Forum:Off-topic blog comments 2012-08-11 (profanity policy backlash)

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Off-topic blog comments 2012-08-11 (profanity policy backlash)

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Jonny Manz replies

Yeah, fun, if you enjoy having your freedom of speech trampled and an adminship that consists of a bureaucracy that claims to listen to the community yet doesn't.

Take the advice of a senior user. Just... stay away. - DMSwordsmaster 20:33, August 11, 2012

Not to open up old wounds, but you had the perfect opportunity to make your voice heard in that forum, and possibly get some compromises. It's easy to check to see when there's a forum going on, especially on this wiki (stuff doesn't disappear off Special:WikiActivity anywhere near as fast as on our sister).

Frankly, I don't see why you insisted on not voicing your opinion in the forum, and then complained afterwards when things didn't turn out how you wanted them to.

We're nowhere near as strict as on the FiM wiki; if you can't deal with being able to swear like a sailor in the comments section taken away, then your loss, I suppose. - Jonny Manz 20:47, August 11, 2012

I was unable to at the time due to family reasons. I was not able to get any internet until the day it was released. If I had known about it and was able to, you damned right I would have complained. Since I was unable to make my voice known then, I will happily make my voice heard now. And I have no intent to stop.

And otherwise, you took the action in the complete wrong direction. If you are making a massive change to the wiki, you should make it FAR more obvious that you're going to do so, thus allowing the community to voice. Simply relying on people to see the forum title on Recent Activity (and assuming they know "wiki talk") is flat out bad. No regular guy on the internet would have guessed that the title meant you were going to actively censor the wiki. I did, because I know wiki talk, but I was still unable to due to the aforementioned family reasons.

In short, you seriously took this the wrong way and made it as hard as possible for the community to voice their opinions. - DMSwordsmaster 20:54, August 11, 2012‎

Well, maybe if you'd brought that up in the first place instead of complaining about how we admins are so corrupt, and the new rules stink, we would've extended the forum. Even if you had posted it the day of, like you said, I'm sure it would've taken Tulip some time to get the proper script loaded into AutoWikiBrowser, and so we could've delayed it some, because then it would've been clear that the discussion was not yet resolved.

But to be fair, it's not our responsibility to keep tabs on all users at all times; if people don't respond within a certain time limit, sometimes we just have to assume that it's because they don't want to respond.

And as for your other objection... perhaps we should've put it in Community Messages. That I could agree with. - Jonny Manz 20:58, August 11, 2012

Granted, I will flat out agree that I should have acted a bit more mature about the situation. I acted similarly to how the Mane6 acted towards the alpha leak. However, even then, I was able to get my internet the day the bot was released and started to work. Not the day the decision was made. Thus, I was pretty much at a lose-lose situation.

I understand the second argument. You don't have to keep tabs on all users. I, being an admin of several other wikis, understand that. However, you should try and take necessary steps to ensure that people do know about major decisions you plan for the wiki itself. Whenever we, on a different wiki, are about to make a big decision on something, we post it in the community messages and make damned certain people know about it, thus giving them time to voice their own opinions. We take things slowly, yes, but it's to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak. Granted, this may have taken a week to decide, but it was still handled in a way that made it very difficult for people to voice their opinions.

I'll also freely admit that I enjoy discussing this with you far more then i did with Tulip. ...Don't even get me started on that.

As for the FIM wiki... I wouldn't go there even if they offered me free admin. I fear if I make one wrong touch on any page whatsoever, that it would be like unleashing a swarm of flesh eating beetles that would devour me and leave me as a bleached-white skeleton. - DMswordsmaster 21:15, August 11, 2012‎

Oh, it's not that bad, just trust me, any sort of swearing gets you into some hot water, (even swearing of the censored sort).

