But besides that, I agree with Kain, with only the reluctance stemming from the fact that I am defending someone who has repeatedly acted like an idiot, as recently as yesterday.

I have to say that at this point I once again 100% believe he's the original author. No matter how much I may want to believe otherwise considering how this guy has acted, there is no other conclusion I can honestly come to.

EDIT: And, guys, IMO, if we ban him for this, it shouldn't be very long, unless he acts up again. I mean, the guy is at least trying to do something that would save us a lot of bullshit in at least the short term.

Re: ADMINISTRATIVE POST
scroton 22 Jul 2012, 00:55 GMT-07

At risk of getting banned again for posting in this thread: I know Dr. Bright has made up his mind, but in case there is still any disagreement among the moderation team about this:

I formally renounce any and all claims to authorship rights (right to edit, decide what gets done with it, call for deletion, etc.) on scp-071 and scp-579 for all time, forever and ever without any qualifications.

Not that she needed it, but Raven Mackenzie can have at this piece with my full blessing. I hope she makes it into something worthwhile.

I'm sorry this turned into such a mess; I didn't intend for that to happen.

The following he put under a collapsible in the same post.

- If you want to read some more whiny crap by me

Even though people absolutely hated my rewrites, if you look at them you can at least tell that some work went into them, and I wrote them in earnest. I was not trying to troll anyone. Overall that doesn't speak very well of my ability, since spending 5 hours on an audio file that turns out to be crap anyway is certainly worse than making one with the intention of it being crappy.

For those of you wondering how I could possibly be the original author and write so crappy now, the answer is this: I used to write very frequently, then stopped because life got in the way and left me with very very little free time.

The last time I wrote anything other than technical crap was probably around the summer of 2009. And it definitely shows; my writing now focuses on explaining everything in excruciating mundane detail and for every possible contingency, which is the exact opposite of what is needed for writing a worthwhile SCP. For some reason I got excited when i discovered the SCP thing again and thought that I could somehow pick up right where I left off, or that anyone would want me to. I am essentially the writing equivalent of that football player that almost went to state that one time 10 years ago and thus figures that he could totally play football at the competitive level if he really wanted to. I was wrong.

I'm also sorry I acted like such an asshole regarding the deletion vs revert thing; that was very selfish of me. I didn't even know that the SCP thing existed in any form anymore until very recently; the works, though originally written by me, now belong very much more to the community that preserved and worked around them for 4 years without me.

When I stopped being involved with this project, there were easily less than 100 total SCPs. There is now a staggering amount of good writing here; you guys are well past the thousand mark on SCPs now, not to mention the many tales and other stuff on the site. And you guys managed to find a system that worked, and kept the website from turning into the crapfest that was the Holder's Series. (A concern I remember many people had at the outset of the SCP thing.) That is amazing. I have no right to come here and hold my interests above those of a whole community that I am no longer a part of. And I'm sorry I ever thought that I did.

I'm also sorry that I took many of the claims that I was not the original author personally. It is hard not to when you are accused of such a heinous crime that you absolutely know you didn't commit, but had I kept my cool and not decided to act rashly this thing probably wouldn't have caused such a giant stink as it has. I'm sorry I pushed until it did.

Though I have given up all rights to any decision on the two pieces, I would still like to be credited as the author for the work or the basis of the rewrite if possible. But I understand that this is entirely at the discretion of the moderation team. I know this might seem silly, but even after four years of thinking the SCP thing died, I still feel possessive of my work. Like I said though, that's entirely up to you guys.

I will close this with a link to the compiled proof of authorship, for those that would care to read it. I want to thank Hurtz again for finding the two wayback machine links. I wouldn't have found those without him.

http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/User:Anonypoet

Thank you for reading this wall of text.

No action has been taken yet that I am aware of.

He uploaded multiple files to http://www.scp-wiki.net/exploratory-mission-354-alpha , though he did not edit them in. He is not claiming this article as his own, one way or another. He just… apparently thinks it's a good idea to add pictures to it.

No action has yet been taken. The files are still attached to the page in question - they're enormous in size and just show a bunch of red-pink-orange shit.

Switching camps to "let them make it crash and burn if they really wants to". It's their right.

