Ask The Tropers

Um, are these edits actually wrong? Like, if they were done by a random person would they be acceptable?

^ While Trivia was understandable to a degree, I will admit I messed up with that, the main page and YMMV page was absolutely uncalled for and deleted entries that weren't wrong at all; the YMMV was meant for opinions, and to delete things like Angst? What Angst?, Ass Pull, Designated Villain, and entries from Ensemble Dark Horse is arbitrary and problematic. My missteps on Trivia or acknowledgement of the original comic shouldn't be grounds for page ownership by the author.

I do intend on weighing in on what the community thinks on this, once they wake up of course. But the fact of the matter is that he vandalized the YMMV portion of the Peter and Company 2005 portion of the page in his efforts to remove any talk of the original comic. That's not just something that should be excused by default on account of my blunders on the trivia page, which I also recommend closely inspecting. He still deleted perfectly good YMMV entries for no other reason than arbitrary reasoning and he engaged in Auto-Erotic Troping.

Creators have restrictions when editing their own works on this site and this creator is claiming ownership of the trivia subpage and removing entries on that as well as other pages. A section in The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours outright states they can't remove content because they disagree or don't like it.

Sent a notifier with a link to both that page and to this ATT.

Edit: Just saw the other ATT about it and Fighteer is apparently allowing the edits?

(Just when I changed my mind on the edit, you responded like a sneaky ninja)

^ I even talked with the author about that, and he's decided to continue to gatekeep what is and isn't acceptable on his page. Apparently, he was given permission by admin, but I'm not entirely sure about how far he was supposed to go as well as the validity of that claim. The author was very condescending to me about it too.

I've already contacted Fighteer about this, the first time questioning the validity of the author's claims and the second being over a rule violation inside P Ms (which is something I'm not allowed to share publicly here).

Edit response: No, that was Fighteer warning me the author came to the website to request I not touch his page, and also warning me to not import any personal drama to the website as per Forum Policy.

Response to humor: Ninja recognize ninja. But no, Fighteer did not tell me that the author had the authorization to make every single edit he did.

I should also add that the author is trying to dictate how I do any sort of page work on the Original Peter and Company, something I've not agreed to do for him nor have I officially committed to doing at the moment. I'm pretty sure that's a violation of either Auto-Erotic Troping or the part in The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours where it says "You may not request or demand that other people create or edit articles about you or your work, except as noted above".

For the record, the YMMV items I removed were ones where Stardust had not only made a summary/assessment on a character that intentionally misrepresents how a character is portrayed in the comic, but then claimed that these opinions were widely held by the readers of the comic, which is demonstrably false. If they are his own opinions, they should be presented as such, rather than him claiming that it's an issue that is widely believed (such as implying that one of the main characters in the comic is universally hated, when that is simply not true). It reached the point, to me, where it crossed from simple expression of opinion into intentional misinformation.

Additionally, the majority of edits I removed across all tabs were ones referencing a much, much earlier comic I wrote back in high school, which was my first attempt at drawing a strip called "Peter and Company." In 2005, I did a full reboot of the series that uses an entirely different story and revamped cast, throwing out and deleting everything related to the old series in order to start off new. Stardust has, for some reason, tried to implement a major shift in focus away from a comic that has been running for almost 20 years now in order to instead discuss a canceled comic that is not officially hosted online by me and thus cannot be read. It risked causing major confusion to those who have only read the official series, and felt very petty, as Stardust has told me directly that he feels it was a mistake for me to reboot the comic, and still feels the original deleted version was superior.

I don't mind him having that opinion (he can have any opinion he likes), but attempting to hijack a comic's official page in order to shift focus onto what is an entirely different and unrelated comic feels like a breach of this site's rules as well. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And also for the record, I am not here to dictate anyone's opinion of my work, nor am I attempting to demand someone add more Tropes to my listing. All I care about is if someone is either misrepresenting the characters/story with deliberate misinformation, or if they are trying to redirect attention to a work that no longer exists nor has any connection to the series being discussed.

I also made a discussion thread (link here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=Webcomic.PeterAndCompany#comment-159517 ) which openly states that I don't object to the original canceled comic strip being discussed, just as long as it's given its own page, away from the official Peter & Company listing. I don't mind if people want to discuss it (if they're one of maybe a handful of people who even still remember it at all or have ever read it), but I object to hijacking the official comic's pages to do so.

I mean a separate page for the OG version seems a good compromise. Guess we can take it to the discussion link above as well.

