I think there are some action items to come out of this incident and I'll be making a couple of discussion posts along those lines.

EDIT: Disciplinary thread created as there are a number of disc members present supporting disc action.

1. This got out of hand really quickly partly due to their 'egging on' the participants in an off-site discord. This had the net effect of filling the recent edits staff tool with near-meaningless gibberish, while at the same time posting a "please downvote this" in the discussion section of the article in question.

2. The article was subject to deletion, AS PER POLICY. It first fell below the -10 threshold that placed it in deletion, then below the -20 threshold that made it subject to summary deletion. Staff responded, as per policy, and deleted the page. Shaggy then decided to "save" this article that had been deleted by reposting it in it's entirety on a page that was not subject to deletion. This was also accompanied by continued attempts to "egg on" the denizens of the offsite discord into carry on the tomfoolery that lead to the deletion in the first place.

3. I haven't been here all that long, but I have been here long enough to know how staff reacts to the eddies in the internet currents that cause these little whirlpools of activity. These kinds of "edit this" free for alls rarely end well and often end in headaches and frustration for all staff involved. I find it inconceivable that shaggy was somehow unaware of what type of response this sort of activity would provoke. Obviously it would be impossible to say for certain that that is the case, but we are fooling ourselves if we do not believe that SSSC is anything but predictable.

Again, I don't know shaggy, so all I have to go on are the actions I witnesses yesterday and the madness that ensued, which has carried on into today. The result of these observations is that I find it increasingly difficult to believe that shaggy was not acting in bad faith when all of this went down. I wont go so far as to say that this was planned, but I have no doubt that at some point during this whole episode the understanding of how this was affecting staff was considered.

Does this rise to the level of punishment? If this had been perpetrated by a new user, I have little doubt that they would have had their membership revoked at a minimum. A user encouraging a bunch of other users to shitpost and cause hours of work and headache for staff? Without a doubt a violation of our rules regarding trolling and don't be a dick.

A user, who was a former member of staff, and who has been around long enough to know the rules AND how staff responds to certain stimulus? This is so far beyond the pale that, quite frankly, I'm surprised we're even having a debate about it.

Basically, making an Authors’ Page is making a social contract where Senior Staff guarantees a spot on the fridge if you color within the lines.

I loathe the way this is phrased, Roget.

But I was under the impression the rest of your post basically was how we looked at it already.

Like, let's be real, "appropriate original work" is "not porn, and not getting around our deletions process". I wasn't allowed to save a deleted SCP from way back to my author page (I was asked not to by whoever i jokingly suggested it to). So… yeah.

Is that fair?

Author Pages traditionally exist as a space for an authors to list their works, and there’s a generous degree of creative freedom allowed in the presentation.

If a page is protected from the deletion process then custody of it must be the joint responsibility of the author and Senior Staff. It is through Senior Staff authority that the page is Protected, and the Author of course has their right to authorial autonomy.

Authors’ Pages enjoy Protected status as long as they clear the criteria set by staff. Protection is a privilege, not a right. Staff reserve the right to edit, remove, or otherwise alter content on Protected pages as necessary to ensure that only the appropriate original work is Protected.

If any page’s Protected status is used to circumvent the voting process or otherwise take advantage then its Protection privilege can be revoked.

As an example, despite the pseudo-analysis of the Senior Staff featured on “Author Page: scpcrnp” there would be no change to its status quo. While the attempt to analyze the community power structure demonstrates a poor understanding of historical materialism it still clearly has the structure of an author page. If it’s actually a repost of a failed essay we would have every right to purge it and take any disc action deemed necessary.

Basically, making an Authors’ Page is making a social contract where Senior Staff guarantees a spot on the fridge if you color within the lines.

As such, this is imo only actionable if we can prove Shaggy's actions were intended to troll or otherwise annoy staff or other users, and I don't believe the extant comments do that since stuff like the SIN comment can easily be interpreted as joking. For what it's worth, it seems like Shaggy removed the shitpost from his author page within an hour of us becoming aware of it.

Beyond that, I'd just suggest a general anti-shitpost warning to all those involved in the events today as Taylor suggested in the other thread.

I think it is patently obvious that shaggy was trolling from minute one here and he doubled and tripled down. While there was legitimate debate about his intentions on the first posting, his decision to make it his author page AFTER he was well aware that the whole page was a major issue for reasons of, quote-unquote "so we can collect just a bit more SiN" is extremely telling. Is that a line we should take in good faith? Does that indicate a positive intention for the wiki and its community? He knew exactly what he was doing, sowing disruption and annoyance. That is fucking textbook trolling. He's just tried to hide it in places he doesn't think we can touch him¹.

Even at the absolute best interpretation, where we assume good faith even where that is clearly incorrect and just dump a shitton of sprinkles and whipped cream over the situation for good measure, he's repeating a behavior he knows was annoying and disruptive and acting like a cock about it. That's being a dick. That's on our rules page, literally in bold last I checked.

A permanent ban is inappropriate here but so is a warning. A short ban of between a week and a month is the ideal solution in my eyes.

Additionally, I think we need to tighten up what, exactly, kind of content is allowed on an author page. The current status quo is facially unacceptable.

edit: 2020 gee was an idiot.

S D Locke

After some discussion in SSSC it was decided the conversation should continue on 05 to better solicit opinions about what, if anything, should staff response be.

EDIT: Upon inquiry for clarification, this is a non-disc thread as disc staff haven't decided upon any related action upon the incident. There was merely significant discussion regarding the incident and therefore it was at minimum decided the discussion should be moved to 05. As such, non-disc may post in this non-disc thread.