Wanted! New 5P Members! Apply Here! (November 2016)

Yep, you read that right. Our original group of hardy souls who stepped up to help us administer The Content Policy and the 5P Circuit is in need of new members. To restore the panel to its former glory, we hereby announce a recruitment drive!

So what is the 5P, exactly?

The Five P has many names, but its role is to enforce our content policy by reviewing suspect work articles and indicating whether they meet our criteria for exclusion from the wiki.

Wiki users may flag articles that may violate our policy; those flags enter a queue. The panel members examine each work and indicate, by vote, whether it should remain or leave, with majority winning (this is why the panel consists of five members). The 5P may, at their discretion, solicit troper feedback by opening a topic specific to each work in the Content Violation Discussions forum. These topics are expected to remain focused and will be closed when a decision has been rendered.

What special privileges do 5P members get?

They can vote in the flag review screen and open topics in the Content Policy forum. They gain no special wiki privileges and are not considered moderators. Moderators, in fact, cannot be 5P members, to maintain the independence of the body. Moderators can, however, guide and/or override the decision-making process if absolutely required.

Moderator support is also needed to effect certain 5P decisions, such as cutting and locking articles.

How can I discuss the content policy?

Please use the thread linked here. Policy discussions in this topic that are not related specifically to applications will be thumped.

So, what kind of people are you looking for?

Our list of criteria is as follows. While these are not absolute rules, we will only consider exceptions with a very good reason.

• Must be a member of the wiki with significant standing — more than a year and a large, consistent history of edits.
• Must display an active interest in the curation and maintenance of articles.
• Must have a reasonably clean record in terms of forum thumps, wiki notifiers, and/or suspensions. (Nobody's perfect, of course.)
• Must agree in principle with the content policy: that is, that we wish to remove articles on works that consist of "pure porn", that solely pander to sexual fetishes, and that pander in any degree to pedophiles, in order to both maintain our standing in the Internet community and avoid possible repercussions with our advertisers.
• Must be willing (and able) to examine works with prurient content, including hardcore pornography, gorn, fetishes, and underage sexuality with an unbiased eye and without getting in trouble.
  • You shouldn't be doing this stuff at school, at work, or in front of kids.
  • You should be resilient enough not to overdose on Brain Bleach each time you look at a dubious work.
  • You may need to use "unauthorized" means, such as scanlation sites, to view certain works. While TV Tropes does not condone such sites for linking on the wiki or forums, they are acceptable for the purposes of the 5P; we don't ask that you spend your own money. If doing this will get you in trouble personally, don't apply.
  • Due to the fact that you'll often be streaming video, you should have no bandwidth cap, or one that's high enough that you won't blow through it.
• Must be willing to endure the scrutiny of people who may not agree with the 5P's decisions or with the content policy itself.
• It should be fairly obvious, but you should be on the site regularly, at least once a week.

How do I apply?

Make a post in this topic indicating your interest. We don't need a huge resume, but it would be helpful to mention specific articles that you help keep clean and free of natter, bad indentation, and the like, so we can see that you're actively involved in maintaining the wiki. If you use alternate accounts (for forum games or whatever), post from the one you'll be logged into when you work on the 5P, which should be your main editing account.

What happens then?

We'll collect applications until we have enough to review. That will depend on interest; if there's a lot, we may close the process sooner. Then, we'll allow comments on applicants from the general troper body (for or against) followed by a crowner where we'll let the community vote for who they think would do the best job. (Note: The crowner will not be definitive. It's just a tool for helping us gauge support.)

Based on that process, we'll extend invitations to join the 5P to the people whom we feel are best qualified. We'll announce the new members in a big ceremony with champagne and balloons (not really).

Let's get this thing going again!

I am interested in joining the 5P. I have helped the best I could with several previous cases the 5P has dealt with without actually being a member, such as DEAD Tube, Guro Idol, Little Miss Mary, and Lord of the G-strings. I don't have a problem with viewing sensitive/explicit content or scanlations and have no bandwidth cap.

I've contributed to the cleanup threads on Getting Crap Past the Radar and R-Rated Opening in the past, though the majority of my edits are on works pages and Same Content, Different Rating.