^ The current issue still needs to be resolved before we go anywhere near that. Reasonable as a separate page for the OG version is, discussion for that sort of thing doesn’t really belong in that link nor that doesn’t clear the fact that the author suddenly thinks he’s allowed to have hand in how its done, has repeatedly attempted to claim ownership of the YMMV page and arbitrarily run things by him. Not to mention the violation he's committed in regard to his edit in regards to Auto-Erotic Troping on the Trivia and possibly main page, and The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours in general.

^^^^ Your actions on YMMV betray your claims.

You do realize attempting to invalidate my YMMV entries on the 2005 comic on the basis of argumentum ad ignorantiam isn’t a valid reason to take down my entries, right? Your fans are not the only audience that exists; you don’t get to gatekeep on what goes and what stays on YMMV, that has to be something you get a consensus on from the community if you want it gone since it's a page built on opinion, not facts. YMMV is about contested information and opinion, for you to delete them because of your preconceived notions about me is not okay, especially since you didn't even bother to run that by anyone in the Tv Tropes community or indicate any proof that you had mods give you permission to do so.

Not every YMMV Entry requires a consensus to put up, so that you went out of your way to delete them arbitrarily is a problem...but a consensus is however required when removing them.

Also, everything you claimed that I said about the OG comic is a conversation I never had with you, period. I know what I said, and it was not that; Given that it sounds like this was one you had outside the website with someone else, that definitely can be construed as drama importation. Not cool.

Accidental bump. Originally pointed out to user in second response that drama importation is unacceptable but decided to resort to holler option.

The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours specifically forbids adding YMMV and other subjective entries, right?

It seems obvious to me that this would extend to mass-deleting or altering entries.

Additionally, carving out huge chunks of a YMMV page as was done here without input or discussion would absolutely be seen as vandalism or at least improper editing, regardless of who's doing it. That edit, I note, only removed two entries from the original comic; the rest was all material pertaining to the current one that was deleted unilaterally on the basis of PAC not liking it — which they're allowed to do, but removing all of this material absolutely needs some kind of consensus or backing. The Trivia edit likewise removed mostly material not related to the original comic.

Given also that PAC begins every major edit reason with "I am the author of Peter & Company, and I do not want X and Y and Z", they absolutely seem to claiming some form of control or ownership over the page, which they can't do.

I do agree that PAC's actions seem in breach of site policy.

Therioceophalus: (Clever name, by the way!) if I made a mistake in my reasoning for making the edits, I do apologize. I've been a contributing member of several other wikis over the years and didn't realize this one had a very specific way of doing things. I registered this account specifically to just clean up the page talking about my comic, so I don't plan on using it beyond that.

My main reason for deleting those other items on the other tabs was not to prevent Stardust from sharing his opinion, but because he tried to pass his personal opinion off as if it was the general consensus of the audience-at-large. If he wants to give reasons why he doesn't like certain characters, that's perfectly fine, if it's allowed! But I don't think you should be able to claim a widespread shared opinion as if it is a common view of the series if there's no proof that this is true (and doubly so if the view is factually incorrect, like claiming a character acts a certain way in the story when they actually do not).

If these types of edits require making a thread and gaining a consensus before they are allowed to be made, I apologize again. But I hope if they are added back in, they can be edited for accuracy and to show they are simply the editor's personal opinion.

^^ I agree, could an admin please restore the pages?

The fact the data is on the YMMV page means it's an opinion to start. There's no need to tag the entries with "this is a personal opinion." As long as it's not flame bait and doesn't violate the rule of cautious editing judgement, it's valid.

^^^ Again, you are not in charge of what counts as valid and invalid. You have absolutely no right to be doing that, and I seriously question if mods actually allowed you to go through with that in particular. You don’t see any other audience past your own fanbase, so your attempts to act like they don’t exist and invalidate my entries are futile.

If they get put back in, I will support the trimming them to whatever extent the community asks of it. But at the end of the day, nobody has to run their edits by you alone, and you alone do not have the right to declare whats acceptable and what isn’t.

You keep acting like I’ve wronged you, but in truth it is you're out of line and you took advantage of the admin’s permission, which I still question the extent of and if you actually had it to begin with, to vandalize the page as people are starting to point out. You’ve also imported drama you had with someone outside of the website, which is also a huge taboo.

Quit being so condescending and stop trying to discredit me when I’ve done nothing but good work for your page. Between the gratuitous caps in your PM to me and your patronizing attitude, your attempts at being affable come off as very disingenuous and makes it harder for anyone to want to work with you. Me mentioning and including the OG comic and getting things mixed up on Trivia was not an excuse to do what you did last night and this morning.

