Issues of privacy, handling of real names vs. stage names, and avoiding bullying/harassment on Role-Ending Misdemeanor

Context (and apologies if this is the wrong particular forum to discuss this): there's been a handful of mass edits in a few Role-Ending Misdemeanor pages (specifically in the "Web Original", EAS Scenarios", "Sports", and a bit in the "Other" subpages) adjusting all mentions of individuals with online handles/Screen Names, specifically removing the publicly-known real names and leaving them with just their identifying stage handles.

Most of the edit reasons cited they were cleanups "to remove real names for legal reasons," and after directly contacting the user who made most of the edits, I was referred to this ATT thread, where folks came to a consensus regarding Adult Film stars (as part of the "Other" subpage) that those involved should only be referred to by their stage names as to avoid legal retribution and prevent the stoking of harassment. Following that particular discussion, this approach moved to other cases on the Role-Ending Misdemeanor pages, including a vast amount of those on Web Original and in e-sports; all web creators, as well as all professional athletes/coaches/broadcasting talent/anyone else within the professional gaming industry are now referred to exclusively with their handles.

I understand the idea of wanting to avoid the invasion of privacy and to avoid harassment on this wiki, but I want to reach a broader consensus on if this is necessary. For e-sports in particular, the act of how professional players, coaches, etc. are regularly referred to as their Online Aliases is a very particular tradition as part of the medium — a vast majority of examples are still part of a massive professional sports industry with their real names and faces being public advertised knowledge, and depending on the sport/game, both an individual's online name and their real name will be acknowledged in somewhat equal capacity, even though most will default to their screen name. It's a somewhat antiquated, but well-understood and respected tradition that has a much different nature to that of Youtubers who have publicly known names but prefer going by their alias.

So I wanted to open a broader discussion: should we be hiding real names when we can? how much should the handling of those names matter? Bear in mind that every other Role-Ending Misdemeanor entry has no qualms of referring to real individuals with their real names, so I struggle to believe that legal retribution is gonna be a real thing, but I do think perhaps the nature of how we handle those who prefer to maintain privacy through their online alias (as well as determining whether that really matters) should be discussed among a broader consensus as to not end up provoking witch hunts while also maintaining a level of integrity for documenting this kinda thing.

(if we're keeping it "screen name only", we should probably get to realphabetizing everything, because they used to be based on surname and are now in total chaos)

Edited by number9robotic on Jun 3rd 2023 at 7:19:05 AM

Bumping because I'm confused as well. Here I thought we keep the online names for some figures, not just for legal reasons, but also for brand reasons.

My question is "why does Role-Ending Misdemeanor cover sports so extensively in the first place, it's supposed to be for how offstage drama affects media production", but in the interest of not digressing:

1. The question of privacy came up for drag queens some time ago [1] and the consensus was 'just don't dox anyone'. If these players' full names are already public knowledge (and especially if they market themselves with their full names) then there's no reason to hide it on this website. I really doubt people use us as a resource for 'hmm who should I bully today'; there are certainly higher-profile thoroughfares for this sort of info.
2. I suppose the next question is "are their full names necessary to understanding the example". To this I would say probably not; we don't say "Willard Carroll II "Will" Smith is banned from the Academy" when "Will Smith is banned from the Academy" will do.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 3rd 2023 at 11:13:37 AM

Those are fair points, and in terms of necessity, I think yeah, real names don't have to be given and the "screen name only" policy is a fair enough ethos to go by, unless the individual in question has multiple personas or the like. Granted there are a few unusual exceptions that may need to be sorted out like with the Allison Pregler entry on Web Original (at the time, she went by the handle "Obscurus Lupa", but following her release from TGWTG/Channel Awesome, she primarily goes by her given name).

As to entertain that digression about documenting sports though, I'd say the reasoning for logging it is under the broad logic for not just all the Role-Ending Misdemeanor entries, but Trivia tropes entirely of being Just for Fun. Sports is its own kind of media/entertainment/drama that we can't really log on the site beyond Useful Notes pages, but media nonetheless, and far more worthy of getting documented on the wiki more than when REM had a page for "Politics" (which was cut for NRLEP). (side note: I've been meaning to give Professional Gaming a substantial overhaul because not only is it increasingly relevant to the development/production of video games themselves, that page is looking rough right now)

Edited by number9robotic on Jun 3rd 2023 at 10:00:04 AM

Most likely the Professional Gaming page might need a heavy proofreading before an overhaul.

This is significantly off topic now, but the issue with the page is that it’s a crazy mishmash listing the names of some esports organizations (no real other information, some of them are defunct), team rosters (I’m waging to bet at least 95% of them are out of date; there doesn’t seem to be any real purpose trying to keep individual rosters up to date) and archaic descriptions of certain esports (some of which have no real scene anymore, like Team Fortress 2). It also collided with Tournament Play, which is a separate non-Useful Notes page but also covers real-life esports and is still a thing for some reason.

I’ve had a long WIP on my personal sandbox on my proposed overhaul, excising several organizational details that are going to get out of date quickly, giving more of a history lesson on why pro gaming exists, how most esports are handled, their influence on modern game development and place amidst broader sporting culture. Not sure where to go with it, obviously there’s gotta be some peer review but I’m not sure haha

I'm not even sure "Sports" or "News and Columns" should even have examples. Generally I'm in favour of a very broad definition of creative works for the purposes of what can be troped, but for a trivia page those both seem outside the scope of the wiki.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jun 8th 2023 at 9:30:55 AM

I have a related issue with this trope:

Why do we call it a "misdemeanor?" In many contexts that comes across as downplaying the crime. Describing someone being fired for sexual assault or murder as a Role-Ending Misdemeanor comes across as extremely weird.

I think that my issue with this is compounded by the fact that we also have Felony Misdemeanor for "someone is harshly punished for something that wasn't a real crime, amirite?" That trope has a jarring and unintended juxtaposition with Role-Ending Misdemeanor in that it creates an unintended implication that Role Ending Misdemeanor refers to people being fired for trumped-up things that were not real problems. And there is an underlying cultural context where that's often an actual real-life argument, which creates the implication that we're weighing in on that even if we don't intend to.

The description specifically says that it includes being fired for felonies (and mentions Career-Vaporizing Felony in a tongue-in-cheek way), but if so, why do we describe it as a misdemeanor?

Anyway, that's something to consider if we're examining it and considering possible rewrites or tweaks.

Edited by Aquillion on Jun 8th 2023 at 1:30:22 AM

That was brought up in the last TRS but renaming was downvoted. [1]

Whoever launched Role-Ending Misdemeanor it just called it Misdemeanor and the two articles having the same word in their title is happenstance.

Edited by Tabs on Jun 8th 2023 at 1:45:32 AM

This isn't strictly REM related, but if, for instance, someone only publicly known by their stage name suffers an REM and later gets another role under another stage name, are we allowed to mention the latter used to be the former if that isn't public knowledge? I've seen some people say it's allowed and some say it isn't, so some mod input to clear that up would be appreciated.

Yeah, the original YKTTW doesn't suggest it's only about relatively minor infractions, but nonetheless that's what I would normally interpret the title to mean.

Career Killing Crime?

It's not always a crime, though.

I don't see a reason to change the title, we all know what it means, and we have more pressing issues.