And next time we make a forum this sweeping, one of us will make sure to post it in Community Messages, for sure. I think none of us were expecting it to be so.... controversial. - Jonny Manz 21:16, August 11, 2012

Like I said, I would not go onto that wiki if someone offered me free admin. If I got angry at this wiki, I would probably go on a flat out berserk assault on that one. And stll, you only censored the "major" swears. Minor ones aren't, like hell or damn. And I'll live with that.

To be honest, you should have expected something of the sort. This is the internet. People come on here to do stupid stuff and swear as much as they so desire. And usually, no one would care. I don't think that they'd enjoy being forced to stop cussing. Thus, with an internet dweller like myself, I reacted very negatively towards it. - DMSwordsmaster 21:20, August 11, 2012

Yeah, I figure minor swears are ok; the kind that anyone could hear on broadcast TV (in the US, as that's the experience I speak from), at the very least (hell and damn, like you mentioned).

And I can see what you mean; I mean, I swear a lot in casual conversation with my friends over Skype. I dunno about Tulip (I won't claim to speak for him) but I think a lot of my failure to see how major this could turn out to be had to do with me also being an admin over on the FiM wiki, and so being used to pretty strict language rules (or rather, the contributors being used to it).

Well good, it looks like we have a better understanding of each other now. :) And that's something I was hoping for from the start of this conversation. - Jonny Manz 21:33, August 11, 2012

That just makes your decision to make censorship here seem even more bizarre. I've always found the comments to be sort of like conversation. That's what I've always used them for. Conversing with other people. But that just may be me missing the point entirely, which would not at all surprise me, given how much I surprise myself with my own thickness at times. Might be because, on other wikis, that was pretty much what we used to converse with each other without having to deal with PMing.

I'm still never going there. I have made that very obvious. I've only posted about 3 comments there.

Hm, somewhat, I guess. - DMSwordsmaster 21:37, August 11, 2012‎

Tulipclaymore replies

A little bit of perspective on the whole "no opportunity to respond" charge: The forum thread was started 18:29, August 1, 2012 (UTC). There was no more activity in the thread starting on 08:23, August 3, 2012‎ (UTC). I enabled the filter and announced bot use 03:31, August 7, 2012. The bot was not turned on and the About page was not changed until 18 hours later.

You were online and posting on all but one of those days.

You claim you would definitely have said something had you known (though you claimed something different a few days ago); whatever. You've had your say. There's no reason to pop up on random pages and user blogs and poison others against the wiki just because you have a beef with me. - Tulipclaymore 22:13, August 11, 2012

I quite like how I start to enjoy speaking with an admin, relate with him somewhat, and generally understand the situation, and then the other one comes and just turns that all on top of its head. Congratulations. You have now turned my sympathy and understanding back into general hate. It surprises me how completely inept people are at keeping their mouths shut. If you would have not said a damned word, I would have continued my activities with a smile. And now, you come and do this. Congratulations. It's almost as if you're actively trying to drive me away.

You're doing a damned fine job at that.

And since you brought that up, the situation involving internet was something I didn't elaborate on a lot. I was unable to post on the forums due to intenet problems. It's complicated. I could do stuff like comment and whatnot, but was unable to accomplish major edits due to the internet issue. Now then. - DMSwordsmaster 23:16, August 11, 2012‎

That's the third or fourth time you've changed your story. Whatever, I don't even care; maybe your previous statements were victims of poor wording and easily misunderstood. I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt. That's not even the point. The point you continue to dodge is that from the get-go, the problem with you has been your unwillingness to self-moderate and your self-righteous attitude whenever you or someone else was called out on it. No, you are not entitled to free speech here; this is a private website owned by wikia, they have rules, and the wiki has decided how to interpret those rules in a fashion you dislike. Either get over it or start a new thread in which you propose a repeal or amendment or a process change.

This, today, is just another demonstration. You go to the blog of a new user whom you don't know, and instead of welcoming him (or, you know, not saying anything since you claim to be done with the wiki), you piss all over the wiki and the administrators, the latter of whom (but really just me, right) you accuse of lying. In the conversation that follows - a conversation that would have rightly been deleted on the vast majority of other wikis for being off-topic and vindictive -, you repeat the complaints you've already made public and passive-aggressively take a shot at me. And then you complain when I respond, because how dare I?

