How should we handle Stonetoss?

Dude, Fighteer said they're bring the idea up with other mods. They aren't single-handedly making a whole new policy. We can take the works on a case-by-case basis just like the 5P does. 5P doesn't cut any work that's sexual, it only cuts works where the sex is so prominent that there's not much actual plot to trope, and the same can be applied here, just replace "sex" with "political propaganda."

Other works may be problematic, but there's a difference between Unfortunate Implications and a work that only exists to promote propaganda, no narrative, very few non-political comics, everything you can trope is connected to something controversial at least.

Perhaps, then, you can clarify what changes it is you propose to make? As I understood you, you want to apply our "hate speech" ban on works as well as tropers.

Our "hate speech" rule is pretty much a blanket ban. If I posted James Bond's words about various people as my own, without quotation marks, I would be suspended. Thus, the same will logically happen to the books he is in if we apply the same rules to them without change.

Edit — This was addressing Fighteer on last page, of course.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:22:45 AM

No, I want to make "advocacy of hate groups or hate speech" a potential category for removal of work articles akin to pornography and child exploitation. We would still analyze each on a case by case basis.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:25:04 AM

I think it's meant for a really rare case: A work cannot be troped without breaching site civility rules.

So what would be the criteria for sparing James Bond's/Ian Fleming's racism, sexism, etc., if "hate against protected class" by other authors gets banned?

Once again, this is not me trying to be cheeky. I'm trying to be constructive, understand your proposal and anticipate its likely consequences.

EDIT — I see Fighteer edited his post a bit, from "hate against protected classes" to "advocacy of hate groups or hate speech" instead. But my point remains.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:32:00 AM

James Bond is not written for the purpose of spreading bigoted ideals. It exists to tell a fictional story about a British spy saving the world. That the spy in question is a Politically Incorrect Hero does not make the work equivalent to literal propaganda.

Can you stop this? Nobody is launching a crusade to ban authors, nobody is launching a major movement to ban problematic works. I did explain the supreme difference with James Bond and Stonetoss. James Bond is a work of fiction, with a set of fucked up beliefs from the author that made its way into the book. It is not used as active Nazi propaganda, was never written for such and is a prime example of the difference: James Bond is problematic. It's full of very dated and vile views on race and gender, but it should still be tropable and analyzed.

It's getting really, really hard to believe you're arguing this in good faith.

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:33:50 AM

List it under Values Dissonance, Unfortunate Implications, whatever trope it fits. We can talk about Bond without glorifying his racism or sexism. You can't compare a dated series with racist stereotypes to an ongoing comic that aims to push certain politics and conspiracy theories.

Edited by mightymewtron on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:35:08 AM

As long as we can note the problematic aspects of James Bond novels (and films) without getting into flame wars, there's no problem. I don't know anyone who looks at them and thinks, "Yeah, that validates my rapist ideology."

James Bond is escapism, not political apologia.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:35:39 AM

You explained the way you see them as different. Others might potentially disagree. In any case, Fighteer's proposed policy change does not seem to make the same distinction as you did. Or at least he phrased it very differently, as being against "hate speech" in general.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:35:53 AM

Edited by ccorb on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:34:38 AM

There's also no meaningful criticism of Stonetoss to be had. We can discuss, say...Birth of a Nation in terms of cinematic impact, while denouncing its racism, to the extent an updated film was made to denounce it.

You can't really deconstruct or criticize Stonetoss this way. One comic is someone asking "what if your son was gay" and the response being "why would I molest my own son!?" ....what criticism can be gained from this? What value does it serve to trope it? Do we put a big "Homophobia is wrong and this is scientifically inaccurate?" Do we put these next to everything?

I someone sees it as different, then we deal with it then. Somehow this has never been an issue until the Nazi propaganda got put up

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:39:09 AM

It hasn't been an issue before precisely because previously, our official policy has been to take a politically neutral view of works. In practice this hasn't always worked 100% (see: lots of not-so-subtle snarking on the Left Behind pages, for example), but that has been the ideal. So, "problematic" pages have been allowed and haven't caused major controversies.

By contrast, if political censorship is written into our platform, all of that changes.

I get it that Stonetoss riles people up, I really do. Indeed, just from looking at the page I'm pretty sure he deliberately writes it for that kind of effect. I'm not sure what's the best way to deal with every example there, although I lean toward simply listing them and leaving the commentary to YMMV. (That's what we do with the Chick tracts, for example, another very biased/bigoted franchise that treats non-mainstream theories as facts.)

What I'm absolutely sure we shouldn't do is push through sweeping, site-wide policy changes without careful thought beforehand, just because one alt-right cartoonist is annoying us.

You are arguing to keep a work of Nazi propagandizing because "slippery slope!"

How about we just delete the alt-right cartoon causing problems and go on as we always have? I'm not comfortable with leaving "commentary to YMMV" with something that openly promote holocaust denial.

It's been explained again and again that no, we don't need massive sweeping changes, just to delete a single problematic page. You've been engaging in arguments of "what about these works" that are nowhere near the same. You're comparing spy thrillers, religious fantasy and an intentionally morally ambiguous political drama to holocaust denial admitted Neo-Nazi propaganda put on the wiki by bad faith actors.

Take a step back and realize how offensive and absurd this is.

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 8:53:53 AM

There is another work I was thinking about in regards to whether this rule would affect it, because it's one of those works that I'd never heard of until I saw it all over the place on TVTropes; Victoria.

