User blog:ChocoMingo/Yet Another PSA to the Wiki

Hello everyone.

Recently, we've been getting popular users getting globalled in the past. These users include Cil,  Enjania,  Saxi,  Achi,  Tazeino/Jose, and  Fnaf. The duration of their global blocks vary from 2 months, to 1 year, or in worse cases permanent. In most cases, most of the users I mentioned (except for Saxi, Cil, and Jose) have gotten globalled solely for one reason, and that reason being homophobia, in one way or another, small or big.

Please take caution that this blog post is gonna be very heckin' long.

Don't mess with the Staff
Some people in the community have a tense relationship with Fandom, and I don't blame them. But what the admin hate people doing is seeing people insulting, harassing, or baiting the Fandom staff, so you might risk a global block if you do so. Cil learned this the hard way.

Homophobia on the wiki
While personally, I don't mind the LGBT community in general (meaning I treat people who are LGBT as equal, like any other user on this wiki), but I do acknowledge why some people on this wiki are homophobic. It may be because of religious (ex. Russia or Middle Eastern countries) or political (ex. Poland or Baltic countries) beliefs they may have.

However, the problem with this, is that Fandom is a US-based company, meaning they comply with discrimination laws set in place in this country. Protection for the LGBT has been ethically a in America since 2015, after the Obergefell v. Hodges case was determined in US Supreme Court & since 2018, an appeals court ruled the LGBT community was protected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

"The LGBTQ+ community is a legally protected class under discrimination laws. The straight community is not, as the straight community is not subjected to legal discrimination. Given the social power dynamics at play, saying "I hate gay people" and "I hate straight people" are not equal.

The second part is that as a matter of FANDOM policy, if someone is being hateful towards other users in any way, regardless of who that hate is being directed towards, we will very likely step in and remove them from contributing to a toxic environment in accordance with our Terms of Use."

- Brandon Rhea

"FANDOM is a US-based company, and so relevant US laws are reflected in our policies and apply to all users regardless of where they live. The Terms of Use state that you agree not to use the service to:

"Post or transmit any content that is obscene, pornographic, abusive, offensive, profane, or otherwise violates any law or right of any third party, or content that contains homophobia, ethnic slurs, religious intolerance, or encourages criminal conduct""

- Brandon Rhea

Concerns about users
There have been a few actions some users made on their own, with some being disappointing and problematic.

One, declaring an unofficial state of emergency. This does nothing other than cause more panic, although we have changed up the rules a bit which I will explain what those rules are later.

Two, this blog post, which is basically a call to arms. This is only going to make problems worse off for all of us in the long run. Around a month ago, I DM’d a Fandom VSTF user about why people, mostly on the wiki get globally blocked, and that user said “anyone who is globally blocked is globally blocked because they did something wrong”, based on Fandom’s ToS. Specifically, the reasons why the users I mentioned in the beginning of the blog post were globalled is because of either homophobia, religious discrimination, harassing a staff member, or wrecking another user’s wiki.

On that blog post, the user said “there are people who evade global blocks or dodge them while breaking the ToS on a daily basis without you even noticing”. That is true, and there’s a psychological reason for rule-breakers not being globalled. That reason is because some users think another user is going to report the malicious user up to no good, and therefore a user may feel like they don’t need to report since someone else is doing so for them. In psychology, this is called the bystander effect.

One solution would be for users to report bad users to Fandom. There are two ways of doing this. Reminder that there is a rule that prohibits false reporting.

"Do not send false reports. The admins at Polandball Wiki volunteer at their job and you wasting their time is not helping anyone. Attempting to report a staff member to the VSTF wiki because you are butthurt about being banned also counts."

- Polandball Wiki Rule 1.8

If you try to break this rule, be reminded, you’ll be blocked for a month, per false report.

Some New Rules
We’d like to remind wiki users that as a result of people getting globally blocked for this reason, the admin decided to add in some new rules.

NEW RULES

 * Discriminatory speech, especially discriminatory slurs are banned, as it violates Fandom's Terms of Use.
 * Anti-LGBT Speech (Homophobia): Warning, 3 day block, possible global block
 * Religious hate (islamophobia, christianophobia, included anti-Atheism...): Warning, 3 day block, possible global block
 * Ethnic hate (against Slavs, against Kurds, against Arabs, anti-semites, ...): Warning, 3 day block, possible global block
 * Racism: 3 day block, possible global block
 * Do not insult or bait the Fandom Staff: 1 week block, possible global block (add-on to no insulting/baiting rule)

NEW USERPAGE RULE

 * Do not include things in the "Hates" section that indicates homophobia or racism (this could get you globalled)

Bottom Line
On the wiki, some people dislike gay marriage, because of national or religious beliefs (believe marriage is between a man and a woman), it may be understandable from their perspective. However, as previously stated, Fandom is based in the USA.

The bottom line is, the LGBT may seem different to some on this wiki, but while they may have different attractions, they should be accepted and treated like any other person.

NESTLEH (talk) 22:18, September 30, 2018 (UTC)