TV Tropes jumps the shark

[OracleofWuffing]

Many have stated that the issue is because of Google, but FastEddie and his partner's rather inflammatory statements, nazi-like banning of anyone who disagrees with them, and blind page deletion reveals a slightly different picture of the issue.

Can we please have a better clarification of this "blind page deletion" accusation? I mean, the two major examples brought up in this thread were classified on TVTropes as Hentai prior to the event (presumedly by people who followed the series and contributed to the page) or contained explicit scenes. It really doesn't sound blind to me.

If they're only doing this because of Google, either they should find another ad company, or they should have forewarned people before randomly deleting pages.

They've previously tried to find other ad companies. They found that the competition simply does not compare to the revenue they get from Adsense.

Take a look at The Edit History on the same page that lists TVTropes' rules and policies. The Wiki Content Guideline saying that they don't want explicit sex is not new, and The Troping Code says that nastiness will not be tolerated. Sounds like forewarning to me, and that's setting aside that the nature of wiki software means that pages get deleted all the time for plenty of different reasons.

[KnightDisciple]

...Are we still calling these guys "nazi-like"? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Let's put aside how violently that invokes Godwin's Law for a moment.

Can all of you people frothing at the mouth about how some of the skeezy stuff's getting cleaned up, and some causalities are getting caught in the crossfire, back up for about 120 seconds?

Backed up? Good.

Now maybe gain some perspective that a.)no one's been hurt at all in this, b.)while pages are deleted from this site, there's nothing restricting your freedom from going other places and putting them up there, and c.)this has got to be one of the biggest cases of First World Problem Nerdrage I've ever seen.

This isn't about some legitimately scary law from a government, or a strict policy from an ISP. At best, it's about slightly overzealous policies from an ad group. And how those choices/policies translate to one specific site, a site that's a wacky collection of "tropes" that's really kind of lost its way a while ago, and that's clearly caught up in the idea of it's own self importance.

But the way you people are reacting? You'd think governments were burning public libraries.

Seriously, back down on the stupidly hyperbolic rhetoric, please. Words like "frustrating" and even "distasteful" are totally fine. But "evil" or "nazi-like" have no place here when this world is already full to the brim with actual evil that most all of us privileged people never even get near. We sit safe in our homes while in probably 3/4 of the world people have to deal with genuine evil every day. So seeing you people try to paint this as anything other than something you don't like on a website (they changed it now it sucks, amiright?) is dishonest, disingenuous, and disrespectful.

Seriously people. Get a perspective check.

[Lord Seth]

...Are we still calling these guys "nazi-like"? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Let's put aside how violently that invokes Godwin's Law for a moment.

Can all of you people frothing at the mouth about how some of the skeezy stuff's getting cleaned up, and some causalities are getting caught in the crossfire, back up for about 120 seconds?

Backed up? Good.

Now maybe gain some perspective that a.)no one's been hurt at all in this, b.)while pages are deleted from this site, there's nothing restricting your freedom from going other places and putting them up there, and c.)this has got to be one of the biggest cases of First World Problem Nerdrage I've ever seen.

This isn't about some legitimately scary law from a government, or a strict policy from an ISP. At best, it's about slightly overzealous policies from an ad group. And how those choices/policies translate to one specific site, a site that's a wacky collection of "tropes" that's really kind of lost its way a while ago, and that's clearly caught up in the idea of it's own self importance.

But the way you people are reacting? You'd think governments were burning public libraries.

Seriously, back down on the stupidly hyperbolic rhetoric, please. Words like "frustrating" and even "distasteful" are totally fine. But "evil" or "nazi-like" have no place here when this world is already full to the brim with actual evil that most all of us privileged people never even get near. We sit safe in our homes while in probably 3/4 of the world people have to deal with genuine evil every day. So seeing you people try to paint this as anything other than something you don't like on a website (they changed it now it sucks, amiright?) is dishonest, disingenuous, and disrespectful.

Seriously people. Get a perspective check.

Quoted For Truth.

[Frozen_Feet]

I've never read KnJ, but neither have you, so we seem to be on a level playing field.

For the record, I have both watched the show and the read the manga. And while overall, the manga takes its subject matter fairly seriously and treats it with respect, it also includes many pointlessly revealing pictures that would be very hard to justify as anything else than child pornography to an out-of-context viewer. This makes the series very uncomfortable to peruse. Granted, I'm certain that awkwardness is partially intentional from the part of the author.