From: scroton
Subject: (No subject)
Date: 20 Jul 2012, 19:32 GMT-07
To: thedeadlymoose

Sending this here in response to bland's most recent comment on the scp-071 thread

Sending this message here because I am currently 24 banned from the scp wiki for posting in that thread.

See the part in this wayback machine link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080518083922/http://editthis.info/scp_wiki/User:Anonypoet

Where it clearly says:

"Also check out mah youtubes, if you wish. (username is anonypoet) "

and then when I edited the description on this video on the youtube anonypoet account:

http://youtu.be/4TukJiFmfls

to say:

unrelated:

579 and 071 were originally written by me, anonypoet aka scroton.

The scroton on wikidot is the same person that wrote this right now.

07/20/2012

That should show that I am the same person as the anonypoet on youtube, and thus the same person as the anonypoet on the old scp wiki.

What will it take to prove to you that I'm not a troll?

How much effort is some? How much time should elapse? If someone wrote something some time ago, at what point does it stop becoming theirs? If rewritten, how much of the original concept still belongs to them?

These are all questions that are very difficult to answer, especially with generalized rules. Even with case by case rules of context, this is still going to be something that is very difficult to judge.

I don't particularly have an answer for this statement, but I will say that unless a creator disavows their work, or attempts to vandalize or destroy it out of malice, it is theirs, without question. As for changes to the article in their absence, that's not their fault, nor should they be punished for it.

But even just looking at the thread, several people have stated that taking an author's right to their creation is something that will not be tolerated, and that's something I agree with. Some people, maybe vocal, maybe not, will be much less likely to write articles if they think we will not honor their right of ownership.

It reflects badly on us, and rightfully so if we go through with it.

What are we losing, and from who exactly? Scroton?

As such, let him have the articles. If he wants to revise, revert and reclaim them, let him. Provide good advice, criticism, talk to him, but under no circumstances are we to take them from him. That's dick move territory, and that's us turning into a site of proper circlejerk elitist scum.

Well put. Sigh. Seconding this with extreme reluctance.

I also vote that if 579 reaches +0 (not -10, due to the special circumstances), we lock up that slot and have Light do a rewrite that does not incorporate scroton's stuff (so, something that wipes out sites, description expunged, and optionally the Israfil thing).

As for 071, who cares? (seriously, pipe up if you care.)

But, he has basically put a good deal of "proof" including logs, logging into older things from other sites.

Not only that, but we also stand to lose a good deal of faith from the community at large.

As such, let him have the articles. If he wants to revise, revert and reclaim them, let him. Provide good advice, criticism, talk to him, but under no circumstances are we to take them from him. That's dick move territory, and that's us turning into a site of proper circlejerk elitist scum.

Anyway don't mind me, I'm making an argument from principle on a particular issue I don't even hardly agree with said principle on.

Don't sweat that man, there's a reason I addressed my post to you in particular. I don't want us making shit decisions and regretting it later either. We need people to argue from principle or play devil's advocate.

Honestly I agree that if this is going to be a bad thing, better to lose 071 and 579. 071 was never that great and we can have Light make a different, better 579 that omits scroton's original material (and let's be honest, there wasn't much there that was original to him).

I'm just not 100% sure yet.

• Scroton wrote 071 and 579
• Scroton knows that proving this is totes impossible
• Scroton goes fucking crazy trying to prove it anyway, uploads youtube videos of himself turning pages on a crappy old notebook full of gibberish
• Scroton is a bad writer, also: fucking crazy

My concern is more about the precedent we set reflecting on later decisions that are nothing like this situation at all, as opposed to some clever boy who thinks he can follow in Scroton's footsteps. Because we've got like 1500 SCPs now and those have a way more solid history trail than 071 and 579. The next time this happens we can probably go look up the original author and compare logins and it's not like SA can claim they wrote Able.

I just don't like authorship being a thing that can be kicked aside when it's inconvenient to acknowledge. I think that gets into all sorts of other issues such as the complicated problems when someone tries to cash in on the mythos we've all had a hand in building — for example, I'd rather the argument against someone cashing in on the Foundation be that they are standing on the backs of a huge group of individuals rather than that they are an individual exploiting a faceless "community" that acquires and sheds members as it pleases.

If we're ever going to tell people "thanks for your old work now fuck off" I think we've wandered into bad territory. I'd rather say goodbye to 071 and 579.

