Subject: Gramatically speaking...
Author:
Posted on: 2017-07-07 17:08:00 UTC
... I'm pretty sure it's all incorrect. The various gender-neutral pronoun sets that have been developed don't technically exist as actual words, and 'they/them/their' is exclusively for groups of people. So, yes, if you try it in an essay, you basically will get docked for it no matter what you do.
After being cast out of the PPC, Bram contacted me and we've been talking off and on for the past month or two about various things. E has just come to me and said, to quote:
"Screw it.... I want to come back to the discussion board and the discord chat. Explain that September was just an estimate, being away is really doing more harm than good at this point.
Please? At least explain that unforseen circumstances are tearing my marriage apart."
The "unforseen circumstances" in question seem to be eis husband leaving the military a year before e anticipated (August 2017 instead of August 2018).
I really don't know the situation behind what happened in the past terribly well, but I personally think that Bram seems like a reasonable individual once you get to know eim! Again, though, I know a lot of you have major issues with Bram and I am in no position to invite eim back on my own.
she believes she is ready to return to the Board, that she hasn't been allowed to return yet because we're unwilling or unready to allow her in at this time, and that she disagrees with the reasons we've given for not allowing her back. She also particularly disagrees with Granz's suggested course of action as it has not helped produce an improved mental state in the past.
(My thoughts:
1) Getting a summary of the state of the world "on paper" like Bram asked is a reasonable thing to do, which is why I'm relaying that. I also think this is a decent summary, inasmuch as it applies to us.
2) I disagree (well, there's a very slim chance I'm wrong) with Bram's self-assessment of her ability to return to the Board. This is going off of conversations we've had, among other things.
3) Note: I helped edit this a bit.)
- Tomash
(P.S.: No one involved expects anything to change as a result of this post, including Bram.)
First, I'm with everyone else: there's no way I'm comfortable with Bram returning any earlier than September. We are not marital or any other kind of therapy. If Bram needs that kind of support, she should seek it through appropriate channels.
Second, during my Board vacation, I still kept an eye on the wiki off and on, and Bram has been fairly active over there under the name TooPurple. As I understand it, when someone is banned, they're banned from all PPC community spaces, which includes the wiki. Shall I block them, or was staying off the wiki somehow not a condition of this ban? Please refresh my memory, it's been a while.
Also, are we lacking in wiki admins with the power to block people?
~Neshomeh
P.S. Hi, I'm back! Don't feel like making a separate post about it, though. I'll just slide back into things.
So, looking back, Bram said, roughly "Please block me for a while for my own good while I work on brain stuff", and we went "Sure! You'll be welcome back once there's been some work on brain stuff because we just aren't good for each other right now.".
Now, even though people were avoiding the word "ban" there (because it's not like we were imposing any sort of penalty), this situation is, in my view, isomorphic to a temporary and indefinite ban. Bans have historically applied to all PPC community spaces unless otherwise specified (for example, Luigifan18, who only got a wiki block, IIRC), and I don't see anything in the discussion that implies this situation is different.
Furthermore, the "stay away from PPC spaces in order to get better" thing is probably not helped by a barrage of wiki editing.
So, it sort of feels like a wiki block might be something we should do. However, if we're looking at good wiki editing (useful typo fixes, etc.), it seems a bit odd to fire off the blocks. That doesn't, I think, outweigh the case for a block though, so, on balance, we should probably do the thing.
Re: admins, what do they do other than block people that "normal" users can't do? I don't quite remember how Mediawiki works. (If it's just blocking folks, then that happens so rarely that two active people should be plenty.)
- Tomash
(P.S.: Welcome back! Hope the break had the outcomes you wanted it to have.)
I think "block me for my own good" ought to have extended to the wiki, too, especially since it's now obvious that she won't stay away purely of her own will. Unless there are any objections in the next 24 hours, I'll go ahead and do that tomorrow.
As for wiki admins and other user levels, there's a guide here, but admin-level users (a.k.a. sysops) basically have semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power as far as the wiki is concerned. An admin has access to the top-level functions of the wiki, including but not limited to CSS, deleting and undeleting pages, and blocking IPs and users. Current sysops are:
- JulyFlame (wiki creator)
- Huinesoron
- Araeph
- Trojie
- Laburnum
- Sedri
- Tawaki
- VixenMage
- Aster Corbett
- Delta Juliette (under Techno-Dann)
- doctorlit
- Me
- Also dummy accounts for the Sunflower Official and the Marquis de Sod, which I think most of us had access to at some point. They mainly just exist for, e.g., the welcome message for new accounts.
