Ask The Tropers

The Movement Mascot thing might have been a bit of a shoehorn^note Can't say for sure, the trope's new, but he may have ruined any chance of getting it removed by acting like a moron over the issue. I've said it before - this site doesn't approve of doing the right things for the wrong reasons.

We also don't NOT do the right thing for the right reason just because someone's already done it for the wrong one. If it's a shoehorn, then it should be deleted. The fact that somebody messed with it beforehand while leaving a troubling edit reason is irrelevant; that's for the mods to deal with.

Not being familiar with the work, I can't speak to whether it's a shoehorn or not; however the entry as written doesn't make a particularly strong case. It reads:

• Steven Universe: The title character and, in general, all the Crystal Gems have being marked as emblems in the LGBT community. Some also consider Steven an icon against toxic masculinity on the Internet and believe him to be an example to the new generations.

Examples Are Not General; if the characters are all examples, then they should all have entries, not be lumped together in a very vague and context-light group entry. The vague "some" should be specified; who considers Steven an icon? The LGBT community? Someone else?

"Against toxic masculinity" is not a movement. What is the movement that the character is a mascot for? What qualities does he possess that "the new generations" should emulate, and who believes that they are positive qualities that should be emulated?

Nevermind, I get the point Crate was going for now.

He edited it again. This time removing the words "Toxic Masculinity" entirely and replacing them with "stereotypical Rated M for Manly". (Which isn't even the correct trope. Macho Masochism would be more accurate, because toxic masculinity isn't about manliness in itself.)

He left the following edit reason:

"The last variant was much better, but let's remove newspeak. "Toxic masculinity kills everyone. Repeat."

So basically, he's calling the term "Newspeak", which is a blatant insult (as a reference to Orwellian 1984 dystopia).

I think the trope you're looking for is Testosterone Poisoning? If we have anything close to the concept, I think this is the best we got.

No, I mean Macho Masochism. Testosterone Poisoning is when something is SO manly that it's parody, but not necessarily a bad thing (think: Old Spice commercials).

Macho Masochism is basically when the concept of masculinity does more harm than good.

I didn't even know Macho Masochism was a trope, and since you had a redlink before... yeah. My bad. But I learned a thing.

Well, clearly I forgot what the trope's name was, so no harm done.

He hasn't touched the version on the YMMV page, if that means anything.

I tried rewriting the example. I'm not super engrained in the fandom and not at all in the LGBT community, so sorry if anything's off.

• Steven Universe: The Crystal Gems are commonly accepted as icons within the LGBT community, being considered one of the most positive, powerful, and unabashed lesbian representations in all media, let alone animation - special mention goes to Ruby and Sapphire, whose relationship is prominently displayed whenever they're onscreen, culminating into a wedding and kiss on the lips in the final season.

That seems fine, I guess.

Here are a couple more examples I dug up from research.

• Stevonnie is considered iconic within the non-binary segment of the population, as are other fusions involving Steven, such as Sunstone, Smokey Quartz and Rainbow Quartz 2.0, who all use the pronoun "they" without identifying as one gender or the other.
• Steven himself became an icon for transgender individuals following the reveal that his mother was originally Pink Diamond, and thus her gem is now his own. The final episodes of the series continuously have the other Diamonds deadname Steven as "Pink" and misgender him as "her", which resonated very well with transgender (especially trans-male) audiences.

The seconds one sounds like trans folks like being dead named, which is false. Usually.

It could be better-worded; the point is that it's the villains who are doing the deadnaming and misgendering, which makes it clear that it's a bad thing to do.

Hmm. This might just be the growing pains of a new trope and not knowing what constitutes good context yet, but none of the above describes the characters being co-opted as mascots for a movement, just LGBT folks really liking the show. Sounds more like LGBT Fanbase than Movement Mascot.

Ditto.

He’s still edit warring, btw, and going with the same “newspeak” edit reason.

Is it too late to see if they want to come here and chat? Otherwise, stronger action is definitely needed.

I send a PM telling him to come over here.

Oh, great. Someone is offended.

First of all, this site is full with international people, and that would mean your values won't correlate with my values. This, once again, doesn't mean that your values are better than my values: they're just different.

My point is that if this site is not explicitly political, there's no need to propagate political views. In my country, you can get beaten up and attacked with brilliant green dye for propagating liberal ideas, since we already had this enough in the 90's. The word "feminist" here is an insult, btw, and if you try to say "misgendering", you'll be met with a reaction appropriate for Napoleon XIV. This might not be the case for your country, but then again, this doesn't mean that your country is better than mine and that means we might respect each other's opinion but might not come to a unified conclusion.