I will also not that KnJ is perhaps the most accurate fictional portrayal of how 10 to 12 year old girls actually act.

[Seraph]

Can we please have a better clarification of this "blind page deletion" accusation? I mean, the two major examples brought up in this thread were classified on TVTropes as Hentai prior to the event (presumedly by people who followed the series and contributed to the page) or contained explicit scenes. It really doesn't sound blind to me.

the page for Nabokov's Lolita was wiped, and when it was brought up on the forums, Fast Eddie was openly hostile to people asking for its reinstatement and responded with, and I quote directly from the forums (with emphasis added,) "Yes, I think it would be a great idea to cut Lolita, since it comes up every time someone wants to quibble about what is or isn't pedo trash. It certainly isn't a work important for any other reason."

The administrator of a wiki on media and literature openly dismissing one of the landmark novels of the 20th century. Fast Eddie, ladies and gentlemen.

He then followed it up by openly stating that he did not give a **** about what anyone else on the site believed, only to recant when his moderator team more or less implied mutiny, and even then said he would only reinstate it after "every fanfic, anime, and manga work about pedophilia" was deleted. (Nice of him to be so bizzarely precise in the forms of media he wants gone, by the way.)

[Maxios]

...Are we still calling these guys "nazi-like"? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Let's put aside how violently that invokes Godwin's Law for a moment.

Can all of you people frothing at the mouth about how some of the skeezy stuff's getting cleaned up, and some causalities are getting caught in the crossfire, back up for about 120 seconds?

Backed up? Good.

Now maybe gain some perspective that a.)no one's been hurt at all in this, b.)while pages are deleted from this site, there's nothing restricting your freedom from going other places and putting them up there, and c.)this has got to be one of the biggest cases of First World Problem Nerdrage I've ever seen.

This isn't about some legitimately scary law from a government, or a strict policy from an ISP. At best, it's about slightly overzealous policies from an ad group. And how those choices/policies translate to one specific site, a site that's a wacky collection of "tropes" that's really kind of lost its way a while ago, and that's clearly caught up in the idea of it's own self importance.

But the way you people are reacting? You'd think governments were burning public libraries.

Seriously, back down on the stupidly hyperbolic rhetoric, please. Words like "frustrating" and even "distasteful" are totally fine. But "evil" or "nazi-like" have no place here when this world is already full to the brim with actual evil that most all of us privileged people never even get near. We sit safe in our homes while in probably 3/4 of the world people have to deal with genuine evil every day. So seeing you people try to paint this as anything other than something you don't like on a website (they changed it now it sucks, amiright?) is dishonest, disingenuous, and disrespectful.

Seriously people. Get a perspective check.

My thoughts exactly.

[Traab]

"every fanfic, anime, and manga work about pedophilia" was deleted. (Nice of him to be so bizzarely precise in the forms of media he wants gone, by the way.)

In all fairness, those are the media types that are most likely to include underage sexual scenarios. I mean hell, half of naruto relationships in fanfics tend to be squicky if you think about them too much considering they start sleeping together pre timeskip when they are like 12-14 years old or so. You wont see many marvel or dc comics written around pre teens seducing their teachers or other similar scenarios, but manga has its fair share of legitimate published works that are either devoted to just that, or have occasional scenes that involve underage people in sexual or semi sexual scenarios. Same for anime and western cartoons. I cant call up any specific titles for japanese anime along those lines as I find it personally disturbing and distasteful, but I know they are there.

[Drolyt]

Well, this thread is... interesting. Certainly more vitriolic than I'm used to on this site. As for whether TvTropes has jumped the shark, I haven't read this whole thread, but my take is that TvTropes is a collaborative website without a well defined goal. This is a recipe for disaster. In the end the result will be that nobody is perfectly pleased with it, except perhaps Fast Eddie if he proves a competent enough dictator. I do find the site informative and entertaining, but I've always had several issues with it. Let me offer my take on a few things:

Censorship:

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Censorship, insofar as it is defined as the suppression of ideas for the purpose of control, is always bad. I am somewhat shocked to see some people in this thread disagreeing. Censorship can never produce good results. That said, what TvTropes is doing isn't necessarily censorship. They are removing material extraneous to their (admittedly ill defined) mission. They aren't telling people they can't express themselves, just that they can't do on a site whose mission has never been a forum for free expression.

