Update: TVTropes Deletes All Rape Tropes

[Yosarian2]

This is incredibly offensive and anti-feminist on Google's part. Discussing the absurd ways rape is treated in fiction is important, and that's what tvtropes does. Saying that it's "offensive material" is just crazy; analyzing how rape is treated in popular culture is really important. You don't get rid of rape by not letting anyone talk about it; forcing people to stop talking about the problem just makes rape more common, because rape tends to thrive in environments where victims don't feel they can talk about what happened to them.

 

[Daveman]

Well that's just silly by Google. Block me too because I'm about to mention rape. Whoops, just said rape. Whoops, said rape again. Fuck me, I can't stop saying rape!

When I just said "fuck me", I didn't mean it literally. Thus if you tried, I would not consent and it would in fact be rape.

RAPE!

Is this post absurd? Yes. But only as absurd as what those fuckers are doing. Ignoring things doesn't make them go away. I expect a u-turn on this policy shortly.

 

[BrotherRool]

But there is no good side to rape, (except statutory rape, which we differentiate by name and isn't closely associated with rape). Whilst the worst of drug addiction, torture and killing equals the worst of rape, the lightest of rape is much much more scarring than the lightest forms of torture, drugs and killing

There are still many places where a man forcing his wife to have sex with them is considered ok, and the woman who refuses to have sex with their husband is vilified. It's not that long ago that things were like that in the countries like US, either.

Not to mention that people will disagree on what is rape, a disturbing amount of people consider it ok to pressure someone into sex.

I'm definitely not saying they are right, but since your point was that unlike something like killing, rape is universally opposed, I felt like pointing that out.

I don't think TvTropes should remove the content, but they should keep the pages better moderated. It's not just fetishist stuff, a lot of pages don't have much value, apart from reading stuff about things you have already seen. They tend to be so cluttered with non-important trivia (In episode 5 of season 8 one of the characters tells this kind of a joke) finding for example what series focus on certain themes can be difficult.

But I guess removing stuff is just the easy solution.

But would that still have counted? The thing is this really wasn't a morality thing, if this were an automatic Googlebot thing then it would really be out of Tv Tropes' control.

 

[zombiesinc]

I don't see how discussing rape-related content or its use is automatically deemed "explicit" content, especially when certain explanations can actually be informative and help someone better understand a reference/use but I'm not surprised TVTropes decided to remove everything.

I must have been living under an e-rock recently 'cause this sudden focus on rape-related... anything on the web is something I completely missed, just trying to catch up.

 

[Rainforce]

In the future I can see them taking down all fetish tropes

That already pretty much happened with the entire fetish fuel section.

On topic: NOOOOOOOOOO NOT THE MIND RAPE PAGE DDD:
*ahem* well, I don't really care that much about the real rape pages, but this is just ridiculous. then again, reading the update message really brings back some hope for the entire thing.

 

[kuolonen]

So I have browsed tvtropes pretty much from top to bottom and this is the first time I find out there's something like this afoot there. Methinks to find this offensive content you actually have to look for it. Some people just like to start fights. Dont like something? Dont interact with it. Rocket science this is not.

But if you just have that itch that must be scratched, I'm pretty sure with a simple google search you can find ultra-racist, homophobic, chauvinistic, etc. forums where you can go bash your head against that brick wall till you see colours.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

Freedom of speech, freedom of information?

Pisha!
That's SO outdated.

I wish people would stop saying things like that.

Freedom of speech has no impact on private groups; they can censor whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like and it has nothing to do with civil liberty. Freedom of information also has nothing to do with pop culture. It describes the right for citizens to have reasonable access to information regarding the operation of the government and the law.

''


This is false. While the law may only regulate the government, the PRINCIPLE is universaly applicable. The concept is in no way tied to a single law, country or government.

I find it a peculiar idea that private groups or organizations cannot impinge on your freedoms or liberties. Of course they can, they do it all the time. The idea that because it is done by a private person or organization it is in some way right is very strange, and I suspect very American. Private groups are equally (and in some ways much more capable) able to take away your liberty as any other group with power over you. And Google definitvily has power over most of us.

However, freedom of speech is of course only your freedom as long as it does not directly impinge other peoples freedoms, like the freedom not to be threatened. Freedom of speech is in no way unfettered, even as a principle.

You're confusing the idea with the actual laws. Freedom of Speech is a thing, not an idea. You're referring to the concept of having free speech.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Freedom of speech, freedom of information?

Pisha!
That's SO outdated.

I wish people would stop saying things like that.

Freedom of speech has no impact on private groups; they can censor whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like and it has nothing to do with civil liberty. Freedom of information also has nothing to do with pop culture. It describes the right for citizens to have reasonable access to information regarding the operation of the government and the law.

''


This is false. While the law may only regulate the government, the PRINCIPLE is universaly applicable. The concept is in no way tied to a single law, country or government.

I find it a peculiar idea that private groups or organizations cannot impinge on your freedoms or liberties. Of course they can, they do it all the time. The idea that because it is done by a private person or organization it is in some way right is very strange, and I suspect very American. Private groups are equally (and in some ways much more capable) able to take away your liberty as any other group with power over you. And Google definitvily has power over most of us.