What I'm trying to say is let's abstain from unneeded social commentary. I don't see much commentary on Power of the Nation/People, or even persecuting some racial and/or social groups, but what I do see is "toxic masculinity", "...against masculinity" and the like. In my country, if you ever try to speak against masculinity, you'll become a pariah among men, and, in my opinion, not without reason.

Just as like any commentary about "invasion of Ukraine". It might be a cliche in your country, but not in ours. We know better about Ukraine, who they actually are and how they live - they're our neighbours, after all.

So, in short: let's not force political opinion on everyone. It might be acceptable in your country, but not in Laos, or Nepal, or Kyrgyzstan.

I suppose that the article about touchy political subject should be as neutral and observatory as possible to avoid bombs flying.

It's not about "Whose values and country is better". It's abut being neutral, which your edits and edit reasons aren't. The solution isn't to change an edit that goes against your values, but to accept that these values exist on the wiki and within works.

If people believe Steven Universe to be an icon against Toxic Masculinity, then it doesn't matter what other people think about the concept. We're not saying in the example that Toxic Masculinity is a thing and that everything needs to go the SJW way. We're just saying that this is how people think- and we're not going to change information like this just because you think it's too controversial for an international website to mention.

Regardless of how you feel about this wiki on the subject of social justice matters, such as the LGBT+ community, that doesn't give you the right to go changing things, nor to edit war over these things afterward. If you think there's genuine bias going on, by all means, take them to discussion- don't just edit them away in an effort to make things "neutral", because you're just as biased as you claim the wiki itself to be.

Once again, please, re-read my post. Maybe you misinterpreted me. Or, maybe, I didn't convey my message fully. Hrm.

What I say is that in our country, such things are publicly shamed and made fun of. Even Putin with his critique of "transformers", as he called them. Here, however, I see a lot of pro-liberal social commentary and not a bit of commentary about "these people are sick, they should be swept under the rug from the eyes of normal people and treated with electro-smog therapy until they recover". Yes, this may sound horrible for you. Just as praising abnormalities sounds horrible for me.

That's why what I imply is we should observe and not participate in these political matters in any possible way. I mean, I don't call for firing squads at all. If you find my edits too biased, rewrite them in a more neutral way.

Just like current version of Steven Universe entry: I still cringe at "against masculinity", but still - nevermind, let it be like this, now it's at least at acceptable range, even if it's trodding on dangerously thin ice.

Look, whether you want to dance around the concept of neutrality or not, this is a serious issue. The wiki is international, yes. That means we have people of all sorts, including the sort of people your country openly mistreats for being different. I don't care about your personal politics, but I do care if you think our efforts to be socially conscious and respectful toward people who may be a little "abnormal" in your eyes, and to discuss the social controversies surrounding these sort of issues, is us being biased and political.

We're here to discuss facts, and yes, we do have the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement and don't want to get political when it's not needed. But on a page like Movement Mascot, with an example discussing these social issues, this isn't an issue of politics- it's an issue of being factual about the situation at hand and not just sweeping them aside because some people disagree that these things are actual issues.

You're aware that people disagree with you on these things. You're aware that there's a whole world of differing ideologies and beliefs. So why remove valid information from the wiki and make it bland and falsely neutral, when media, fandom culture, and the very community of this wiki believe in the values you're claiming are just too political to be on the wiki?

See, I have no real issue with being neutral when it's possible... but this is one of those times when it isn't possible, and when attempting to make it unbiased just hides the entire point of the example. (And like I said, this example is about how people see the character. Even if you think they're wrong and that the example is biased, well, these people are biased, and we're reporting about what these people believe, not making a political statement of our own.)

I'm not going to touch your whole paragraph about Transgender people, except to say that yes, it is horrible to me, and I genuinely find it disgusting that you're so casual about how you and your country mistreat people just because they don't conform to your strict standards about how they should act, despite that they're still people who deserve the same rights as everyone else, and their status as a person doesn't go away just because they believe they were born in the wrong body, or because they want to marry someone of their same gender, or because they don't believe Men should be given more rights than Women.

And believe me, I am far from being the most left-wing person on this site. Most people here won't be so willing to just brush off your statements and play nice.

