Bright Works Proposal Draft: Remove and Counter Bright's Influence

Remove and Counter Bright’s Influence

What is This?

This proposal recommends the deletion of the vast majority of Bright's1 works, while paying special attention to the handful of remaining works which need particular handling due to the potential for future harm caused by their prominence.

Up-front:

  • Proposal recommends either (A) deleting SCP-963’s original text, or (B) retaining SCP-963’s original text only with annotations pointing out the harmful elements and their impact (as suggested independently by multiple people targeted by Bright).
  • Proposal recommends deleting SCP-1004’s text entirely (along with other extremely harmful works like The Self-Insert, regardless of prominence).
  • More follows.

Much of Bright's harm was furthered by their influence on the site, which was primarily contributed to by their body of writing and status as a former administrator. As such, most of their articles should be simply deleted; however, some articles are persistently influential beyond the site itself, and simple removal would not change this influence. Thus, for a very limited subset of articles, this proposal suggests modifying these works (which includes a disclaimer similar to an updated version of the Bright List deletion message) to link alternative/response works that enable the community to reframe them. This enables us to alter their influence, context, and impact to erase Bright's influence long-term and eventually relegate their legacy to irrelevance.

This proposal focuses on allowing the community to "take back the narrative" by recontextualizing Bright's narrative on the SCP Wiki, counteracting and replacing Bright's influence.

Bright’s pages would be handled accordingly:

  • The vast majority of Bright’s pages are not meaningfully influential (including many of Bright's highly visible pages), except due to the extent that Bright's harmful actions were supported by having an extensive body of work. For these, we outright delete via unlisting2 them.
  • For Bright’s few meaningfully prominent pages, removal does not mitigate their fame (and may even boost it by increasing mystique and encouraging users to seek them out elsewhere).
    • Therefore, for these few remaining pages, each would be modified to allow linking to alternative pieces, re-imaginings, response pieces, and anything else that addresses the work, as created by the community.
    • Linking these response pieces would be at the discretion of the individual authors of the pieces (and subject to removal at staff discretion).
    • Each remaining page would include a staff-credited disclaimer explaining the circumstances of Bright’s AHT ban to the extent that such is possible and warning users against pursuing interaction with the author.
    • To avoid readers seeking material offsite in uncontrolled/pro-abuser alternative sources, the original text may be kept in a collapsible at the bottom of the page, below the additional material delineated above, to deprioritize its prominence. This will ultimately be a very small number of pages, limited to the most impactful to the wider readership.
      • All retained text is intended to include annotations pointing out the harmful elements and their impact. (There already exist staff volunteers to work on this aspect independent of a staff team.)
      • Bright's removed pages can still trigger seeking their text offsite, but the risk is much lower, either because interest is lower, or because the removed text does not connect to Bright's other work in a way meaningful to the wider readership.
    • This approach allows us to reframe these works by community voice to change their influence, context, and impact.

SCP Slot Recycling: One of the best ways of removing Bright’s prominence would be to minimize their presence in the SCP Series everywhere reasonably possible. This includes minimizing slots taken up with disclaimers referring to Bright or redirects to the Bright Note.

  • Therefore, this proposal suggests that if there is no apparent harm in recycling the slot number with a new SCP (which is for most slots, with exceptions noted), then the slot be freed up for replacement with new unrelated works, under staff guidance where needed.
    • Bright’s deleted SCPs would be replaced.
    • If a Bright SCP is retained, and is not strongly associated with its number (and if there is no harm in replacing the slot number with a new SCP), then we remove the SCP from the slot, change it to a Tale (does not require reposting the page), and replace the SCP.
  • With this plan, most former Bright SCP URLs would contain entirely new works at the original URL. This will result in some confusion.
    • However, this proposal aims primarily to avoid harmful confusion, and balance this with removing influence and prominence.
    • Therefore, slot replacement should be done everywhere that does not risk excessive harm (for example, SCP-963 should not be replaced with an unrelated SCP).
  • This proposal currently suggests deletion or slot removal for all Bright SCPs except for SCP-963 and possibly SCP-1004, which as stated above must be handled more aggressively to ensure they do not cause any future harm that we are able to prevent.

Please note: All recommended choices for handling each work are informed suggestions, and are subject to change through staff discussion.

Additional details:

  • Crediting: To further decrease prominence, we will minimize Bright’s page credits to the minimum required.
    • Credit may be within the page itself instead of the metadata (if confirmed by Licensing).
    • Credit will be changed to TheDuckman (see further details).
  • We can include piecemeal additional solutions wherever needed. For example:
    • Minor Edits: For remaining text written by Bright (hidden under collapsible), we can delete easy-to-remove egregiously harmful material. This would be extremely limited in scope by necessity and cannot cover more difficult-to-remove material.

This allows community authors to outshine Bright directly, undercutting Bright’s fame and influence in ways Bright the author went to great lengths to stop in the past. This approach creates a way for the community to actively negate the harm caused by Bright.

What Issues Does This Proposal Address?

Issue: Harmful Works Authored By Bright

Details: Bright used their works and the fame gained thereby to manipulate their victims. The works continue to amplify Bright's visibility simply by existing. Even in the author's absence from the site, these works might still lead vulnerable persons to interact with Bright.

