Topic on User talk:GethN7

Thanks for letting me return now.

31
DocColress (talkcontribs)

Now that my week-long ban is lifted and I'm feeling calmer about this matter, I hope you may allow me to ask for civil discourse where those who voted in favor of that page can have a chance to explain their position and why they think the page is worth keeping as is, and I will take those points into serious consideration. I will NOT be attempting to push for the page's immediate removal or trying to delete it myself or mess with it in any way, so don't worry about that.

Also, if I may present my reasoning for being opposed to the idea you and LulzKiller put forward (putting all entries on subpages devoted to their work then and turning the communal pages for the series' into links to the sub-pages): not only would that be too time consuming and too much effort just to tear apart subpages that were just fine and workable as they were in order to create a gazillion new subpages for individual works (that would naturally contain very little content aside from a single entry or four), but it would be particularly disheartening to me because I put a lot of work into tidying up those subpages as they are, and I always enjoy looking at them as they are from time to time, so to see almost all of them turning into communal hubs for links to other, smaller pages that contain writeups I'd helped put on this Wiki to start with, but separated from the other writeups so that it just wouldn't feel right. Call this an autistic thing if you will (I do have Asperger's) but losing the Complete Monster pages as they are now would absolutely crush my spirit for going forward on this site.

As I said elsewhere: It is true we're not like TV Tropes in how we run things, but this should not mean we're the Anti-TV Tropes in regards to how we handle and manage trope content, and from what I can tell, a series having a Complete Monster subpage AND all the individual works that are part of that series having their own YMMV pages means that nothing was broken, nothing needed fixing.

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Well, that was the whole point of the week long time out, to get you to calm down, you were obviously not very calm and needed a chance to avoid making a further pariah of yourself due to being emotional. You've done good work and it would be a shame to lose you.

That said, if you still wish to argue your case, I'm afraid the decisions made are going to stay,and given your most recent action show you aren't entirely over this, I'm afraid I must make the painful decision to take your moderator powers away for an indefinite period, to be restored when the community feels you are to be trusted with them again, as they currently do not.

That said, I too have autism, but let me make something clear: That is absolutely no excuse for ANYONE's actions. I know you fear change as a result, I don;t like it either, but sometimes, it must be done and dealt with maturely.

However, I will offer you a solution that will satisfy you completely. This wiki is forkable, you can always make an XML dump of all the CM pages, start your own wiki, and organize them however you like, that would satisfy all legal requirements and give you a sandbox to organize how you see fit, and you will have no objections from me, I did the same when TV Tropes did things I didn't like. If amenable to this, I will personally be willing to assist you in making this happen, and you can even use interwiki links to our pages if you so desire to prevent a ton of broken links on your own fork.

If not willing to accept this, then I suggest you leave quietly and gracefully, no one will begrudge you for doing so, I too have walked away from sites I could not abide changes I did not like.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Thanks for feeling that my contributions have been valuable. I think you're the only one here who thinks that about me.

I don't think this community will ever find me trustworthy 'cause they're so dead set on fighting me over a stupid, one entry subpage for a single standalone title in a series that, again, already had a pre-existing subpage that examples from installments of that series were meant to go on. If this is going to be the prevalent attitude, then I fear this Wiki's gone to the dogs and ironically, it's TV Tropes that comes out looking like the better alternative now. At least they know how trope subpages are supposed to look like. As such, my involvement with this Wiki itself will be indefinitely minimal. Maybe when Robkelk and his pack of lemmings are gone, I'll consider returning to tidy up the mess that the trope might become in my absence.

I'm not excusing my actions, just explaining my position and the mentality behind the actions I took. What gets me is that in all this, not one single person gave ANY convincing argument for why the majority thought the page was a good idea and could offer anything that was not already offered by the pre-existing Tales series subpage or the Tales of Bersperia YMMV page that Robkelk had gotten the asinine idea to split into a Complete Monster page to start with.

Much as I would LOVE that, I don't know how it's done. Could you show me how, or maybe help with getting it all set up for me?

I will accept that everyone but you hates my guts and thinks of me as some TV Tropes tyrant who needs to go away and let them have their brainless fun, so I will do just that. I will fondly remember the years where I did some actual good to this Wiki and how it used to be better than TV Tropes for me. But clearly, I've either outgrown what the more childish users on this Wiki want to do with tropes and pages, or the Wiki has outgrown the need for me. My only hope now is to find a place like this but where the moderation is actually fair.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

For the third time (and I grow tired of saying this): I do not hate you. I don't even know you.