^^If I may quote from Welcome to TV Tropes under the What We Don't Want section:

Your quote in the second paragraph pretty much falls into the dictionary definition of hate speech ("public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation") and is therefor explicitly barred from the site regardless of your personal opinion.

Yeah as ^ pointed out this is the literal definition of hate speech and thus strictly against the behavioral standards we hold users to on this site.

Consindering personal beliefs: once again, I will repeat my statement about neutrality and will argue that it is possible to be neutral while reviewing politics. Every side has its upsides and downsides, and these, imo, should be present in an observatory way, not in an immersive way. It is possible to do that without expressing your opinion.

Also, "hate speech" term does not exist in my country, and, from my point of view (as a person who is not involved into this), it can apply both to you and to me. Such as hating on traditional values such as masculinity.

Again: if your country have not seen hardships of rampant freedom, when the fence was broken and the sheep were eating the master's daisies, you won't understand be, but please, at least try to. That's why I call for observation of rampant freedom and not participating in it.

In practice, that would mean observing other groups' terms and cliches, providing explanation on how they use it and why. In brackets, so no one would go away offended and/or angered. It doesn't mean complete defanging, just observation from the third party. Otherwise it would feel like visiting a zoo when a lion is allowed to walk around and to eat visitors.

The rules of this site are the only things that dictate what is allowed on this site. Whether you or your country has a concept of hate speech is irrelevant, this site does and it is explicitly barred.

We could have a long debate over whether or not allowing people to be themselves counts as "rampant freedom" and something to fear, but that's irrelevant to what I've been saying repeatedly now.

The example was documenting a real-life phenomenon and how fans of the show feel about the character. Whether or not you and your country believes in this sort of thing has nothing to do with the validity of the example or what was said within it. If the fans see Steven as an icon against what they consider to be "Toxic Masculinity", that's what we'll report, and your refusal to acknowledge this is starting to get annoying. You insist on arguing about bias and neutrality and how we're misrepresenting your argument, but you haven't once responded to the actual point I've been making, and instead have only proceeded to double down about how the portrayal of "masculinity" in this example is "too political"... even if the example is literally about a political movement.

Also, Sebastian is right. All that matters to this site is its own rules and standards, and the site has a rule against hate-speech, which your posts fall under. You can argue against the idea all you want, but if you're going to post here you have to obey that rule.

It just starts look more and more like a story about a white bull, as we say in Russia.

Let me repeat once again, clearly and without any nooks.

1. I am strictly against playing political cliches straight. Because by doing so, you promote one side of a political propaganda.

2. Yet I do not see anything bad about observing political cliches and discussing them.

3. My words can be a "hate speech" to you, and yours, following this term, can be to me. Because it just how it is.

4. No, I am not a propaganda agent, troll or something like this. And I don't want Western tropers to be this to me and any other non-Western troper.

5. And please, do not consider my opinion as a restraining bolt. By liberal logic, I do have the right to voice it.

Let's just not fight, it gives no good both to you and to me. Just do not openly insult and call "toxic" or "backwater" or whatever what my country considers a national idea and a standard, and I won't be saying anything about yours. Even Putin's page was quite neutral, without openly demonizing him (just observing him from both sides), and that's how you write about politics.

Dude.

Regardless of your political beliefs you are clearly letting bias from them seep into your editing as shown by calling things "left wing propaganda" in your edit reasons when you make it clear you're right-wing conservative.

Then there's the nationalistic remarks you're making here defending the bigoted and tyrannical goverment of your home country and attacking LGBT people.

You need to step back and maybe abstain from editing pages/entries for potentially politically-charged tropes before it becomes a problem

I wish to voice my agreement with the comment by CryptidProductions.

You see? That's what I'm trying to convey to you.

I have my opinion, you have yours. It's just an opinion, everyone has it. Do not disrespect my opinion and I won't disrespect yours.

By calling my government bigotic and tyrannical, you disrespect my country, and therefore, me. By calling masculinity "toxic" and not highlighting it as a "political cliche" just like this, you disrespect one of the ideals of my country and therefore, you provide what you call "hate speech" against me.

Or does it count only when someone insults you, while insulting other nations is A-OK?

Let's be polite to each other, please, and the world will be a nicer place.

Your government being bigoted against us queer folks is a fact, though, not a judgement. And no, criticizing traditional masculinity isn't hate speech. Not all criticism is hate speech. Now, if anyone here had said that traditionally masculine people in general ought to be punished by the law, that would have been either hate speech or in the neighborhood.

