgameshkun

First of all, it's not "family friendly" we're worried about, it's Family Friendly.

Second, none of those things are grounds for deletion. Flagging does not mean cutting, and trolling via the flagging tool has been mentioned as a bannable offence.

Third, yes, it raises stress. But it shouldn't have been allowed to get to this point in the first place. And it's not a matter of "too mature". It's a matter of pornography. For example, Game Of Thrones is declared off limits for recommending, because despite being unequivocally a work for mature audiences, it is not pornography. This same standard applies to things like The Witcher (which is not an example I believe anyone has used, so far), or Fate Stay Night (hope that link worked, I've never done that one).

Huh, Family Friendly? Didn't realize there was an article for that. Curse words, pictoral nudity? Okay...a little less ambiguous.

Anyway, yeah. I poured a great deal of effort into articles like Chub Pan, Grant, Morenatsu, Roommates 2009 and its associated sidestories, and all these works' character sheets, because they have interesting developed stories with character and plot. And to be suddenly told they could be cut...yes, wikistress is sky-high right now.

As for Bara Genre, there was already serious discussion about splitting it, renaming it, rewriting it or what. There's the two definitions — is it just Japanese Queer Media, or is it general Queer Media with Manly Gay Mr. Fanservice?

And I still think TV Tropes needs a general article about Homoeroticism as a legitimate study of when men appeal in appearance to men, including nonpornographic areas such as its place in the arts, in culture, in advertising, in mainstream film, etc. It's not Homoerotic Subtext where the homoeroticism is uncertain, or Stupid Sexy Flanders where the homoeroticism is considered unwanted. But just...in general and acknowledgeable. The top picture could even be some kind of famous epic ancient Greek or Renaissance statue, possibly even cropped at the waist, such as the Farnese Hercules or Michelangelo's David. It often seems a Forgotten Trope because most men who aren't openly gay are insecure discussing their awareness of such things without sprinkling them with ambiguity (Homoerotic Subtext) or rejection (Stupid Sexy Flanders), or what have you. A frank but sufficiently tame trope page seems in order, and it could cover much of what otherwise gone in articles such as Bara Genre.

edited 27th Apr '12 9:06:04 PM by Gilgameshkun

Though I have something to say in response, the other thread may be more appropriate for policy matters rather than works. I'm noticing that the two are getting mixed.

1. Martello

On a slightly different topic, many people have asked for transparency in the voting process. Well, I've tried to be as transparent as possible, and all I've gotten for it is people (some of the same people) fighting me for every square pixel I vote to cut, questioning my judgment in general, and arguing over petty semantics on what constitutes porn or pedoshit or a demographic or a genre or whatever.

2. Bad Wolf 21

No, it's not what is happening now. What is happening now is that Fast Eddie, the man whose site this is, has decided that he does not want to feature pornography, or works that showcase prepubescent/early adolescent characters in sexual situations, and has created a panel to help decide what does and does not fit into those categories. Something that it is well within his right to do. If you don't like that, you are more than welcome to start your own wiki (in fact, people have done that exact thing, before).

I think it's because of the scare effect from all the recent events. There was such aggressive action and blemish on the questionable content, that it obscures the message "this content is not for us." If people don't realize that, they forget their willingness to look for/make an alternative.

Yes, people are defending their view to the best of their ability, because this has been turned into a big deal. There's this impression that "this is it, if you lose out on this site's support for your work, it's over for that work." That's not necessarily the case.

edited 27th Apr '12 9:06:50 PM by abstractematics

You're correct, the purpose of these threads are getting a little blurred. Truly, could you blame us? We're many of us more than a little tense right now. It's hard to think about the finest details of proper place and proper procedure when you're afraid that your wiki labors of literary devotion may actually be axed. Some of the tone I heard regarding Bara Genre has not been...reassuring. To be honest, the contextual definition of pornography is one of the most sensitive subjects I can think of, particularly to people who appreciate legitimate erotic media.

edited 27th Apr '12 9:16:54 PM by Gilgameshkun

Guys, as abstract referred to earlier (), this thread is the place for policy discussions. Could the conversation possibly be shifted over there, please?

This thread is the place for requesting that already cut works be reviewed for potential restoration. Not for discussing non-cut works which have come up for review.

Ahh, thank you for clearing that up then.

I guess it turned out this way because we were discussing a whole genre. It would help to keep the two threads separate but closely linked so that anything that comes up in one thread may be discussed in the other thread whenever necessary.

Yes, that sounds wise. I made a brief post in the other thread, mentioning that I raised issues in this thread. But now I am tired...my wikistress is too high right now. Too many draining debates on the matter of what is considered indecent, that seem irrelevant to the reason I became a troper.

edited 27th Apr '12 9:31:54 PM by Gilgameshkun

So...Bara...is porn. That's what I'm seeing here, both from my research and everyone's responses. Lebrel, sorry if I don't put a whole lot of stock in what you're saying - you're the same person who said lolicon and shotacon aren't necessarily pedophilia, when they most certainly are. I'm looking at encyclopedic and/or dictionary definitions of terms, not tap-dancing fan definitions.

