Monday, June 9, 2014

Why criticism does not offend me

Criticism gets a bad name on TV Tropes, and one of the reasons for that is due to the fact Fast Eddie himself cannot tolerate it.

And that's not an exaggeration: This is a site that has as an actual rule "Happiness Is Mandatory".

Personally, I think trying to enforce that is madness. No one, especially me, is perfect, and even though I'm the chief admin of All The Tropes (and its sister site on Wikia), I'm not a god. In fact, one of the things I insisted on when All The Tropes was founded was that I be answerable to someone so I didn't get to the point I acted like an egomaniacal ass and thought I was above criticism, which is why I try to take criticism very seriously, especially if it points out legitimate flaws in my conduct as a site administrator.

To that end, respectful dissent will never be banned on any site I administer, because if I screw up, I should be held accountable for my errors. Fast Eddie may think enforcing Happiness Is Mandatory is preventing drama, but all he's really doing is silencing dissent on pain on banning and is incredibly hostile to polite dissent, and thus when when he has to deal with impolite dissent (especially by such entities as Something Awful, Beyond the Lampshade, or any other entities with an axe to grind against them), he flips out and gets epically butthurt over it.

Well, considering that this is the same man who (in response to my letting him know our wiki fork was legal thanks to Creative Commons licensing) called me a thief and told me get off his site for not being ashamed of something that was within my legal rights to do, I find that sad.

Seriously, the Internet is a harsh place. I've been called a faggot before, I've gotten called a pedo enabler (all because I don't believe in censorship beyond what is legally necessary), and host of other things that would make 4chan blush, but it's just retarded insults, and life is too short to let that get to you.

As for legit complaints, I'm the tech guy at ATT, and I get to field most of the tech complaints there, and while I get a lot of frustrated people complaining about site issues, I chose to be responsible for that, so I have no right to moan about people giving me a hard time over legit problems. Fast Eddie is the administrator of a site that has hosted some questionable content and has had a ton of coding fail (seriously, having used PmWiki, I think the man is insane from a wiki designer perspective trying to run a successful site with that POS as a wiki engine), but his response to these criticisms, no matter how legitimate, has been to get incredibly upset at anyone who would speak out against him, most of the time banning them as Goons or trolls.

Just to be fair, I'm not a fan of being shit talked, and Something Awful, while having many legitimate things to say, they have also engaged in some blatant trolling of TV Tropes (the pages on JesuOtaku have been repeatedly vandalized on TV Tropes thanks to butthurt Goons, Jesu especially, which I find rather pathetic) and having checked out the site Something Sensitive (a forum dedicated to exposing the perversion and fail of SA)  it appears Something Awful has just as much creepy content and depraved perverts as they accuse TV Tropes of, and while I'm sure they would probably hate the air I breathe because I'm an admitted aspie (yes, I have autism) and a troper, I applaud them for exposing the failure of the SA site and administration regardless of their opinions of tropers, and I think they are doing a service by acting as a watchdog on SA's seedy side.

And, speaking of websites that expose the seedy side of other sites, I also follow Project AFTER's TV Tropes thread (I'm even a member there, and I have engaged in some very constructive discussion regarding troping and other topics with the incredibly wonderful community there) and I've also been recently been made aware of the Tumblr fucknotvtropes. Both places have made some very strong criticism of both TV Tropes and All The Tropes, and while Fast Eddie may not agree, I believe it's healthy to have someone from the outside looking in at a community from time to time, and given how TV Tropes has had some seedy content and bad practices that were in dire need of muckraking (and still do), I believe that if either site were to do the same to us, it would be a net positive for all concerned in the long run, and if either community had legit criticism of ATT (and Project AFTER has solicited some with me, which I am grateful for), I would be willing to hear it out and make changes if need be, because I don't want to make the same mistake of rejecting my detractors out of hand like Fast Eddie (part of the reason he seems to be so hated is because he is so hostile to his critics, as far as I can tell).

Anyway, before this post becomes a massive tl;dr, I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not perfect, and if I have something I need to improve on, I will never reject criticism of my actions if said criticism is warranted, and I will try to be as civil and openminded as I can if my critics are willing to do the same.

4 comments:

  1. If you're going to get mad at JesuOtaku pages being vandalized and particularly JO's actual desire for them do so, it's good to know the actual reasons.

    As has been submitted to the fucknotvtropes Tumblr (so I'd think you would've seen if you read it), she wanted the pages locked to editors because people who had a history of harassing her were using it to stalk her, and for creepy speculation about her personal life that was irrelevant to her reviews. The TVTropes administrators wouldn't do it, so she and her friends had to resort to starting a fake edit war so they'd have another reason to lock the pages.

    I think it's really shitty to characterize that as mere "butthurt". Like most women who are Internet public figures, she's received a lot really gross harassment and threats because of fanboys who disagreed with her, and plenty of that was happening with TVTropes. It's more than understandable that she would do whatever she could to try to prevent that from happening. I like what AllTheTropes is doing, but such condescension toward a woman who's been a victim of harassment, stalking and threats really sours me on you, I have to say.

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    1. I have since learned I was in error and have issued a retraction here:

      http://gethn7.blogspot.com/2014/06/i-would-like-to-issue-retraction.html

      Further, my information on that subject was based on a reading of the TV Tropes mock read on Something Awful, a partial one at that, since I was unable to verify my opinion when I wrote this due to the SA paywall being up. I do have a bias against SA, mostly because for all their criticism of perversion and depravity in the troping community, they themselves have had more than one murderer as a goon at one point or another and a confirmed pedophile was a moderator at one point.

      Regardless, your point is noted and I offer my apologies, and if JesuOtaku happens to read this, she has my support against harassment and stalking and I would not tolerate that on my wiki, should she or her fans wish to post there.

      Delete
  2. hey this is Mr. Ree on All The Tropes, im having so much trouble logging in even though the name is taken and I typed it in right and i put in the right password, could you connect the name to missingmystery@gmail.com so i have no problems in the future?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should file this request with Orain Staff. If you need to, make an alternate account on Orain Meta and request a steward look into the problem.

      Delete

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