All Bright works are inherently harmful as a result of their role in perpetuating Bright's legacy and influence. The reason why works are classified as 'Harmful', 'Ambiguously Harmful', or 'Non-Overtly Harmful' is based on the literal content of each work. Works classified as Harmful are works that were considered to have the most harmful content, notably content involving harmful portrayals of subjects such as sexual assault, the degradation of woman, abuse of minors, and the normalization of abuse and control — all of which was used to manipulate victims. Ambiguously Harmful Works refer to pages that contain content that is to a lesser-degree as harmful as outright Harmful works, or could be read as not overtly harmful. Non-Overtly Harmful Works are works where the content has no apparent issues. There is no such thing as a Bright page that is non-harmful. All of Bright's pages perpetuated their influence and reach.

Resolution: While Bright's less prominent works will stop existing in the popular consciousness if deleted, a few of their more prominent ones will not, so this proposal reframes these works and removes the rest. For any undeleted works, a disclaimer is added so we can prevent readers from seeking these works off-site and being harmed by them, or being pulled into the orbit of their author. A disclaimer above each article would allow potential readers of these works to learn why Bright was removed from the site and why they should not attempt to contact the author. All retained text is intended to include annotations pointing out the harmful elements and their impact. This would also provide context to the questionable content of the works affected, preventing the misreading of the content as being acceptable or worthy of praise. For the (extremely few) undeleted SCPs, if they are not associated with their numbers, removing them from the SCP series reduces their visibility and existing influence. For undeleted harmful works, opening up to response pieces allows the community to answer this influence directly. Certain harmful works would have extra care: for example, the SCP-963 page should have its primary image deleted at minimum, even if the rest of the original text is kept with annotations under collapsible. Other alternatives for handling SCP-963 (including removing/replacing the text) will also be presented, as well as for some other articles. Deleting Bright's less prominent works will reduce their potential harm with minimal negative effect. As very few people significantly care about these stories, readers are unlikely to seek them offsite.

This is Resolved When: Issue is resolved when: the vast majority of Bright's works are deleted (unlisted); all remaining works have a disclaimer added, opened for response pieces (where appropriate), and original page text hidden/collapsed/annotated/deleted (per individual article assessment); slots recycled in the SCP series (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs); any agreed-on special steps are completed (see individual article assessments); and wherever necessary, attribution is changed to 'TheDuckMan' (credits are moved to the licensebox and in any collapsible, but NOT page attribution).

Issue: Ambiguously Harmful Works Authored By Bright

Details: As above.
Resolution: As above.

This is Resolved When: As above.

Issue: Non-Overtly Harmful Works Authored By Bright

Details: As above.
Resolution: As above.

This is Resolved When: As above.

Issue: Bright's Co-Authored Page(s)

Details: Of the 63 pages authored by Bright, only one was a collaboration with another wiki author, that being SCP-902. As this page does not contain any material deemed harmful by staff and was written in part by another author, removing this page entirely would raise additional questions about staff's ability to unilaterally delete an author's work if it does not break any existing rules.
Resolution: 'AdminBright' would be removed from the page's licensebox and replaced with 'TheDuckMan'. (For more explanation of this solution, see Re-attribution under Why This Solution?) 'AdminBright' would be removed from the page's metadata and replaced with 'TheDuckMan'. Unlike all other Bright pages, any disclaimer added to this page is at the discretion of the co-author and does not need to be handled by staff.

Additionally, while this is not staff action, the wiki author in question has a work-in-progress rewrite to replace the version of this article co-authored with Bright, which will eliminate content created by Bright.

This is Resolved When: This issue will be considered resolved when 'AdminBright' has been removed from the page's licensebox and metadata, and replaced with 'TheDuckMan.'

Issue: Rewriting Bright's Pages

Details: There is an occasional push to re-write these pages to remove the offensive material.

This is Resolved When: This proposal does not recommend any significant rewriting. The only relevant portions concern the option to remove egregious material at staff discretion for any undeleted pages, as covered in specific entries, and limited to easy-to-implement revisions. This should not fall on the plate of the Rewrite Team.

Issue: Bright's Contributions to Series

Details: Some of Bright's pages are part of series involving contributions by other authors.
Resolution: For series/canons impacted by removed or altered works, the runner(s) of that series/canon will be contacted, informing them of this proposal, allowing them to respond in advance (by removing dead links and rewriting plot holes etc). Series editors still on the site may also decide to unlink Bright's undeleted articles from their series (if any).

This is Resolved When: All runners of impacted series/canons have been contacted.

Issue: The Slots

Details: Bright's works take up several high-profile SCP slots, and their potential usage in the event of deletion is a matter of contention. Some of Bright's tales have URLs which could potentially be used by newly posted tales, resulting in confusion and unwanted attention either to those new authors or towards Bright.
Resolution: Some confusion is inevitable. This proposal aims primarily to avoid harmful confusion, and secondarily to limit excessive confusion, and balance this with removing and countering Bright’s influence and prominence. The vast majority of Bright's SCPs will be deleted and the slots freed up. SCP-963 and SCP-1004 would be permanently frozen to their present slots with text deletion or annotation and included disclaimers, and would now act as warnings and permanent records. Any remaining undeleted SCPs (if any) would be removed from the SCP series, and their slots freed up for unrelated SCPs (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs). The reason for opening up almost all Bright SCP slots is to decrease Bright's prominence on the wiki, and therefore we want to minimize the presence of Bright's works in the main SCP series except where necessary to make acknowledgements for harm prevention reasons. Confusion should be relatively acceptable (relatively non-harmful) for opening SCP slots besides SCP-963 and SCP-1004.