Again: I believe that the actions that you have been taking puts the wiki at risk, in that you have not been following the Policy for Wiki Staff. That is not and never has been a value judgment of you as a person.

Also: I never split off that page. It was a pre-existing page. All I did was move it to the correct hierarchy.

And I request an apology from you for your use of the word "brainless". I have a Mensa-level IQ (with all the mental issues that come with an IQ that high, but I've never used it as an excuse to ignore other people's ideas). I do not do anything that is "brainless".

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Your attitude and actions towards me speak to me louder than those words, sorry.

And I believe the actions you and the others have been taking puts the wiki at risk, as you're all suddenly eager to fix what wasn't broken, unless you consider all of my contributions and efforts on here for at least five years straight to have "broken" the trope. Which, not gonna lie, would hurt me. A lot.

There was no need to move it to the correct hiearchy, since that exact same Complete Monster writeup for that exact same character of that exact same game was already there on (and I'm tired of having to stress that this was even a thing, since everyone is so keen to ignore it now) a pre-existing subpage that examples from installments of that series were meant to go on. All you'd needed to do was find some other YMMV trope entries to add to that YMMV page and bam! It's a proper YMMV page that in no ways needs to become it's own Complete Monster page, since a Complete Monster page for a standalone work within a series that houses only a single example of the trope was never a thing before now and should never be a thing, ever. Not on TV Tropes, not on here, not anywhere.

I'm sorry if you thought I was referring to you as brainless in general. I wasn't. I'd said "brainless fun", which really does seem like what users of this Wiki prefer to have since I cannot fathom anyone with their brains turned on would not see the problem with the sore thumb that is Complete Monster/Tales of Berseria sticking out among all the other, better constructed, better looking, more informative and just plain more sensible subpages on this trope.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

We aren't ignoring the Tales of Berseria mess. We're just dealing with the more important matter first.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

And what, pray tell, is the more important matter? Me needing to be stripped of mod status and evicted from this Wiki?

If you weren't ignoring that mess, you'd have taken down that page a long time back rather than trying to come up with excuses for keeping it around such as "we'll just make even MORE Complete Monster subpages for single works that may or may not have a single example."

Robkelk (talkcontribs)
And what, pray tell, is the more important matter? Me needing to be stripped of mod status and evicted from this Wiki?

I've already told you what the more important issue is. Your refusal to do anything about solving it - or even acknowledging it - is what has forced the removal of your mod status. (BTW, Geth, we didn't have a discussion about that before you did it...)

And you are not being evicted, any more than NoxiousSludge was either of the two times he decided to leave in the last five years. His account is still active here.

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

The community did not trust DoColress to exercise their moderator powers for the good of the community,had displayed a record of using those powers for their own agenda and they indeed did actions that did not engender trust even as of very recently, so the mod bit was taken to prevent further concerns until such time those concerns are passed.

I took such decisions in order to contain any further edit warring on pages that could ensue and to reflect the community belief DocColress should not be a moderator due to irresponsible use of those powers. This was a situation as would not admit delay if further edit wars or page deletions occurred, and I frankly wanted to preclude the possibility of said tools causing further dispute before it became a problem again.

If you still feel I'm wrong, I will accept however the community feels and step away from this situation.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

It wasn't a community belief, though - it was just Robkelk who put that idea forward.

Since you made that decision prematurely, I ask if you could possibly please restore my mod status and revoke it only if I then proceed to use it irresponsibly again. But after this ugly incident, I'd have to be a complete idiot to do that.

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Rob wasn't the only person's nose you put out of joint by this little affair, most of the admin team and and even some regular users have noted the same, albeit not as strongly in some cases.

Besides, I've had to referee this, to be blunt, pissing contest, from the beginning, and I'd rather put a stop to anything that could ensure everyone gets drowned.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

I've apologized to everyone who I might have hurt or bothered in my actions. They might not forgive me, but my apologies are sincere.

Well I don't know what I'll do now - I'm unsure whether or not I want to leave this site for good, I don't for the life of me know how to create my own Wiki via forking content from this one, I'm not getting my mod status back any time soon or maybe ever, and I don't feel like messing with the Wikia version again. Could you please help me out and talk this out with me before I have a legit crisis?