… maybe the entire mistake was me taking anyone's word on an issue that can't really be reasonably proven. Perhaps the best answer is that the next time someone claims to be an old author we should just say "oh are you now, well understanding that we don't know that for sure why don't you just write new stuff instead of perching on these older things"

Anyway don't mind me, I'm making an argument from principle on a particular issue I don't even hardly agree with said principle on. I'm not going to lose sleep if we revert those articles instead.

I really don't like the assumption that every shitty author is a troll. Trolls are malicious writers, not bad writers. They are smarter than bad writers.

We're really getting into that area, aren't we? It's not good and we ought to step back a little.

But as for the rest… Do we have any choice now but to put unclaimed old articles under senior staff purview?

Let me explain.

It was never the notebook that convinced me, it was the sheer unlikeliness of going to that much effort for two rather mediocre old articles.

I am told (but cannot confirm) that other forums want to target these articles, among others. I don't think this passes my personal smell test, but let me spin a story for you, Sorts.

• 579 gets a lot of newbie attention, and attention on other sites like SomethingAwful that watch our site. It's safe to say a lot of them dislike it.
• A dedicated user or users figure out that thanks to the fishmonger debacle, staff are likely to let the original author do whatever the fuck they want.
• Said user or users also knows that we'll kick them in the shins without proof (maybe they know about the attempted rewrite on 090).
• Said user or users use the Wayback Machine to find out that 579 (and 071) were posted on the old wiki by someone named anonypoet, who is AKA scroton on Encyclopedia Dramatica. They'd have to go to ED first - scroton's user profile there linked anonypoet saying go look at my SCP stuff. Hell, there are a lot of old ED users around, maybe one of them remembered.
• Said user or users then fake those notebooks we saw, using methods accessible by Google.
• Said user or users then decide to rewrite 579, and later 071 as a bonus, to their liking, either 'because they can' or 'to fuck with us'. Maybe they really thought they were improving 579, and fucking with 071 was just because they could. Whatever.
• They even demand to know WHAT proof we'd accept (in the 071 thread) so we can give them marching orders re: what to fake next.
• Meet scroton, 579 and 071's apparent original author.

Now, okay, look. This kind of stretches my imagination. I'm not saying I think it's what happened. But couldn't it happen?

And if we give scroton full author rights, couldn't anyone else smart enough to thumb through site history take advantage of that precedent? I don't quite believe scroton faked this shit (though they COULD have) but now that this has happened, I'd no longer believe anyone else providing that standard of proof ever.

I mean, we just gave them a goddamn manual on how to fuck with us.

I'll see if I can find some others if I have time.

Well…. how about we ban him for posting after the ordered stop on 071?

That's worth a temp ban alright (if we care enough), but it would feel like abuse of power to make it permanent, meaning the problem will come back soon enough.

Also, this feels relevant to the present situation: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-438250/old-author-new-member Seems there's precedent for reverting original-author rewrites if they make the rating drop.

http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-101549/scp-071#post-1512951

That doesn't mean he isn't faking it, it's just more likely that he is telling the truth and that the reason his reversions don't fit our standards is because he's never actually been part of the community. He's the original square peg, but the hole's round. While an old notebook isn't especially convincing, the fact that he can't write a good up to date SCP is not evidence against him being the original author.

I really don't like the assumption that every shitty author is a troll. Trolls are malicious writers, not bad writers. They are smarter than bad writers. Adding in an O5 fap bank seems way more like someone who ain't clever trying to be as opposed to someone who's having fun at our expense. It's borderline, but it just doesn't have the "tell" that makes a joke out of a screwup.

So… I vote no ban. And I vote for no reverts, reluctantly, simply because it means that next time this comes up down the road we're going to revert an original author's edits because we didn't like them.

If we are going to revert, at least let the reversions be based on the fact that other people put their fingerprints on something and made it more than one person's work, not on original authorship.

Does it matter if he's the original author if he's trolling us? How many of you saw his version of 071? I would call that trolling, especially with the porn cadre that seemed to be his intent still attached to the file. If I were to replace 884 with a picture of goatse as the image, then change every instance of mirror to "anus," would we call that trolling? Of course. Would you ban me? Fucking better. So, at what point do we decide that the author of 071 was intending to troll the site?