Calling me condescending when you've done nothing but speak aggressively towards me in D Ms is pretty hilarious, honestly.

But hey, at the end of the day, this is y'alls site and I obviously can't control whatever you guys put on it. I simply made an effort to correct the errors where I had found them on pages concerning my own work. I've been a fan of this site in general for well over a decade (I always enjoyed seeing what tropes get added to my page that I never even realized I was using) and I won't let the actions of one person sour my opinion.

If you still want to roll the pages back to put your initial comments back in place, errors and all, it's your right to do so. I won't attempt changing them again after this.

^ Considering you’ve repeatedly made wild accusations here, saying I said things on this website I never actually did, and patronized me when I firmly informed you what you did was not according to policy? You can’t honestly be shocked that you put me on the defensive in the first and last PM I sent to you here.

That tends to happen when you think you can metaphorically wag your finger at people and talk down to them.

LOL, you have a very distinct writing style and you have made all the exact same comments/arguments against my writing on other sites that you posted here, practically verbatim. If you want to roleplay and pretend that you're actually someone else, that's fine. But I fully know your identity, James, because this isn't the first time you've done this and targeted my writing, all because you're upset that I rebooted the comic 20 years ago (which you even admitted to me, directly, in D Ms last night).

But that's bringing outside drama into this, and I don't want to break any more rules than I evidently already have. So let's leave this in the hands of the mods, I won't object to their decision.

^ Way to import drama, potentially twice right now; There's no if, this time; you definitely just did it right there. Also really creepy of you to be talking to me like that.

Also, you're really dishonest about what I actually said to you here on TV Tropes. You know that, right?

I'm genuinely concerned for you that you're really that convinced I am the person in question. Trust me, I'm not. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment on that subject.

I only brought it up because you did (though I see you stealth-edited your original reply to remove any mention of me knowing your identity, so good job on that one). I already said I'm not discussing it anymore, at least not here. If you want to speak directly to me, you know how.

Let's not escalate things any further, guys.

Have the mods reverted the pages yet? Like Tuvok said, a compromise can be made here.

^ Until a mod gets here I have no intention of coming back to this thread; the compromise is irrelevant in the face of everything that has transpired. Between the author's baseless accusations and his frequent drama importation, I've quite frankly had it.

This is surreal.

^^ That's no excuse for drama importation, by the way, especially when you've got the wrong guy.

(I'd also like to point out to mods that, as I understand it, importing drama means bringing drama from outside the website. Talking about the author's rudeness that he demonstrated to me on this website shouldn't constitute as that)

I've reverted the deletions on the YMMV page made by the troper who's the author of the work, because, true or not, those deletions still violated rules regarding auto-erotic troping. Edits on Trivia subpages don't count as auto-erotic troping (unlike YMMV and "moments" pages), so I'll leave that one to the mods.

^ I know I just contradicted my initial post seeing as I’m back here…but are you sure about that last part? I’m pretty sure some of what he did for Trivia may count.

But at this point, I’ll leave it at your discretion.

^ Just did a double check, and only adding "publicly inaccessible trivia" counts as auto-erotic troping. But I'm not sure what parts of the Trivia subpage would count.

The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours states that "You may not remove content from our articles on the basis that you disagree with it or do not like it." So if the author is removing data by stating that he "doesn't want 'unwanted' references" to the older comic, that's a violation of that.

I don't have a dog in the fight, I was consulting the rules.

I think a separate page for the OG version is a good idea, similar to how we have a page dedicated to the prototype for Garfield.

Is the OG version accessible in any form, though?

^ Yes. It's on multiple archivist websites as far as I know.

Correction: No, it is not, other than unauthorized reuploads, which should not count. It is, for all intents and purposes, an abandoned and deleted concept.

^ Vilui asked if the OG version is accessible in any form; archivist website is a form of access. Just because you don't "authorize" it, doesn't mean it doesn't count.

Per this site's own rules, which you've linked to countless times:

"You may inform us that your work has been removed and made permanently inaccessible to the public, in which case we may consider deleting our article(s). This requires agreement from the troper body."

So, no. It is not accessible by me, so it should not be considered. I have indeed removed it and made it permanently inaccessible to the public. Further, interpretation of the text implies that the above should only apply to existing pages; creating an entire new page to a work that was deleted by the artist *20 years ago* seems a bit silly on its face. But, I realize my opinion doesn't hold a lot of sway here, so.

