Warning:TV Tropes does not respect the rights of fanfic authors

GethN7 · Jul 26, 2014

(Warning, this is a long post. Also, I consulted an administrator before posting this, so I hope this is acceptable)

Hello, I'm GethN7, and I'm here because I heard this was a good place to get around the watercooler with other fanfiction writers, and while I tend to be somewhat cynical about a lot of fanfiction, that's because most of it tends to be of poor quality, which I usually attribute to poor resources such as lack of good beta readers and a lack of consulting resources to make sure one's fanfics are well written and entertaining, and after touring this place yesterday, I think this place is filled with a lot of people trying to write some decent material, so I just wanted to wish you all the best of the luck with your work, and while I don't write much these days, I have done some beta reading for other fanfic writers, so if anyone is in dire need of one, let me know.

That said, I also came here for a serious reason. As many of you might be aware, the website TV Tropes is supposed to be a writing resource that analyzes writing tropes and the media that use them, and while they still do a decent job of it for the most part even now, they are hampered in being able to cover everything due to having to obey the whims of advertisers, have a moderation staff that tends toward assuming bad faith, and has acquired a somewhat toxic reputation in some circles due to some unsavory elements. However, this pales in comparison to their biggest flaw:

They do not respect the wishes of fanfiction writers very much, if at all.

TV Tropes is more than happy to have a page on almost any fanfiction (except for adult rated ones due to advertiser pressure), but the main issue at hand is that if the page itself causes an author personal or legal trouble, the author will have an uphill battle at best getting TV Tropes to modify or remove the page. The most famous case of this would be the case of Something Awful member JesuOtaku, whose page on her work became so much a problem for her it was used to stalk and harass her, and the TV Tropes administration proved amazingly terrible at being willing to modify or remove the page due to all the distress it caused her. On a more personal note, I am friends with Bob Schroeck, writer of the megacrossover "Drunkard's Walk", and he had to invoke a DMCA notice on TV Tropes to get them to take down material that was copyrighted off the page for his own work. Most recently, I became aware of the plight of an author on Archive Of Our Known named May Marlow, and not only was her work grossly misrepresented, she was given a very hard time by both the staff and community of TV Tropes regarding the page on her work, even though her requests for the page were mostly to have certain factual information corrected in the name of accuracy.

I have written a blog post detailing this issue in greater detail here (with Ms. Marlow's permission), and I hope it proves useful and informative to further elaborating why fanfic writers should be wary of having a page for their work there:

http://gethn7.blogspot.com/2014/07/tv-tropes-apparently-hates-authors-and.html

My blog also addresses a few other topics related to TV Tropes which you all may find useful, but my primary concern is spread the word about how little respect they afford writers of fanfiction.

I am also compelled to admit I am not objective. I'm an ex member of TV Tropes, as are many of my associates, and sometime after what TV Tropes refers to as "The Second Google Incident", I and my peers forked TV Tropes content from June 2012 and created our own spinoff of TV Tropes in August 2013 called "All The Tropes", with the intention of having no ads, as little censorship as possible, and having a greater utility and respect for actual writers, as me and the wiki co-founders are all fanfiction writers ourselves and found TV Tropes' profound lack of respect for the legal and ethical rights of writers untenable and wanted to create a resource that could serve as a non-profit, donation funded alternative.

If you desire, you may find us here:

https://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Ero-Sennin · Jul 27, 2014

I'm sorry, what?

daniel_gudman · Jul 27, 2014

Dood's got an axe to grind with TV Tropes, and he's talking about it here, I guess. And plugging his spin-off / competitor site.

TBH the thing I'm most curious about is why bring it here exactly, but w/e.

GethN7 · Jul 27, 2014

daniel_gudman said:

I'll be happy to explain.

If you don't want to visit our fork, fine by me, I don't care.

However, my intention with this thread was warn you all of how TV Tropes screws over fanfiction authors and treats them like third class citizens.