It's an e-book self-insert fic written by a spreader of the Cultural Marxism/Great Replacement theories. I don't think I could go as far as to call the author a Nazi but at one point the in-universe heroes ally with actual Neo-Nazis against the greater evils of cultural marxists, homosexuals and black people, who the author calls 'Orcs'. It's fiction, but very clearly a 'Wouldn't it be great if we actually did this?' story.

Unlike Stonetoss, it has a bunch of other Heartwarming, Tear Jerker, YMMV pages and the like. It was brought up in the comments of a review by youngstormlord that it's also kind of suspicious that a self-published e-book by a relatively-unknown author is linked to on 520 other trope pages; seven less than the third Harry Potter book.

I promise I'm not trying to hijack the topic at all, I just thought it was a relevant example, and also if there's going to be a discussion about how deleting Stonetoss could lead to other pages being deleted, Victoria is a far better reference point than James Bond or Atlas Shrugged because it's much more similar in terms of content and significance.

EDIT: I also acknowledge that it's way less straightforward than Stonetoss because while it is very clearly intended to be propaganda-adjacent, or at least heavily-biased in favour of an extremist ideology, then it is also its own story with narrative and characters and such, not just a 4-panel comic where the punchline is "The Holocaust didn't happen."

Edited by Elmo3000 on Aug 18th 2020 at 5:09:55 PM

I don't even know what Victoria is, so I can't give an informed opinion, but Im more comfortable analyzing and commenting on a narrative work while providing notes on how messed up it is than I am a comic that's just three-four panels of "haha trans people aren't real, black people are stupid and the holocaust didn't happen come goose step with us."

You aren't listening. Just a few pages before, Fighteer explicitly said that he wants to change policy so as to ban works for "advocacy of hate groups or hate speech". These are very broad categories, that reach far beyond any "neo-Nazi" scribblers. Is James Bond "hate speech" by modern standards? Most likely. It will need a special exemption to be kept, which is why we're talking about it being "escapism" rather than "propaganda" and such. But as written, "hate speech" is "hate speech" regardless of author's intent.

You say that to you, it's all about whether a work is deliberate propaganda or not. But that is not always clear. To take V for Vendetta which came up earlier, the author himself is an anarchist, and on the record expressing his satisfaction with Occupy Wall Street and Antifa taking inspiration from his comic. Does this mean that it's extremist propaganda, and needs to go?

Stonetoss is not important in itself, but because of the precedent it establishes.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:02:59 AM

Please don't label people unless they call themselves those. "Conservative" is what Wikipedia calls him.

Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:01:54 AM

Alan Moore has explicitly stated V for Vendetta is a morally ambiguous work that examines the bad sides of anarchy even when faced with fascism. That is not an effective example.

A 'sweeping change' policy may be ambiguous in what it actually needs and how it responds. It doesn't mean we should keep Stonetoss because of pushes for neutrality. You are making poor analogies and constantly ignoring the difference between all of these narratives and Stone Toss.

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:02:52 AM

They're really not.

No, it isn't.

James Bond stories: James Bond! He saves the world, he fights the bad guys, he gets the girls, drinks some vodka and uses cool gadgets. He drives an awesome car and makes quips when he kills bad guys, how fun! Oh, we regret to inform you Ian Fleming is a racist and sexist and that bleeds into the story with some pretty fucked up views, just keep it in mind, ok?

Stone Toss comics: lol the holocaust never happened come sieg heil with us.

The difference should be obvious. Removing all context, removing historical impact and importance, removing author intent, etc. is...not doing any favors.

V for Vendetta features a character who's an anarchist and fights fascism. He tortures and kills Nazi expies gleefully. He also tortures an innocent woman until she takes on the ideals he wishes her to. How are we supposed to feel? See him as a hero driven to dark extremes or a villain who cares nothing for the devastation he leaves behind him? The work invites both interpretations

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:11:57 AM

Thanks for the heads-up PPT, have amended.

If I can make that point without being called a Nazi myself, I think you're setting up a bit of a strawman there. The Stonetoss guy doesn't call himself a Nazi. Indeed, he expressly disavows Nazism on his page, which was quoted in the previous discussion. Maybe disingenuously, but his words are all the evidence we have.

He is still a racist, bigot, etc., I very emphatically am not disputing this. But he isn't a sieg heiler, at least AFAIK. His alt-rightism is of another variety.

Which I note (again) very much not to endorse, defend, or make an apologia for anything else he says or does. I just think we should be terminologically precise in this discussion, since so much seems to depend on semantics. Like Princess Panda said before re: that other guy.

He promotes holocaust denial, Hitler apologia, promotes racism, transphobia and just about everything neo-nazis champion. David Duke doesn't call himself a racist either, who cares how ST self-defines? He's a Neo-Nazi, his comic is explicitly written to advance that with softer comics designed to lead people to the harder ones.

If you don't want to engage in that apologia, the best idea is to not engage in it and "well actually" a holocaust denier. I'm not playing Stonetoss's game of "I'm not a 90 year old German national socialist how can I be a nazi guys?"

Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:21:26 AM

More generally, my point is not that (for example) James Bond or V for Vendetta is exactly morally or artistically equivalent with Stonetoss, which seems obvious enough to me that they aren't. But if works are to get banned for "hate speech" alone, they run the risk of falling afoul of that even so. The term "hate speech" can be applied to many more media than outrageous alt-right cartoons.

Still and all, I recognize that not everyone agrees with me. If it turns out that many/most tropers agree with Fighteer's proposals, I can hardly do anything about that. But the very, very least we should do is to discuss them publicly and carefully first, invite as many of our users as possible to participate in that discussion, and give everyone who wants to time and a fair chance to speak their mind.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:20:25 AM