Wiki and Forum Policy - General Discussion

DeMarquis @9201 makes some good points about understanding wiki culture, but I want to speak more generally. Yes, any website must technically have an "owner" that's responsible for running things, but on any well-run wiki, social media site, or other site that depends on the contributions and community of users, that's essentially a formality. The owner is there to ensure the site continues to exist to provide a home for the community, and beyond that, while they can flex their power over the user base, they only do so when it's absolutely necessary, and otherwise don't allow themselves to have any more power than any other user, or at least any other mod. For the most part, Jimmy Wales doesn't have any more say about how Wikipedia is run than anyone else, and the community of most other wikis are free to do their own thing without interference as well; in the most extreme case, you could be a regular user of the SCP Foundation wiki and not even know who technically "owns" it. Not to go back to the sort of comparisons that got people thumped and the thread locked before, but when you have an owner that doesn't realize that, you get what's been happening at Reddit and Twitter.

(As such, I don't agree with Satoshi that this whole thing is a result of the tension between being a wiki and being a community; if it were we could just lock all the forums other than the left-side ones and focus the site on being a wiki alone. The wiki doesn't exist without a community of some kind - and I don't think we'd have nearly as many contributors to the wiki without the non-left-side forums, and we'd also get poorer-quality contributions without the media and other forums to serve as an outlet for certain types of opinions.)

As much as Fast Eddie had a tendency to remind people that this was his site and that he could run it as he saw fit, even he knew better than to go against the community; when he tried to make a change that the community largely opposed, he went back on it. The only exceptions were cases where he felt the issue was existential for the site; the reaction to the various Google Incidents, the cutting of Fetish Fuel and Troper Tales that were getting the site roundly mocked across the Internet and so were potentially keeping away potential contributors. All the policies you see in the Administrivia section, even those that were initially the result of an Eddie fiat, have been the result of community consensus; when Eddie declared that porn and pedophilic works would be off-limits, the community came together and said "Okay, what does that mean in practice?" That's also why this thread existed as a way to hash out concerns about overreaching moderators in public - which is also how Wikipedia works, by the way. ("Admins" on Wikipedia are more analogous to mods here.) On a site like this, having admins go over the heads of moderators, as well as the wishes of the community, should be a Godzilla Threshold, break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option only to be used in this sort of existential situation where the existence and thriving of the site is at stake.

Do you see, now, how overriding the mod team to reinstate a transphobe, and repeatedly defending that decision without addressing the concerns of the community, might cause people to think that you're playing favorites at best and trying to make the wiki safe for the worst kinds of people at worst? Especially when the administration had been hands-off almost to a fault until very recently, with the admins not even knowing how or why the wiki works the way it does but declaring that they'd be taking a more hands-on approach anyway? A stance that was declared from out of nowhere and with no sense from the community as to what the admins' motives and reasons for stepping in would be, meaning they could butt their heads in at any time for any reason? I always say it takes two to blow something out of proportion; if "the Fetish Fuel cut and Google Incident were far larger than what we're dealing with now", do you see why people would be greatly concerned about the admins dealing with it with the sort of drastic, top-down approach used in those incidents, how else they might wield it in the future, or even how they might wield it even when it is warranted?

I almost never venture outside the left-side forums these days, specifically Wiki Talk, Trope Talk, TRS, Image Pickin', and some specific Projects threads, so I can't quite speak to the larger wiki or forum culture. I'll take Tropers/8BrickMario @9164 and amathieu19 @9176 at their word that accountability for mods was the only policy-related "leaky pipe" the troper base was concerned about and that admins stepping in to influence how the site was run was unwanted. But you'll notice that I classified the shutdown of Fetish Fuel and Troper Tales as justified cases of Fast Eddie using admin power to intervene in the workings of the site - something that went against a significant portion of the wiki culture at the time, and wasn't something being demanded by Google or anyone else with the power to shut the whole wiki down, only by people saying mean things about us off-site. I don't mean to diminish that group with that phrasing; as I said, TV Tropes was getting something of a toxic reputation that threatened to permanently turn away potential contributors or even viewers, so it was every bit as existential as the Google Incidents.

I can certainly imagine how there might be problems with the wiki culture that most tropers might be blind to. There have long been concerns about a cultural divide within the wiki between the regulars of the left-side forums (especially TRS) on the one hand and people who frequent the rest of the wiki, including the Launch Pad, on the other, where the forums' vision of what the wiki should look like and what qualifies as tropeworthy clashes with what most editors seem to think, and I can see that generalizing into a possible tendency to be judgmental and short on patience with newbies, though I can't say for sure that that's an actual problem. As Tuefel said, it was a long, hard, slow process diverting the wiki from going down the path of being 4Chan Lite to something people could be proud to participate in, and it ultimately made the wiki better.

