During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
What are we going to do about preserving the new "How I Escaped From a Cult" link
, by the way?
I tried the Wayback Machine, but I got a "This URL has been excluded" error message. Right now, I'm seeing if archive today works, but since it seems to be stuck in a holding pattern for some reason, I can't say I'm optimistic. Should all else fail, we can retype it in a pastebin or something.
We probably should make it a policy to preserve online works.
Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Aug 5th 2020 at 11:01:22 AM
I'm...fairly certain one should approach the author before doing something like this. If the author chose to delete a web story for whatever personal reason or because they don't want it to be public anymore, they have every right to do so.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.Yeah Old Shame is a thing after all.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."How do we deal with that, vs. The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours?
Got it.
Edited by ACW on Aug 5th 2020 at 2:43:20 PM
Don't do this. Seriously, just stop, please.
Recently we had issues where people were snatching up images off the web for a page with zero care to even ask the artists. Now it's "we're saving pages" with no care to how the authors feel for the sake of a trope entry?
Take a step back and think about this.
Yeah I mean that is kind of rude. If the author takes it down. They probably want it down. So we shouldn't go and archive it without their premission.
It's why I suggested that the Fanscription page not have an image. It's a lot of fan art and I thought it would be rude to have one without premission.
Edited by Bullman on Aug 5th 2020 at 1:54:57 PM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadTo be honest, I think that what Imperial did constitutes an invasion of privacy if the author took the story down, and Imperial copied it without permission.
If someone archived a story which I took down without my permission, I'd be miffed.
It's not like when you lend people copies of out of print works which already exist.
Shinnook.
What I didn't say, but should have, is "Is it really worth the effort to try and wrangle permission out of an author whose work has been taken down?"
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 5th 2020 at 3:06:57 PM
Yeah theirs a difference between an author trying to influence audience reactions on a a page from their work and outright going out of your way to find a work they abandoned or didn't like so deleted.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Aaand
to Shinnok. Welcome to the "5 or more incarnations" club!