I agree with the terms of what TV Tropes has determined is not acceptable for the site and if appointed to the 5P would make all my decisions based off these terms.

What kind of time committment does this involve? How many works would we be expected to examine in, say, an average week?

Well, there are currently 31 articles in the work queue, with flag dates going all the way back to last August (I think). Most already have at least one vote. Three were added in October and one so far in November. That should give a good idea of how fast the work comes in.

edited 3rd Nov '16 7:13:28 AM by Fighteer

"Must be willing (and able) to examine works with prurient content, including hardcore pornography, gorn, fetishes, and underage sexuality with an unbiased eye and without getting in trouble."

In exact degree are we talking about? Eiken?

Eiken is mid-range. There's been worse. A lot worse.

The underage mlp guro-rape comes to mind...

That stuff is preeetty rare though.

edited 3rd Nov '16 2:59:12 PM by Adannor

On the one hand, I am not nearly so active here as I used to be, and my editing history is probably not stellar; on the other hand, I have been a lot more active in this subforum than most people and have been here since its inception, watching with interest. I flag bad articles and examples when I see them, weigh in regularly on troublesome content, and have a very high tolerance for things that make a lot of other people very squeamish. I am also perfectly willing to put black marks against works that I think have aesthetic and intellectual merit should they violate site guidelines, and to give a fair shake to works that I might find artistically lacking and morally repulsive should they not. It might not be a fun job, but I like having a sense of purpose and feeling like I've accomplished something positive, if small and mostly unnoticed.

Will you give out confirmations to 5P members that they're looking at certain sites for a good cause? Just to make sure that the FBI won't misunderstand their intentions.

^^^Sadly with that one the content wasn't even as painful as the author's technical ability.

I considered applying for this. I don't have a huge editing history here but am fairly active on the forums. My biggest problem is that I do about 90% of my troping from work computers, which wouldn't work out too well for this position. I have the stomach and the interest in cleaning up the wiki, but I don't think I am an ideal candidate for this. But if you need a fifth and don't have a lot of interest (not that I am seeing a lot of interest in this thread so far) let me know and I will figure something out to help.

Everyone wants a fun,easy, comfortable job that pays well. This is pretty much the exact opposite of that.

edited 6th Nov '16 12:38:54 AM by Daefaroth

If the FBI is interested in visitors to a particular site, related content can be removed from this site without first going through the 5p.

I am a troper who has been here for about 2 years, since before the Tvtropes revamp. I have XCOM Enemy Unknown page fairly clean of natter when i visited it. I agree wholeheartedly with the standards as I wish for this site to remain free and thus accept advertisers and their Executive Meddling as necessary. I work on either my home computer or an easily concealable smartphone (being always accessible) as well as easily being able to stomach anything requiring Brain Bleach. I hope I am chosen as I visit this wiki many times a week and wish to see it shine.

edited 10th Nov '16 5:37:54 PM by riothegod

I am interested in taking of the job of 5P. While i have only been on this site for a little over a year, In that short time span I have devoted myself to fixing any mistakes I see and spend several hours on the site each day. While my edits have mostly been minor errors such as typos and fixing broken links, I believe I am capable of devoting time and effort to cleaning up this site to the best of my abilities.

I'm interested in been a 5P member. My contributions to the TV Tropes site has been mostly limited to Bojack Horseman, specifically the Characters subpage, which I have improved and added trope after trope since Summer of 2015, when I joined the site in order to write about the show I love so much. Checking through the history, you'll be able to see I'm the main troper in creating the subpages and improving each character's personal folder. Which is not to say it's the only page I've worked in. Some of my work can also be found in the Main Page of the series, as well as the Character page of The Sopranos and Kung Fu Panda and tropes like Deconstructor Fleet in the folder involving Western Animation. As for principles, it's all about keeping everything clean, peaceful, free and in order. No harmful content or depraved of any kind. I'm capable of keeping my calm with reviewing any kind of content, being a bit desensitized about graphic or violent content. I'll await your response and hope you'll consider me. Either way, thanks for reading.

I would like to note, for the record, that I had already been an active member of the forum for a few years when the Google Incident which inspired the P5 occurred. Finding posts of mine from that far back is difficult, however...