I have a lot of other reasons for not liking what TV Tropes has done over the years, but this is something I felt important enough I wanted to share with whatever fanfiction communites I could find so they could have due warning what to expect should they have a page on their work on TV Tropes.

I added the part about having a competitor site that I administrate in the interest of being honest about my biases and so you all could know what side of the issue I fall on here, but that is utterly secondary to my message, and if no one wants to visit my alternative site, I am completely fine with that.

All I wanted to do was warn more fanfiction writers before they suffered the same fate of the people I mentioned in my opening post.

GenocideHeart · Jul 27, 2014

GethN7 said:

You're from Allthetropes? Nice. Just wanted to congratulate you on making a valid alternative to TvT.

And to everyone else: what he says is pretty much true. TvT has become a toxic environment, and I've heard of the trouble that some fanfic writers experienced because Fast Eddie and his goons pretty much refuse to listen to anyone who doesn't pay them (in short, anyone who isn't Google). This sounds less like a plug and more like a warning. And given the unpleasantness that's been surrounding TvT recently, it's a valid one.

da_fox2279 · Jul 28, 2014

GenocideHeart said:

GethN7 said:

You're from Allthetropes? Nice. Just wanted to congratulate you on making a valid alternative to TvT.

And to everyone else: what he says is pretty much true. TvT has become a toxic environment, and I've heard of the trouble that some fanfic writers experienced because Fast Eddie and his goons pretty much refuse to listen to anyone who doesn't pay them (in short, anyone who isn't Google). This sounds less like a plug and more like a warning. And given the unpleasantness that's been surrounding TvT recently, it's a valid one.

I haven't really explored TvT much recently, so I'm wondering: is the unpleasantness mainly from the message boards? 'Cause I have read the page OP linked, about how 'the fanwork is yours, the TvT page is ours'. It's bullshit.

And I have taken a look at AlltheTropes. It's a neat site. I'll be giving it a deeper look in the future.

GethN7 · Jul 28, 2014

da_fox2279 said:

A lot of the toxic elements are forum based, but the biggest issues are that the moderation staff is unbelievably unreasonable, the site is run by a combination of admin fiat decisions (many of which or poorly implemented or enforced), slavery to advertisers (if it could offend Google Adsense in the slightest, regardless how legitimate the page may be, it is cut), and never ending cult like atmosphere where "Happiness is Mandatory", which means dissent against the mods is not tolerated for any reason (even if done respectfully and with cause), you aren't allowed to be overly negative about anything (even when you try to do literary critique, being too critical even when warranted is frowned upon at best), and the site encourages a "hugbox" like mentality, which is partially why they have that policy on deleting pages about fan works, even if it's causing the author legal or personal issues (even getting it modified for justifiable reasons is difficult)., because in their eyes, the author's grievances against the page content are an insult to the tropers who want a conflict free atmosphere, even if all the author wants to do is remove personal information or correct blatantly false material.

The other half is that TV Tropes is obsessed with inbound counts and page views, and removing pages means they get less of those, and since TV Tropes makes money for Fast Eddie due to all the ads, removing pages means he might earn less, hence that condescending little policy.

Tennie · Jul 28, 2014

To add to this:

It is recommended that new visitors of ATT read this article, which explains why ATT was forked from TVT.

Also, as to Fast Eddie's behavior: When GethN7 was running a previous fork of TVT over on Wikia, he had to deal with a problem concerning a user who was plagiarizing from TVT. GethN7 offered (and in very polite terms, to boot) to help FE deal with it, only to be told by FE that his TVT fork in its entirety was "straight up plagiarism" (you'll have to enlarge and perhaps scroll through a bit to find the messages), and GethN7 was promptly banned (despite the fact that GethN7 was actively offering an olive branch to FE).

