I could certainly go into a long essay on this (and I might later), but on this point:

All of the regular arguments PPCers use to defend the term Mary Sue - that they perpetuate negative stereotypes, that they are boring characters - these are all soundly defeated in this essay by pointing out that those traits can all be pointed out /individually/ and so there's no reason to use a gendered, ambiguous and loaded term to describe such characters.

Of course all of Mary Sue's traits can be pointed out individually. But that doesn't mean there's not a good reason to use one term. When certain literary components appear in conjunction with each other time and time again in works of fiction (and in real life), it is useful for people to sort them into categories for ease of discussion. Isn't that what TV Tropes is all about?

I can't prove that the term isn't ambiguous and loaded, but I'd be surprised if someone could prove that it was. All points in that essay are well-made, but not that hard to refute. And I'd be very astonished if someone could prove that it was both loaded and ambiguous at the same time. Either "Mary Sue" has a meaning that everyone knows about (loaded), or it has a meaning that no one really knows about (ambiguous).

As for making up a new term only to be used by the PPC...wouldn't that go directly against your suggestion of making the PPC more accessible to new people, especially people who come from places like TV Tropes where the Mary Sue term is widely used? (It would also imply that we are somehow ashamed of having used the term in the past, which would come with a stigma and language-drift barrier attached to older PPC writings. Yay, difficult for newbies and offensive to oldbies at the same time!)

Sorry that you're leaving us, though. Hope you find another fun place online!

~Araeph

I don't really care enough to address any of anybody's points about Mary Sues. It's just jargon, and were there a push to change the term used, I have problem with adapting my vocabulary as long as the newer term had a convenient way to shorten it.

(Warning: tl;dr may follow.)

What I am on about, is that I'd like to point out that hS's poll/survey/whatever earlier this year did indicate that a majority of us do want some kind of change to the layout in some way, and roughly two thirds of us want to leave this board all together. And then nothing happened. Until about two or three months ago this got brought up in the IRC, a big discussion happened, about why a change to basically any kind of board other than this one was a bad idea, and ultimately nothing came of it. Except for the fact that I started to notice a few trends every time the subject comes up (aside from absolutely nothing happening).

As far as I can gather, the major arguments against moving to a newer board, or even better a proper forum system are thus:
-We can't change the links to this board on some older sites/this is the place returning oldbies know to come to. (Easily solved by placing a large, noticeable link on the top saying 'The new home of the PPC is here' or something like that, and having someone come back here occasionally and adding trash responses to old topics to make sure this board doesn't get deleted due to inactivity.)
-Forums and organization will fracture the community. (Proper organization can neatly dodge that problem, but if people are still unsure about that, then there's no problem with just having a single forum with a multitude of threads. Also, this one pretends like there's not already a split between people like me who mainly frequent the IRC and people who avoid it entirely. If anything, a better board would pull some of us back. I know it would for me.)
-Topics dropping off the front page is a good thing. (I actually had to have the logic behind that explained to me, and I still don't agree with it. It indicates a lack of trust in the community to know when to drop a subject, which is troubling. There's also the nice little bit where newbies who make too many threads too soon, or people who make multiple badfic threads when there's already one near the top get yelled at because doing that pushes topics off of the front page.)
-Authority is bad, and we'd have to have moderators and stuff. (Admittedly this is a newer one, but it's possibly the most troubling of all of them, as it indicates either a lack of trust in your fellow PPCer and their likelyhood to not abuse their power, a lack of trust in the community to not not be jealous of those with the modpower, or that there is such little trust in the IRC that having mods (or, well, A mod at the moment) and designated arbitrators is fine for them but heaven forbid we add those to the board. Also? This one is nearly a direct quote. There was a long discussion on why mods are or are not a bad thing, and how one would go about selecting said mods. I made quite a few stupid suggestions, but ultimately I'd think that elections like we do for the PGs or DAs would work fine.)

So yeah. There have been other arguments, but those are the ones that spring to mind, and the last one is really the only one without a real solution. Topics not dropping has a variety of solutions from locking or deleting old topics, to making it so that new posts don't bump topics, to simply getting a new board that does drop the topics after a time. I would like note that even though I may not remember all of the arguments against moving, I do remember that a surprising number of them had me going "Really? Do you have so little faith in the community/your fellow PPCers?" which is something that should probably be addressed. Of course, given my lack of faith in the community's ability to not sart or get involved in drama, maybe I'm just being a bit hypocritical.

