Discussion of TV Tropes

lee4hmz

At this point, I get the feeling it's perceived caprice on Eddie's part (especially when it comes to some of the recent bans and page deletions) as well as an assumption that no one wants to listen.

For example: I've heard from one person that the Let's Play pages were sanitized of any mention of SA simply because Eddie doesn't like SA, but she doesn't want to ask anyone about it because she's afraid she'll be banned for speaking up. I doubt anything can be done about it right away, but still.

OTC was the other sticking point, from what I can tell, and that's been at least ameliorated. We'll see on that. 

Finally, you've got the people who are still smarting over things like IJBM and I Am Not Making This Up being deleted. While I do sympathize, I think it's a niche thing at best now (the one person here that won't shut up about it seems to oppose rules of any sort as long as they inconvenience him). 

Princess Alice

For a long time my criteria for leaving was "I'll stay as long as Juan Carlos stays", because I figure he's a pretty reasonable guy and as long as he still considers TVT worth visiting there might be merit to that.

I still don't feel quite ready to be done with the site, but I'm at least taking a long break.

Tachyon

@ Anonus: I can understand that, and I don't think that's weak.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm sticking with it out of determination or just a sense of obligation at this point.  I'm certainly no longer so optimistic that it will ever be as good as I hoped.

@ Lee: That's not quite what happened.  There was already a comment on that page saying not to link to SA because it's not visible when the paywall is up.

I think this was misguided, since Let's Plays started out there and the paywall isn't usually there, but the fact remains that there was already a policy of not having the link there, which was being ignored.  It wasn't a snap decision taken to spite SA.

lee4hmz

Fourier: Oh, okay. I don't follow the page in question myself, so I'm not 100% sure what's going on, but I'll let her know. 

As for whether I want to stick with it or not, I'm not as incensed as I was the other night, but then I was also grumpy for other reasons and I think it was rubbing off on my opinions of the site. Still, it doesn't change the fact that I mainly only lurk now, and so if I did decide to leave, it would be easy and with a minimum of drama.

Anonus

I thought most of the people who thought IJBM's deletion was a bad idea have since migrated to IJBM2.

I remember back in 2010 one of the arguments for keeping it around being the "quarantine" reasoning: if it gets the axe, then its worst aspects will spread elsewhere. This seems to have proven true with OTC in the last year, and though people seemed to think IJBM's shutdown would happen sooner or later, Eddie doesn't want to do that with OTC and the "Pandora's Box" reasoning with IJBM has been applied to OTC now.

lee4hmz

Well, to be honest, closing it would likely be a bad idea anyway, as all the palookas will just head over to YF and start beating each other up there. I think it'd be better to manage it and just ban the repeat offenders like anyone else would; this business of just letting people beat each other up in plain sight is kind of off-putting. 

(Sure, people do that all the time on Usenet, but Usenetters also typically have killfiles to keep the permanent floating flamewars, the trolls, and if they're so inclined, the wonderposters out.)

Tachyon

@ Lee: If by her you mean Cygan, I think she's aware and I think she's of the opinion that she was in the right and Eddie is just making excuses.

And in all honesty, I think Eddie hates SA so much that all the rational arguments in the world wouldn't convince him to allow a link to it.

@ Anonus: Eddie doesn't believe that OTC's problems have anything to do with IJBM's shutdown.  He thinks it's a "home grown" issue.

Unlike with IJBM, most people on OTC do actually contribute fairly extensively to the wiki, so it's harder to justify shutting down the board altogether.  (Also, for all the complaints, it's not actually as flamey as IJBM was so it wasn't making nearly as much work for the moderation as IJBM, up until people complained.)

Anonus

...in that case, sometimes I wonder what IJBM would be like if it were still around.

Princess Alice

I always felt weird that so many IJBM regulars moved onto IJBM2 and yet I really don't feel like I fit in there.

Makes me wonder if I ever really fit in during the original IJBM, or if I just felt secure because every other thread was an Anonymous User thread and I enjoyed those.