As I've stated: I don't think 579 was his anymore. It was an adaptation done by Light. She saved it ages ago.

071? Probably his. Intact from the original version, I believe. But under Creative Commons, he has no right any longer to that version of 579. It was taken. Adapted. And largely changed.

SCP-002
SCP-014-J
SCP-036
SCP-058
SCP-059
SCP-061
SCP-062
SCP-063
SCP-064
SCP-066
SCP-071
SCP-073
SCP-074
SCP-075
SCP-079
SCP-089-ARC
SCP-090
SCP-091-ARC
SCP-092
SCP-093
SCP-094
SCP-103
SCP-104
SCP-110
SCP-114
SCP-116
SCP-117
SCP-120
SCP-123
SCP-124
SCP-127
SCP-129
SCP-133
SCP-134
SCP-138-ARC
SCP-145
SCP-147
SCP-157-ARC
SCP-166
SCP-173
SCP-222
SCP-224
SCP-232
SCP-234-ARC
SCP-256
SCP-274
SCP-294
SCP-314
SCP-323
SCP-343
SCP-402
SCP-404
SCP-500
SCP-530
SCP-579
SCP-616
SCP-666
SCP-689
SCP-722
SCP-824
SCP-847
SCP-861
SCP-947
SCP-948
SCP-987-ARC
SCP-992

SCP's from deleted accounts will take a bit longer to assemble a list of, unless someone else knows of a quick way to check for that.

Also, I feel the need to state that, from an ethical standpoint as a creative writing site, we do need to respect authorship rights. Fish asked us to take down his work, and we did. If we reject Scroton's edits, it should always and only be because we don't believe he's the author. Delete it and repost if he turns it to crap, fine; but the author has the right to make us do that. We may hate this prerogative in particular instances — I sure have; I liked the original 579, and Fish's old 908 was one of my all-time favorites — but that's beside the point. If we decide that authorship rights are discretionary, we'll tarnish our integrity to the point that it may not recover.

Also casting my vote with those who don't believe him. It's functionally impossible to prove ownership beyond a shadow of a doubt for articles that weren't moved here by the original author, and that sucks, but that means we should better be safe than sorry. The question here, of course, is whether that means we should err on the side of protecting the quality of the site's content, or if we should err on the side of protecting authorial control, but I think this is ultimately a lopsided argument:

We can't prove authorship. We can prove quality of content.

I never thought I'd be saying this in a context like this, but we can either go by evidence or faith here, and I am going to choose evidence every single time.

And now this guy's turned it to shit.

Just for the record, scroton reverted it (with the intent of making edits later on, which is irrelevant because… of the second part of this sentence) and Troy temporarily locked it.

So he mostly just wants to turn it to shit.

You know what? There's a point where I don't give a shit if he's the original author (unconvinced of that though I may be at this point). I liked 579. I was one of its staunchest defenders. And now this guy's turned it to shit. I believe a general policy of authorial control is best for the site, but in the particular case wherein an article is abandoned and recovered later, I think our first interest should be the quality of the site and its content.

I am not convinced enough to support an outright ban, though. Agreeing with Nusquam here.

If he wants his shit gone, he should just say so, not sabotage it to try and make it drop. I don't see how, if he was the supposed author of 071 and 579, he could think his edits to either article, but especially 071, were a good idea. I'm not really very satisfied with his evidence, either. All it proves is he had an old notebook or was willing to invest the effort to make it look old.

Regarding Troy's post below, I'm not sure I'm ready to advocate for banning him yet. This whole mess is, well, a fucking mess. It'd be virtually impossible to prove authorship beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't like the idea of taking author privileges from someone for any reason. There is reason to doubt the veracity of his claims, but it's the principle of the thing.

That said, Scroton has forced a situation where inaction is not tenable. I suggest that he not be banned. However, both pages should be reverted and locked. Henceforth, he would have to submit any proposed revisions for approval by staff, just as any other user is required to do when requesting permission to rewrite something.

given the level of controversy 579 has created various places on the internet it would not surprise me in the SLIGHTEST for someone to decide to step in and try to take it over.

ban and dont miss him.

That's how easy this easy. Give me a half an hour, tea leaves, and a notebook from my garage, and I wrote anything on this site that was moved here by someone other than the original author.

