User talk:NormAtredies

Given you appear to have several strong biases and have attempted to insert them wherever you can in defiance of warnings, communal consensus, and official policy, the administration here believe we have no other recourse but to ban you from all edits for at least six months.

We are not a place to whitewash certain points of view. We are not for propaganda, we are not the Ministry of Truth, and we will not be a proxy to do anything in that vein. If you wish to edit again after your block has passed and you understand why we don't allow this, you will be welcome back, otherwise, you may risk an indefinite block if you persist even then.

We regret having to do this, but you've shown a pattern of misbehavior that has forced our hand.

What pattern of misconduct has warranted such a severe ban for a first strike? My last comment on the Trump page was in response to the the suggested trope of The Mole. In case this quote of mine was cited as evidence against me; "Besides, if he were a Democrat mole, then Democrats should be blamed for some of his mistakes and wrong-doing." That was part of the rebuttal to adding The Mole, not an anti-Democrat statement.

As stated earlier, why use the evidence on the Hollywood Atheist thread as evidence against me when it was a misunderstanding? To elaborate, Robkelk, LooneyTunes and I resolved it amiably months ago; it was a misunderstanding on how the trope applies, not an attempt to re-define it. And the Acceptable Religious Targets edits were walked back in line with site policies at Moderator request. Also, what about my edits on other pages? For example; I added character pages and tropes of World of Warcraft, for one? I even created a whole character page for Warcraft/The Light as seen here. Why isn't creating a whole new page on my trope page history?

In my opinion, a six month minimum blanket ban for a first strike is too harsh, even if this is trying to make an example of me for a cautionary tale (I don't think even TvTropes would go that far for first step disciplinary action); I could've conducted myself better but A BLANKET BAN FOR SIX MONTHS?

What do you think I am? What strong views do you think I'm trying to push? I think you have the wrong idea about me, including going by your cited reason for my edit ban. To give you information about me; yes I'm a Christian, but politically a swinging voter, I vote for whoever is the most competent. I'm not right-wing nor left, and not a member of any political party - my opinions on politics if I have to put it somewhere on the political spectrum would be center-right at most but personally a bit less nationalist. I questioned the sources used based on determine the veracity of their information for whether it's valid evidence for a trope and because some sources are as biased as each other just on opposite sides (eg; Fox News and CNN). I didn't add criticisms to Trump's page because nearly every criticism that could be said of him has already been said at length and I have acknowledged numerous times that the man has problems and deserves some of those criticism. I'll give you my opinion on Trump to clear the air; he has problems including being a sore loser, having a poor brain-to-mouth-filter, being insensitive, he took a major job he lacked experienced in and I think he's a poor husband... he also means well, is a good father, wants to help his country and those in it, gets a bad rap and as a President did pretty well considering his lack of prior political experience and intense opposition he faced. He's not the best choice for President among all US politicians, but imo he was the best/least bad of the 2016 and 2020 candidates. So I'm neither, and never have been, part of the "Trumpist" or "anti-Trump" crowd.

In conclusion, I definitely need to handle things with a cooler head, but I don't think I'm pushing what you think I'm pushing, protest the severity of my punishment and request leniency in the form of a lesser punishment, what say you?

Oh, where to begin? At the beginning, I suppose.

Fallacy #1: "first strike". You were called out on your first strike here. We make it quite clear that you only get one second chance.

Fallacy #2: "Hollywood Atheist". Nobody mentioned that trope until you did, in this thread.

Fallacy #3: "disciplinary action" and "punishment". This action was taken to protect the neutrality of the wiki.

Also: "I'll give you my opinion on"... I'll cut you off right there and say No, thank you, whatever it is you want to pontificate to me about. All The Tropes does not want opinions outside of YMMV, Review, and Audience Reaction pages. Trekkie/Warsie? All The Tropes doesn't care. Big-endian/Little-endian? All The Tropes doesn't care. Ninja/Pirate? All The Tropes doesn't care. Beatles/Rolling Stones? All The Tropes doesn't care. Democrat/Republican? Doesn't even apply in the countries where the wiki is hosted, so All The Tropes doesn't care. Believer/Agnostic/Atheist? Say it with me: All The Tropes doesn't care. What we do care about is tropes, using tropes to tell stories, and getting the tropes right without somebody slanting the discussion. The fact that you are unable to grasp this despite being instructed (I quote myself) "to leave your beliefs at the door when editing here" is why you are not allowed to edit until you learn how to be objective when editing.

