Topic on User talk:GethN7

i'm sure im not the only one here that senses that eddies site is crumbling while he & his mods continue to lash out at increasingly minor infractions [i almost have a mace windu-like ShatterPoint sense]

if it indeed falls apart, where are we on the sites' content then? there's some post-split content of value [a few post-ban pages i created in 2013]

fighteer didn't like Byakuko [latina sockpuppet] calling out JonStewart on his gun control policy; "offtopic" how? ;)

then eddie pulled the "post was thumped to 'preserve' the 'dignity' of this poster" in the debate on race with FrancisUno [pontif sockpuppet]. [it's not pc to say that liberal policies actually HURT minorities {amnesty to illegal immigrants makes it harder for black people to find jobs too, not just for whites} as well as caucasians]

eddie don't like challenges to the pc-line, even when pc [pc=mentally ill] costs lives.

I'm sure that there's some post-split content that is valuable, the problem is that it's legally radioactive. We can't be sure who gave consent for the license to be changed in June 2012, and virtually all of the licenses would be implied only. We can't afford the legal liability of hosting the vast amount of infringing content that TVT hosts (yes, CC-BY-NC-SA infringes on the copyright license of CC-BY-SA).

Nor do we want to have a copyright patchwork with some pages being in the -NC- domain. So pretty much the only thing we can port over from TVT is content actually written by our users, who should still own the copyright to their own writing.

But I gotta say, as much as I'd like to talk gun control, immigration, and race politics, they are all off topic over here. Our forums are about works, tropes, and creators only, with a small slice of site admin. But politics are okay in the context of a discussing a work or trope, of course.

Regarding off-topic conversations, I do realize that we're short on manpower and there's a lot of other stuff to be done first. However, I do hope that in the future we can have off-topic conversations.

One of the attractions of tvtropes was the ability to real world issues with the common language of tropes. One of the biggest failures of tvtropes administration was their utter failure to moderate in a remotely non-biased way. I hope that some day you guys can show them that it isn't that difficult.

@Comradeclaus - For several reasons, especially moderation difficulty and the fact that we'd like to remain focused on tropes and the works that contain them, our forums are strictly limited to on site matters. We don't have post thumping and we're not maniacs for censoring what we don't like here, but at this point we don't think it would be a good idea to have a full blown forum here, especially since there are so many other places on the internet you can discuss that sort of thing. However, anything related to tropes, troping, and the works that contain them (in the context of troping) is fair game.

Also, I fully back Vorticity's point on post-June 2012 content: it's a legal minefield, and even Eddie reluctantly consented the worst he can do about June 2012 or earlier content is gripe about it, so we plan to err on the side of caution. You can always recreate those post June 2012 pages from scratch here, but any deliberate copy-paste is infringement, and we don't want to cross that line legally even though we're not sure if the license change was legal. We're pretty sure it's not, but that would require settling things in a courtroom, and we'd rather not go down that road.

@Topazan: I'm not opposed to pages on Real Life figures like the US Presidents, various wars and eras of history, the Real Life page itself, and I'm not half as anal-retentive about what pages can and can't have Real Life examples (or I plan to avoid it where I can if at all possible), but a full blown forum for discussing real world issues is off topic, however entertaining and educational it might be, so we'd rather our tropers discuss that sort of thing elsewhere for now.

@Both: I have not closed myself off to the possibility of having a full blown forum, but for now we are very leery of the downsides of having one due to manpower and ability to moderate it effectively without becoming dictators concerning content, so for now, we ask those topics be discuss elsewhere outside of their context to tropes and troping.

We do have a subreddit where you guys can discuss troping somewhat more informally if you prefer (and Reddit offers other forums for other topics), or you could discuss non troping related matters on other forums for now. I might be open to the possibility of an offsite forum for tropers like that on TV Tropes with the same range in the future that is not officially regulated by the ATT admins, but for now we're not sure it's a good idea. We also have an IRC channel you guys could take advantage of, and while it's mostly for site related stuff we have discussed other matters there informally, but since Vorticity runs it I'll defer to his judgment on what he allows.

