Slenderman murder

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Slenderman murder

spikebrennan 03 Jun 2014 13:08

Excessive devotion to the Slenderman wiki has driven a pair of troubled kids to allegedly attempt to murder a classmate. (This is real life).

http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/waukesha-police-2-12-year-old-girls-plotted-for-months-to-kill-friend-b99282655z1-261534171.html

Now, this obviously doesn't have anything to do with us, but what's the feeling about having the wiki take some kind of action in sympathy for the poor victim's family— say, a black banner on the front page for a little while, or even having the wiki go dark for a day? Or just some kind of temporary explicit statement that this is fiction, these are stories, and that people with mental health issues need to get help?

Edit: Attempted murder. (Fortunately, it looks like the victim will live.)

Last edited on 03 Jun 2014 15:45 by spikebrennan Show more

Re: Slenderman murder

Drewbear 03 Jun 2014 14:06

Holy shit.

I don't know about the feasability of having the entire site go dark, from a technical aspect, but I would get behind doing something to acknowledge this. Thankfully the victim didn't die, so this wouldn't have to be a memorial, but maybe changing the main page to a blackout with links to national MH resources or something? I'd say no more than a day, though.

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Slenderman murder

Communism will win 03 Jun 2014 14:59

I would support something like that.

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Re: Slenderman murder

(account deleted) 03 Jun 2014 16:03

I support this. However, I think that it should be a one-time sort of thing, rather than something that we do to express solidarity when something bad happens (not that anyone was suggesting that).

Re: Slenderman murder

EchoFourDelta 03 Jun 2014 16:32

Or just go on with business as usual, keep running the site as normal, and truck on, since the family is never going to see it and the fact that going through the motions on this is the equivalent of a vehicle manufacturer apologizing because a car made by a competing company was involved in a drunk driving accident.

Three cheers for misguided slacktivism.

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Military Consultant, SCP Wiki

Last edited on 03 Jun 2014 16:33 by EchoFourDelta Show more

Re: Slenderman murder

MisterFlames 03 Jun 2014 17:01

While I wouldn't quite put it as charmingly as Echo has, I agree that shutting down the site is a bit much, even for as short a time as a day. Most people wouldn't even get the gesture, and it would cause more questions than anything else.

What I would suggest is have Outreach mention it on our social media, and maybe a bit on our site news, expressing our empathy and regret over a horrible incident. A mention on our forum wouldn't be amiss, either.

Re: Slenderman murder

Crayne 03 Jun 2014 17:00

I'll try to put it a bit more diplomatic than Echo, but doing something like this, sympathetic as it may be, is ultimately nothing but a half-hearted admission that we're doing something wrong here. That this wiki and its contents are somehow even remotely responsible for what happened and we're very sorry about it all.

Fact of the matter is that they could have latched on to anything. Harry Potter, James Spader, Judas Priest, Jack Chick…and they still would have gone off the rails.

Re: Slenderman murder

MisterFlames 03 Jun 2014 17:03

Not to mention that such an admission might get the naysayers to come after us for doing nothing at all but writing and maintaining a community for literally that. Which is why I figure Outreach to be the best way to express empathy.

Re: Slenderman murder

rumetzen 03 Jun 2014 17:45

Gonna throw my weight into the "I don't really see the point in this" camp. Aside from being a horror site, we had nothing to do with this, and are explicitly not associated with the "cause".

EDIT: Someone mentioned a more clear age/explicit content warning in chat and I do think that wouldn't be a terrible idea.

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read YONQ

Last edited on 03 Jun 2014 17:46 by rumetzen Show more

Re: Slenderman murder

ProcyonLotor 03 Jun 2014 17:50

While the sentiment's right here, I'm going to have to put my foot in the "no" camp.
Thankfully, latest report I read said the girl's stable.
However, more explicit age warning? Yes, yes, yes.

On Behalf of Zyn

ProcyonLotor 03 Jun 2014 18:00

"Dragging the ordeal onto the site would likely result in questions, condemnations, etc etc and probably a bunch of paranoia. The mainsite, I feel, is /not/ the place to be discussing this sort of thing, especially given the relative disorganized quality of the forum threads anyway. Furthermore, I don't want it to end up in people expounding the wrongness etc. of those involved's actions, and then have it spiral into a lockdown or staff post - closed fest. Basically, it's not a can of worms the site needs, or even wants."
e: That's a 'no'.