So, that's about four admins who can be considered generally active, I think: me, hS, doc, and Delta J (whom I'd be happy to grant admin status under a new account, if she makes one).
~Neshomeh
I mean, the Board has ... a few, I think, Discord has two mods that tend to be on a lot (Delta and Maslab) and PoorCynic as admin (who is on often enough, but less frequently), and the wiki hes four, whose levels of activity there I don't know.
However, looking at the user roles list, there's this "rollback" permission that a few of the active Wiki users might find useful. Do we have the power to grant it? If so, I nominate Iximaz, going off of this thread and the recent changes logs.
- Tomash
It's a useful power, and one that any admin has the ability to grant.
However, I find that reverting is usually good enough, and it gives you the opportunity to make a comment about why you're undoing an edit, which is always a good idea. Rollback does not—possibly because it is assumed to be used only on obviously malicious edits. We've had almost none of that since the wiki was founded, though. Just the occasional clueless people like CourtlyHades, who are mostly harmless even if they annoy us.
That said, if at some point it looks like we need more people with that power, it's always an option.
~Neshomeh
Maybe in the future if I can keep from having another meltdown, but you saw how well that went when I was a Discord mod. I'd rather not give me the power to totally screw up the Wiki if that happened again.
To be clear, I made that proposal because having the power to revert edits in one click (which, from what I can tell, is all I was nominating you for) seemed like something you'd find useful. Not sure that would let you completely break things, but that's your call to make.
- Tomash
At least, that's my two cents.
I think we could use a few more Wiki admins, because as far as I know you and doc are the only ones around. I've been able to keep up with most of CourtlyHades' unnecessary edits, but I think there are a few things I marked as needing deletion.
(Also, hi Nesh! Good to have you back! I'm just... gonna poke you to the claimed badfic page's edits and not say anything else on the subject.)
Does anybody know anything about that person? Have they been in the Discord, perhaps?
I've tried contacting them via their userpage, but it doesn't seem to have gotten any sort of response, and I'm getting a bit ticked off with them now.
Re. the claimed badfic page... are you pointing me at Bram's "I'm claiming the entire LoK section of FF.net" thing? That... IMO, that is ridiculous, and should not stand. But is that what you meant? Just wanna be sure.
(Speaking of poking, may I poke you to our cowrite? I added to it, finally... No rush, though.)
~Neshomeh
Sorry for being largely absent at the moment; I'm dog sitting and can only get internet through the cell phone.
If I'm thinking of the right person, Hades introduced themself on the Board two or three months back. They said their parents didn't approve of the PPC, and their internet access is being blocked or watched in some way, limiting their ability to participate. I would think they would have seen your message, though, since they clearly use the wiki regularly.
Hades, I'm sorry if I've misrepresented your situation, or confused you with someone else. I can't properly search the archives right now. And also need to go to sleep.
—doctorlit
I tried looking them up here a couple weeks back, before I posted on their Talk page. There were no hits then, and the only ones now are the mentions of them in this thread.
~Neshomeh
Or did you look them up some other way?
- Tomash
(who should scrape for the altchives soon again)
Their wiki account was created on April 3, so that was my best guess of how far back to look.
(I also suffered a temporary bout of stupidity and tried using the search bar yesterday, but I double-checked properly just now and they're still not there. No harm, no foul, right? >.> )
~Neshomeh
Or the Board, for that matter. I'm really not sure what they're doing on the Wiki other than to promote that game they seem to be obsessed with.
And yes, that is what I meant.
I'll take a look at the cowrite, too! Let's see if I can even remember what we were going to do... or if I can find it in the docs. XD
Yay cowrite! {= D
Re. CH: I think I'll try to talk to them one more time, and let them know that if it doesn't work, my next move is to poke them with a temp-block, leaving them only the ability to comment on their own userpage. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes.
Re. claimed badfic: Okay, got it. Let the record show that there are several reasons it is not cool to claim an entire canon's worth of fics on a fanfiction site:
1. Basic politeness. It's not fair to unilaterally exclude other people from sporking Sues in the LoK section if they want to.
2. Thirty-plus claims at once is outlandish and almost certainly unrealistic, given the tiny percentage of people who even reach TOS's 26 missions. That's not even asking whether she intends to spork fics from other continua at the same time.