The Bright Note would be expanded to include a full list of removed or altered works, as well as the reasons for their alteration or removal from the wiki, to reduce confusion in users wondering what happened to Bright's deleted works, and also to protect vulnerable users who might attempt to contact Bright. Especially dangerous deleted non-SCP URLs would be made to redirect to the Bright Note.

This is Resolved When: The Bright Note is updated, and all slots are resolved or recycled.

Issue: Off-Site Works that Backlink to Bright's Pages / Slot Shock

Details: Removing Bright's works would result in backlinks no longer functioning, and leaving the slots empty or replacing them could produce negative reactions from users expecting to find what they previously found at those URLs.
Resolution: For the most harmful/impactful URLs, these will now include disclaimers (or potentially a redirect to the modified Bright Note). Backlinks become a potential means of educating potential readers about Bright's actions. For more, see Issue: The Slots.

This is Resolved When: As above, and when any Bright Note redirects are implemented.

Issue: Supplementary Pages

Details: There exist pages not written by Bright that act as supplements to pages written by Bright.
Resolution: Backlinks should be amended or removed as appropriate. Disclaimers on the few remaining Bright works (or redirects to the Bright Note) ensure that the original articles are still viewed in their proper light. Whether supplementary pages written by other author require disclaimers for being based on works by Bright also require disclaimers about the originator of those concepts is beyond the scope of this project. For any undeleted SCPs, direct supplement pages should be treated as the parent page (currently does not apply in practice). Deleted/unlisted SCPs with direct supplements should also have their supplements deleted/unlisted.

This is Resolved When: All impacted supplements are addressed. If the disclaimer issue is seen as an issue that needs addressing — it will be resolved through a separate initiative.

Issue: Handling Bright's Harm

Details: Bright is responsible for a great deal of harm toward SCP Wiki members, community members, and others. Bright's works enabled this harm, and continue to do so. The SCP Wiki should act to mitigate harm already done, and prevent further harm being done, to whatever extent we can.
Resolution: The whole purpose of attacking and replacing Bright’s influence and prominence is to address this harm as best as possible: for the vast majority of Bright's works, deletion and URL recycling helps the articles be further forgotten; deletion of less prominent works potentially reduces future harm caused by hosting the articles on the SCP Wiki, without significant risk of readers seeking the material offsite with uncontrolled/pro-abuser alternative sources; and where necessary, deletion without URL release and redirecting to the Bright List message will provide some contextual information for users.

For a few of Bright's most prominent pieces, since the harmful influence of these works can't be removed where it already exists too strongly, the harm can be reduced by using disclaimers and reframing to show these works for what they are — tools of abuse.

The added disclaimer serves as a key aspect of mitigating the harm of the most influential pieces by using the prominence of said works to bring attention to Bright's action and the dangers of associating with them. The disclaimer will permanently shadow Bright's remaining works, serving as a warning and as an explanation. By modifying Bright's few remaining pages to allow the linking of response pieces, re-imaginings, and more, this approach creates a way for the community to actively negate the harm caused by Bright.

Bright used the prominence of their wiki pages to spread their personal myth, and as a part of their predatory behaviors; the community has been unable to change that fact to a point where deletion would only sweep it under the rug. Being able to reimagine and reinterpret these most prominent pages allows the current community to alter and erode Bright's legacy on the site.

This is Resolved When: This cannot ever be fully resolved. The permanent maintenance of these disclaimers is one means of attempting ongoing resolution efforts.

Issue: Off-Site Reaction

Details: Any act involving the works of Bright will inevitably attract attention from the off-site portion of our community, which may not be fully informed. Reaction to any possible proposal may result in the impression that staff has chosen to do little to address the underlying issues or treat the problem of Bright with an appropriate amount of care.
Resolution: As this proposal includes a high amount of effort and care with how each category of Bright’s works are handled, and allows community contribution to harmful remaining works, it should help address concerns that staff are addressing the issues with appropriate effort and care. Proper Community Outreach efforts to explain why this solution was implemented should be made in order to ensure that there is no mixed messaging: a statement would be written in advance of any actions taken, to explain why staff took said actions; Community Outreach would be made aware of any changes being made, and would help draft the written statement; and this statement would be posted publicly when this proposal has been enacted. Disclaimers will be published on all retained articles which will help explain the solution. All retained text is intended to include annotations pointing out the harmful elements and their impact. The Bright Note would be updated to further explain the situation, and some deleted pages would be replaced with redirects. These will supplement the Community Outreach-assisted staff statement.

This is Resolved When: Deleting the bulk of Bright’s works, adding disclaimers, and posting the explanation will resolve the majority of work involved with this issue. Other aspects, such as continually addressing confusion and explaining the rationale, will be ongoing indefinitely, as with any proposal.