I'm not trying to make you leave the wiki. I let you curse like a sailor for months despite my misgivings because that's the kind of laid-back guy I am. I haven't deleted the above discussion (I have moved it here, but that's because here is where it belongs, since XXTenderTacosXx has nothing to do with this). I haven't banned you. I engaged you in the past week and I'm engaging you now despite the fact that I really ought to go to bed.

This is the kind of comment I have no problem with. But I've had it with being tolerant of behaviour that could be very damaging to the wiki, and whether you want to see it that way or not, that includes profanity and it includes dehumanising comments. Stuff like this? No more. And if I see any in a similar vein, I'll censor or delete them. If you think that's outrageous and a terrible violation of your god-given right to be mean to other people when you don't have to say it to their face, be my guest. But I think it's time to demand a modicum of civility and decency because clearly, being super-tolerant of this kind of behaviour hasn't worked. --Tulipclaymore (talk) 01:53, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

"...or start a new thread in which you propose a repeal or amendment or a process change." Yes, so it can get shot down immediately. Like pretty much any topic started by a non-admin.

"...you piss all over the wiki and the administrators, (etc)" All I'm doing is informing the new user of what to expect here. If he/she were to stay and deal with it, more power to him. I can be as actively subjective on my opinions as I so desire.

"In the conversation that follows - a conversation that would have rightly been deleted on the vast majority of other wikis for being off-topic and vindictive- (Etc)" Because talking to an admin and complaining about how I feel about a certain topic is "off topic and vindictive". That's a strange definition of off topic you have there, buddy.

"...because clearly, being super-tolerant of this kind of behaviour hasn't worked." Because you just receive about a THOUSAND emails a day saying that "OMG PEOPLE ARE CUSSING THAT'S SO WRONG AND UN PROFESSIONAL YOU SHOULD CENSOR IT!!" No. Just no. The only people who complained about the right to say what they want and you being "super tolerant" of it is you and only you. I haven't seen a single comment saying "You know, we should really censor this place. I'm tired of seeing people cuss on here." And how, exactly, is it not working? Exactly. It's not affecting a damned thing. So what if people swear in the damned comments? They're freaking comments. No one gives a cares. As long as the pages are professional and neat looking, they could care less about how vulgar some people are in the comments. They come here to learn about the fandom. (HAR HAR) Not to read the comments, point at the fact someone swore, and say "OH DEAR!!".

Here's the one that gets me the most. "No, you are not entitled to free speech here." This. Is. The. Mother. @#$@ing. INTERNET. People come onto the internet to relish in the fact that they can say what they want, when they want, how they want. If you take that right, which they've gone accustomed to for quite a long time, away, you know what? They're going to complain. They're going to raise hell. They're going to do everything in their damned power to make you suffer for doing that. People do not, by any sense of the word, like their rights trounced on. Unless they're a submissive weakling, they are going to let you know they hate you what you're doing. Because this is the entirely wrong place to try and censor people. There are groups today who would tear other people a new ass if they seen them censoring other people, for they care about free speech. In a much worse way then I do. If you think I'M bad, you haven't seen a damned thing, good sir. And no, I'm not threatening the wiki. There are many other ways I could spend my time then just making ignorant spam and vandalism that can easily be undone. DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 02:35, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

"Yes, so it can get shot down immediately. Like pretty much any topic started by a non-admin." You'd like to think so, I know, but it just so happens to not be true, and I'm tired of the assertion. Prove it or shut up about it.

"All I'm doing is informing the new user of what to expect here." No you're not, and you know you're not. You took the opportunity to vindictively take a shot at the wiki because you're angry how the profanity thing went down. It's completely transparent and trying to claim otherwise just proves my point about your passive-aggressiveness. That's not "informing the new user of what to expect here", particularly not since your "information" consisted only of your own ridiculously overblown interpretation of what happened. That's just badmouthing and trying to scare people off, and it's unacceptable.