3. There are, in fact, 927 English-language fics in the LoK section at the time of this post, and the claim as stated is not just 30+ fics, but also "everything LOK on fanfiction.net" barring some exclusions. Assuming generously that the exclusions eliminate roughly half that number, that's still over 400 fics. They can't ALL be mission-worthy, and even if they were, sporking them all is definitely impossible for one person.
4. It's hardly even necessary. Given the diversity of interests in today's PPC, there is almost zero danger of anyone taking a fic another person wants, let alone thirty-plus. There's no reason to stake out anything at all unless you really have your heart set on it for story reasons or whatever—and even then, you have to make good on your claim(s) eventually or give it/them up. See above comments about the outlandishness and unreality of thirty-odd claims, let alone hundreds.
5. Just in case it didn't take the first time, basic politeness. Play fair; share and share alike; don't hog the ball; and all the other childhood maxims we shouldn't have to explain.
Did I miss anything?
~Neshomeh
Also, while you're here, any idea who's adding links to agents with no pages on the Wiki?
I think that September, at the very least, is the soonest I'm willing to change my mind. Part of this is because, as others have said, we are people who laugh at bad fanfiction and praise the good, not therapists, and I really don't see how coming back here in order to laugh at fanfiction is going to help a marriage. Part of this is because, as far as I have seen, which, admittedly, is not far, Bram usually feels very strongly on a position at any given time, but these positions can change. As someone who has all the consistency of a d1000000, I think that Bram not only needs to spend some time away from the PPC, but some time not thinking about the PPC. I know that Calliope isn't the only one Bram has contacted, asking to be let back into the Discord and/or the Board, which, to my mind, indicates that even while they have not been posting, they have been thinking about the Board, which isn't going to help with purely rational decisions. For myself, at least, when I feel particularly strongly on something, I have been making an effort to take in everything and let my emotions get blown about like a kite in a hurricane, walk away, do something else for a long while, come back, be blown about again, and walk away again, continuing this process several times until I've exhausted my capacity for violent emotion and can actually get logic and emotion to work together like they're supposed to. To me, it sounds like Bram has spent more time on running through the different emotional areas without taking the time to back away and truly not think about the PPC.
To sum it up, I do not think Bram should be allowed back into the Discord chat or the Board, both because it seems they would be looking for emotional assistance of a kind that we are not equipped to give, and because I feel they haven't distanced and distracted themselves enough mentally from the Board and their feelings about both it and everyone here to be able to reach a purely rational decision.
Is the "eim" thing some kind of in-joke or reference? I keep seeing it on Snapchat. Just wondering.
E, eim, eis, eir. I don't know Bram's gender for sure and I have so many people who get offended when I use the wrong pronouns, so I default to those.
But wouldn't it be more grammatically correct to use they/them/their as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun? Not trying to be rude or anything, it's just that I'm not a native of an English-speaking country.
I don't care too much about grammatically-correct pronouns in these cases.
But it probably would, yes.
... I'm pretty sure it's all incorrect. The various gender-neutral pronoun sets that have been developed don't technically exist as actual words, and 'they/them/their' is exclusively for groups of people. So, yes, if you try it in an essay, you basically will get docked for it no matter what you do.
"They" has been used as a singular, general-neutral pronoun for hundreds of years. According to the OED, this is acceptable usage of the word, and in practice it was only prohibited by Victorian schoolteachers, who instead mandated the usage of "him" as a gender-neutral pronoun. Read this Wikipedia page for more information:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they.
It's one of the various forms of third-person, gender-neutral pronouns that people use when someone either A) is neither male nor female, or B) they do not know someone's gender and don't want to assume. I believe it is similar to the 'xir' set of pronouns, but I am not sure, and admittedly am not familiar with either set.
I tend to use they/them as default gender-neutral pronouns, and don't really tend to see eim/etc, so thanks for clarifying.
Bram is bad for the PPC and the reverse is equally true. Besides, whatever eir actual motives may be, it really comes off as trying to manipulate a newer member into letting em back in without the appropriate time having passed - a timescale to which e agreed.
I'd like to say I feel sorry for em, and a part of me genuinely does, but I really don't feel like being allowed back into a internet fanfiction community is going to save someone's marriage. If ey're saying e made a mistake with the timescale and that e thinks e should be allowed back into the community basically because reasons, then I've got three words:
Suck. It. Up.