However, freedom of speech is of course only your freedom as long as it does not directly impinge other peoples freedoms, like the freedom not to be threatened. Freedom of speech is in no way unfettered, even as a principle.

Freedom of speech as a concept does not make any sense when applied to individuals though. It would essentially be freedom from consequence then, and would mean that no person is allowed to say to another person that they must stop doing such and such or else such and such. It would rob people of more liberty than it would give.

 

[Terratina.]

Surpising, the rape topics were handled in a mature way, like a scientist just observing and noting down stuff, while poking it with a ten foot pole, per say. This is a big loss as it is part of fiction and tropes whether you like it or not.

Oh, for the love of God, people. The tropes haven't been deleted, they're just in the process of talking it over with Google and/or modifying the pages to fit guidelines. They'll be back in a few days. Chill out.

Still, the worse could happen though and that's what these people are worried about.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

It seems rape is the Escapist subject of choice this week.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

The nerd/geek community right now is in the middle of a phase of self-examination when it comes to the use of sexual violence as a storytelling device in media for one, and the treatment of women and female characters for another.

I see the deletion of these Rape Tropes articles as a plus point, the gaming community is in a state of self reflection at the minute after E3 and its probably for the best that the gamers formulate their own opinions on this hot topic instead of regugitatating a trope a 14 year old from Alaska wrote in their spare time.

Take some points from a trope yes, but think for yourself.

Can you tell me what happened at E3 with female reporters, I feel like I'm living under a rock or something.

 

[DigitalSushi]

The nerd/geek community right now is in the middle of a phase of self-examination when it comes to the use of sexual violence as a storytelling device in media for one, and the treatment of women and female characters for another.

I see the deletion of these Rape Tropes articles as a plus point, the gaming community is in a state of self reflection at the minute after E3 and its probably for the best that the gamers formulate their own opinions on this hot topic instead of regugitatating a trope a 14 year old from Alaska wrote in their spare time.

Take some points from a trope yes, but think for yourself.

Can you tell me what happened at E3 with female reporters, I feel like I'm living under a rock or something.

It was the Lara Croft Rape scene in the trailer that seemed to have caused a stir, there's a anonymous article about it on this very site, my point was that normally people just regurgitate opinions of articles on Tropes or Wiki then back up their point with said wiki article.

Now people can think for themselves, for the 5 minutes at least until all the pages are cached and published somewhere else.

Also the rape scene probably made people who been attacked pretty uncomfortable.

 

[Dragonsoulq]

Guy, guys chill- Its all back up, TVtropes has simply pulled Adsense from the pages in question.

 

[him over there]

I don't see how discussing rape-related content or its use is automatically deemed "explicit" content, especially when certain explanations can actually be informative and help someone better understand a reference/use but I'm not surprised TVTropes decided to remove everything.

I must have been living under an e-rock recently 'cause this sudden focus on rape-related... anything on the web is something I completely missed, just trying to catch up.

The thing is the tvtropes userbase was filled with rape apologists and fetishists who were constantly cluttering up the trope pages. Deleting the rape and pedophilia tropes was merely dealing with the symptoms and not the disease. Tropes like mind rape are gone not because they mentioned rape but because the site owner Fast Eddie is a lazy coder who just did a delete all for all tropes with the word rape in them. This is why tropes like All rapists are murderers are still up.

Something Awful has done a few threads on tropers and their site [link*right here*]http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3470622&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1[/link], if you get into the later portions of the thread it becomes pretty clear that the situation isn't as clean cut as google doesn't like rape. It's more like google doesn't want to associate itself with a site that has a massive directory to works with rape in it and also put there by people who are aroused by that sort of thing. It's an image problem.

Freedom of speech, freedom of information?

Pisha!
That's SO outdated.

I wish people would stop saying things like that.

Freedom of speech has no impact on private groups; they can censor whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like and it has nothing to do with civil liberty. Freedom of information also has nothing to do with pop culture. It describes the right for citizens to have reasonable access to information regarding the operation of the government and the law.

''


This is false. While the law may only regulate the government, the PRINCIPLE is universaly applicable. The concept is in no way tied to a single law, country or government.

I find it a peculiar idea that private groups or organizations cannot impinge on your freedoms or liberties. Of course they can, they do it all the time. The idea that because it is done by a private person or organization it is in some way right is very strange, and I suspect very American. Private groups are equally (and in some ways much more capable) able to take away your liberty as any other group with power over you. And Google definitvily has power over most of us.

However, freedom of speech is of course only your freedom as long as it does not directly impinge other peoples freedoms, like the freedom not to be threatened. Freedom of speech is in no way unfettered, even as a principle.

Freedom of speech as a concept does not make any sense when applied to individuals though. It would essentially be freedom from consequence then, and would mean that no person is allowed to say to another person that they must stop doing such and such or else such and such. It would rob people of more liberty than it would give.