^ You cite a policy without actually understanding what it means; this part doesn't actually work in your favor. Allow me to emphasize the last two sentences:

"we may consider deleting our article(s). This requires agreement from the troper body."

Once again, you ignore the part where it says the community gets a say in this; your status as the owner of the work doesn't grant you special permissions with that. So far, most of them seem pretty okay with your original idea, which I find to be commendable on your part.

Please stop with your attempts to erase all nuance on the subject.

Lol, I mean, if y'all are really so dead set on analyzing a crudely-drawn dead comic strip drawn by an autistic high school student, as long as it's on its own page, I don't mind. Knock yourselves out! Just don't expect any ground breaking art or writing; it was abandoned for good reason.

I mean, what exactly is wrong with looking at your old stuff anyway? We're not judging you as a person for whatever stuff you made many years ago.

For the record, we have many pages of works that can only be accessed through archives such as Internet Archive. So technically it does count.

I'm just not a fan of my own earliest work. My biggest reason for doing the reboot was because I had written myself into a corner. The comic has almost 40 characters, with only a small handful actually having any real development. It also features a character who is an absolute 100% ripoff of Minerva Mink, and who was named after my high school girlfriend at the time, so.

Just overall, not something I was proud of, or wanted to keep online, when I decided to move on and start over fresh. I don't object to people reading it, just... Lower your expectations.

The edit states:

Regarding how the strip started as "this page will not include it" is dictating how things should be documented here. That's, as far I know, not allowed. The author can only say "hey, this is 100% not available anywhere whatsoever, could you consider removing it?" and not dictate that the TV Tropes community not talk about past work. e.g. The author of Sabrina Online can't make us ignore the Sabrina at See-CAD strips.

Until the secondary page is made, the primary page should have these details—in part, so that once another page is made, the data can be moved without someone having to pull it out of the history pages.

If there is a lesson to this (if at all), is that getting one person's approval (even if it is a mod) is not an end-all be-all to what the rest of the wiki thinks. There has to be a consensus. That's a problem across the whole site. That's my two-cents at least.

^ I couldn't agree more.

For my own reference: if I happen to think of any additional tropes to add to the list (or find additional examples within the comic of tropes that are already in the list), am I allowed to just add them in myself with a new edit, or do I need to post in a forum to discuss the Tropes I want to add (and provide samples of them from the comic) to get approval from others before I'm allowed to add them to the list?

I just want to make sure I understand the process here. Not sure how locked down the process is for just a standard "adding new content" edit.

Well, and again I'm basing myself off of The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours, the general idea is that you essentially have the same editing rights as any other single editor on the site, but only that. So, you can add objective information ("In Work X this thing happens"), add examples, correct factual mistakes about a work's content, and essentially do anything that you or I could do of our own initiative on any given work or trope page.

The primary thing here is that, since wikis are collaborative efforts by definition, single editors don't get to make huge controlling or defining decisions without input, and there isn't really an authorial exception to that clause.

OK, let's all dial the language way back a bit.

Let's also stop vague-waving at The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours or the other policy page. Neither prohibits authors from editing pages on their work, and it's not at all obvious that the contested edits violate either policy - if there is no archived or online copy of a work anymore, then we don't trope it, and even if such a copy exists, it may be worth troping separately if it has a wholly different plot. We don't edit pages on the basis of Ad Hominem, except for YMMV pages where additions by authors are banned. So let's head to the discussion page and see if the edits are justified on their merits or not, instead.

That said, Peter and Company, until the dispute is resolved, please leave the YMMV page alone.

(Edited to remove, since mod edit override.)

Heh, no worries. I won't poke that hornet's nest twice. I'm not touching any of the sections after this, aside from maybe adding any Tropes/examples that I can think of myself down the line.

Edit: Mod posted while I was slow in writing my post, disregard.

^^^^ You seem to be missing that his edits may be violating both the second and fourth bullet points of the latter policy. I implore you to take a closer look.

Thanks for pitching in regardless guys. Although there's still two issue left to address before I would declare this entire thing resolved (one having to do with certain parts of Trivia page that Nethilia brought up, and another that has to do with ATT), I do appreciate your input and fixing the YMMV page back to their original state.

^ x10 I took the liberty of removing that bit he added as, based on previous discussions I've had on the subject of edit wars, removing something that isn't allowed doesn't constitute as an edit war. Feel free to correct me if otherwise.

Bumping for the sake of one final question.

Given that there has been no talk on the validity of my accusation against the author in regard to potential drama importation (though in fairness there may be talking about it going on privately), and it seems this thread is no longer active, should I just create another thread in regard to the author's trivia edits?