So I'm willing to accept the admins stepping in and making changes to how the wiki is run over the wishes of the existing troper base, so long as there's a genuine problem with the existing wiki culture that demands a shakeup, not just that it doesn't work the way the admins think it should work. (The closest we've gotten is that "the community [has] start[ed] taking up the majority of the moderation effort"; since I'm not active in the non-left-side forums I don't know if what this means would be apparent if I ventured in there, but if not, considering the other actions the mods and admins have taken, that might say more about the moderation and administration than the community.) At the very least, I need a clear statement of what the problem is that they think needs fixing, why it requires their intervention, and why it requires them to intervene in the way that they're doing. Why is there a "need for top-down management" when from the tropers' perspective, the wiki seemed to be working just fine without it?

What the admins have done instead is:

• Made no indication that they were going to take a more active role in how the wiki is run at all before they started doing it
• Started doing it by overriding the mods in reinstating a transphobe, which raises the prospect of the opposite problem of being hostile to newbies, making a good chunk of the troper base wonder if they feel safe or welcome here or whether the administration will be too quick to give "second chances" to people who engage in hate speech, or diminish, reject, or condemn their existence or identity
• To provide support and allow the mod team to operate at "full strength", brought back Fighteer, the absolute last person you'd associate with a welcoming environment and someone who was run out of the wiki in part because of their own hostile comments towards a part of the LGBT+ community, instead of recruiting new mods, and effectively had him serve as their mouthpiece, because he "recognizes the need for top-down management"
• In the process, broke any confidence the tropers had that they would be of any use in the one area of policy the troper base actually wanted their support in, keeping mods accountable, since Fighteer was someone pretty much everyone who wasn't him agreed was toxic and that the site was a friendlier place without him modding
• Despite this, expect the troper base to put all their trust in them to crack down on mod abuse without any public hearing or attempt to gain consensus about the problem, and apparently refuse to negotiate on the matter despite there being very good reasons for things working the way they did before beyond absentee admins

To go into more detail on some of these: I was not around for and did not read the earlier discussion of Fighteer's abuses of power, and between that and my tendency to stick to the left-side forums was never exposed to his worst tendencies that people have been talking about, but even in my limited experience, Fighteer definitely had a tendency to be abrasive and have a my-way-or-the-highway approach to things. As others have said, that can be a good approach to moderation, but only in fairly specific situations. Based on @9060, it was previously thought the only reason he wasn't stripped of mod power at the time was because of his personal decision to step away from mod duties, and having him not only make mod-hat posts but effectively speak for the administration in them seems to send the message that not only are they getting off scot-free, but maybe even that the mods approve of his actions.

Regardless, that discussion shows that moderators only exercise their power with the trust of the community, not the admins. Moderators are there to keep the community running smoothly, not serve as the administration's enforcers. That's why it's so important that discussion of moderator abuse be held in a public forum, not merely be reported to the admins in private - especially when their conduct in this affair has sent a message that the admins might be inclined to abuse their power themselves and approve of it in others if it aligns with their own goals.

Some people seem to still be confused about the extent of Ag Prov's communication with the administration despite Fighteer's clarification that while the initial decision to unbounce him was based on the post on Edit Banned alone, he did send a further private communication to the admins that reinforced the decision and convinced the mods to go along with it. If it's so convincing, though, he can post it on Edit Banned, let the community see it, and let the LGBT+ members of the community, the ones who feel so hurt by his unbanning, decide if they feel safe with him continuing to edit the wiki, zero-tolerance approach to future infractions or no. Clearly, simply declaring "we're convinced he's changed and won't do it again" isn't enough. As amathieu says, no one has anything against second chances, but for something as serious as what AgProv did (or Fighteer for that matter), the people that they hurt must have a fully informed say in whether they get one. Right now, anyone who's not an admin or mod has to simply take their word for it that it's fine for him to continue to edit the wiki, when the administration's conduct in this incident has given the troper base little reason to trust them.

I'd like to think the administration thinks that "the safety of our members from harassment and abuse remains a top priority" and they "won't get in the way of the important job of keeping this site...bigot free", but if they don't listen to the community about what that means, about what it takes for them to feel safe given what's known and believed about how bigots think and operate, they won't succeed, and will lose many of the site's most valuable contributors in the process.