Issue: Issues Regarding Staff Mass Deletions

Details: The ability of staff to mass delete SCP Wiki pages, as has been suggested with Bright's works, is controversial.
Resolution: Using different treatments based on the specific impact of each of Bright's works indicates that staff is approaching the issue carefully and not simply deleting with a broad stroke or on a whim. Also co-opting Bright's few remaining works to warn users about the author (with disclaimers and linked response pieces) indicates that staff are not simply mass-deleting to wash their hands of the issue or to avoid dealing with future consequences. While these points may serve to assuage fears that the staff of the SCP Wiki intend to embark on any campaigns of mass-deletion, they do not prevent the impression that staff will engage in irreversible retaliatory action when a user has been banned by the Anti-Harassment Team. The issue cannot be fully mitigated by this proposal; however, it may be the best option out of any choice that also balances mitigating Bright's harm and prominence via the deletion of most of their works.

This is Resolved When: This cannot be fully resolved by this proposal, but partial resolution is complete when the proposal is complete and all articles have been addressed.

Issue: INT Translations

Details: Many of Bright's works have been translated to other language branches.
Resolution: For pages with a disclaimer added: the other branches should be encouraged, via the Ambassador Team, to translate our disclaimer and add it to the relevant pages, with special attention given to ensuring that our reasons for doing this are clear to the staff of those branches. For other pages: the other branches should be encouraged, via the Ambassador Team, to reflect our approach in their translations of Bright's articles and/or to subject their translations to the same process (as their assessments of influence may differ based on the branch), with special attention given to ensuring that our altruistic reasons for doing this are clear to the staff of those branches. How each branch chooses to act is ultimately up to them.

This is Resolved When: At the present time, -EN has gathered a list of all translations of Bright’s pages, sorted by international branch. This includes both official and unofficial branches, and will be provided to all relevant branches, as well as the full documentation created through this process. This includes the reviewed list of all works with rationale, proposals considered, as well as the solution chosen. This will be a lengthy process that each International Branch will be able to undertake independently, and come to their own resolutions; however, that is beyond the scope for -EN staff. Once communication has been opened with all relevant branches, and when the relevant resources have been shared, this will be considered resolved for -EN.

What Pages are Addressed by This Proposal?

Overall Rationale
This proposal focuses on harm and influence to assess what should be best done about each of Bright’s works.

  • The goal is to mitigate harm (including potential harm).
  • Any influence of Bright’s works is considered intrinsically harmful. (For this reason, there is no such thing as a non-harmful Bright work.)
    • Deletion sufficiently eliminates potential influence (where it doesn’t already exist).
    • Deletion sufficiently eliminates existing minor influence.
    • Deletion does not sufficiently eliminate existing major influence (and may backfire by increasing influence).
  • Since the focus is on harm, this proposal does not focus on whether content is problematic (though those staff assessments are cross-referenced).
  • Otherwise non-overtly harmful pieces are harmful intrinsically due to uncritically platforming Bright.

All pages authored by Bright will be assessed and removed, or for pages featuring existing major relevant influence, sufficiently altered in form and function. A full list is included below, with context and recommendations for action.

Reminder: If this proposal is chosen, the specific details of handling each page will be negotiated among staff before approval, and then potentially confirmed by vote. Staff does not need to agree on all specific minutiae here to choose this proposal.

Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs
A key piece of this proposal is that the vast majority of Bright’s SCP articles will be removed and have their slots replaced with new, unrelated SCPs. This proposal calls this process slot recycling, because it removes the Bright SCP but reuses its slot for something entirely different.

The goal is to erase Bright's legacy by deleting the vast majority of their SCPs and having them fade into obscurity as they are overshadowed by their unrelated replacements.

Rationale for Slot Recycling:

  • The Bright SCPs being considered for recycling are not meaningfully well-known by their SCP numbers.
  • For these articles, their known influence or infamy is not wide-ranging enough to recommend against recycling their slots.
  • For these articles, breaking off-site backlinks is less likely to cause excessive harmful attention to an unrelated replacement piece, because the articles are not prominent or influential enough.
    • Additionally, most are barely associated with Bright (the character or author).
  • Recycling these slots helps to erase Bright's legacy, and does not risk calling further attention to Bright with a permanent empty SCP slot that was not necessary to retain.
  • However, there is still some risk of harmful attention.
  • This proposal recommends recycling all Bright SCP slots except for SCP-963 and SCP-1004, which are handled specially (see below). This is because, arguably, only these SCP numbers are truly associated with Bright’s personal brand or personal harm on a broad scale.
    • This proposal argues that the best way to minimize and counter Bright’s influence is to minimize Bright’s presence in the main SCP Series altogether, including avoiding numerous or contentless redirects to the Bright Note.

How We Will Handle Slot Recycling:

  • Impacted SCP articles will either be moved (renamed) or deleted entirely (per guidelines).
  • The SCP slots will be freed up, to be reused with new, unrelated SCPs. This proposal recommends that recycling take place under staff oversight (see below).
  • See the following sections for a list of which Bright SCPs will be recycled in the SCP Series.
    • If a Bright SCP is retained and removed from the SCP Series, the page's title and URL should be updated to have it exist as a tale. This is to disconnect it from the SCP Series and not have the article retain space in a high-profile location, drawing attention to Bright.