Ironically that is what tvtropes seems to think on the subject regarding speech. Their no negativity policy essentially says that if you call people out for being horrible you are in the wrong. I remember on multiple occasions they had blatant racists and when people came out and said "dude that isn't cool cut that shit out" they were banned, not the racists for breaking the no negativity policy.

 

[Clarste]

Like hell there is. The lunatics are running the asylum over there - almost everybody who has invested a significant amount of time cleaning the site up has either been banned from the site or simply given up on it altogether.

Because even though it is ostensibly and open wiki, because of site policies ("no notability", "no negativity" and especially "don't be a dick") it's difficult to clean up bad content, and almost impossible to do so effectively without interacting with the existing toxic and dysfunctional troper community.

...just go to the Trope Repair Shop. They're constantly revamping tropes, cutting examples. Many would argue too often. Frankly, there seem to be contradictory stereotypes of TvTropes in play at the same time. Are they censoring too much or are they tacitly encouraging toxic editors? It can't be both. More likely, the answer is what I said: that it's a huge group of people working at odds with each other.

And seriously, it's not that hard to just go in and remove an example. I do it all the time. Just don't be a dick.

I really don't care about the minority of "creeps", they can have their opinion too - as long as more level-headed people are allowed to openly debate with and criticise them. Ahh yes I remember Chagen 46 well. He was an amusing chap.

Chagen was banned for posting child porn in the forums. I know this well, because I'm the one who reported him after unknowingly clicking on the unmarked link. And that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. He was an amusing chap, in a very particular sense, but I really can't blame Eddie for banning him.

(with Visual Novels like Fate/Stay Night on it, that basically has less than 0,1% of sex in it's plot, but is technically categorized as an "eroge" for them.)

Fate/Stay Night is back. It was removed in the initial purge, but the way it works is that works were removed and then get brought back by petition and some mods going over the actual content. I suppose you could disagree with this way of doing things, but the goal was simply to eliminate all pornographic content to get the ads back. If something's not actually pornographic but was merely hit by the crossfire, that's unfortunate but it's being dealt with. Frankly, I feel kind of sorry for the mods tasked with doing this.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

The nerd/geek community right now is in the middle of a phase of self-examination when it comes to the use of sexual violence as a storytelling device in media for one, and the treatment of women and female characters for another.

I see the deletion of these Rape Tropes articles as a plus point, the gaming community is in a state of self reflection at the minute after E3 and its probably for the best that the gamers formulate their own opinions on this hot topic instead of regugitatating a trope a 14 year old from Alaska wrote in their spare time.

Take some points from a trope yes, but think for yourself.

Can you tell me what happened at E3 with female reporters, I feel like I'm living under a rock or something.

It was the Lara Croft Rape scene in the trailer that seemed to have caused a stir, there's a anonymous article about it on this very site, my point was that normally people just regurgitate opinions of articles on Tropes or Wiki then back up their point with said wiki article.

Now people can think for themselves, for the 5 minutes at least until all the pages are cached and published somewhere else.

Also the rape scene probably made people who been attacked pretty uncomfortable.

What about female reporters? I didn't hear anything about that.

 

[MammothBlade]

Chagen was banned for posting child porn in the forums. I know this well, because I'm the one who reported him after unknowingly clicking on the unmarked link. And that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. He was an amusing chap, in a very particular sense, but I really can't blame Eddie for banning him.

So you're that Clarste?

Yeah, I know he was banned. And that was for NSFW Touhou drawings, was it not? It doesn't make me think any less of him, either way.

I have to be one of the most drama tolerant people out there when it comes to such antics. People such as Chagen are not annoying, bothersome, or outrageous, just sources of endless laughter and schadenfreude.

 

[DigitalSushi]

The nerd/geek community right now is in the middle of a phase of self-examination when it comes to the use of sexual violence as a storytelling device in media for one, and the treatment of women and female characters for another.

I see the deletion of these Rape Tropes articles as a plus point, the gaming community is in a state of self reflection at the minute after E3 and its probably for the best that the gamers formulate their own opinions on this hot topic instead of regugitatating a trope a 14 year old from Alaska wrote in their spare time.

Take some points from a trope yes, but think for yourself.

Can you tell me what happened at E3 with female reporters, I feel like I'm living under a rock or something.

It was the Lara Croft Rape scene in the trailer that seemed to have caused a stir, there's a anonymous article about it on this very site, my point was that normally people just regurgitate opinions of articles on Tropes or Wiki then back up their point with said wiki article.

Now people can think for themselves, for the 5 minutes at least until all the pages are cached and published somewhere else.

Also the rape scene probably made people who been attacked pretty uncomfortable.

What about female reporters? I didn't hear anything about that.

I don't know, did I say anything about female reporters?, I mean its understandable that some people were offended by it. Also people seem to be offended by one of the Devs making very silly remarks that the rape scene will make you want to protect Lara Croft... I'm dude, just don't say anything

To be fair he could have said anything and he would have been shot down because he's on the Dev Team, people go on the defensive claiming he's naturally biased (which is true but why the hell wouldn't he be?, its not like he's going to say, "you should skip half the game I made cos its a bit shit)