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Take a break from this site. A longer one this time.

Sometimes you just need to walk away and not get so invested in things.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Part of me doesn't really want to, though. I'll eventually get plagued by thoughts of all the work, heart and dedication I poured into certain tropes over five years getting flushed down the drain while I'm away, and I won't be around to even try to make any difference. Can you not see how hard that would be for me to endure?

I request you please not block me again and just allow me to lurk on and off on this Wiki for the time being. By the end of the year, if I've not made anymore trouble and the negative feelings that everyone has about me have gone away, would you maybe restore my mod status and allow me to make a new start?

Derivative (talkcontribs)

For whatever it's worth Doc, I took a break for 11 months, and I think it helped me gain some perspective regarding how I handle wikis and the like. I'm not suggesting that you do a break anywhere near that long, but I think that at least taking some time where you go cold turkey might help when it comes to clearing the mind.

I should also clarify that my proposal was in my eyes (and I'm not trying to re-light a debate here, I'm just clearing the air), a promotion/reward of both you and CM, due to CM finally being recognised as a sub-category/page of the entire wiki, rather than a mere section/trope. I realise that there might have been miscommunication that didn't help my conveyance of how this proposal would have actually been a positive in your eyes.

I don't think Geth was planning on blocking you, he was just strongly recommending that you cool down longer than a week, due to a week obviously being too short and accomplishing nothing.

Also I don't hate you either, judging by the gift you gave me. I just think you suffered from what I suffered when I was younger in my wiki "career" elsewhere, being a bit too emotionally invested for either your own good or for the wiki's good, I had that problem when I was heavily active on ED, and that only alienated me and got me burnt out at the end.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

I think going on and off for the remainder of the year will serve me well. Like just checking in very briefly, editing things if need be, and then leaving no sooner than I'd come in, and that'd hardly even be every day. My attention will be on other things.

Thank you so much for explaining your position! That was literally all I was asking for yesterday! I can definitely see your perspective on this, but to me, CM doesn't need to be a sub-category and I feel it would especially foolish to give the trope subpages dedicated to single works within a larger series or medium, pages that could potentially only contain single examples with a single writeup, which makes it feel like we are unquestionably trading down in terms of producing content-filled pages. What I mean to say is that I loved this trope as it was on the site, always felt satisfaction visiting the subpages as they are, and while I've not approved of how TV Tropes handles things when it comes to qualifying examples of the trope, the layout they have for the trope, which we have imitated, has never been an issue at all.

I was actually a lot calmer at the start of yesterday. Feeling like Robkelk was attacking me and erasing all my efforts to start a CIVIL discourse on the matter, all while I'd planned to leave the page in-tact since a majority had not yet decided upon it's fate, is what made my mood so bad.

I don't hate anyone here, even if they (understandably) hate me for acting like a tyrant. It's good to know I have a friend here though, and I thank you for your words. They are helpful and mean a lot to me. (Also, ED is for the dregs of the internet, so it's for the best that you stay clear of it.)

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Maybe the more important issue got lost on me in all this. Could you please remind me what it is so I can see about helping solve it?

I doubt he's coming back, so his account might as well be scrapped.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

The more important issue is that you are not willing to accept the will of the majority. (Which, BTW, is why we did not take down that page. The majority said to keep it. Taking it down would have made the problem worse.)

He's come back at least once already.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

wish I was still a mod. Then I could delete this whole needless thread here...

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

And that's why I'm not restoring it anytime soon. I value transparency whenever it would not cause real life endangerment to do so, and in this case, it will not, so I want public records of this incident in case it ever happens again.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Alright, I agree to that.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Okay. I was mainly just really curious to know what the big attachment to the page was with the majority that voted for it. I know they all said to keep it, but with how tiny, lacking in content, and ultimately redundant it is, and given the arguments against it that I brought forward, I was left wondering how many were actually looking at the words I'd typed and taking them into serious consideration when weighing their options and how many were just brushing me off completely without actually reading my words 'cause they figured I was just some tyrannical mod looking to preserve the more TV Tropes-style way of managing subpages, which I find to be the far more sensible way. (I didn't see how taking it down would make the problem worse when the one scrap of content on that page could be found on two other existing pages already. Pages don't just exist for the sake of existing - the content on them is what justifies their existence.)

