Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment - Violations, misuse, and other issues

How easy or not is it in Real Life is probably better suited for Analysis/, the trope page only needs to explain that in fiction characters skip a lot of steps and possible complications. Though this would be for different threads, and I'm also not an expert.

Edited by Amonimus on Jan 9th 2023 at 11:20:25 PM

The What Is A Woman page currently has... one trope. It does have six YMMV tropes though, although two of them are just 'People who haven't seen the doc are saying it's rubbish!' and 'Other people who haven't seen the doc are saying it's brilliant!'

If we wouldn't have a page for Matt Walsh, and we wouldn't have a page for The Daily Wire, then we shouldn't have a page for the documentary created by Matt Walsh for The Daily Wire. It doesn't help that the seven tropes about the work are not actually about the contents of the work, but just the reaction to it. I would say cut and don't look back.

If it has just one trope, it's a stub. Per How to Create a Work Page:

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 9th 2023 at 6:25:15 AM

It's been sitting in the Cut List for 3 hours by now btw.

By the way, that page was created by Matitya, who has been reported on ATT before for their edits about Matt Walsh and his works.

I don't think Overshadowed by Controversy applies to WIAW either. Apparently it came out in June so it does meet the 6 month waiting period, but this sounds like an Author Tract where the only point to it is to create controversy.

Edited by Morgenthaler on Jan 10th 2023 at 1:02:56 AM

I have now discovered Johnny the Walrus and oh God.

It's definitely tropable but being a short story written by Matt Walsh about a fictional child forced to transition by ridiculously stupid strawman transgender activists, where the villain is literally named 'The Woke Doctor' and the only sane man looks exactly like Matt Walsh, I immediately want to kill this page with fire. It's like a Stonetoss comic but written by someone who owns a thesaurus.

I agree with both of these things (I disagree with this work's bigotry, but at the same time, that's not a reason to cut the page, and it is tropeworthy).

Edited by KUnlimited on Jan 10th 2023 at 10:51:10 PM

We don't delete works for being offensive. It's why we have pages for similar bigoted hogwash like Alfie's Home. Our purpose to present the work neutrally and factually so that the reader knows exactly what it is. I'd say the page does a pretty good job at that.

Stonetoss was deleted not because it's alt right bullshit, but because it's alt right bullshit that the author vehemently insists is not alt right bullshit. That either means we say it like it is and get accused of defamation, or we host a Neo-Nazi's opinions without any disclaimer. It was both inflammatory and impossible to trope objectively.

We really need to fix that cut reason...

We also have a page for Chick Tracts and plenty of images from it, despite the fact that the comic book in question is classified as hate literature by the Southern Poverty Law Center (and I generally support the SPLC).

At least the page for Alfie's Home points out that it's widely regarded as one of the worst books ever written, and it doesn't have Awesome and Heartwarming subpages for when the Matt Walsh expy encourages the mother to stand up to the evil transgender activists who are forcing children to be trans.

It's true that part of why Stonetoss was cut is that it was impossible to trope neutrally and it had no ongoing plot to speak of, but a major part of the discussion was also that it was very openly an active work of alt-right propaganda, and just because There Is No Such Thing as Notability does not mean that we have to have a page for works like that. Although I think I wouldn't be instantly pushing for deletion if Johnny the Walrus wasn't written so... both-sidesy? It's very 'this work is controversial in some circles' rather than 'this work stereotypes trans rights advocates as child groomers'. We don't have to be 'neutral' on a work like that.

Doesn't help that the Awesome, Tear Jerker and Trivia pages only have one example each, with Nightmare Fuel and Heartwarming having two and three, respectively.

The page for Chick Tracts at least mentions that they are so over the top with infamously questionable quality that they are frequently mistaken for parody.

The biggest issue was Stonetoss itself was directly used by the creator via this site itself to gather more followers.

The rest were part of it, but this was a major breaking point to its cut. It was literally impossible to keep it on here at that point.

It's not a good comparison at all. Keep the page and clean it up. Absolutely no work at this point has the problems Stonetoss did among currently active pages. It's more often we have stub issues after cleanup than anything else these days, or that a work is in an awkward state where it reads more like a Useful Notes page than a normal work with a basic narrative.

