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I Think It's Time I Walked Quietly Away from TVTropes
 
#26
Well, even so I do hope that the TV Tropes committee sees where the wind is blowing and do the right thing. Worst case scenario is we wind up with several TV Trope sites that are all pale shadows of the original.
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#27
The original was starting to become a pale shadow of the original....

It's been going downhill for a while. It hasn't seemed quite as fun as it used to be.... I miss Troper Tales stuff especially. Those were always interesting
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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#28
Dartz, I agree with you completely, but even two years ago suggesting such a thing -- as I did -- would get you labeled a "troublemaker" and threatened with a ban. I actually had a moderator (Fighteer, I think it was) tell me that he considered all such complaints unworthy of any consideration and dismissed them out of hand.

This in the middle of a plague of humorless geeks camping on "Made of Win" and immediately deleting anything vaguely funny that got cited there as soon as it appeared, and other humorless geeks insisting the wiki was an academic resource and should comport itself accordingly.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#29
sounds like the time to leave would have been two years ago.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
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#30
I agree with Catty. That a moderator was of that particular opinion raises all sorts of red flags for me as well. Complaints at least must be catalogued... and if a particular thing is being complained about more than a couple of times, by people who don't know each other... that's a sign a change needs to be made somewhere.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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#31
After reading all this can I say, Bob, I really really appreciate you being in charge of this site.
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#32
I'm glad to see I wasn't just being oversensitive about what was going on at TVTropes.
One of the warning flags for me was when I stumbled into a forum thread (that wasn't where I'd meant to go) and they were talking about the strike-through text format option being removed. One person commented that a strike-through followed by a "correction" was a nice way of adding humor. The response came that entries "aren't supposed to be funny." I knew right then I never wanted to have a conversation with the person who made that statement.
The way "cleaning up of natter" was used to eliminate some of the more conversationally-phrased series of entries irked me, since it was that conversational style that appealed to me in the first place. And don't get me started about the button which supposedly will send whoever added a post "a PM explaining the badness of natter." Whoever thought making it easier, or maybe even automatic, to send nasty-grams was a good idea....
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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#33
Quote:After reading all this can I say, Bob, I really really appreciate you being in charge of this site.
Thanks, Bmull.

Well, if I can tear myself away from COH and/or building my new PC -- or even get out of bed, since I seem to have caught the flu-like thing Peggy got a week and a half ago -- I shall make my effort to withdraw myself from TVTropes tomorrow. Which is a pity, because I have so many notes for stuff to add to the UF page, thanks to a reread of the Symphony which I'm doing right now.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#34
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Which is a pity, because I have so many notes for stuff to add to the UF page, thanks to a reread of the Symphony which I'm doing right now.
Wait, the UF page is still there?  I would have thought that it would have been one of the first to go, what with all the polyamory that goes on there.
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#35
There's still quite a bit of stuff that could be considered counter-puritanical on there. I just checked and the page for Romance Reports, among other things. It's possible that they're going after the more apparent/popular topics first.
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#36
To their credit, they aren't actually purging anything with any hint of nonstandard sexuality, just tropes, work pages, and links to anything with explicit sex in them. And anything that can be twisted to sound like it even acknowledges pedophilia exists.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#37
Yet another case of hilarious Trope Irony!
Quote:Murdock: Lieutenant... How would you handle this?
Lieutenant: We could try ignoring it, sir.
Murdock: I see... Pretend nothing has happened and hope everything's all right in the morning?
Lieutenant: Just a thought, sir.
Murdock: I've considered that. There's got to be a better angle.
 — Airplane II: The Sequel
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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#38
I haven't gotten around to my withdrawal yet -- busy schedule and being sick combined have left me less than enthusiastic about the effort. In the mean time, I notice that the Moral Guardians page has been censored and locked after several tropers chose to put TVTropes itself on it.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#39
This is rapidly progressing past 'walk away quietly' to 'throw a shitfit'.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
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#40
It's turning into wikipedia!

