How should we handle Stonetoss?

I actually have no objection whatsoever to formally altering the content policy to ban the work of outright modern-day Nazis (I don't really have an objection to Mein Kampf, since, yeah, Hitler's been dead for 75 years and it's a work of major historical import. I'm not sure it's actually a tropable work in the normal sense, but that's an unrelated issue). Stonetoss was the most egregious offender, but there was at least one other thing mentioned in the original ROCEJ thread that really, really concerns me. I don't remotely buy the slippery slope argument; it's not that hard to draw a specific definition on this particular issue.

Edited by nrjxll on Aug 18th 2020 at 5:28:04 AM

How long do we wait to call the crowner?

A bit premature to talk about calling when we are only on the first day.

And frankly, I think the entire crowner is premature - we don't begin crowners on the first day of a discussion, especially on complicated subjects. Too easy for voters to miss important arguments, as happened at Getting Crap Past the Radar. There isn't even a reference to a vote or a discussion at Stonetoss which seems a little dubious.

Three day rule remember

Maybe six day rule.

As crazysamaritan pointed out earlier, this issue can't be treated in a vacuum like it's some sort of exception or special case. What we are discussing is in fact a change to the wiki's entire policy, from political neutrality (although liberal leaning in practice) to political censorship of works. Like I said, I am personally opposed to such a change, but even if I were in favor of it, I would think we should take care to have the greatest possible participation and transparency when making such a momentous decision. It's not something a dozen people in one obscure thread should decide in a couple of days.

As it currently stands, whether we love it or hate it, deleting Stonetoss would be against the wiki's express policy. That policy can of course be changed, but that should not be done lightly or without careful discussion.

Eh, my two cents.

Stonetoss is openly a holocaust-denier and a racist; even if we have a page for him which features a big ole' 'Disclaimer: We do not condone this guy's views and he does not represent the site' then keeping the page is basically begging for neverending edit wars between fans and non-fans. And given the whole 'holocaust-denier and a racist' thing, the idea of any of his fans making edits to the site is pretty... yikes.

It's not notable or significant enough that it deserves to be documented for future study. I vote cut and never look back.

Plus their isn't even a narrative. It's just a bunch of political cartoons. Is their some need to have something like this up when the whole point of the work is the authors vile views.

Why is this being called ‘censorship’ exactly?

If persistent edit wars become a problem, the page can always be locked as per our current rules. That's how we handled Sonichu when that page became a trollfest. We don't need a new policy to handle that kind of issue.

Sonichu is not nazi propaganda

Because banning discussion of works for political reasons is censorship. Whether you or I happen to approve or disapprove of the works in question or not.

There are of course cases where one can argue that censorship is warranted, though people are likely to disagree on when that is the case. But then we should still have the intellectual honesty to recognize it as such.

Like I said on the previous page, I personally wouldn't miss the Stonetoss page itself very much if it was censored, but I'm very worried about setting that kind of precedent for the wiki. Because if we do, sooner or later it will be used against other works in the future.

I'm not actually American but from what I understand. The first amendment doesn't really apply to private companies like tv tropes unless I've missed something so removing something like this would be perfectly acceptable.

Edited by miraculous on Aug 18th 2020 at 5:35:23 AM

Lost track of how many up arrows this would be so I'll just say it's a reply to Idumean Patriot; Sonichu never said the Holocaust was a lie though. Hmm. Not something I thought I would be typing when I woke up this morning.

Locking the page would be extremely difficult in terms of determining in what state the page is locked - pretty much every trope would need going through to ascertain whether we were discussing the tropes 'neutrally' but also without condoning or condemning any of his views, which given his flagrant racism, would not only be impossible, but would also be making an inherently political statement in itself.

There is an interesting and nuanced discussion to be had about deleting works of political leanings, but this isn't it, because Stonetoss isn't right-wing or even far-right; he's a flat-out Neo-Nazi. I'm not hugely familiar with site policies - I'm only here because this thread showed up under 'Latest Forums Activity' on the front page and I thought "Wait, we have a page for him?" - but I'm pretty skeptical that there isn't something covering the deletion of works that are very openly hate speech and can't be justified under historical significance.

'd, I felt stupid saying that.

Edited by ccorb on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:39:39 AM

> a Constitutional Crisis

Its not, please don't dramatise.

Fighteer, I'm not appealing to the US Constitution. I'm not talking in terms of "rights" or lawyering. I'm certainly not trying to write an apologia for the Stonetoss guy's political views, if somehow I haven't managed to make that clear already. I'm worried about the consequences to this site, if we start implementing well-meaning but dangerous policies of censorship.

This time, it's something that almost no one likes that's getting the axe. All of us here agree that it's deplorable (and IIRC the one guy who tried to defend it in the old thread got banned for that). But if we censor Stonetoss, I don't think it's going to stop there. A little later, people will find another page that is "obviously" too evil to be allowed to exist. And another.

Atlas Shrugged is extremely political, and seriously dehumanizes and kills its opponents. The same is true for Left Behind, which sees non-Christians slaughtered in large numbers (though by God, not humans, so it's a different sort of revenge fantasy). Or see V for Vendetta for a similar left-wing example, with an anarchist hero gleefully torturing "Nazis" and committing terrorism and mass murder. Will we ban these too one day, when an outrage mob goes after them? I'm absolutely sure we have people on here who would like to see each of them gone (though the first two are probably more hated than the last).

That is why I'm arguing here. Stonetoss itself is not the real issue. The censorship advocates were smart, or perhaps just lucky, to pick a very unsympathetic and unpopular work as their trial balloon for this attempt to change our policy. But it won't be the only victim if they get to have their way.

Concerning the "hate speech" rule, I've always thought that applies to tropers using such, not to works?

>How should we handle Stonetoss?

By hurling it away with great force in the opposite direction! (That is to say,it's clear cut what must be done)

Can we like...not go there? Atlas Shrugged is a work with a narrative, as is Left Behind. Nobody is saying to ban anvilicious messaging or political works. It's "the plotless neo-nazi propaganda that's an ongoing problem probably shouldn't be platformed."

V for Vendetta is a very bad comparison as Alan Moore and David Lloyd have been very explicit the moral ambiguity is entirely intentional. V is not meant to be a figure you cheer for without reservation and there is an open question of whether he truly will make things better. I'm not really fond of seeing this used as an example like "it's just a left wing work saying to torture your political opponent."

And flatly, I find it insulting to be lumped in with "censorship advocates" and 'outrage mobs' who have an insidious agenda because I want to deplatform the Nazi work

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 6:15:55 AM

I can understand the thought process that links "censoring one work" and "censoring more, less outrageous works". I do.

But it also won't happen. It's not like people are just gonna appear out of the aether to demand we remove Left Behind or the Chick Tracts, and those works have strong reasons to be kept- having narrative, for example.

Stonetoss only qualifies as a political comic with some attempts at humor. The entire point is politics- things we simply can't touch without shattering the ROCEJ. The only value the page had was as documentation.

It's stretching things slightly but it's certainly applicable. Usually people have the good taste not to even try to write up hate works on TV Tropes, so we're in a unique situation. I would be concerned if the policy adaptation led to a Nazi hunt across the site, but so far this is the only one. You'd think it would have come up more often if it were a serious problem.