No, we do have to be neutral about that. We have to be neutral about everything. For the record, Alfie's Home has objective problems like the horrendous artwork and incoherent plot in addition to horrible bigotry, which gets it branded as objectively bad.

And, it is not "both-sidesy", it is neutral. Neutral means presenting the facts without giving a side, and letting the reader draw their own conclusions. This sentence, right in the description

The story is a not-so-subtle allegory for gender transition written by someone who opposes such treatment, as Matt Walsh claims it should be should be banned for everyone of all ages.

plainly and explicitly tells you the intent of the book with corroborating evidence without putting words in the mouth of the author. This ties back to the Stonetoss problem. We can't say something says something it technically doesn't even if it implicitly does, because that is no longer neutral.

We do not delete works for being offensive.

I don't disagree with you, except the book's not technically a metaphor about transgender people, it's about "the media forcing people to be transgender". That's icky and exists in a fantasy la-la strawman world, but it's not technically an anti-transgender creed. So, we can't say it is on the page — the best we can (and did) say is "Matt Walsh is deeply anti-trans and wrote this book with an agenda. Be advised."

Edited by MurlocAggroB on Jan 10th 2023 at 9:34:28 AM

I think maybe the page should take a side if it means showing basic respect for our fellow human beings.

Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Jan 10th 2023 at 10:14:14 AM

Guys, if you want to talk policy, take it here.

It's an ongoing debate and it's kind of to each their own re: where you draw the line on these things, but no, I absolutely do not think we need to be neutral on a work with the message "Trans rights advocates are grooming our children!"

If you look at the pages we have for works like Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries, Ethnic Cleansing, etc, then they are obviously not 'neutral' and nor should they be. We don't need a 'neutral' opinion of Mein Kampf, and we absolutely have deleted pages for being offensive. We cut Infowars when Alex Jones started his Sandy Hook shtick. We can pretend that Stonetoss only got cut because of the difference of opinion between the author and the audience re: its political leanings, but a much simpler explanation is that it dabbled in Holocaust-denial and it turned out that while we probably could cover a Holocaust-denial webcomic neutrally then... it's not like we have to, and it turns out that a lot of tropers really, really, really didn't want to have that on the site.

Will have a read.

Edited by Elmo3000 on Jan 10th 2023 at 3:39:51 PM

I have to admit that Matitya's editing is quite concerning. On top of having created pages for Matt Walsh (now cut, the Creator page is about an unrelated entertainer), Johnny the Walrus (with Awesome and Heartwarming subpages implying they agree with the book's hateful message), and What Is A Woman, they also once edited a page to replace some characters' neopronouns with "he/him".

I'm not sure if any of this directly breaks any rules, but this pattern is giving me a bad impression of this user.

There is a difference between neutral as in not taking a stance, and neutral as in being 100% textually factual. I'm talking about the latter. We can talk about how hateful Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries because they wear their hate on their sleeves.

For the record, I don't think your interpretation is what the story is getting at. I think it's the Boomer-ass "They're gonna make us trans our genders!" conspiracy. Even though the LGBTQ+ are the last people who will ever force you to be something you're not... The main conceit of the story is media pressure.

That's why you have to present the work textually, especially when it's something controversial. Otherwise your own opinions seep in.

That certainly seems like an agenda. That is something that can be looked into.

Edited by MurlocAggroB on Jan 10th 2023 at 9:56:45 AM

Yeah, agreed with , an agenda is likely. Maybe file an ATT report?

This edit to Overshadowed by Controversy brings up Sacheen Littlefeather faking her heritage, which I believe is seen as controversial. But I don't know the full extent of it, just that there was criticisms of the journalist who reported on it being biased.

Edited by SkylaNoivern on Jan 17th 2023 at 9:09:35 AM

It's certainly not overshadowed her considering nearly all mention of it in general spaces is to rebut it as right-wing hysteria.

Which one? I thought you were referring to Stonetoss, but it just says "Cut decision per https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15977075820A61741300"

I was. Apparently, it had been changed. The old cut reason said something about cutting it for political bigotry.

This got added to YMMV.Liberal Crime Squad last month:

• Harsher in Hindsight: The satirical use of Conservatives, and Arch-Conservatives in particular, as comically dystopia-minded authoritarians became a lot less funny in the late 2010s after the rise of the Alt-Right and its influence on the conservative Republican Party in the United States.

That's not kosher, right?