You have to be careful, too…sometimes the pedophiles disguise themselves as Communists, Islamists, witches, Things, or radical anarchists. It seems like they’ve been around awhile. 
And let me just take the chance to say a specific thank you to the trope creators/editors that’ve chimed in here, so far. I really only rarely get the chance—or take the time, I’ll admit—to say that to online content creators, of any stripe. I’m honestly sorry for that, and I’m just as honestly grateful for all you bring into being. Thanks. 
…with blackjack! And hookers!
In fact, forget the website!
Cry more, forum poster (not bouv). Your tears are refreshing. Go back to college for your high brow philosophical literature circlejerk. TVTropes started as a smaller fandom and then got attention by non-geeks. If you want to analyze tropes in Tolstoy’s works, go back to school. Let the bronies have their place - I mean, if they tried to analyze tropes in MLP in an academic environment, they’d get laughed at.
“NEEEEERD!” --an anime fan
I didn’t add my fic archive to tropes either, but it’s on there somewhere.
This is the equivalent of Andrew Breitbart’s, “Stop raping people!”
I love tvtropes. I don’t love everything on it. I’m not the target audience for everything on it. I’m not the target audience for all anime, or television, or SDMB threads for that matter.
I really have not seen this rapey stuff you are talking about. Are you sure you haven’t confused tvtropes with the chans?
There are cesspools of disgustingness: racism, sexism, and adolescent fury on the net. encyclopædia dramatica, anonymous threads on 4chan, this thread here with its Breitbarting–tvtropes is not one of them in my experience.
I think there’s a displaced hatred of anime driving all of this rage. My prescription is that you watch some Maison Ikkoku until your soul turns to sweet, sweet tang.
If you think these are/were of value and worth keeping, then we simply have too divergent sets of values on this, and have to agree to disagree.
Then again, I think I could’ve handled keeping 99% of what has changed/removed over the years if the general userbase had shown they had the maturity, responsibility, and care to use them without letting it get all fucked up and out of control.
Obviously, they don’t.
Yes, because I point out that Fast Eddie has done some horrible things, it can’t be that he’s done some horrible things. I must be trying to stir up shit. I must be making up crap to get people upset.
I’m not even sure where to go with your ridiculous assertion that I am trying to get people to be on my “side,” Newsflash: THIS IS THE FUCKING PIT. THIS IS WHERE PEOPLE COME TO VENT ABOUT THINGS THAT BOTHER THEM. :smack:
And I’m not even sure I should get started on “fighting the good fight.” First off, I’m not fighting anything: I’m venting. But, if I were, knowing someone else noticed would not be an insult. It would be a badge of honor. It’s called “the good fight” for a reason. Doing the right thing often results in others laughing at you. It even sometimes results in people hating your guts. You seriously think that would be an insult?
I started this post really mad at you, but now I’m not sure what to think. Do you really, honestly think I’m a drama queen, stirring up shit to try and go attack a guy on a website? Then I guess what you did was right. But next time, you might want to verify that someone is actually doing what you are chastising them for.
Missed one: fandom? WTF? What does anything I said have to with a fandom?
You really are dense, aren’t you? The enemies are the reason the site keeps getting attacked. It’s why they get hacked, it’s why Google keeps getting reports from people trying to get the place shut down. Even the mods there have realized that some asshole is jerking them around.
What’s so dismaying is that they actually think they are solving the problem. They are compromising the entire purpose of the site to “save” it. And as I pointed out there, if they have to do that, then there’s nothing worth saving.
Well, yeah, but it doesn’t mean, “I can vent and no one’s allowed to criticize what I’m saying”, dude.
It’s possible that it was a troll with a grudge, but that’s not necessarily true. TVTropes always had problems other websites never had to deal with. They had to shut down their brother-sister incest page because there were too many real-life examples from Tropers and it was getting creepy. That’s not something that happens on normal websites. And even if you shut down the pages, the people still remain, and they’re still going to post things that are over the line. All it takes is one sharp-eyed sensitive reader, and suddenly they’re in deep trouble.
And even if it was just a troll with a grudge, those sorts of people tend to be born in fandom much more often than they are in other contexts (for some reason). So even that’s not too surprising.
Years ago, I’d have been right there with you. I’d have been saddened and shocked by the rot within the TVTropes community killing off the website, because back then I thought there was something worth saving. But now, I just don’t think there’s anything worth saving. Much as I enjoy reading it.
How old are you, BigT, if you’re not too insulted by me insulting you to respond? I’m curious.
Wow. It’s just a website about fandom. It’s not like, a school for the blind or something.
A slight nitpick/clarification; they shut down the brother-sister incest “Troper Tales” page, though left the actual trope up. Awhile later, they moved all the extant Troper Tales to archive sub-pages and restarted them with a new “signed entry” setup, apparently to stop more anonymous “creepy” entries—which, as an aside, none of which I ever remember even seeing. I guess I’m just that boring.—then, shortly thereafter, nuked the whole TT section; something about that it was too unmanageable or awful.
Personally, it seemed more than a little overzealous—like burning down a village because a house has termites. And personally, in hindsight, it smacks a little of “if I can’t tightly control it, I can’t allow it to exist.” 
There are a lot of things that I would advocate “allowing to exist” if someone else in the world wants to do it. But if it’s something that I’m personally involved in, I think it’s responsible, reasonable, and pretty much mandatory to set limits. I wouldn’t hesitate to “burn down a village” when that village is a forum on a website that I create and maintain and it is harboring certain topics.
Completely unrelated to the rest of this thread, but I’d actually quite like to see a forum with this theme FWIW.
There is one of those, actually. It’s called “a Word file on my hard drive”. Or “I own this domain name and bandwidth”. Or “my own Facebook/LiveJournal/Blogspot account”. As long as you’re posting on a public board, you’re going to get feedback, wanted or not.
There’s a difference between “Not wanting any feedback” and “Only wanting people to agree with you.”
I’m well aware of why the idea’s impractical. I’m just saying, I’m sure we’ve all had stuff we’ve wanted to post about but didn’t want to deal with the resulting pile-on or criticism.
Hell, 95% of the stuff I consider putting on the Internet never sees the light of day for just that reason.