Tachyon

IJBM 2 is much smaller and less diverse than the TVT IJBM.

Or was; haven't been there lately.

Anonus

It's changed. Most of the problem members are gone now, for one thing.

Tachyon

So I gather.

Still not really interested in it, though.

Anonus

It interests me for the topic diversity, at least partly.

lee4hmz

Fourier: It's not Cygan. Also, I have to admit I don't remember 100% clearly what the person in mind said; I'd have to go back and check my notes. Either way, it's not a huge deal.

And yeah, as much as I dislike SA's attitude, I'm not actively trying to retcon them out of existence, either.

Anonus

...is it wrong that the constant thread deletions in the last few months of IJBM's existence still annoy me? (No offense is meant, Fourier.)

Tachyon

Topic diversity is what I liked about the old IJBM, but for some reason the current IJBM just felt kind of trivial and lacking in intellectual debate.  Of course, I am thinking of back when half the threads were Chagen complaining about his dad, so that will have changed.

But also, I think IJBM's appeal to me partly reflected an attitude which I no longer hold.  The same attitude that had me making tasteless analogies between racism and sexual preference, devil's advocating for both Young Earth Creationism and antitheism and getting into endless circular arguments back on TVT at the time.

I know how you feel about thread deletions, Anonus, but I also think that shitpost threads are kind of out of step with what the majority on TVT want, and I think deleting them is for the better.  They're not worth the drama and irritation they cause, and some of them are made by people who appear to be deliberate trolls.

Also, I just saw this:

Show that cart-pusher who's de-boss!

I really shouldn't have laughed at that.

Anonus

Hrm, I liked them, but I guess that was dumb of me (says the administrator of a forum that was borne from a thread dedicated to shitposting.).

I have no idea what "cart-pusher" refers to.

Tachyon

I liked some of them, but it's hard to say what ones were OK and what weren't without being arbitrary, and I'm pretty sure you'd disagree with my assessment on those anyway, since IIRC you liked things like the "flie on your neck" one.

Cart-pusher is an attack on a troper with that job, hence why I shouldn't be amused.

Anonus

Yeah, I liked "Have you ever had a flie in your neck?" (which was in Yack Fest) because it was just so strange. I once changed my TVT title to "dragonbill" in reference to it.

Tachyon

"Flie on your neck" was one of those that made me wonder if the OP was trolling.  I guess that's going back to the whole edit/posting history thing, partly, but it made me feel wary.  Kinda like Hulk Hogan's threads.

Also for some reason the phrase "flie on your neck" creeped me out, and I think the poor spelling had as much to do with it as anything, oddly.

Anonus

I never understood what was meant by that. Also its OP said he was in a tree. And he never updated us on why he was in the tree.

Also, should I bring up BTL again?

Tachyon

What about them?

(That's where I saw the "cart-pusher" joke, btw.)

Anonus

ProBoards sent them a notice that means they can't have troper-focused threads anymore; this means the existing ones are now in a subforum that only Anne can see.

I wonder what this means for them now.

Tachyon

Oh really?  That is interesting.

Let me guess, everyone promptly lost interest?

Anonus

No. In fact it seems to be considered a blessing for the site by a lot of people there, as now greater focus can be placed on discussing mostly-impersonal aspects of the site.

Tachyon

Hm.  That does sound promising.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge the place.

Beholder

It took me a long while to understand the SA "let's laugh at TV Tropes"
guys because at first I just figured they were assholes who were
laughing at people for expressing themselves in a way that wasn't
totally mainstream.

That's what I still think.

Tachyon

Even when they quote things that are clearly bigoted or ignorant?

I mean, I'd agree to an extent that that's what they're doing, but tropers are hardly blameless.

Beholder

Bigots were not the only people they've laughed at. And anyway, I fail to see why their opinion should have anything to do with the site. To he honest, I even fully support their right to make fun of the things they disagree with. It's that it started to matter for the site which is disturbing.

Tachyon

No, I agree.  But they have pointed out a lot of bigoted and ignorant opinions and socially destructive behaviours, and those are being expressed on TV Tropes, no matter who points them out.