This does however lead me into another... well, I'd say point, but at the rate I'm typing, it'll probably be a rant.
There is, as DS pointed out, a certain dismissive attitude about the IRC. I, myself, have been told by boarders to not mention the IRC's problems here, because you lot didn't want drama here. That's all fine and dandy, but if I actually bother to come here, it's usually because I was directed here. And if I actually bother to mention problems? It's because they affect the whole community. Or at least, they should. Just because I mention that something was brought up on the IRC does not make it "an IRC problem". We are not separate communities. Or at least, we shouldn't be. However, the IRC is continuously treated like it's somehow inferior or separate from the board, despite it being the most active hub in the PPC and just as important and legitimate as the board. To provide a reversed example, this would be like if people said that the IRC was the only thing that really mattered, and the board was just a bulletin board for updates and the occasional idle conversation. The each hub for our community is just as important as the other, and people need to start acting like it. I don't avoid the board because I think it's not important. I avoid it because it uses outdated software that became obsolete well before dial-up did, and because the host of problems I see with it (Which I fully recognize some people see as advantages for one reason or another) show its age every time I visit. Which are entirely stupid reasons, I know, but my point is that it's not because of any lack of respect for the board's importance. Similarly, avoiding the IRC because it's unimportant is stupid and wrong. Avoiding it because you have problems with the technology is still stupid, but forgivable as long as you're aware of how important it is.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to avoiding the board like a plague, and praying that I don't recall any of what I've done tonight once I sober up.

Incidentally, SkyyRum, while an amusing pun, is a terrible idea when you're a light-wieght like me.

Hey, DS. Just want to say we were sorry to hear about you leaving, but if that is your decision then good luck and don't be afraid to stop by every once in a while.

Now, on to the points.

1) Inflexible Adherence to the 'Way Things Have Always Been'

What we do here in the PPC is write fanfic. We right fanfic of the Original Series. As a community, we believe that when we write fanfiction, we need to leave the world in as good a condition as when we got there, as if we were visiting someone's house. This is why the Original Series is required reading. It is our canon. It sets the rules for the universe. I don't see a problem with insisting that everyone read TOS before writing PPC stories. It is like insisting that someone read the Harry Potter series before writing fanfiction of that. It is something that we advocate in the community.

As for the out-dated tech on the Board, it is not a matter of fragmentation of the group. It is the fact that there is a growing number of PPC-related sites that link to the board, that we don't have access to change. There is also the point that it is a good thing that posts can fall off the front page, and don't get resurrected every time someone posts in them. Neshomeh would like it known that she also doesn't like the idea of separate sections for separate topics, as that is a surefire way to fragment the group.

The paradox you mentioned is an oversimplification of the message. It should say, "Know where you are coming from before you venture off the road." We encourage people to explore, but if you are exploring Africa (writing original fic) and calling it Asia (the PPC), then there is a problem.

Phobos would like to note that he agrees that there is a lot of inflexibility in some members of the PPC, but that the community balances that with people who would like to burn everything down and start from scratch. He thinks it comes out to a happy medium most of the time.

2) Ferocious defense of the term 'Mary Sue'

We don't use the TV Tropes definition, so we don't know that the article you linked really applies in this situation. However, we would like to address a few of the things that were mentioned in it.

We hold male and female characters to the same standard in the PPC. Are they too powerful for the canon? Did they gain this power for no reason? Does everyone inexplicably adore them within two seconds of meeting them? Probably a Sue/Stu. One of the most important things in our definition of a Sue/Stu is that it doesn't follow the rules of the world it is in. Batman has many Stuish traits, but he is in a world where that sort of thing happens all the time.

Phobos is fond of saying that Sues/Stus can be written well, unpopular though that position is in the PPC. He says, if it looks like a duck (Sue/Stu), sounds like a duck, and acts like a duck, then it is probably a duck. If the duck is in a pond, do we care that the duck is where it is? No. However, we do care if we see a duck in a dungeon. It is out of place.

Batman is a Stu. We don't care because the rules of the world tell us that his level of Stuishness is acceptable. The villains in his world are usually at or above his level. If Batman were in an episode of NCIS he would be out of place because he has all of these advantages that don't exist in that world.

[We see that, as we were writing this, there was an exchange between you and Alleydodger. We would like to address a couple of points you brought up there as well.]

To say that there are no other literary archetypes that use gender specific names is patently untrue. A clear example is the Wizard/Witch archetype. Additional point about this archetype, there is no standard definition. Sometimes they aren't even related concepts at all. Other examples are Hero/Heroine, Priest/Priestess, the Judas, the Jezebel and the Benedict Arnold (the last three are other examples of people's names being used as an archetype).