Staff To Oversee Replacement

  • Slots should be filled by some special staff-determined method (allowing staff to limit the potential topics that could create harm by replacement, as well as other damage), or otherwise by staff discretion.
    • This method will need to be determined by staff separately or along with approving this proposal.
  • See following sections for a list of which SCPs will be replaced in the SCP Series.

Content Warnings: The following lists of works may feature mentions of pedophilia, sexual abuse, bestiality and abusive manipulation.

Works to be Deleted and Recycled

What is Being Done?

  • Pages in this category will be deleted (unlisted).
  • The SCP slots will be freed up and the URLs will be released, to be reused with new, unrelated SCPs. (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs).
  • For non-SCP works, one of two options:
    • If there is low risk of harm to URL recycling, then the URLs will be released according to the above procedure.
    • If there is high risk of harm to URL recycling, then the URLs will be redirected to the Bright Note, with updated text.
    • Recommendations will be presented for each work.

Rationale for Action
Deletion of these works is considered the best choice because:

  • Pages in this category are not considered meaningfully influential or prominent. There is little apparent benefit to be gained from using these articles as a vehicle for explanatory disclaimers or opening to response pieces.
    • There is less benefit to working to avoid readers seeking the material offsite in uncontrolled/pro-abuser alternative sources.
  • Some of the articles are highly visible for various reasons (such as having prominent SCP Series slots), but this is not the same as influential, and should not be a mark against deletion.
  • SCP articles in this category are largely not well-known by their numbers, minimizing the negative impact of replacement (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs for more rationale).

Reminder: All works can have their recommendations changed and move sections.

There are currently 16 SCPs and 34 other pages in this category (the vast majority of all Bright articles).

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SCPs to Be Removed from the SCP Series

What is Being Done?

  • Pages in this category (which must be minimal) will be retained due to prominence, but removed from the SCP Series and changed to a tale.
    • Disclaimer with explanation will be added per proposal.
    • Pages will be retitled and the URLs changed (potentially to the SCP’s title).
    • The original page text may be kept in a collapsible at the bottom of the page, below any other material, to deprioritize its prominence.
    • Text will be modified with annotations (not retained as-is).
    • Pages will be opened to response pieces.
      • Removal of response pieces is at staff discretion.
  • The SCP slots will be freed up and the URLs will be released, to be replaced with new unrelated SCPs (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs).

Rationale for Action
Retainment of these works (with removal & replacement from the SCP Series, added disclaimer, and opening to response pieces) is considered the best choice because:

  • Pages in this category are considered meaningfully prominent, and therefore can be used as educational devices for the prevention of harm, and/or other reframing.
    • Reasons will be laid out in the individual page details, along with individual impact assessment of potential deletion.
    • Due to this, there is harm reduction benefit to be gained from retaining the article and adding disclaimers.
  • There is harm reduction benefit to working to avoid readers seeking the material offsite in uncontrolled/pro-abuser alternative sources.
    • These pages represent significant harmful influence that should be countered if possible. Therefore, there is significant harm reduction benefit to be gained from opening to response pieces.
  • SCP articles in this category are not meaningfully associated with their numbers, minimizing negative impact of replacement (see Handling Slot Recycling for Bright SCPs for more rationale).

Reminder: All works can have their recommendations changed and move sections.

There are currently 3 page(s) in this category.

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SCP-963 and SCP-1004

(SCPs to Be Kept in SCP Series Due to Prominence, which are currently limited to these two)

What is Being Done?

  • Pages will be kept in the SCP Series.
    • Disclaimer with explanation will be added per proposal.
    • Text will be deleted or modified (not retained as-is). See below for more details.
    • Pages will be opened to response pieces.
      • Additional reasoning here is is to avoid these SCP Series slots “belonging” to Bright in perpetuity without any capability of the community weighing in on the piece, even with disclaimer. Staff will oversee such pages to prevent future misuse. Removal of response pieces is at staff discretion. As with all elements of this proposal, this aspect is subject to change (more details in page notes).

Rationale for Action
Retainment of SCP-963 and SCP-1004 in the SCP Series (with added disclaimer, and opening to response pieces) is considered the best choice because:

  • Both these pages are considered meaningfully prominent, and therefore can be used as educational devices for the prevention of harm, and/or other reframing. Due to this, there is harm reduction benefit to be gained from retaining in the SCP Series and adding disclaimers.
    • These pages represent significant harmful influence that should be countered if possible. Therefore, there is significant harm reduction benefit to be gained from opening to response pieces.
  • SCP-963 and SCP-1004 are meaningfully, harmfully associated with their numbers, meaning replacement may have extremely high negative impact.
  • Further rationale below.
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Tales to be Retained With Disclaimer

What is Being Done?

  • Pages in this category (which must be minimal) will be retained due to prominence.
    • Disclaimer with explanation will be added per proposal.
    • The original page text may be kept in a collapsible at the bottom of the page, below any other material, to deprioritize its prominence.
    • Text will be modified with annotations (not retained as-is).
    • Pages will be opened to response pieces.
    • Removal of response pieces is at staff discretion.