For a similar scenario, look at these very forums. Certain topics are banned, but that isn't censorship. The focus of this site from the very beginning has been Tabletop RPGs, and while it sort of shifted that focus towards The Giant's brilliant webcomic parody of Tabletop RPGs, there is still a defined focus. In that light banning certain topics makes sense.

Maybe TvTropes went too far. In fact they certainly did if they banned Lolita, even for a second, but that is a different issue.

Trope Names:

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This one boils down to the issue of not pleasing everyone. Personally I preferred the old style witty trope names. Sure, maybe their meanings weren't immediately obvious, but as a useful shorthand I think they are actually superior to more descriptive titles, similar to how in a science such as chemistry you have a huge vocabulary you have to learn to communicate with other scientists but once you do everything flows much more smoothly than otherwise. More than that, the better trope names were very easy to remember once you knew the story behind them. Xanatos Gambit is an excellent example. Once you know that Xanatos is a master strategist, even if you have never seen Gargoyles, Xanatos Gambit becomes an intuitive and obvious name because our brains are wired to remember that kind of association easily. A more descriptive name is actually easier to forget than an association because of how our brains work.

There is No Such Thing as Notability:

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I'm not sure this was ever a good policy. It basically declared that the site had no well defined purpose and invited everyone to try and make it into whatever they want, ultimately causing the eventual debates and dissatisfaction. Huge swaths of the site have had to be cut with no real agreement as to which parts should be cut. The result is pure chaos.

"True Art":

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This is what bothers me the most about TvTropes, the site's collective disdain of high art and scholarly criticism, especially as evidenced by the "True Art" series of "tropes". I'm sorry if I come off as elitist here, but there damn well is a difference between true art like Hamlet and trash like reality television. I'm not anti pop-culture here, I stand by my belief that the best episodes of shows like Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are just as artistic as Shakespeare, but the fact remains that there is art that reflects and elevates the human condition on one side and mindless entertainment on the other, and this isn't just an academic distinction or subjective opinion. This probably wouldn't bother me so much if the whole site wasn't about textual (in a loose sense of text that includes all media) analysis.

[Jayngfet]

Trope Names:

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This one boils down to the issue of not pleasing everyone. Personally I preferred the old style witty trope names. Sure, maybe their meanings weren't immediately obvious, but as a useful shorthand I think they are actually superior to more descriptive titles, similar to how in a science such as chemistry you have a huge vocabulary you have to learn to communicate with other scientists but once you do everything flows much more smoothly than otherwise. More than that, the better trope names were very easy to remember once you knew the story behind them. Xanatos Gambit is an excellent example. Once you know that Xanatos is a master strategist, even if you have never seen Gargoyles, Xanatos Gambit becomes an intuitive and obvious name because our brains are wired to remember that kind of association easily. A more descriptive name is actually easier to forget than an association because of how our brains work.

[/SPOILER]

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The problem comes from the fact that some of these trope names were misleading, or else had unfortunate implications.

I mean Sasami Syndrome for example. I mean yeah, she's more responsable than the other girls but that's because they ignored that she's like, twelve and the other girls were all either crazy or had a lot of growing up to do themselves, or both. Sasami is a gag option because she's a naive little girl who still technically fills the requirements. It's made clear that once she matures a bit she'd give the others a run for their money but that she's got a ways to go.

"True Art":

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This is what bothers me the most about TvTropes, the site's collective disdain of high art and scholarly criticism, especially as evidenced by the "True Art" series of "tropes". I'm sorry if I come off as elitist here, but there damn well is a difference between true art like Hamlet and trash like reality television. I'm not anti pop-culture here, I stand by my belief that the best episodes of shows like Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are just as artistic as Shakespeare, but the fact remains that there is art that reflects and elevates the human condition on one side and mindless entertainment on the other, and this isn't just an academic distinction or subjective opinion. This probably wouldn't bother me so much if the whole site wasn't about textual (in a loose sense of text that includes all media) analysis.

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Eh, I think that you kind of shot yourself in the foot there a bit with your examples. I mean Hamlet is certainly classier than springer, but most of that class was added post-production. You've really got to remember that the bulk of Shakespear's audience at the time was an uneducated mass and a lot of what he wrote reflected that.

At the same time a lot of Springer's draw comes from it's trashy guest's and stage fights, but that kind of thing also shines a bit of light on the human condition. I mean the show itself runs off hypocrisy, regret, prejudice, and attempted redemption on a very personal level. I mean if hundreds of people falling to eerily similar vices, getting into the same situations, and trying in their own incredibly messed up way to make amends doesn't shine a light on the human condition, what does?