Since you are not being punished, the matter of leniency does not arise.

I did not see that ban guideline, and according to that the mods have actually been quite generous with me here.

I brought up Hollywood Atheist because an hour before this ban GethN7 messaged me there, and the title of this thread is "Based on your editing history, you have been put on a six month probation"; I figured the Hollywood Atheist page incident was part of the editing history he was referring to.

I thought GethN7 had the wrong idea about me so I explained where I stand on these issues in my previous comment, pontification not intended.

A six month edit ban is not a punishment?

How can I show I've learned to be objective, especially with six months of no editing?

Norm, I'm mostly the man swinging the axe here, because I've tried to be the peacemaker here, and while I shall leave the more exhaustive breakdown of reasons for your time out to my colleagues, based on an overview of your editing history, you cannot help but editorialize anything critical of something your personally believe to either downplay it's criticism or bash it's critics (your edits on Christianity and atheism are especially notorious for this), and we looked over all the pages you invested a lot of time in, and it's obvious you've been waging a not so subtle propaganda war to make those pages fit your personal views as opposed to objective facts (as in, without adding things to massage their presentation towards your personal bias), and while I and others were a bit late to realize it, we will be having none of that going forward, it's against the rules and you are in time out as a result.

How would I "add things to massage their presentation towards (my) personal bias?"

Very simple.

You admitted as much right here:

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Vwhyc7iyiofg2vv7&action=compare-post-revisions&topic_newRevision=w493qw3xd5qanzpi

You want to prove to us you can really take the "L" and make us trust you, then wait out your probation without further complaint. If it was unfair, and even you admitted it had some truth to it's reasoning, then the shame will be on us for unfairly punishing you and we'll happily eat crow if called on it. That said, since you admit you are guilty to some extent of what you stand accused, then by your own words you have convicted yourself. My advice is to accept your time out like a mature person and we'll give you another chance once it expires.

If you need further reason to comply, let me quote the Scripture we both adhere to:

Deuteronomy 17:8-11

"If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your courts, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. "So you shall come to the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case. "You shall do according to the terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the LORD chooses; and you shall be careful to observe according to all that they teach you

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Courts

In this case, we moderators here at All The Tropes have the authority of a judge, and as the presiding one who has exercised such authority, you have been given a lenient and non-permanent probation, not an indefinite ban, because I am loath to act capriciously, and I would hope you can accept I have a duty as an administrator here to adjudicate with proper authority here, and that you accept that with grace.

Thank you for your leniency, I'll be looking forward to the restoration of my editing privilege, my chat privilege and my auto-patrolled status.

Supposition and flat-out falsehoods have no place on All The Tropes.

Opinions have a place, but that place is the YMMV subpage, not the main article.

I am willing to accept that you made an honest mistake when you posted this content. However, I have to warn you that repeatedly making the same honest mistake is frowned upon here, to the point of it being grounds for a temporary block of editing rights.

I do not care what your religions beliefs, if any, might be. I do care whether you're sufficiently mature to be able to leave your beliefs at the door when editing here. All The Tropes exists to discuss stories, not faiths.

@NormAtredies @Labster @Looney Toons @GethN7 @QuestionableSanity @Derivative @SelfCloak

My mistake, it was not my intention to do push any agenda. I merely sought to elaborate a bit on how atheists get stereotyped in fiction. I will be more careful in the future.

Likewise, your edit to "Acceptable Religious Targets" has been rolled back. If you want to remove the word "arguably", you'd better have evidence to back up your claim.

I removed the word "arguably" because when it comes to the list for each religion on that page, the list for Christianity is much longer than the lists for other beliefs. Still, I'll concede the point because you are right and I think there's many examples missing for all beliefs from that page, which could be added to the lists for each belief.

@Robkelk: We may want to also review his changes to Belief Makes You Stupid‎, which has been expanded to such a degree that it may count as unilaterally redefining the trope.

It wasn't my intention to re-define the trope LooneyToons. I'll re-examine and roll it back a bit.

That was unnecessary. I didn't revert your changes when I last edited the page because I thought there were good points and expansions -- there was just a lot of them. I brought it up out of simple caution, as the last time someone swept in and dumped a huge amount of text into the main text of a trope (actually several tropes, and it was just a few weeks ago), they were engaged in rewriting the trope(s) to fit their personal sensibilities, and I just wanted a second opinion about your changes from another mod.