Rationale for Action
Retainment of these works (with added disclaimer, and opening to response pieces) is considered the best choice because:

  • Pages in this category are considered meaningfully influential. Reasons will be laid out in the individual page details, along with individual impact assessment of potential deletion.
    • Due to this, there is harm reduction benefit to be gained from retaining the article and adding disclaimers.
  • There is harm reduction benefit to working to avoid readers seeking the material offsite in uncontrolled/pro-abuser alternative sources.
    • These pages represent significant harmful influence that should be countered if possible. Therefore, there is significant harm reduction benefit to be gained from opening to response pieces.

Reminder: All works can have their recommendations changed and move sections.

There are currently 2 page(s) in this category.

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Co-Authored Pages

There are currently 2 page(s) in this category.

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Step-By-Step Breakdown:

  1. Pre-Removal (Approx 2 weeks)
    • The canon and series runners of collections containing Bright works will be contacted and given a heads up about the process that is going to take place.
    • Community Outreach announcements will be drafted at this time.
    • Staff determine which pieces authored by Bright qualify for removal, or keeping with modification, based on the guidelines of this proposal (This proposal will include suggestions, but staff will need to finalize the list, either by general consensus, or formal vote of standard length).
    • Staff determine which remaining Bright SCPs are also attached to their SCP article numbers (e.g. 963) to the degree that replacing the slot with a new article could cause meaningful harm.
    • Staff determine which remaining Bright pages will also merit inclusion of alternative/reframing pieces, in addition to the disclaimer.
    • The Bright Note is expanded to include a full list of removed or altered works, as well as the reasons for their alteration or removal from the wiki.
  2. Deletion (Approx 1 week)
    • Staff delete (unlist) all Bright works that were selected for removal. Non-SCP URLs would be made to redirect to the Bright Note.
    • Remaining collapsed text written by Bright is changed to be credited in the licensebox and in the collapsible but NOT page attributuion.
    • In the licensebox, 'AdminBright' is replaced with 'TheDuckMan.'
    • If needed, for SCP-902 or any other appropriate pages, 'AdminBright' can be replaced in the page's metadata with 'TheDuckMan.'
    • Staff remove the appropriate remaining Bright SCPs from the SCP Series and change them to Tales. Slots will be released at random, over a given period of time, as has been established through recent staff releases of high-profile SCP Series slots.
  3. Continuing Efforts (Approx 1 week - Indefinite)
    • Disclaimer is created. The following steps are identical to the original disclaimer proposal.
    • An appropriate disclaimer is written to be placed over each of Bright's undeleted articles.
    • This disclaimer should be crafted to provide precisely as much information as the SCP Wiki can provide about the Bright situation within the bounds of legality, in clear and concise language.
    • It should be very clearly an out-of-universe statement.
    • It should provide relevant links, including to Bright's AHT record.
    • It should be visually striking and difficult to ignore.
    • Optionally, but very likely for ease of application and updating, is the creation of an SCP Wiki component for this disclaimer.
    • The disclaimer/disclaimer component is added to each of Bright's undeleted articles.
    • The text of each article is placed in a standardized collapsible beneath the disclaimer.
    • For works determined to benefit from response pieces, a new section is composed and added to the article beneath the disclaimer, but above the collapsed text of the article. Staff will weigh in on the content of these sections.
    • For works determined to benefit from annotations to original text, these will be created, critiqued, and added under staff guidance.
    • Any agreed-on special modifications to specific articles are implemented.

Why This Solution?:

Much of this is covered earlier in this proposal, notably in the opening, as well as Issues, and the per-article recommendations. Following are selected additional or summarized arguments.

Bright’s influence stemmed from self-mythology
Bright gained much power and influence by self-promotion and self-mythologizing themselves as uniquely brilliant. Bright carefully curated their work, leaning into the idea that their work was Bright's work alone and evidence of their personal brilliance. This was always false. Notably, SCP-963 is effectively just an uncredited ripoff of classic SFF concepts, including the classic SFF villain Doro from Octavia Butler's highly influential Patternmaster series. But it was the story Bright told. As such, Bright went through great lengths to disallow edits (even simple grammatical edits) or any response pieces that Bright did not approve of. They abused staff power and their own personal influence to pressure people privately to enforce this status quo. Bright fully understood that their persona and approach would be diminished and undercut by acknowledging and including contributions of others. And that is what this proposal suggests—to allow our community to outshine Bright’s star with our own.

Allows maximum community agency to replace, counter, and reframe Bright’s influence
This proposal would give the community complete agency in addressing, critiquing and replacing the remaining pages tied to Bright (such as: 963 and 1004) — creating a space for and encouraging community done commentary, essays, or comprehensive breakdowns of harmful elements in regards to these articles. This would give members of the wiki the power to recontextualize Bright's narrative and influence, as a first step in redefining Bright's impact on the community.

In addition, in the limited cases where page text is retained, the text would be annotated in a manner that would precisely break down harmful elements and impact that they had.

There will never be a better platform to break down why and how Bright's works are so harmful (and therefore reduce their harm) than in places they have been hosted for years in the first place. Especially because we will never not be associated with articles that have been on the site for so many years, and the most prominent of which are widely available regardless.