I disappeared from six months. I learned. I grew. I changed. E can and e should and, if e wants to come back, e really rather has to. Sorry to be blunt about all this, but I'm just sick of the constant drama e causes, whether intentional or not.
The PPC is not meant to be a therapy group, and personally, I wouldn’t know how to help with any mental problems. I would abstain rather than actively oppose Bram’s return if this very request didn’t imply that the "finding help and personally improve" we had hoped for did not happen yet.
HG
While I do feel bad for Bram, we've already mentioned that the Boarders are not therapists. Given that Bram apparently wants to rejoin because of the issues in their personal life, I feel that Bram wants to use us that way, and I don't think that will end well.
I'm just going to be blatant here.
Being away from the PPC was supposed to give time to self-improve. What I see here is Bram throwing in the towel.
Having one's husband torn away from them is horrible. It seems like Bram is asking for support. But I have to say no, albeit a soft one.
I do believe that if anyone wants to contact Bram, do it.
I can't quite make all my reasons for that vote coherent, but I'll give some of them.
I've been talking with Bram for a while now. During those discussions, I was asked to make a post requesting her return. I explained to her why making a post like that (such as this one) wouldn't work and would be a bad idea in general (among other things, it makes her earlier departure look insincere).
Yet, despite that advice, which (I've been reassured) made sense and was understood, this thread is up on the Board. This means that, at this time, post-return mentorship might not actually work very well.
This, plus a general feeling that the self-improvement that Bram left to go do hasn't progressed as much as we'd like, leads me to suggest that we re-open this discussion in a few months at the earliest.
- Tomash
As I said earlier this year, I don't feel that the PPC is a healthy place for Bramandin.
I do hope eis husband gets through the military duty safely and soundly.
—doctorlit
But I have to disagree with you. I think it's straight-up too soon, and my conversations with Bram in the recent and not-so recent past make me think that e would not be helped by returning to the community.
And, honestly? If someone isn't stable enough that being excluded from a community that hurt them (from their perspective) is enough to cause serious issues? They need to be working on stability rather than getting back into the community that hurt them. The part where they also hurt people in this community only compounds that fact.
Bottom line is, from where I'm sitting (and from where a few others I've talked to who weren't comfortable speaking up directly), this really strikes me as being too soon, and all around a bad idea.
When they do return, I would also like to suggest some pretty strong guardrails - a mentor, or perhaps multiple mentors, with the authority to say "stop this conversation" on pain of kicking/banning if she doesn't. I think that's going to be necessary to avoid spiralling misunderstandings of the sort that have caused some of the problems in the past.
Bram is, to be frank, Hella Toxic.
They're like... I don't know... I can't put this delicately. Manipulative
Let's start at the relative beginning: Bram's first few missions. They posted it and everyone went ahead and gave their constructive criticism. Fairly par for the course. Put it is how they reacted to it that set off warning flares for me, specifically towards Iximaz. They accused Ix of completely and utterly hating them just because of some concrit.
Now Bram went ahead and disappeared shortly after this occasionally coming back to drop a mission or two, post a few messages, and leave. Ignoring any Concrit given as far as I know.
And then March happens.
We all know what happened in March.
Let's not remind ourselves about it or repeat it.
So Bram comes along and starts trying to communicate with Ix. Only Ix keeps on telling them no. Keep in mind that Ix is going through a lot of personal and mental stuff right. Eventually Ix has to go to the board... which starts this $#1+ Show.
Tl;Dr: Bram repeatedly tries to gain sympathy points, but the board looks at it and, in a broad generalization, says: "This is not somewhere where your sanity and well-being are safe. It's for your own good that we want you to leave."
So after a while, as well as some unwanted phone numbers being sent, Bram leaves for a bit.
Rounding up my thoughts on the matter: I fully and wholly believe that Bram should not be let back in. I don't want to see anyone get hurt more than what Bad Fanfiction brings, and if keeping someone out is what it takes then so be it.
I'm done with dealing with this whole Bram stuff.
Just cut me out from any of it.
What can an underage bloke do to get a drink around here.
that Bram disagrees with the conclusions you've drawn about her being toxic, manipulative, and so on.
(On a personal note, even though it's rather pointless to argue about these sorts of things, I think that the hypothesis that Bram is really that confused about social stuff on account of autism or some similar thing has a good amount of evidence behind it.)
- Tomash