Now ask yourself this: would you want to work with someone who is willing to work with you (such as GethN7), or someone who is not willing (such as Fast Eddie)? That is one of the fundamental differences between TVT and ATT: the latter's admins prefer to act in good faith in regards to its users, whereas the former's admins prefer to act in bad faith towards its users.

coconutED · Aug 5, 2014

OK, I'm confused. What "rights" are being violated by TvT? The only thing I caught in OP's diatribe that I found to be possibly relevant was claims of TvT page content causing "personal and legal trouble" for the authors; to which I respond: how?

The examples provided don't paint a very clear picture of your grievance. I'm afraid that you're going to have to be more specific.

GethN7 · Aug 5, 2014

coconutED said:

To be more specific:

Personal troubles: A Something Awful goon and web content creator named JesuOtaku had her TV Tropes page filled with a ton of extremely personal information as well as a lot of flaming, hateful content, and was even used to stalk her across the internet. She wanted it taken down because of all the trouble it caused her, and the TVT moderation fought her every step of the way. At best, the page was locked forever against any editing and given a cursory scrubbing of only the most inflammatory content, and her wishes were flatly ignored otherwise, even though she was experiencing actual threats and harassment.

Legal: One of my fellow ATT admins (Bob Schroeck) was opposed to how TV Tropes censored itself after what they referred to the Second Google Incident and removed all content on his page. He was bounced (redirected to Google every time he tried to look at TV Tropes in any way), and the page was restored, including content that he had given TV Tropes permission to use as long as he consented (a copyrighted image representing his work). Since he was withdrawing his consent, he sent several messages to TV Tropes politely requesting that his page be locked against further editing and that the copyright image be removed.

They stonewalled and ignored him entirely until he invoked a DMCA notice.

Another legal concern is that TV Tropes has now TWICE changed their content license. First, they used CC BY SA, then illegally switched to CC BY NC SA (illegal under the terms of Creative Commons, especially since this was done without the consent of the original authors), then added a retroactive "we all own all content you submit" on top of that, which violates Creative Commons in general, which itself is binding and retroactive, and such a clause is therefore illegal.

Fanfic writers are at risk because that means their work, if cited in whole or part on TV Tropes, will violate their right to relicense it under any terms they please by claiming ownership over what they excerpt, and because, as stated above, TV Tropes will fight tooth and nail against content creators unless you break out the lawyers, and their disregard for copyright in the first place means their content is now illegal to reuse anywhere, and they will fight you if you submit a takedown request, even though it would be legal to request.

Note; Fanfiction itself can be licensed under Creative Commons (Bob's work is under CC BY NC SA), so if TV Tropes cites anything from someone's work on their site, they will have violated the fanfic creator's right given how they already have broken copyright laws twice over.

Vorticity · Aug 6, 2014

Hi, other admin of All The Tropes here. I'm going to try to be brief here to avoid the appearance of forum invasion.

TV Tropes is a bad place to post your ideas on, because they claim ownership of all content put on the site. That's in their site policies, even though they don't tell you about it when you sign up. Illegal? Probably. But do you want to get out the lawyers against a site that doesn't respond except on threat of legal action for a fic? This is likely a bigger issue for original fiction than fanfiction, but you could theoretically lose legal control and ownership of your own work by discussing it on TV Tropes -- depending on the extent placed there, of course. Of course the ownership issues involved in fanfic are already murky, and depend on judgement calls on transformative it is.

The particular rights that were violated were rights to copy (i.e. copyrights) of their editors, in 2012 and again in 2013, by imposing licenses on the creative works of site contributors and then retroactively asserting ownership. Some users may have granted new licenses to TVT -- probably unintentionally -- and perhaps even only through implied licenses through continuing to use the site. When I write on an open content wiki, I expect the wiki to stay within the license I grant, and not to claim ownership of my work.

In comparison, even book publishing companies don't assert ownership of their author's copyrights, but instead get a license to publish. But TV Tropes gives you nothing for total ownership your work (another reason it's probably an invalid contract, but still).

The legal issues involved in TV Tropes are discussed in great detail here: http://blog.brentlaabs.com/2013/12/the-edge-of-creative-commons.html

There are other issues in how people are treated poorly, and I know less about that than GethN7.