I understand your reasoning, and I'm fine with that being the situation for now. I just hope that in the future we might have a more robust forum community. It's not just about off-topic either. The tvtropes forums were a great place to discuss works of fiction as well, as well as the socio-political implications of tropes.

While I haven't agreed with every decision they've made regarding wiki matters, my main beef with the tvtropes mods was how they handled forum moderation. You guys have done a great job setting yourself apart from them on wiki issues, I would like to see a forum community with the same improvement. An offsite forum would be fine.

Again, I realize this wiki's too short on manpower to worry about moderating forums, but I'm hoping that will change as the community grows. That said, I would highly suggest opening up a "general discussion" forum on a trial basis, with the understanding that it will be shut down if it proves problematic. It would be a good "stress test" for this site's moderation philosophy, and we would be able to draw lessons from it that may come in handy as the site grows. In addition, it would help build the community. This is just my suggestion.

We'll consider it at the very least, but our moderation problem is that we have only three administrators right now, and both I and Vorticity have other commitments that make us policing the forums difficult on a full time basis and Looney Tunes has his own forum (where we have discussed some ATT related planning issues and other unrelated matters, which you are welcome to contribute to).

Regardless, your idea does have merit, and we will consider it at the very least, but for now, we believe it to be beyond our capability to manage at this point.

I realize you're short on moderators, but you're just as short on regular members. The two or three non-moderators who regularly visit shouldn't be that hard to police, and if the community starts growing, you can select new moderators from within the community.

Alright, good point. However, I'd like to hear from the other admins and community members on this issue first.

Unlike TV Tropes, I'm a big fan of community consensus as opposed to 'admin fiat", so if the majority thinks it's a good idea, I'll seriously look into it, regardless of my personal feelings (barring such things as technical and legal issues), and it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to set up if we did do something like that from a technical standpoint, but I'd like to hear from everyone else on the matter as well before making any decisions.

TBH, the short supply of moderators has very little to do with it, though it makes a great excuse :P

Each of our admins has a different issue with the forums on TVT. The main issue to me is that they just aren't focused on the core purpose of the website, and distract from the wiki content and literary criticism. For Looney Toons, the complaint stems from the fact that the community is splintered, and forum goers seemed unaware of (and looked down upon) users who did a lot for the actual wiki. GethN7 thinks its a source of embarrassing content, and definitely a generation dynamo for the lower 90% of Sturgeon's Law.

I'm going put on my software dev hat, too. I don't think that tight integration of the forum with the wiki is desirable -- it slows down the wiki, and opens us to using some other extension that's kind of jammed into the wiki software (like this "page" in Liquid Threads is now). What is possible is some sort of parser hook within a real forum software which uses the Mediawiki API to render internal links. That's pretty much the single major use for wiki formatting on a forum. Of course, I don't have a time now to implement this, but really, anyone else could do it.

So at some level, those concerns need to be addressed -- solved, refuted, or overpowered by other needs -- before we'd move forward with a bigger forum.

I disagree that forums distract from the core purpose of the site. I believe that the purpose of the site is to analyze tropes and fiction in general. I believe there is room within this purpose for discussion. As I said, people can share opinions on works of fiction, discuss the real world origins and implications of tropes, or use the common language of tropes to better understand this crazy world we live in.

I can't say I've observed forum goers looking down on editors. In fact, I noticed quite a bit of overlap.

Please don't adopt the same attitude of contempt towards your community that the tvtropes mods show towards theirs, at least not before you actually build one. I agree that the tvtropes forums were pretty toxic, but a lot of that had to do with the moderation. If they had moderated people based on their behavior rather than their opinions, and if they hadn't set such a crappy example through their own behavior, then there would have been a much better atmosphere.

Still, I acknowledge that even competently moderated forums can develop toxic elements. But that's because communities have toxic elements. If you want to have any kind of community at all, and you need one for a site like this, you need to take that risk.