I've finally had a chance to look. The edits appear good to me, although I'll add a short phrase saying that they aren't all required to be present for the trope to apply.

Norm, I gotta be honest, and I say this as a devout Christian who is nonetheless a moderator here, and honesty is something both positions force me to value highly, so consider this said with my mod hat on.

Whatever your biases, they have no place here. I have no more right to turn what should be a place for objective fact (save YMMV pages, where opinion can be expressed according to appropriate restraints) into a shrine for my religious views than an atheist is welcome to bash religion here.

Frankly, and I'm not going to spare your feelings, you have some strong opinions, and consciously or unconsciously, you appear to be pursuing some pointed agendas on certain topics. Off this site, you are more than welcome to feel whatever you like, but here, your opinion is of EQUAL value to all others, whether you like it or not. As for fact, it is NOT be given any bias towards anything other than fact alone.

You are treading on thin ice that has already severely cracked. If you keep going, I will personally hand you your walking papers, for whatever period we at ATT deem fit, because it is starting to become rather clear certain topics will be the start of pointed attempts to allow a minority view to trump objective fact and where YMMV is in play, communal consensus, and we are not a battleground, nor will we become one.

That issue on the Hollywood Atheist page was a misunderstanding, and apart from our shared religious beliefs, you misunderstand me. From Robkelk's comment prior to yours, that was resolved months ago, why bring that up now? Also, why post this THEN hand me a six month ban for a first strike?

Just because we're both Christian doesn't mean we don't wrong each other and doesn't mean we don't make mistakes; we all have our sin and only God is all-knowing. I didn't turn to you because you're a fellow Christian - I didn't know your beliefs until now - I turned to you because, in my opinion, you seemed and still seem to be the least biased and most level-headed among the moderators that I've interacted with in my time on this site.

Well, now that you've laid that on the table, first, let me thank you for being so forthright.

That said, here's a case in point why you got your knuckles rapped, let's use your edits from the Acceptable Religious Targets page as an example:

https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?title=Acceptable_Religious_Targets&type=revision&diff=1869542&oldid=1768707

On the whole, the edits do add some new content, but a lot of it pro-Christian editorializing and apologist in nature. The page is supposed to be objective fact, but it was obvious you just had to insert a pro-Christian bias into a page that is supposed to be written in a neutral tone.

Other pages with similar content, like the one the above comment addresses you took umbrage to (and this very page as well),. have you pulling similar stunts. Just because we at ATT were a bit late realize your subtle whitewash campaign doesn't mean you don't deserve a callout for editing propaganda where we expect objective fact.

I leave my religious beliefs at the door of this site and I edit all items on this site without letting my religious convictions color my bias because this is not a pro-Christian apologism wiki, this is a wiki about all types of media, the tropes they use, and how they are used, and we represent them as they are, not how our personal opinions depict them as, and if said tropes or media do not reflect well on the Christian faith, then we represent that faithfully without trying to whitewash the facts.

To do otherwise is deceitful, and that is both against our shared religious beliefs and the policy all who edit this wiki are expected to abide by.

I admit I did do some editorializing and added loaded language, I also contend that the points I presented about those works are facts, not whitewashing. Whitewashing is covering things up, where and how was I doing that?

For example, on the edit history you linked, where I elaborated on Stephen King's book "Carrie"; "(in fact, Margaret's backstory involved her trying to join other Christian Fundamentalist groups but being rejected due to being too extreme, even for them). The story also shows that Margaret's beliefs and behavior actually have more to do with her abusive husband than any particular denomination's teachings." this is in the novel itself. Or when I added those points relating to the TV show Bones about their jab at creationists (look up the episode "The Archaeologist in the Cocoon"); while I editorialized, that's exactly what happens in the episode.

However, since I checked the definition of propaganda and realized propaganda can contain objective facts, I see where this all came from and take the "L".

How can I convince the mods I've learned to be objective in edits when I can't edit anything for six months?

It's terrible that you've just suddenly learned to behave right at the very moment you've been punished for behaving wrong. What a horrible, terrible coincidence, that.

You'll just have to wait six months and then demonstrate your epiphany.

While I was reconsidering my conduct before then, the punishment made me also take a look at my track record - which helped me understand your position and the situation better - and openly confess where I went wrong.