Yeah, how long ago was that?

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:Export

Add the category "Complete Monster"

Select Include templates feature to preserve formatting.

Keep the XML file it creates, upload it somewhere for use by Miraheze,tyhen ask to create a wiki based on it's contents.

Have fun with your fork. :)

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

Do you, by any chance, have any plausible explanation for why people wanted that page kept up badly? I'm still not comfortable that I didn't get any actual argument in it's favor and instead just got knee-jerk, instinctive "Fight The Enemy" attitude from Robkelk and "durr, we're not TV Tropes, we can do whatever we want!" sentiments that just disregarded my points and common sense in general.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Two other things:

1. How to I "upload it somewhere for use by Miraheze, then ask to create a wiki based on it's contents"?

2. There'll be many sinkholes on the Complete Monster pages, including ones for the pages of a work. Will these not go anywhere if I fork just the Complete Monster pages? If that were the case, I think I'd rather fork this whole damn Wiki and make my own version.

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Use a free file hosting service like Mediafire or MEGA, or store it on Outlook's own storage option or something of that nature.

The other is an option too, but if you want, you are still an admin on the Wikia version, and frankly, I'm the only admin there that is also here, and I don't care what you do there if it will keep peace in the valley here since I'll just be happy to keep the CM wars down over there and I'll give you wide discretionary powers there in order to decide format and rules.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

I don't know how to do any of that, I'm afraid. :(

I gave up on the Wikia version a long time ago 'cause edit wars and ban evasions were more common there than they were here, and it reached the point where it just annoyed the heck out of me to have to keep up with it all. I came to prefer this site and enjoyed making contributions to it, helping to tidy things up and decide format and rules and whatnot. But now that there's a majority of other users who will rule against me on these matters, I feel that time for me is over. I'll move on to other things elsewhere.

Labster (talkcontribs)

I haven't intervened until now, because I normally don't spend a lot of time on the wiki, and the whole issue seemed like one of those "someone is wrong on the Internet!!11!" arguments. And because I went from vacationing to a work trip to being rather sick. GethN7 seemed to have the issue in hand. But with the exception of Geth and LulzKiller, I'm disappointed in how all of you behaved in this matter.

DocColress has managed to escalate a disagreement on whether a small page should be merged or not into a situation where half the moderators wanted him removed. Being given a cool-down warning, the acceptable response is not to continue doing exactly what got you in trouble in the first place. This is something that three year olds can understand. Why is the existence of one little page your hill to die on? In anything resembling democracy, you have to be willing to lose once in a while.

And Robkelk, you haven't exactly been showing compassion to someone who is obviously upset. "I've already told you" type statements aren't helpful to someone when they genuinely don't understand. The little dick-measuring comment about how smart you are isn't exactly a compelling argument either. I know you have the skills to make an argument without making yourself out as a victim, please use them.

I don't actually care about the inciting cause of the incident. But DocColress can't treat portions of the wiki as if he owns them. To reverse a consensus opinion, you have to make a case to do that, and I didn't see her/him do that. You can't just use moderator powers -- those are expected to be used not personally, but on behalf of the community. If you don't get that, then you can't be a moderator. It's not a punishment, just a reflection that you haven't used your authority under the terms we expected.

Everyone: you've been snarky and assumed bad faith. You've used language to depict your opponent as an "other". Please stop.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

Thank you so much for the input. I mean that. You talk total sense and you're right - we really should be more focused on cooling down our attitudes and finding some common ground for the time being rather than continuing to beat this dead horse into the ground and being so ugly to each other.

Though to clarify, I did try to make a case for reversing the consensus opinion in the Talk page of Complete Monster/Tales of Berseria, and Robkelk used his own moderator powers to delete it. I was wanting to keep the page in existence for the time being while discussing with others from the majority vote what they thought about it staying it around in the long run, but that just didn't pan out so well.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I apologize for that - what I saw was an attempt at an end-run around the majority decision, not an attempt to change the majority decision, and reacted accordingly.

DocColress (talkcontribs)

That's alright. I can see why you might get that idea, and I will not begrudge you for acting accordingly.

I again apologize for deleting the link on the Tales page. That was just me wanting to restore the page to the way it looked before, the way I'd contributed to making it look, without actually deleting the new subpage itself. It was pretty dumb of me to do without warning, I know.