If the admins truly want to restore trust in the community and keep this incident from doing lasting damage to the site and its reputation, I would strongly suggest taking the following steps:

• Lay out specific reasons why the administration is taking a more active role in the operation of the site, what that entails, and why. If the problem is truly that "the community [has] start[ed] taking up the majority of the moderation effort" and that "we have no interest in being the bad guys, breaking up fights when people can't get along", then locking OTC and Yack Fest, or any other forum that invites discussion on contentious topics orthogonal at best to the wiki's mission, can and should be on the table, though hopefully we can come to an understanding that would make that unnecessary. Obviously contentious disagreements can still happen even when the topic is media, and even on the wiki itself, but as I said earlier the wiki is inseparable from the community and it would be a bad idea to try; if the people interested in moderating the wiki don't want to get involved in moderating a community to the extent that requires, then maybe we should get some mods interested - and more importantly qualified - in moderating a community. More on this later.
• Beyond that, the admins should work with the community to come to a consensus about the degree of their involvement in wiki operations - basically, addressing Silasw's last point @9083. Ideally, this should involve Chris and Drew directly, not hiding behind coders or mods. (In my view, having mods represent and cover for the administration just trashes the reputation of those mods.)
• At this point, I don't believe dragging AgProv back into the court of public opinion or re-banning him would be all that useful; Mrph 1 makes a good point @9111 about this. However, the admins and mods should work with the community on a clear, firm, and clearly stated policy on bigotry - what constitutes it and how it will be dealt with - to make clear that this was a one-time slip-up, that the site will not put up with any user who makes other users feel unsafe, and that both mods and admins have a clear course of action to take in such circumstances.
• Similarly, while it sounds like the earlier discussion should have been enough for Fighteer to have been stripped of mod powers, the troper base might be willing to accept his presence so long as he sticks to the Mod Code of Conduct and is held to the same standards as any other troper, and I personally am satisfied with the statements that have been made about how he intends to limit his workload and wiki presence. The bigger problem is the question of what the admins' philosophy is towards moderation and moderator accountability, points that should be part of the negotiation between the admins and the community (rather than simply declared "no longer up for public discussion"), as well as the perception that what Fighteer has done since the initial discussion surrounding him, and how the administration has treated him as a result, falls well short of what would be expected of any other troper, implying that the administration is playing favorites and casting doubt on whether they'll really crack down on abusive mods if that abuse supports the administration's goals. And if the wiki is really in such need of moderator support as to justify bringing back Fighteer of all people, the admins should go on a recruiting push for new mods - assuming there's sufficient agreement between what the admins would look for in a new mod and what the troper base wants from one, and assuming the administration has enough trust that anyone worthy of the job would want it, which doesn't seem to be the case right now.
• If possible and desirable, a new role should be created for people employed in an administrative role involved in the coding of the site, to make clear that they may operate in an official capacity but are not to get involved in moderation or the nitty-gritty of how the site works (beyond what's necessary to improve the site). They can still make mod-hat posts to make official statements regarding new features and other under-the-hood changes, but they are not to use them in a moderative capacity.

If the administration doesn't take this to heart and doesn't take the continued distrust of the community seriously? Well, we've already had at least two forks of the wiki created by people who didn't like Eddie's decisions. If enough people decide they don't like how the new bosses intend to run things, they will go to one of those forks or start one of their own (if they haven't already). Sure, that means that "we've survived" "people [getting] angry and [leaving]" before, and it's tempting to think that we will again, but considering that the people who started those forks probably come from perspectives orthogonal to that of the people who are pissed now, and considering the current unrest gets at issues fundamental to the way TV Tropes works, how it deals with issues that might kick up unrest in the future, and how much one might want to participate in it, I'm not sure you'll want to see what'll be left of the troper base once the dust settles. Frankly, consider this an open invitation for anyone starting or thinking of starting such a fork to PM or email me with details.

(On another note, slow mode is probably a good idea for contentious threads like these, but six hours is plenty and three hours is probably acceptable. I remember Eddie once said the reason he wouldn't institute a quote button like you see on other forums was because he didn't want the sorts of long posts with point-by-point back-and-forths you sometimes see on those places. Whether or not that was the right approach to prevent those things, or even effective, is debatable, but the point is that, while I get the value of making sure you can actually read everything that's being said, I'm not sure instituting something that is almost explicitly designed to encourage long, rambling posts is in keeping with that, and in turn, with the forums being the sort of place it's long prided itself on being.)