[Trazoi]

the page for Nabokov's Lolita was wiped, and when it was brought up on the forums, Fast Eddie was openly hostile to people asking for its reinstatement and responded with, and I quote directly from the forums (with emphasis added,) "Yes, I think it would be a great idea to cut Lolita, since it comes up every time someone wants to quibble about what is or isn't pedo trash. It certainly isn't a work important for any other reason."

The administrator of a wiki on media and literature openly dismissing one of the landmark novels of the 20th century. Fast Eddie, ladies and gentlemen.

I think you're too blinded by your hate for Fast Eddie to see the obvious sarcasm in that bold part and how it relates to the sentence before hand. He's not referring to himself, he's referring to how the tropers he's debating with see Lolita.

This is exactly why TV Tropes is in the current mess, because a sizable number of tropers can't discriminate and always start rule lawyering to include everything and then act surprised when Google doesn't see it that way. Fast Eddie is saying that, if the troper community can't distinguish between Lolita and child pornography because both contain trope X, then the solution is going to be no more Lolita.

[Gnoman]

"True Art":

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This is what bothers me the most about TvTropes, the site's collective disdain of high art and scholarly criticism, especially as evidenced by the "True Art" series of "tropes". I'm sorry if I come off as elitist here, but there damn well is a difference between true art like Hamlet and trash like reality television. I'm not anti pop-culture here, I stand by my belief that the best episodes of shows like Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are just as artistic as Shakespeare, but the fact remains that there is art that reflects and elevates the human condition on one side and mindless entertainment on the other, and this isn't just an academic distinction or subjective opinion. This probably wouldn't bother me so much if the whole site wasn't about textual (in a loose sense of text that includes all media) analysis.

You seem to have missed the point of the "True art is X" pages. They reference the sort of people can insist that only things that are "X" can qualify as art. It's nothing more than references to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy as applied to art.

[Seraph]

I think you're too blinded by your hate for Fast Eddie to see the obvious sarcasm in that bold part and how it relates to the sentence before hand. He's not referring to himself, he's referring to how the tropers he's debating with see Lolita.

This is exactly why TV Tropes is in the current mess, because a sizable number of tropers can't discriminate and always start rule lawyering to include everything and then act surprised when Google doesn't see it that way. Fast Eddie is saying that, if the troper community can't distinguish between Lolita and child pornography because both contain trope X, then the solution is going to be no more Lolita.

you give fast eddie far too much credit. Keep in mind that this is the man who:

-threw a hissyfit and perma-locked the Memento page because he got upset over people reversing the order of the article as a joke;

-nuked and locked the page about the "This Troper" youtube video series even though the page was impartially written, with an edit note along the lines of "I won't advertise this a**hole;"

-repeatedly made efforts to excise any and all Yahtzee quotes on the site because he, as a game designer, has a personal grudge against the man;

-regularly censors any mention of Encyclopedia Dramatica or SomethingAwful, no matter the context, because he is cripplingly paranoid about the prospect of goons or ED editors "raiding" the site;

-is so utterly incompetent in the field of forum design that his so-called "efficiency hack" of the forums involved each thread being set as a separate table, which for those of you without coding experience is roughly equivalent to trying to do a powerpoint slideshow where every slide is on a different computer;

-related to the above as well as in general, he regularly purges criticism of himself or the website rather than actually confront it like an adult;

-and, to be perfectly blunt here, is probably one of the worst posters on his own forum, from a perspective of decency, courtesy, or sanity.

Yes, I hate Fast Eddie, and I will not deny that fact, because he is one of the biggest contributing factors to one of my once-favorite websites going to absolute hell. What I WILL argue is that I am somehow "blinded" by this, because the man is demonstrably nuts.

[Drolyt]

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The problem comes from the fact that some of these trope names were misleading, or else had unfortunate implications.

I mean Sasami Syndrome for example. I mean yeah, she's more responsable than the other girls but that's because they ignored that she's like, twelve and the other girls were all either crazy or had a lot of growing up to do themselves, or both. Sasami is a gag option because she's a naive little girl who still technically fills the requirements. It's made clear that once she matures a bit she'd give the others a run for their money but that she's got a ways to go.

Sasami Syndrome? No idea what trope that is. The only Sasami I can think of is from Tenchi Muyo, I'm guessing this was a relationship trope?