Flexibility:
This proposal can be modified to work with expanded deletion. In this case, Bright’s content (or the most harmful or harmful content) is deleted, but “disclaimer-splash” slots can also include links to response pieces where relevant. This proposal can also be modified to work with keeping Bright’s work with added disclaimer. In this case, SCPs still lose slots, and “disclaimer-splash” slots can also include links to response pieces where relevant. In both cases, links to response pieces should only be added to influential pages.

Re-attribution: Note that this applies to any proposal retaining any piece of material that must be attributed to Bright.

TheDuckMan was Bright's username before they changed it to "AdminBright." As of January 2026, their username on the SCP Wiki was changed to display as "TheDuckMan" to make it clear that they are not an administrator of the site and reduce the risk of users associating them with the mythologized character of "Dr. Bright". While Bright was an administrator of the site at one point, they were stripped of their staff privileges and permanently AHT banned from the SCP Wiki and all official spaces in 2022.

Re-attributing remaining works to "TheDuckMan" fits all credit requirements but de-emphasizes the focus on Bright as a mythologized author. Indeed, that was the intent of the author’s temporary name change… before the author doubled down and changed to “AdminBright” which not only emphasized mythologized author-character overlap but emphasized structural power as well. This makes re-attribution extremely vital for all remaining works. It also avoids the risk of users inadvertently messaging Bright, believing them to be an active site admin.

Concerns:

Why not open up ALL of Bright’s SCP slots, like 963? We’ve replaced other famous SCP numbers before.
Because of the concern for further harm. If someone searches for SCP-963, a famous and well-known slot, and finds any other SCPs in that slot, they will be funneled towards searching off-site, which could cause significantly more harm. Such sites are not in our control, and very likely will have no disclaimers about Bright's conduct or associated danger. While this risk does exist for all recycled SCP slots, it is much higher for "famous numbers" which have harmful content. Contrast SCP-963 with SCP-050, the latter of which is not a well-known article or slot at all.

Why not remove ALL harmful material from Bright’s remaining works?
Because in most cases, the harm is contextual or highly difficult to remove, and is better reframed.

Readers may ignore the disclaimers.
However, they will have to engage with the text on the page in order to find the original version of each article. As the re-imaginings and responses will be listed first; this means we are still the source for the original text, but reading comprehension issues will be less likely to result in a visitor entirely missing the point. Ensuring that any number of readers do see and internalize the disclaimers remains a net positive. That something does not solve an entire problem does not mean the problem cannot be addressed at all.

Bright may object to the disclaimers or rewrites.
Assuming proper care is taken with the disclaimer phrasing, the legal threats should be limited. It is unlikely that Bright would wish to call attention to these disclaimers or the recycling process and the reasoning behind both.

Harmful content in these articles will not be removed from the SCP Wiki.
A great deal of content will be removed, and the remaining content will be recontextualized in a way we are uniquely suited to accomplish, with the original texts framed in a manner which makes it clear the harm they have done and could continue to do. All retained text is intended to include annotations pointing out the harmful elements and their impact. This enables countering the harm these works present more effectively than if they had simply been removed with no other action. This proposal involves both coordinated staff action and community involvement, with initial steps which are easy to implement and a plan for further collaborative action to continue to counteract and minimize Bright's legacy.

Bright's works are relatively popular off-site.
This is a problem of its own, which this proposal will help will help to correct. Bright's most offending works will be recontextualized constructively, and awareness will be raised. By enabling some of the basic concepts to remain while harmful aspects are removed or reframed or annotated, off-site spaces will slowly shift their perception of the works to be less in-line with Bright's original vision and intent. Spreading awareness means some off-site groups will work to deprecate these articles in their own communities.

This proposal still partially platforms Bright.
For the most influential Bright works, such as SCP-963, this cannot be eliminated by simply deleting the page. However, by taking advantage of the outside interest to instead redirect it towards education about Bright's abusive behavior, and enable careful response pieces which highlight the harm of Bright (as well as annotations to any retained text pointing out the harmful elements and their impact), these things can happen: Bright's harm is communicated to those who were already interested in their influential works but did not know better; Bright's influence can be eroded by platforming anti-Bright / critical content over Bright's work; Bright’s popular work can be reframed critically to diminish its popularity directly. This provides staff a framework for erasing Bright's influence long-term. Simply deleting all prominent pages and washing our hands of it locks us out of using Bright's cultural capital against them. Additionally, it should be noted that uncritical platforming is fundamentally different from critical platforming. By only exhibiting the bare minimum of Bright's work and surrounding it with context to help previously-unaware viewers understand Bright's harm, the effect is quite different than simply featuring Bright's content or not as-is.

For any retained content, why keep it in a collapsible, instead of further hiding?
If any content is retained, it should be deprioritized as much as possible without hiding it from view to the degree that readers would simply go offsite to read it.
All Bright content retained on-site by proposal guidelines is likely to be trivially accessible offsite already. So the goal is to not give readers (who are seeking the popular original text) a strong reason to go seek those sources (or extended sources with otherwise forgettable content) in ways that could expose them to notable further harm.