As for the assertion that people in circles other than ours use the term Mary Sue as an insult and thus no one should use it, we disagree. People use the term Gay as an insult all the time. However, the Gay community continues to use it and has even run ad campaigns to educate the public as to the correct usage of the word. We believe that this is a more productive way of dealing with this issue than just coming up with a different word that means the same thing. The baggage will travel with the definition and we will be having this same discussion in the future. (So, you think these powerful, beautiful, female characters are anomalies? That is sexist!)

3) Elitism

We're not sure if you were around during the TV Tropes editing spree, but Neshomeh was, and she'd like to clarify what actually went on there as she recalls.

It had nothing to do with tropers being "unworthy" and everything to do with the fact that people actually were showing up with the wrong idea of what the PPC was about, and it was getting kind of ugly around here. Namely, there a series of incidents involving people focusing on finding squickier and squickier fics to spork, and creating more and more tricked out, uber-powerful, Sue/Stuish agents. We determined that people were getting that idea from the high prevalence of links to Tawaki and Laburnum's stories with little else to balance them, so we set about trying to correct the matter. We weren't just deleting things--we went trope by trope and asked ourselves, "Does this relate to the group as a whole? If yes, let's add more examples of the trope." We only deleted things that really had little to do with the PPC as a whole and only appeared in one or two spin-offs.

Also, it was about this time that we started writing the Guide to the PPC and FAQ for Newbies, and all that other educational material. The learning curve you mentioned had been made much steeper thanks to uneven representation on TVT, and we reacted by trying to level it out. We did this not because we wanted to discourage people from joining, but because we wanted the people finding us to have an accurate idea of what they were joining. [/Neshomeh]

We are wondering where you got the idea that PPCers don't like Tropers. It seems to us that a large number of PPCers are Tropers. If Tropers were undesirable, then we would probably tell them to leave when they introduced themselves as such. As it is, they get lavished with the same gifts that non-Tropers do. Can you clarify where the community has been anti-Troper?

As for how we intend to continue to grow and spread our message, we seem to be doing just fine at the moment. We had a boom of newbies in the past week, which was mind-boggling. The message is getting out there and people are continuing to find us. One of the people who found us (a few months back) was the person who edited Cupcakes. They were well received and stuck around a while to talk.

4)... ... ...nope, that's about it.

That is our side of things. Sorry this is so long, but we felt that this stuff needed to be said.

We don't bear you any ill will and we are both sad to see you go. Phobos is actually proud that you came back long enough to post this. We will be having a word with anyone that insults you over this.

We'll talk to you later,
Phobos and Neshomeh

1. I've only been here a few month, so i'm not exactly sure about the first point. Although, I know that V.M.s post on "Mary Sues" a few month back was met with a lot of critisism.
   
   As far as I know, it isn't enforced that you read the original series in order to get permission. I said that I haven't read it (because I have no interest in Lord of the Rings) and I still got my permission.
   
   2. No comment. For me, a Mary Sue is just a badly written character, male or female.
   
   3. I have no idea what you're talking about with TvTropes. All I know is that we should ask before we update it. I think it would be pretty cool though if the page were updated with more examples from more recent missions though.
   
   The part about people who read Tvtropes not being worthy to join; I don't see it. I found the PPC off of TvTropes, and so did a few others.
   
   Although, in the IRC, i've seen people get jumped on for saying things that really aren't a big deal. A friend I introduced said something as a joke and the reaction to it, which was basically a "WHAT THE HECK?! YOU'RE WRONG!!" scared him off, as he hasn't posted anything since. I also saw someone make a joke saying that what we were doing basically was the definition of uncool, and some one else jump on them a bit.
   
   In the past few weeks I have actually wondered though, if we are the "good guys".Maybe with a bit of an attitude change everything will be good again.
   
   See you when things improve I guess. Hopefully that'll be soon. Be sure to check back every once in a while!

While I disagree with you, I respect your decision and wish you the best of luck.

It's been real. See you on the flipside, bro.

I don't want to counter-argue, mainly because it'd be rehashing the same old topics over and over again. I hope you've enjoyed some of your time here, at least, and hope you'll be happy whereever else you go.

Adieu,
- Sedri

I'm not 100% up to scratch on some of the events you mentioned but I do have something I want to clear up in case of misunderstanding. With your paragraph about the term Mary-Sue It comes across as if you think that that is the only term used to describe such a character when I've seen Gary-stu used just as commonly. Just wanted to know in case I didn't read it right. Thanks.

I will be hanging around this thread for a bit if anyone wants to counterpoint, etc, so you won't be speaking to an empty room.