Anyway, I'm off to lurk now. Maybe I'll post that Sailor Moon fic I wrote last week.

byakuryuu · Aug 9, 2014

The only thing I didn't like about TVTropes is the fact when I read "Crowning Moment of Awesome" I discover "beautiful gems".

Apparently Tony Stark's identity being discovered by that University reporter was an "awe-inspiring moment". Also, Nanoha making tea is an "awesome moment". Troper Tales was good comedy as well, along with the old "NightmareFuel/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic" page.

Spike getting a hand cramp is nightmare fuel.

Wow, really?

GethN7 · Aug 9, 2014

byakuryuu said:

The only thing I didn't like about TVTropes is the fact when I read "Crowning Moment of Awesome" I discover "beautiful gems".

Apparently Tony Stark's identity being discovered by that University reporter was an "awe-inspiring moment". Also, Nanoha making tea is an "awesome moment". Troper Tales was good comedy as well, along with the old "NightmareFuel/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic" page.

Spike getting a hand cramp is nightmare fuel.

Wow, really?

Yeah, I agree, the vetting process for those tropes suck on TV Tropes.

TC_Hazard · Aug 9, 2014

byakuryuu said:

Yeah, at a certain point those pages went from "only special moments" to everything and anything.

PCHeintz72 · Aug 9, 2014

I actually never understood the appeal of even the concept of TV Tropes, or for that matter even fan wiki pages... Sure, I've been to it a few times, mostly to check something someone said about it, then shrug, and move on to better things.

I currently (as of about 9 hours ago actually) have 10,081 favorites links, and not one is to a TVTropes page... In fact I have very few Wikipedia pages (9), and fewer still wiki pages for various fan sites.

As much as I track, very little in the way of those types of sites ever really appealed.

Never the less, even if I do not understand it I can certainly see the site, and those like it, certainly are popular. One need only look at the various thread favorite/bookmark dumps I've done for threads on forums like TFF, Fukufics, and Spacebattles to see...

Closest to TV Tropes I guess I follow is the series and movie pages on sites like IMDB and Anime News Network. But those have brief descriptions, and mostly facts, while it can lead to other information, it is not really the same type of emphasis on the oddball stuff.

GethN7 · Aug 9, 2014

PCHeintz72 said:

That's fair enough. TV Tropes was supposed to become a serious literary resource of the tropes and plot devices of media, yet less formal than Wikipedia, or so was the idea.

Unfortunately, it wound up not living up to that standard very well, instead becoming in many ways not much different than an obsessive fanon wiki (albeit with a much worse staff than a WMF wiki) that became more about the worst aspects of multiple media fandoms using the site as a shield against criticism of what they are fans of, which greatly degraded the accuracy and site mission to a very large extent IMO.

I cannot argue my attempted successor is better or worse at this point, and if no one here wanted to access it, I would understand entirely.

I can say you definitely have a point that both wikis are more interested in the more obsessive aspects of fandom of media in many ways, and I can certainly see why such a focus would not appeal to some.

tl;dr - PCHeintz72, you made an excellent observation and good points, thanks for your insight.

PCHeintz72 · Aug 10, 2014

You are welcome.

But to be clear, it is probably due more to my own outlook on anime/manga/fan fiction than anything else that prevents sites like that from appealing. Sure, I watch and read a lot, and in fact see tons of fanon clichÃ©s and tropes and what not in what I partake as my entertainment. Generally speaking though I simply do not care if they are present, why they are present, how popular, or how appealing, or how the world in general looks at them. I care whether I enjoy the view, the read, or the story. A clichÃ© or a trope in and of itself in my eyes is not bad, no matter how popular it is or not, or how common it is or not. It is how it fits into the story.

I would argue the point as to whether the TV Tropes site failed though. No matter how you may feel on whether it met its goal, the fact cannot be denied tons of people overall like the content it does have, and spend as much time there as they do, would argue it is a success, even if that success is not exactly for the reasons originally intended.