OhGod.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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#41
Quote:This is rapidly progressing past 'walk away quietly' to 'throw a shitfit'.
Nah. It's not worth the effort. It's not like I have any status or followers there to influence, and I've already been tarred as a "troublemaker" for pointing out that the Emperor has taken off his clothes. The best I can hope to get away with is embedding something in comment markup on my bio page to explain my real reasons. If I get too obviously truthy right out front, it's pretty much guaranteed that someone in the TVTropes Political Orthodoxy office will just stalinize the text.

The best way we can respond to this is as was noted above -- tell other fora. Tell Fark, tell Slashdot, hell, tell Spacebattles and the Fan Fiction Forum. I'm still planning on writing to Boing Boing when my fever and headache drop to a dull roar. Protest inside TVTropes, and your objections will be deleted for the sin of not agreeing with Fast Eddie and his new Gestapo. But they have no power over other places on the Net, and there's no way they can hide what they're doing without reversing it entirely.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#42
I'm not completely certain, but I'm thinking that something like Square Space would be a great deal for starting up a similiar site. I get the sense that there would need to be an initial donation drive to get started, but I think it definitely cold be done.

Foe someone's who's a bit better than I am, is there any issues with their Terms of Service?
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#43
(original post removed, as per statement of intent.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#44
Is that posted on TvTropes? Because it isn't on the Looney Toons page or its history.
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#45
Did you not read the first paragraph above the quoted section? It's here for commentary before I put it on TVTropes.

I'm having second thoughts about the open letter, btw. I think I'm just going to make my changes and leave without a word there -- the letter is starting to get ranty and ugly (I have more now than I put up there), and I don't want to leave on that note.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#46
Just make a note that you don't want your work being mentioned in the wiki, and leave quietly beyond that. You might repost the ranty letter here with a sticky, or on your website, though, but that's as far as it needs to go.

I do agree that, eventually, all advertisement becomes what amounts to a noose around the neck of a publication. I remember when Gamespot overreacted to a threat to their advertising... and destroyed most if not all of their reputation as a result of the actions taken to preserve the income.

On the other note, I'm glad that I never really used links to TV Tropes myself for things I've written. I've used it as amusement, and recognized its value as a reference, but the indications that they've become so reactive to threats to, and so dependent on, a revenue stream that can and will cause it to self-censor, means I can't consider it reliable enough for either purpose.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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#47
I would personally recommend against leaving the letter on your Troper page. Explaining your reasons for leaving is perfectly acceptable. When dealing with a crowd like them (especially as your last act) suggesting that they shut down the entire site because it has changed from what it used to be (despite that change being negative) will be met with mockery and ridicule.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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#48
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Did you not read the first paragraph above the quoted section? It's here for commentary before I put it on TVTropes.
I did, but didn't find that clear from the paragraph. As for the comments, I'm inclined to agree with Ankhani. You'd be better off making it clear that you think the wiki would die if it continues to be subject to censorship, not that you you think it shoud die for bowing to censorship.
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#49
I'll recommend keeping the Open Letter off their site and under your control. The personality types involved in running TVTropes now seem to be the type quite ready (whether willingly or blindly) to go down the slippery slope. If you can manage it, it's probably better to keep temptation out of their hands.

I gave up on Google long ago. Sad to see they're becoming more of what drove me away.
--
"Remember, the truth is out there." —Johnny
"It is? Oh, I hope it doesn't maul anyone this time." —me
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#50
You know, I was giving them the benefit of he doubt. I didn't agree with what Fast Eddie was doing, but I could see why he was doing it. I figured that if he wanted porn off the wiki, at least he was doing it in a reasonable way. I mean, if one of the people on the porn-judging panel described something as "actually one of the more innocent works that I've read" it'd stay. Because cutting it after that would be dumb, right?
Well. Fast Eddie has his head lodged firmly up his own rectum, with a side-tour of his moral indignation along the way.
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