"That's a strange definition of off topic you have there, buddy." More passive-aggressiveness. Don't pretend to be more obtuse than you are. Continuing to rage on about the profanity policy in a place that has nothing to do with the profanity policy is obviously off-topic.

"The only people who complained about the right to say what they want and you being "super tolerant" of it is you and only you." Another thing you wish were true but isn't, and you should know that it isn't. We've had a couple of younger users who did complain about all the swearing and then never came back. So thanks for that. And I imagine there are dozens of users who might have joined but were turned off by what they saw. The number of people I see in my imagination who are turned off by not seeing foul language? Zero. Now maybe my imagination is overactive, but I don't spend all day in the dark corners of the internet, or the internet, period. My educated guess is that your position "if you don't let me curse, this place isn't worth frequenting" is a very, very minority position. And we'll see whether anything is going to change is going forward.

"People come onto the internet to relish in the fact that they can say what they want, when they want, how they want." No, "people" do not. You, maybe. I don't know what kind of reality you wish you were living in, but this reality, the one the internet is also a part of, does not match your mindset. You really need to get out of that bubble and start educating yourself about what the word "rights" means and what "free speech" means and what "censorship" means and what those words do not mean and where they do not apply. They do not apply here. Never have. You cannot and never have been able to just say anything you want however you want on the internet; you have only ever been able to say what you can get away with in a specific community. That's been true since the very beginning; I've been around for much of that time and experienced widely differing approaches to the issue. The world is not full of people who think just like you. --Tulipclaymore (talk) 03:18, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

The length in which you are defending your "position" is downright laughable. You know that, right? This is becoming unintentional trolling. The only reason I'm even replying anymore is to see how more contrived your excuses can be for this horrible decision. I showed this to my friend, and he downright laughed at how serious you're taking this. According to him, "Who gets this mad over some douche on the internet? If I was him I'd have done away with you long ago and ignored you, but no, he defends the wiki like it's his honor or something. I swear if that wiki got taken down he wouldn't know what to do with himself and would probably commit Seppuku in the street." That was his reaction. Don't believe me? I'll get you a damned screenshot if you want.

"We've had a couple of younger users who did complain about all the swearing and then never came back." We did? I've never seen anything in the time I've been here. If anything, I only saw one user complain about me, and that was because I complained at how poorly he made his page. Otherwise, I haven't seen jack. And even then, the only people I've seen who even swear in the slightest over the course of my time here are me and LSG. So, you know what? If you wanted to seriously stop the swearing, then you should have come to us and told us to stop what we were doing. Did you? No. Instead, you took things WAY out of proportion, and decided to censor the whole damned wiki for it. That's like launching a #@$%ing nuke at a local thug. You took care of the thug, sure, but now the whole area's completely screwed over. I only got one warning from an admin about my activities. And that was by Mylittlewut. I said something back, and you know what she did? She flat out thanked me for my response and never said anything else. You admins did not do your job properly. You did not deal with the problem in the most reliable of manners. You, instead, took things way out of proportion and screwed things up for everyone. You should have just came to the problem users (There were only two, for God's sake) and told them to stop what they were doing. And if they didn't? Ban them! But nooooo, you had to take things up to #@^$ing ELEVEN. That's your own stupidity. Not mine. If, instead, you would have come to me and told me to stop, I probably would have reacted far better then I did. Not sure about LSG, but still. Instead of taking the sensible route, you took the $@#$ing drastic route, and now, you have this to deal with. Welcome to the internet! DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 13:51, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

I'm done with this. I've wasted too much of my time already trying to reason with you, and you are obviously not willing or able to address any of the points that have been raised. Willful ignorance is not a valid defence, nor is "my friend thinks you suck". And no, the new policy is not a Lex DMSwordsmaster; neither the world nor the wiki revolve around you, get over yourself.