Did you read those excerpts from the Wikipedia article? Bara contains (a colossal amount of) porn, but that's not all that it is. To use an example from that article, Slice of Life works about being a gay guy in Japan would also be bara. Think of it like fanfiction. A lot of that contains characters from a show fucking, but 'fanfiction' is not another word for 'porn'. Only it's even more exaggerated in bara's case, because, as mentioned, Japan is weird about sexuality.

Gilgameshkun, you're not helping. Chub Pan and Roommates 2009 were two of the flagship articles for the No Lewdness No Prudishness drive. Way too drooly.

EDIT: Mega-ninja'd.

edited 28th Apr '12 12:23:07 AM by Iaculus

And they were edited to fix that after we decided gushiness is bad. Even then, it had been a good faith addition — the gushiness was humorous window-dressing, like the witty captions of trope top pictures. It may have seemed inappropriately gushy in hindsight to call a character "dilfy", but it was still pretty damned funny to say it and hear it. Even Morenatsu, during most of the game when it's not porn, is sprinkled with lighthearted and hilarious adult humor, and it only made sense to capture some of the same mood of humor when writing articles for them. Removal of gushy language was no problem, and neither article ended up being cut after being deemed in cleaner condition. Is there still a problem?

Please don't cut Roommates 2009 — it's practically bleaching its own underpants over time as it is, being more plot-heavy and porn-light with each new chapter.

edited 28th Apr '12 12:39:32 AM by Gilgameshkun

Fast Eddie's post clears things. Things like Bara Genre and Hentai can stay like Fetish Fuel did. We're just not going to be a directory for them.

Yeah, I got that. Thanks. :3 A lot of the wikistress is diminishing too.

I keep forgetting that a lot of people here are actually youngsters. I'm in my 30s, and I keep assuming other people are adults.

(EDIT) I just removed the examples from the Bara Genre page, leaving the article to be a description of the genre. I hope perhaps sometime we could keep an index for relatively tame bara examples — more along the lines of Japanese Queer Media. It's a fabulous genre. But I suppose issues like these are among the reasons Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

(ANOTHER EDIT) I swapped the top picture for Roommates 2009. The old picture was the chapter one title image (the chapter that was Porn Without Plot). The new image is a scene from chapter two, which is plot-heavier, has more Character Development, and not a single sex scene. I hope it can go a way towards rescuing and improving the article. It's a mature work that started as Porn Without Plot, but then became Plot With Porn, and now has an expanding plot driven by a ensemble cast of developed characters, and I'm going to try to do all I can to make that apparent. ...And yes, the handwritten dialogue text was a tad hard to read at any size. It's still as legible as it ever was here; I considered replacing the text with equivalent Tahoma or something, but decided to leave it be. Does all of this help?

edited 28th Apr '12 1:29:13 AM by Gilgameshkun

Wait, what? Chub Pan was cut? It's not even mostly porn! Most of the game plays similarly to Harvest Moon with job and character interaction. Hell, the sex scenes are skippable because they're not everyone's cup of tea. Can it be uncut?

(EDIT) Grrr...forgot about the crave meter and how it produces hallucinations on the job site. It grows to a maximum rating of 10, reduceable in the erotic mini-game, or reduceable by a fixed level of 3 each day by choosing the "quick" option (which shows nothing). But yeah...sexuality is a fundamental game mechanic. I just hoped the page wouldn't be cut because it has so many other interesting game mechanics and social interactions.

edited 28th Apr '12 12:58:01 PM by Gilgameshkun

Are you serious? I just took a look at it - I didn't vote for it to be cut because the other three had already gotten there and three devil votes is automatic cut. A masturbating panda minigame? There's apparently a bunch of "fuckables" but they haven't been added to the game yet. It's not coming back.

And yes, I was serious. Please, don't speak to me as if I'm being frivolous. Even if it was cut, I did always treat it as a serious work. Do you think I would have written the article to begin with if it wasn't interesting on a story/plot/character level? I don't create works for mindless stuff.

edited 28th Apr '12 1:03:04 PM by Gilgameshkun

Well, maybe it was well done, but one person thought masturbating pandas was too much. Ok, I posted this just to write masturbating pandas.

It sounds funnier.

edited 28th Apr '12 1:07:15 PM by animeg3282

@Gilgameshkun - I don't know what you mean by "tone." As I said, it's not coming back. It's porn.

@animeg - Ha ha ha.

Out of curiosity, what makes "masturbating pandas" different from "masturbating people"? It's a Petting-Zoo People game — none of the characters actually act like animals. If the reason was masturbation, I get it, but if it was because it was an anthropomorphic panda, that inserts a bit of an unnerving anti-furry tone.

Look...if it's cut and not coming back, that's that. But please, don't pretend that someone didn't consider it a serious worthy work.

edited 28th Apr '12 1:07:01 PM by Gilgameshkun