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Eh, I think that you kind of shot yourself in the foot there a bit with your examples. I mean Hamlet is certainly classier than springer, but most of that class was added post-production. You've really got to remember that the bulk of Shakespear's audience at the time was an uneducated mass and a lot of what he wrote reflected that.

At the same time a lot of Springer's draw comes from it's trashy guest's and stage fights, but that kind of thing also shines a bit of light on the human condition. I mean the show itself runs off hypocrisy, regret, prejudice, and attempted redemption on a very personal level. I mean if hundreds of people falling to eerily similar vices, getting into the same situations, and trying in their own incredibly messed up way to make amends doesn't shine a light on the human condition, what does?

I'm not getting your point about Shakespeare. He wrote for the common man, but he didn't write down to them. If anything his stories elevated them, got them thinking. Sure there was a lot of crude humor that is often missed if you aren't familiar with Elizabethan English, but that doesn't degrade from the higher themes. As for Springer, I'm not sure where that entered the discussion, but I don't see how that can be called art, or how it can be seen as showing a light on the human condition. You have to realize that these types of shows are carefully crafted to manipulate the people that come on, carefully selecting people and deliberately provoking them and egging them on to get reactions out of them. It is about as close to staged as you can get without having to sign a deal with the Screen Actors Guild.

You seem to have missed the point of the "True art is X" pages. They reference the sort of people can insist that only things that are "X" can qualify as art. It's nothing more than references to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy as applied to art.

I got that point and I don't disagree with it entirely, but they went too far and basically denied any distinction between true art and mindless consumption media. Or at least they used to. I just checked and they were massively cleaned out with the reasoning that TvTropes shouldn't be taking a stand on what true art is. Regardless the "True Art is X" tropes never described anything like a No True Scotsman fallacy and I get the impression that a lot of people on the internet don't understand how that fallacy is supposed to work.

[Axolotl]

While I largely agree with what, Drolyt is saying, I'll disagree that the site has no idea what the it wants to be. It wants to be a serious and useful site analysing all the cliches and concepts in media as well as the media they appear in. The problem is that while they're willing to destroy things that may make the site more of just a nerdy community (making the names more generic) nobody contributing to the site seems willing to actually putting in the effort needed to make the site more serious and useful.

I mean I think No Such Thing as Notability is good in that the idea of not deleting things because they're obscure is laudable. However it ignores that in reality there is notability and the site has glaring absences of notable works, and this stops it from actually being useful for artistic purposes. This isn't helped by a massively insular community supporting it.

[Trazoi]

you give fast eddie far too much credit.

I'm surprised I'm defending the guy myself.

Actually, I think the reason why TV Tropes keeps having these troubles is entirely due to Fast Eddie; heck, it has to be given its his site and ultimately his responsibility. His edict of "TV Tropes is for fans only, no criticism whatsoever" is what killed the site; the culture shifted considerably and the analysis dried up. He wanted the site to self monitor itself, but didn't put any effort into cultivating the right sort of culture for that to happen.

Right now he's on the right track, but the problem is his monster has already been built, trained and trashing the village. He can't change the culture now with a litte nudge; he's got to do something drastic. Personally I don't think it's going to work and I suspect they'll not get their Google ad funding back permanently, but we'll see.

[Drolyt]

While I largely agree with what, Drolyt is saying, I'll disagree that the site has no idea what the it wants to be. It wants to be a serious and useful site analysing all the cliches and concepts in media as well as the media they appear in.

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear enough there. TvTropes definitely has a general idea of what it wants to be, but it isn't specific enough or clearly stated enough to prevent chaos. The counterexample would be Wikipedia. They have a clearly defined goal, to be a free online encyclopedia, and they have reams and reams of rules defining exactly how they will go about that. I don't necessarily agree with everything there, but at least it is clear.

[TheLaughingMan]

you give fast eddie far too much credit.

Eh, as much as I dislike Fast Eddie (cursing someone out for no reason does that to people), I'm pretty sure he's being sarcastic there. The man can do some things right.
I mean, he's gotta be able to navigate food into his pie-hole in order to run the site, so that makes at least one other instance.

[_Zoot_]

Censorship, insofar as it is defined as the suppression of ideas for the purpose of control, is always bad. I am somewhat shocked to see some people in this thread disagreeing. Censorship can never produce good results.

Really? Censorship can never produce good results? You wouldn't consider the victory of the allies in the Second World War to be a good result? They censored information almost as heavily as the Axis powers did. Or the current system of International relations, it is built on the ability of diplomats and states to hold one opinion about a country, but not need to have that opinion widely known.