How you all doing. I'm Ax, I'm throwing my name in the hat for 5P.

Now, like a few others, I haven't been editing much recently. However, I'm on to browse it fairly regularly and plan on getting back into the editing game. I've been around...I'm not even entirely sure how long. I know I was here when Crowning Moments of Funny and Heartwarming were still on the sugar wiki domain, I remember that, and shortly after I joined was when the 5P was born.

What I bring to the table that's unique is that I have experience in this realm. Under a secondary alias on Reddit (one which I'd rather not publicly link to this username - mods/judges can privately request it for proof purposes), I've moderated over 375,000 subscribers to two different nsfw subreddits. Now, I understand that this seems counterproductive, but both subs have had to deal with vast amounts of spam and highly unsavory content at various times - the larger of the two subs (with ~350k members) had a rash of incidents with individuals targeting user-made content, which I took the front-facing position of the mod team to shut down, and was the 'face-to-face' rep of the mod team during a Reddit-wide scandal that in part affected the sub. I have additional past experience in these regards that, again, I'd rather discuss within PM.

What this all means is that I'm already equipped and experienced in working with 'unsafe' content, and dealing with the individuals on both sides of the issue. This goes on top of real world experience making committee style decisions on difficult decisions, being on both a campus newspaper and campus discipline committee. Brain Bleach is not a problem. Accessibility is not a problem. I'm good to go.

edited 13th Nov '16 6:06:54 PM by Axslayer33

Oh sure why not, I'll throw my hat in.

I've been on the wiki and the forums for quite a long time, although my editing is rather low in activity.
I've been helpin around the P5 forums for a big portion of their existence, so I well know the guidelines for what goes and what goes not for the articles.
I have absolutely no problems accessing content up for review, including exhentai (hell, I've been reposting some stuff from there for the old P5 on occasion) and of course the streams/torrents with no bandwidth problems.
Nor I am bothered to brainbleach by nearly anything that was thrown at the reviews.

edited 13th Nov '16 10:47:40 PM by Adannor

Okay, I'll throw my hat in as well.

I've been on the site for a number of years with no real drama thumps or suspensions to my name. I can handle most fictional content, and I've reported on things I've found objectionable before. Most controversial edits I make are to try and minimize drama such as on X-Men: Apocalypse and Knock Knock (2015). My editing has improved greatly since I've logged on and I've avoided standard problems with indenting and namespace. I've contributed quite a bit to the Complete Monster cleanup in the past, and a moderate amount in the present, but other than that my involvement with the community at large has been rather limited. I like to think I'm easy to get along with.

Warning: This is not an application, but just providing advice. I speak for no one but myself in this post. Not the mods, and not other tropers.

While some of you have some fair credentials, I have noticed that a lot of you applicants have not been heavily involved with what we colloquially call the "left side" of the forums - things like Wiki Talk, the Projects forums, Image Picking, Trope Repair Shop, and of course this forum. This raises the question of how well you would work with other tropers in this environment, including interacting with the regular and semi-regular people (I fall into the latter) who do contribute here and there.

Since as P5 you are going to be called to work with other tropers like that, my advice to all candidates who weren't very active in those areas: while this process is ongoing, start lurking, observing how things are done, and even jump in a thread or two yourself. That experience, I feel, would be very helpful to you if you were to make the cut. The more you know about general procedures and guidelines, the better equipped you will be for the job.

Redundant Warning: This is not an application, but just providing advice. I speak for no one but myself in this post. Not the mods, and not other tropers.

Well I've been active in this portion plus some time in Image Picking. So, got something, at least.

A note: while I generally concur with what Totemic Hero said, above, we are looking at each application on its merits, and will move the process into the next phase when we feel we have enough. Participation in the "business" forums is certainly a major plus, as it shows you can work cooperatively on correcting wiki issues.

I've been plenty active in this section and mentioned my contributions to Trope Repair Shop in my application.

I have a weak stomach and am not thinking of taking this job, but I should mention that the page The Content Policy and the 5P Circuit currently says the 5P is not accepting new members. Should it be fixed, or would that be pointless?