I don't like the idea of TV Tropes being read and judged by Namtab, the Saddest Rhino, the Triumphant et al, but that doesn't make their criticisms uniformly incorrect.

Beholder

Again, I am fine with arguing against these opinions but I do not see why they shouldn't be expressed.

Tachyon

They can be expressed IRL, but why should TV Tropes provide them with a platform?  They make the place unpleasant and more stressful.

Anonus

They upset people. And I think other forums don't permit them, either (at least the ones I've been on before.).

Beholder

They don't have to, of course. But it is very disturbing for me to disallow something because it "upsets people". Had too many nasty personal experiences with that.

Tachyon

But couldn't the same be said of incivility and personal attacks?  TV Tropes already has rules against expressing some things, like strong dislike of another troper.  To suggest that run-of-the-mill personal attacks are somehow worse than racism is pretty messed up, which is how it comes off.

Actually, I'm curious - what do you mean when you say nasty personal experiences, if you don't mind?  Because I don't see how prohibiting racism can possibly be a bad thing.

Beholder

I do mind, I'm sorry. Let's just say that if things were handled by popular opinion I wouldn't even be able to finish school. And that opinions that are normal here, such as acceptance of homosexuality, are considered disturbing and upsetting people where I am, so I can very easily see it turned around and expression of non-homophobic opinions being prohibited because "who wants this shit!". Would that be a good thing?

Again, it's not as much prohibition itself as the reasons behind it that I cannot agree with.

Anonus

I consider homophobia backwards, and I think TVT's management and a significant portion of its userbase does as well. So homophobia should not be tolerated there.

I'm sorry that your area is like that.

Tachyon

Sorry, no offence was meant.  I shouldn't ask personal questions.

I guess I just don't see why TVT should subscribe to moral relativism.  If homophobia became enforced on TV Tropes, I would stand down as a moderator immediately, because that's a horrible, harmful belief.  But it isn't, so I don't see the issue.

Beholder

You know that I don't subscribe to moral relativism. And that' exactly the problem. I might be ok with forbidding certain things on the grounds that they harm particular people, but not on the grounds that they are not "socially acceptable", "do not create the right kind of atmosphere", "attracts wrong people", "make us look bad" and so on. Because I can easily see the same reasoning applied to the things that we both can agree are not wrong. 

Anonus

But why would they be?

Beholder

Because there are communities in which that would be a popular opinion (shrugs). So judgement by popular opinion is exactly moral relativism.

Anonus

Those are not ones most tropers would like to partake in, I don't think.

And to me there is nothing wrong with trying to maintain a certain atmosphere.

Tachyon

It's got nothing whatsoever to do with moral relativism and everything to do with creating a pleasant environment for decent people.  We don't care whether racist homophobes are comfortable on the site or not, because racism and homophobia are something we would not be intentionally promoting under any circumstances.

Beholder

So it is ok for homophobes to ban approval of homosexuality because they are not comfortable with it, and I should have no problem with it whatsoever? Okay...

Anonus

That's not what we're saying. We're saying that TVT would be a more inviting place if bigoted opinions were more actively shunned there.

Beholder

Inviting and sunned seems to be a  contradiction.

Anonus

Well, inviting to the sorts of people they want there.

...ugh. I'm regurgitating, aren't I?

Beholder

Yes, but then again, me too.So it's fine.

(sigh) Apparently I support racism and homophobia if I don't like judgement by popular opinion in principle, even if it happens to mostly agree with mine So be it

Tachyon

More like reiterating.  We're all repeating ourselves, I think.

>So it is ok for homophobes to ban approval of homosexuality because they are not comfortable with it, and I should have no problem with it whatsoever? Okay...

Nope, I didn't say that.  That's not OK, because that's banning homosexuality, and that is clearly a harmful and reprehensible course of action.

How is it judgement by popular opinion if, were the popular opinion on TVT pro-racism, we would simply ban the majority?  Because we would.

Beholder

To be honest, by now I'm not quite sure that you would