Thread:Forum:Trope Talk/Cleaning up of questionable tropes/reply (2)

Tropes can be offensive; if we're documenting things properly, some can't help but be. But that doesn't make them not tropes or unworthy of examination. And the write-ups shouldn't be in and of themselves offensive.

If we nuke a page because the very idea it tries to analyze and explore is considered offensive by someone, though, then we've entered the realm of Newspeak and are doing the intellectual equivalent of putting fingers in our ears and shouting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Not to mention violating our own policies -- as policy 6 explicitly states

"We will not censor for politics, prudery or prejudice. Period."

If we purge an article outright for because someone comes along and takes offense at its very existence, we're putting ourselves right on the slippery slope that TVT has firmly staked out as their territory -- it only takes a tiny increment each time in what is considered "offensive" until we're lopping things left, right, and center that wouldn't have even come under consideration at the beginning. We're not going to do that.

You think a trope is offensive? Fine, your privilege. But we won't disappear it for you, and we won't let you disappear it, either. That's not acceptable.

You think the write-up of a trope is offensive? Rewrite it. That's always acceptable. I just did that very thing when recreating Lickspittle yesterday. The original TVT article, deleted shortly before the fork, was about 90% Take Thats at various web communities. I rewrote it to be specifically about a character type/behavior. That's how you address an "offensive" entry. (Just remember, someone who disagrees with you is equally welcome to revert your changes. No one gets the final word, not even us admins most of the time.)