What will opening pages to response pieces look like?
Opening to response pieces isn't the same as just opening up the page to anything (e.g. the SCP-001 page which allows any additions), but would be under careful staff oversight. That is, even posting an article on the page will likely not be permitted until staff has (through a process to be established in discussion and voting) exercised oversight.

In practice what this would mean is (to give one example using SCP-963) staff would reject an article that is just a restatement of Bright's version with the serial numbers filed off (and in a way that furthers the article’s harm), but accept an article that, in some way, addresses the fact that SCP-963, Bright (character), and other Bright articles were used by Bright (author) to cause harm.

One example of an acceptable response piece might be a work by a victim using Bright the character, where said character is engaged in malicious behavior which is portrayed as appropriately villainous and non-aspirational, and allows the author to express their feelings and experiences through literature. (This type of work would not be limited to victims, to, among other reasons, avoid victims being unduly targeted, but work that staff does not know comes from a victim would receive more scrutiny by necessity.)

This would serve the purpose of reframing Bright (character and author) as harmful (the "counter" part of "Remove and Counter") as opposed to the glorious portrayal that Bright tried very hard to maintain.

A response piece could also be an out-of-universe essay, either discussing the article as a work of fiction, mechanisms of how abuse and harm occur, or a history on Bright and their use of the work.

Another possible response piece could be an article which doesn't touch Bright as a character at all, and instead is a telling which is:

  1. Entirely removed from Bright's portrayal of concepts and characters, and their endorsement of (harmful) concepts
  2. While also being very keenly aware that their work does not exist in a vacuum and must avoid replicating harmful ideas or unintentionally bringing fame to Bright's legacy or concepts.

This is where staff review is crucial, since any old draft may not have these attributes, even if the draft per se is not "harmful" in the way that the Bright proposals effort used it (as they were assessing a more direct form of harm).

A big part of this, again, is to avoid letting Bright "have the last word", by staff having the slot entirely locked to being used for community erosion of Bright's legacy. We aim to do this by both addressing Bright's harm and introducing concepts meant to deprecate Bright's influence with distinctly non-Bright non-harmful articles, we can counter existing harm and remove future potential for harm.

Our plan is to permit Bright victims a hand in whatever work review process exists. It would be completely voluntary on their part whether they want to participate (a victim, or any community member for that matter, is totally justified in wanting to never deal with Bright or their works again), but there should be the opportunity for commenting on response works and trying to identify areas (even subtle ones) where a response work is not conforming to the properties elucidated above.

The end goal is to completely erode and supersede Bright's legacy.

Will the number of response pieces be limited?
Some advice has been to strictly limit the number of response pieces, and other advice has been to not limit the number but instead the content (so as not to exclude voices from victims in particular, without unduly involuntarily highlighting each response piece as ‘coming from a victim’ and therefore resulting in those authors being targeted). This will be considered along with proposal discussion if chosen.

Will opening to response pieces simply increase the fame of these articles?
There have been concerns about increasing the fame of these articles: we believe it would be impossible to increase the fame of SCP-963 and SCP-1004, at least. For the few remaining articles, the proposal argues that the risk is minor and worthwhile; that said, the proposal allows for disagreement and moving more of these articles to deletion to avoid risking excessively increased fame. This will be considered along with proposal discussion if chosen.

Have we considered other negative consequences of out-of-universe response pieces?
Response pieces will also need staff oversight to ensure they do not have unacceptable negative results for hosting on the wiki, such as unduly opening the wiki to legal consequences for hosting certain statements.

Staff oversight should also be used to avoid encouraging harassment of users as “pedophile defenders” or the like. Notably, we don't want to paint everyone who has written or used Bright the character as endorsing pedophilic or otherwise predatory behaviors; we will heavily discourage harmful usage of the character or adjacent elements, but we do not want to endorse labeling people as being supportive of a pedophile, as this is a tactic that people like Bright heavily take advantage of to isolate victims.

Staff will consider additional potential negative consequences as they are raised.

Final Summary:

The vast majority of Bright's works will be deleted outright. SCP-963 and SCP-1004 will be updated with a disclaimer to contextualize Bright's harm, with the original text of SCP-963 being placed in a collapsible at the bottom to dissuade readers from seeking it out offsite in uncontrolled/pro-abuser scenarios; this original text will be annotated to further contextualize the harm perpetuated by the work. (SCP-963 specifically may be replaced with a reimagining mitigating the work's harm as well.) Other remaining works (currently 3 other SCPs, 2 Tales) will be treated with the same process as SCP-963 (disclaimer, collapsed text with annotation), but the other SCPs may have their slots recycled so that other users can use the slots for unrelated works. Selected remaining works (currently all) are opened to response pieces under staff oversight.

  • Ambassador Team
    • Contacting other international branches to inform them that this proposal will be taking place, alongside recommended action for translations of Bright's works.
  • Community Outreach & AHT
    • Drafting disclaimers for works retained in URLs (currently 5 SCPs, 2 Tales), and an updated Bright List Deletion Message.
  • Tech
    • Unlisting Bright's works such that nonstaff cannot access them and creating replacement pages for special cases (e.g. 963).
    • Determining the optimal way to unlist Bright's works.
Footnotes
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