He's given up his claim to 071, though he tried to backpedal, and 579 wouldn't be here without Light. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is a clever troll with enough time on his hands to make it work. Take a look at the files attached to 071 and tell me otherwise.

This guy is not Fish. Fish posted his stuff here himself. He had a right to use it, manipulate it, and have it removed. This guy didn't move it here, hasn't done anything except massacre one of my favorite articles in 579, and has only offered proof that anyone could make with a little time.

Moving for Scotron's banning under the trolling guidelines and the reversion of all articles he has manipulated to the original formats. For God's sake people, he has //Spy Kids 3D// on his favorite movies on his facebook page.

Who was asleep at the wheel on research for this kid?

Edit: I have locked 071 and 579 for the time being until we figure this out.

although I certainly understand why people would feel otherwise, it's hard to make the case when the very test case on old authorship comes back and straight up sprays poop everywhere like a guy with a shower head up his butt and a bad case of the runs.

It's too bad, as Adam points out above, pretty much the only course of action that doesn't result in us losing good articles is to lock out the old author. I'm not entirely comfortable with that, but the alternative does mean we lose material we might not have lost otherwise.

EDIT: He overrode Bright's reversion a few minutes after you posted that. Think that would fall under "Failure to comply with a mod/admin directive to end a line of discussion."? The reversion wasn't strictly a call to end a line of discussion, but it certainly fits the spirit, if not the letter.

Also, while we're keeping score, SCP-579 is +11 and dropping.

I'm just gonna ask: Do we want to implement a "vote for revert" policy (similar to staff votes) applicable to articles where the author has been absent for X amount of time?

He also rewrote SCP-071. Look at Revision 22. Before Bright reverted, it had supposedly dropped to -9. Short of it, he added in a bunch of logs describing experiments with 071, and an addenda of softcore porn images.

Both scenarios end with us down a successful article.

Yes, but do we have any choice?

In the case you're quoting from, there was no particular reason to believe that the guy was the original author beyond his say-so. Does that matter, and if so, how much?

Scroton provided a pretty ridiculous level of proof, but what if someone wanted to get rid of SCP-173, and provided a similar of proof? (I know the original author for 173 has shown up and thinks this entire Foundation thing is awesome, but I'm using this as an example.)

Plus, no level of proof is absolute. What if someone faked that level of proof? How would we know? I don't think scroton did that, but that doesn't mean someone else couldn't.

I imagine we'd end up judging on a case by case basis, but the general question ought to be asked.

I'm conflicted on this. It's something that's either one way or the other - either the author has total control over what they've posted, or they don't. On the one hand, stated wiki policy has been that if an author wants their work deleted (this sounds tangential, but there's a point I promise) then it will be with no questions asked. On the other hand, precedent exists for the author not having absolute control.

Gears' post in particular:

Agreed, orginal author or not, if you re-write something and make it start dropping, it should be reverted. We're here not for anyone's ego (ideally), but to create a positive body of work. Normally, i'm happy to let folks make their own mistakes, but i think a revert in this was a good idea.

That's about as straightforward a statement as one could ask for.

Now, why these two things conflict and why it's bad. Someone could turn up, claiming to be an article's original author. Let's say they are, and their article has been edited in their absence because the original version sucked. The rewrite is now successful. Said author doesn't like that someone fucked with their work, and wants it reverted, or wants to edit it to bring it more in line with their original vision. They want their original version to stand or fall on its own merits, and if it's downvoted to oblivion, so be it. So it's downvoted, and because the author said they wanted it to stand or fail on its merits, no rewrite can happen, as it has implicitly been stated if it falls they want it gone. We could and should confirm that's what they want, but if it is, what then?

Conversely, what if we refuse to allow their edits because they'll destroy an otherwise successful article, and then they invoke authorial right to deletion of their work?

Both scenarios end with us down a successful article.

The evidence he provided regarding authorship is linked in his post here: http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-77170/scp-579#post-1492188

I don't expect that we'll see more of the old author/new member issue in the future, at least not in a sense where it is all but impossible to prove ownership of stuff that existed before it was on Wikidot (and still exists beyond that) but it's my position that old authors should get ownership when they return even if we've edited it in the meantime. Prior discussions on this topic went the other way though… thoughts?