Considering what the GOP is doing over in the states right now I frankly wouldn't argue much with you if you called my goverment corrupt. Over here we don't consider patriotism blind loyalty to the goverment but the countries ideals of allowing the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

So we consider it a civic duty to speak out against political administrations that violate that by violating the human rights of her citizens.

So no, insulting your current goverment is not a personal attack on you, nor your nations culture unless you consider what the USSR and Putin spent the last 100 years doing to it the only thing that matters.

Also: no here is insulting masculinity. They're criticizing the unreasonable gender expectations society often places on men like suppression of emotions and pushing the idea that men solve all problems with aggression and machismo.

Which I'd argue isn't even traditional masculinity by anyone's measure. It's some kind of pig-headed bullshit theme-park version of manhood created by 20th century conservatism.

But that discussion is distracting from the real issue: you need to stop injecting your personal bias into your editing

If I may throw my hat in here:

While allowing people from everywhere and of all walks of life to voice their opinions is good, even if we may not agree with them, TV Tropes is an American site, and most of its userbase (to my knowledge) is American. It is run and maintained in the U.S., so of course it is going to use America's definition of "polictically correct" (for lack of a better term) when it comes to these things.

You and your country believe that LGBT people are wrong and that toxic masculinity doesn't exist. We do.

When someone unabashedly states they firmly believe in those things and edit accordingly, alarms bells go off for us, because in most cases they're either an unfunny troll or an American who doesn't/refuses to know better. For you, it is just how you're country thinks.

We do not like the way Russia thinks, but we live with it anyway because at the end of the day we're a little website that can't do jack shit to change a whole country, but we're still an American website, one that follows progressive ideals and standards, and one that tries to be as neutral as possible from our perspective.

And for the record, when we are referring to toxic masculinity, we are not referring to masculinity as a whole, just the notions that all men must be macho muscular assholes that can't feel emotion or be gentle and sensitive.

Please don't twist my words. I just told you how it is. If you insult my government, then you insult my country. Insult to a country means insult to a people of the country, and that means insult to my family and me. You probably did not meant to, yet you did it.

Also, GOP is still pro-liberal, while we aren't. We had a lot of troubles back in the 90's, which prevents us from favouring liberalism, but that's a very different topic and I don't think it's a good place for discussing it.

Considering masculinity, it just turns into a specific variety of No True Scotsman (sadly, I don't know better to depict this). One person writes "toxic masculinity" without any context whatsoever, the other person defends is by stating that it's not about masculinity, but about extreme masculinity, etc. And this is reasonable, considering on how people started attacking me initially thinking I could be a vandal/troll/propagandist. And then it boils down to a flame bait and arguments about "we meant it the other way".

Once again, I edit what I consider offensive to me, and you edit what is considered offensive to you. As stated before, I have no meaning to propagate my views onto everyone, that's why I'm not doing it, just pointing out when other people do. Consider myself not a malicious editor, not some government agent, but more like a notice that appears when the political part becomes way too one-sided.

And again, be this site American-based or not, nowhere in the rules is stated that "This site is only for Americans, so be American or go into the gas chamber". There's absolutely no need for that.

You're wrong to say that insulting a country is the same as insulting its people. That's just factually untrue. First of all, insulting the government isn't the same as insulting the people. By that logic, any person who insults his or her government is insulting himself. Heck, by that logic suffragettes were insulting themselves when they mocked the government who didn't give them the vote.

Secondly, criticism isn't the same as an insult, (though they do sometimes overlap, of course).

"This site is only for Americans, so be American or go into the gas chamber".

Nobody said that. You're twisting people's words, which is what you yourselves said not to do. To be blunt, I have to say that exaggerations like that one shows an unwillingness to argue in good faith.

Gonna be frank. The moment he compared following the site's rules to going to the gas chamber, it was clear that any possibility of civil discourse was lost.

I think this has gone far enough. Ajoura has been suspended.

Please could a mod lock this mess.

Politics aside, I am still of the opinion that the entry should be deleted as a shoehorn.

^^^ Only suspended?

Also, Ajoura, neutrality isn't deleting views that go against your own beliefs.

I'm surprised the mods are giving him a chance.

Anyway, yeah, the original example should be (or stay) deleted because of no context regarding being taken on by the community, being general, and having two examples in one.

However, does my rewrite for the Crystal Gems as LGBT icons work as an example?

We can, and do, short-of-bounce someone for example purposes.

Locking this query for length. Please open a new one for any adjacent questions.