Last edited on 03 Jun 2014 18:01 by ProcyonLotor Show more

Re: Slenderman murder

SoullessSingularity 03 Jun 2014 18:36

No, I don't want to associate this site with their behavior. Seriously, most people wouldn't even associate creepypasta with SCP. The vast majority of people are hardly going to show up going "I looked up creepypasta and found this site! So you guys cause murders right?"

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Re: Slenderman murder

Dexanote 03 Jun 2014 19:31

We don't need to link ourselves with Slenderman. We havent in the past, and we don't need to start now.

Re: Slenderman murder

thedeadlymoose 04 Jun 2014 03:21

I don't object to saying something, and I don't object to not saying something. I think it's disingenuous to pretend we aren't associated strongly with creepypasta and therefore associated very tangentially with Slenderman (even though we've made a point to not associate ourselves with the character because why on earth would we, we're writing fiction unrelated to that character), but I also think it could be borderline self-aggrandizing to make an Official Statement about the situation. I think acts of sympathy are generally worthwhile on principle… but no one (certainly not the family) is exactly clamoring for it or feels we have anything to with this (and we didn't). Individual statements I don't have any issue with.

I am 100% fine with a more explicit age warning. Suggestions?

Re: Slenderman murder

Dexanote 04 Jun 2014 19:43

I think we should make it straight up visible somewhere. Nestled in the Site Rules, maybe?

Re: Slenderman murder

thedeadlymoose 05 Jun 2014 01:37

I think we should make it straight up visible somewhere. Nestled in the Site Rules, maybe?

It's explicitly stated several times on the Join This Site page, if that's what you mean?

Re: Slenderman murder

Drewbear 04 Jun 2014 12:30

Now that I've had a day to reflect on this, I agree that doing a blackout would be gross overkill. I do still think that we should acknowledge it in some way, even if just a News Item saying something like "Although these events were not directly connected this site, as members of the larger creepypasta community we offer our condolences to the victim and wish her a swift and complete recovery."

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Slenderman murder

Drewbear 04 Jun 2014 12:41

Also, Vincent_Redgrave sent me the following yesterday for inclusion to this discussion:

Maybe the internet and community outreach teams could work together to draft a PSA? I considered writing something up for the FB page, but [personal stuff not relevant to this discussion].

I feel as a (somewhat) prominent community in the horror fiction family, we ought to say something, condemning these sorts of actions, reminding people of the fictional nature of our work, encouraging people who think like this to seek help, stuff like that. I know we have a ton of impressionable newbies with an unhealthy obsession for a very Slendy-esque character on our site (the Plague Doctor/049), so this kind of set an alarm bell in my head

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Slenderman murder

Dexanote 04 Jun 2014 19:52

See like, what would we say? Creepypasta.com has an absolutely fantastic statement already regarding the event. If people insist we do a PSA or statement I beg that it's brief and to the point, and preferably redirect people to that page. I mean, it's from one of the admins of Creepypasta.com themselves. It's not our place to override and ignore his very eloquently written statement with our own, a day and a half after the fact.

What I recommend is that if Vincent (and other Outreach members) feel its necessary (which it can be argued that it'd be polite to), we succinctly offer our thoughts/wellwishes and redirect to Sloshedtrain's post there. I can't quite articulate how but it seems rude to not to.

EDIT My position, TLDR, is "If we do anything, its put somewhere clearly that this is fiction.". I suggest Newbie Guide, because everyone is supposed to have read that anyway.

"The SCP Wiki is a collaborative writing website centered on fiction relating to the universe of the SCP FOundation."

In bold is more than enough.

[20:31] Devereaux Dexanote: For the rules you could phrase it as "Trying to propagate the idea that the Foundation isn't fictional is against the rules."

^ I'm ok with something like this being added to the Site Rules if people still want it.

Last edited on 05 Jun 2014 00:38 by Dexanote Show more

Re: Slenderman murder

eric_h 04 Jun 2014 20:21

This kind of freaked me out when I read it, both in making me think about the potential effects writing here has on people, and also because these kids are from a local suburb — Waukesha's about 20 minutes from here.

I think it's an isolated incident, and seriously wonder what people missed about the perpetrators — people don't do stuff like that out of the blue, but still…it's disturbing.

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