While I agree that there is a need for citizens to be able to say what they think, and not be forced to toe the governments line, I don't feel that there is some divine right to it. I don't believe for a moment that it is a 'slippery slope' case; despite what some people believe the government is made up of Human beings, they are able to tell the difference between someone's need to express a legitimate opinion and someone's desire to say what ever is on their mind, no matter how utterly insane or hurtful it is.

I gather that the concept of free speech being an unassailable bastion is an American thing, because in Australia we don't have the same laws defending it to the same degree, yet, surprise surprise, we are not forced to live in a totalitarian state with no ability to express our selves. So I can safely say that there is at least one example (and I would point to the UK as a second) of a perfectly democratic country operating in the way it's citizens want with out everyone being able to say absolutely anything they God damn want.

[Elm11]

I can't help but wonder: If you dislike Fast Eddie and the way he runs the site so much, and you now dislike the site because certain pages have been removed for certain reasons, good or bad, then why don't you go somewhere else?

At the end of the day, mad or no, Fast Eddie is the site admin, and, mad or no, he has been the one who's kept the site running for years now. I don't know about these accusations of chucking hissy fits and locking threads (so I wouldn't mind if you could send a link my way) but if he's the site administrator, that's his call. I'll admit freely that I don't like it either if that's the case, but then again, I'm not the one running the show.

{{Scrubbed}}

[OracleofWuffing]

the page for Nabokov's Lolita was wiped,

I'm looking for clarifications that back up the accusation that content was blindly removed from the site. The example you are giving me right now is the very reason why "lolita" has entered the vernacular as a word that describes a sexually mature underage girl. Are you sure that's the example you want to go with when I'm asking for clarification on this?

[TheLaughingMan]

I can't help but wonder: If you dislike Fast Eddie and the way he runs the site so much, and you now dislike the site because certain pages have been removed for certain reasons, good or bad, then why don't you go somewhere else?

There are many terrible leaders, but there is only one TV Tropes. What you're saying sounds akin to "why don't you just leave the school club if you hate the president so much?"

We love our clubhouse, run-down as it is. We love our club-members, as divided as we are. We love to join our hands together and make something great, no matter what that may be. One man cannot change that, no matter who he may be. This is our club, together, and we'll see it through to its end, whenever that should be.

Yeah, it's still just a website at the end of the day, but one can't help but feel a bit attached to the sinking ship.

[Elm11]

Which is fair enough, but you still have to put up with your mean club president to do that.

[TheLaughingMan]

Which is fair enough, but you still have to put up with your mean club president to do that.

Hey, I never said we wouldn't complain.

[Drolyt]

Really? Censorship can never produce good results? You wouldn't consider the victory of the allies in the Second World War to be a good result? They censored information almost as heavily as the Axis powers did. Or the current system of International relations, it is built on the ability of diplomats and states to hold one opinion about a country, but not need to have that opinion widely known.

While I agree that there is a need for citizens to be able to say what they think, and not be forced to toe the governments line, I don't feel that there is some divine right to it. I don't believe for a moment that it is a 'slippery slope' case; despite what some people believe the government is made up of Human beings, they are able to tell the difference between someone's need to express a legitimate opinion and someone's desire to say what ever is on their mind, no matter how utterly insane or hurtful it is.

I gather that the concept of free speech being an unassailable bastion is an American thing, because in Australia we don't have the same laws defending it to the same degree, yet, surprise surprise, we are not forced to live in a totalitarian state with no ability to express our selves. So I can safely say that there is at least one example (and I would point to the UK as a second) of a perfectly democratic country operating in the way it's citizens want with out everyone being able to say absolutely anything they God damn want.

I'm a bit confused. Your war example seems to be confusing keeping secrets with censorship, if I understand you right. Either that or you are referring to the censorship that did happen in WW2, but that wasn't in any way instrumental to the war effort and few people in modern day America think it was actually a good idea. As for the rest... uh, I don't want to break the rules here, and we are getting very close to politics. I do feel I should point out that in American Political Theory, rights like Freedom of Speech are usually considered to be inherent human rights rather than something granted by law, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are only there to protect those rights that every human being already has, which is at least partially why we feel more strongly about them than some people in other countries. Beyond that, whether various policies in America or Australia are right or wrong, we aren't really supposed to discuss here.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Locked for review and scrubbing of real world politics, flaming, etc.