You may be right that integration isn't desirable, and it's not really necessary. It would be nice if the wiki and the forums could share user accounts, but we can always hyperlink tropes the old fasioned way. I suppose that this is a reason why the forums don't need to be on the site at all. Just out of curiosity, though, what's wrong with using Liquid Threads for forums?

I think that this site's biggest concern right now is population, and having active forums would help potential users get a "feel" for the place to help them decide if it's a community they want to be part of. It could also increase retention by providing a place for people to connect with each other.

You do have a point, I'll grant you that. Forums do have the ability to help people gravitate towards a community. I also agree that it does seems somewhat contemptuous to deny having a full blown forum outright.

However, even though you are starting to win me over (seriously Topazan, you make some excellent arguments), I would be most amenable to a full blown forum for ATT if it was at one remove from this site.

By that, I mean one of the following:

• Located completely offsite.
• Located on Orain, but on another wiki with interwiki links

However, I grant you that it would be very possible to have full blown forums here with LQT (I considered that at one point), though I'd probably have to archive all the forums we have now and replace our current setup with LQT styled forums.

With LQT styled forums, it would be possible to have many forum like features, and even forum avatars are possible, so from a technical standpoint, I could very well set it up here, and given how it would be site related, hosting it here probably would make the most sense to minimize issues with trope page linkage.

That said, my only remaining concerns are lack of adequate staff for such a venture, and we need to decide (if this comes to pass) just what and how we want to structure the forum and determine the rules for forum behavior, as what I DO NOT want is for the forums to (A) eclipse the wiki and (B) become a haven for creepy/illegal content as much as we can avoid.

If we had more staff, a decent set of guidelines, and very clear plan for how such a forum were to be set up (and assuming the majority of the community agrees), I would assist in setting up a LQT styled forum.

Basically, you've convinced me it might be worth the effort, so if you can get a lot of other people on board, I will be willing to help set this up.

Glad to hear it.

I wouldn't know who to get on board, or how, so I hope the right people will step up without my intervention. Like I said, I'm fine if we put it off for a future date as long as we have an agreement in principle that it might be a good thing to have.

It might be a good idea to discuss planning and guidelines in the meantime. I don't really have much to say there besides "don't be like the tvtropes mods". "Thumping" is a terrible idea since it removes transparency from the modding process. The only things that should be deleted are spam, illegal content, and nsfw content. For any other rules violations, warn or ban the poster if it's appropriate, but the leave the offending post intact so other people can decide if the penalty is fair.

I'm going to stop now before I go off on another rant. I realize there are a lot of decisions to be made, and it would create a lot of work once started.

On the thumping bit, we don't have that feature, and I completely agree spam/NSFW/illegal content are the only things that need removed. I don't believe in censoring posts, nor do Vorticity or LT, so don't worry, we won't be doing that sort of TVT style nonsense here.

As for the full blown forum, I already posed the question of why it's worth considering on the DW forums, as you've definitely convinced me it's an idea worthy of consideration, and if you can win over the other admins/ATT members, I'll gladly roll up sleeves and set it up.

As for ranting, no, you haven't. You patiently and reasonably argued from a principled position using logic and being respectful while also being honest and forthright. I see nothing wrong with that, and I valued your opinion and found your arguments persuasive despite your opinion not agreeing entirely with my own.

I meant that I didn't want to get started on the topic of the tvtropes mods, because goddamn there is so much to criticize about how Eddie, Fighteer et al ran that site that I wouldn't know when to stop.

thanks guys.

wow, been almost a year since i came here, site looks so different, looks great!

btw, i noticed that pages like attack on titan are bare bones, lot's of work to do

btw, there is a manga author, named rebis, who is branching into nonhentai manga (like oyakado of monster musume fame) might be time to create a page on him soon

Thanks. ^_^

And yeah, we're behind on some stuff, so if you want to add pages on creators like Rebis or firm up our stubbly pages, please, do so by all means. :)

i have a question, what happened to my old account? I wasn't able to log in.

You might want to consult with the Miraheze Staff on that one.