That is not to say you are incorrect in any of your views. Truly and honestly cannot say since I do not believe I go there enough or heard enough stories from independent reliable sources to confirm what you've stated they are doing wrong.

As for your own site, I've not been to it, but wish you well in it nonetheless.

GethN7 · Aug 10, 2014

PCHeintz72 said:

You are welcome.

But to be clear, it is probably due more to my own outlook on anime/manga/fan fiction than anything else that prevents sites like that from appealing. Sure, I watch and read a lot, and in fact see tons of fanon clichÃ©s and tropes and what not in what I partake as my entertainment. Generally speaking though I simply do not care if they are present, why they are present, how popular, or how appealing, or how the world in general looks at them. I care whether I enjoy the view, the read, or the story. A clichÃ© or a trope in and of itself in my eyes is not bad, no matter how popular it is or not, or how common it is or not. It is how it fits into the story.

I would argue the point as to whether the TV Tropes site failed though. No matter how you may feel on whether it met its goal, the fact cannot be denied tons of people overall like the content it does have, and spend as much time there as they do, would argue it is a success, even if that success is not exactly for the reasons originally intended.

That is not to say you are incorrect in any of your views. Truly and honestly cannot say since I do not believe I go there enough or heard enough stories from independent reliable sources to confirm what you've stated they are doing wrong.

As for your own site, I've not been to it, but wish you well in it nonetheless.

Thank you!

McKnight · Oct 29, 2014

I read that blogpost linked to in the opening entry, and honestly, I agree with TV Tropes there. If you write something and put it out there, people are free to say what they want about it or you even *outside* TV Tropes, any repercussions you face by putting personal information there is your own fault, and if something is inaccurate, that's exactly why you're free to edit it yourself. If something becomes an Old Shame, that still doesn't give you the right to un-person it.

GethN7 · Oct 30, 2014

McKnight said:

I concur, and my issue is not so much with them having a page on something (All The Tropes has a similar policy to TV Tropes), I was mostly incensed at how much hostility they show towards writers and any changes those writers might wish to be made to their pages, no matter how legitimate.

Basically, they are assholes to writers, even those with legit grievances with the content wirtten about their work (in the blogpost, the work in question was being blatantly misrepresented), and the author wasn't so much angry about the page as the blatant misrepresentation, and for her trouble she got treated like the enemy, even though she would have been fine having the page up as long as the misrepresentation of the themes of the work was clarified.

Also, TV Tropes has had a history of certain writers having their work pages turned into gossip and cyberstalking springboards, and when writers get understandably unnerved and upset by this, TV Tropes acts as if the writer is the enemy, not the people who were adding the gossip/personal details irrelevant to the work.

Call me a little partial, but knowing people who has been spit on by TV Tropes for similar things, having a page there is not exactly a good thing IMO, and I would like to discourage anyone from going out of their way to get one there.

Doesn't mean you have to get one on my site either, but you can be rest assured that if people are putting up slander/dox on an author or adding blatant BS, the administration at ATT are going to be far more sympathetic to the writers, given most of us are writers ourselves and the creators of works have a right to expect the pages on their works are going to be reasonably objective, with the opinions on the work put in the YMMV/reviews section only, and blatant BS/slander/doxxing is going to be excised ASAP.

Also, TV Tropes is a bad place for an author to get a page on their work because of their legally questionable copyright status (They illegally switched from CC BY SA licensing to CC BY NC SA licensing and also tried to claim retroactive ownership of everything, which incompatible with all forms of Creative Commons licensing and flagrantly illegal to enforce because no one gave consent to that in the first place), but that's another ball of wax entirely.

Masonicon · Jan 24, 2017

Remember Me GethN7! I also former TVtropes member that banned from TVtropes over and over again for undisclosed reasons and check out this poll: http://thefanfictionforum.net/showthread.php?tid=21331

Warning:TV Tropes does not respect the rights of fanfic authors

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