You do what you think you have to do, and I will respond in kind. --Tulipclaymore (talk) 18:19, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

In a nutshell, you finally realize I'm trolling your ass up and down the river bed and finally give up. Congratulations. You learned the first lesson that any regular guy on the internet would learn- Don't feed a troll. It only took you about 5 days to figure it out.

Take notes, aspiring trolls- This is how it's done with style.

As for the "my friends think you suck", that was just something I pointed out, in hopes that you would realize that you're pretty much embarassing yourself here. Clearly, the gears are finally starting to turn on that. This was certainly fun while it lasted. Plenty of lulz around. Successful troll was successful. This is why trolling is a art, people. DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 19:07, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

LeightsayburGei rehplais

HA HA HA, OH WOW.

Well, this was certainly a long discussion concerning a matter that was honestly not worth the time nor effort.

I left this wiki a while ago for a reason. Not because of this 'profanity issue', but because I was just BORED. I'm back now and I feel like giving my two cents in this matter. I admit we both acted a rather bit immature towards the situation, but I eventually stopped swearing. I stopped commenting entirely. Along with boredom, I felt like I needed to take a break. And that's what I suggest you to try doing, DMS. Although, I do not agree with all of the wiki's rules and regulations, I do believe that it is better to have comments like this than just a lot of swearing and complaining. The idea here is to be constructive and make positive edits, not socialize with one another. I'd suggest Facebook for that; over there's is the great Trollvorlord, I think you'd like him very much, DMS. I do not have anything against Jonny Manz, Tulipclaymore, or you DMS, I just think it'd be a lot more fun here if we all just got along. I mean, hey! You guys are NOTHING compared to the corruption and disfunction which goes on over at TvTropes. There, going ballistic would be an understatment (sorry, they don't like using that word anymore) if they saw something like Banned From Equestria (Daily) there. Here, we can have articles covering any sort of topic as long as it's notable enough and is directly related to MLP: FiM. When you think about it, DMS, they're really going pretty easy on us. So, c'mon guys, can we just get back to editing already? :P This used to be kinda fun. 'take things easy; learn to laugh at yourself' — 02:45, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Do explain this message, then. You just spun around on your own moral beliefs for no apparent reason.

DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 03:49, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Those messages don't really contradict my latest statement. I still say it's a bureaucracy, like any other privately-owned website. We really never had a chance, considering that these rules apply not only to this wiki, but every wiki on the network, as demonstrated by that uptight RandomTime guy. I did support you and encouraged your fight for the right of free speech, that is, until you confessed to us you were just "trolling" the whole time. (And yes, you used that preppy terminology -.-)

And yes, I left this place because I was tired and bored. Just like I said. 'take things easy; learn to laugh at yourself' — 17:03, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't trolling initially. I was serious, but then RoseBroadsword's reactions got so much more laughable that I dropped all sense of seriousness from my argument and wanted to see how badly I could push him. It was quite hilarious. And trolling is the proper terminology. What, exactly, do you call it? DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 17:45, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

You could just call it "$@#!ing around" I guess. ;3c And it still do not know who this RoseBroadsword is. :I 'take things easy; learn to laugh at yourself' — 18:20, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

I hope you're joking. It's ol' walking machine Tulipclaymore. I'm just poking fun at his name. DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 19:13, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Oh lol Yea, I get the Tulip=/=Rose part, but where do you get "broadsword" from "claymore"? :p 'take things easy; learn to laugh at yourself' — 19:18, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

They're both swords. A claymore is a type of sword. So is a broadsword. Hell, a picture of a sword is PetuniaDagger's avatar. DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 19:49, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, you. -.- xD 'take things easy; learn to laugh at yourself' — 20:16, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

DMSwordsmaster ^Talk _{Contributions} 20:21, August 13, 2012 (UTC)