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Page name: Why ban stupid pasted things [Logged in view] [RSS]
2006-08-29 10:01:41
Last author: iippo
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Arguments against pasting random texts from the internet on member houses


There has been a growing movement against the "Motorcycle story" and other Stupid Pasted Things amongst the Elftown members.
But why? Why shouldnt they be allowed in members' houses?

-The Uploading Art Rules -argument:
Elftown is very careful about copyright when it comes to art: anything stolen or random has to keep in the wiki and offenders will be banned - that is, as far as images go. Even ASCII art, where proving the original author is hazy at best, is protected from thieves here. Writing is also an art form, yet it is not protected in ET. Anyone can copy-paste anything anybody has written without even citing the source! We think it would be only fair to apply these same rules for all other art forms too, while recognicing the difference in writing: we propose that when pasting something - be it song lyrics, poems, stories or whatever - the original author must be cited, and anything uncited must stay in the wiki.

-They're meant to circle around -argument:
A lot of people defend the stories by saying "they were made to go around the internet." The obvious chain message-ness aside (more of that below), I'd like to bring this to your attention too: <diary:829651>. As you can see from it, the author of the internet circling joke in question didn't even know his text was out there! It would have been great for his booksales if the internet circling joke had mentioned him as the author. So who wrote these things that are pasted in the houses of people, and does he allow us to paste them onwards? Who could go ask him?

-The Chain Message -argument:
Most of the stupid pasted things originate as chain emails. Chain messages aren't allowed in Elftown, yet passive chain messages like these stories are ok. I don't see the difference of sending a message to someone saying "if you don't send this onwards, you'll get bad luck" and pasting a story to the presentation saying "paste this into your presentation if you are against child abuse."

-The ElfHouse is not the place for these stories -argument:
The nature of these stories makes them better suited for blogs, because they don't have such a permanent character. You read the story once. Your heart breaks. You get over it. The next day, the user puts up something different, and the story that has nothing to do with their identity, but just happened to be interesting, eventually fades away.
But your bio has a more permanent character. I don't mean that it is permanent, but it certainly isn't as fluid as your blog. In that case, it should reveal your identity, which I'm hoping is not some random fluctuation in your emotions you felt today due to reading some stupid pasted thing.

-Other text crap in bios -argument
Guards do remove useless text from bios that abuse the description. Things like
I
I l
I lo
I lov
I love
I love Y
I love Yo
I love You

Can be deleted by the guards. And that kind of thing takes a lot more effort to do than copying a sexual limerick into the description.

-Creative community -argument
It still says "community for Elftown artists, writers and hangarounds" on the main page of ET. Not only does this kind of text-stealing and copying discourage writers, but it brings down the overall creative mood in the town.

-Content -argument
Even when not considering the porn-in-rhyme limericks in the houses of 11-year-olds, the contents of these things are shaky at best. Most of the pasted things are the death of common sense. They tell about teenagers who can't express their feelings with people they love, don't trust their closest friends, go driving 90mph on a motorcycle without helmets... We see the realism there (nature's way of preventing the stupid-gene from procreating), but when it gets to "girl gets raped and is threatened to be killed if she goes to the police and she kills herself", you really have to start wondering what the point of the story is (other than turning on rapists, that is)...


What can you do about the stupid pasted things?
-Don't paste stories in your description, make your house about you.
-Write your name on The Motorcycle Story Petition and support other wikis like it.
-Whining or bitching at people never helps - keep conversations and arguments about the topic civil while making your point clear.

Some other similar wikis to look at:
Stupid Pasted things
The motorcycle petition
add more

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2006-08-10 [Kiddalee]: How is a random story pasted from the net any different from a random picture pasted from the net?

2006-08-10 [Sunrose]: In terms of randomosity there is no difference.
Images however take longer to load, they tend to be more annoying as it is more difficult to ignore them and they are easier to remove.
Text loads in a blink of an eye, you can decide to not read it and it has to be manually removed.

Then there is the fact, which I have already stated before might I add, that [Hedda] doesn't want a rule against it, simply because he doesn't like adding more rules (for also previously stated reasons). He drew the line there. If someone doesn't like that, then they'd have take it up with him.

2006-08-10 [Kiddalee]: So the problem has more to do with technical aspects of the data than ethics.

2006-08-10 [Sunrose]: The technical aspects AND the fact that [Hedda] doesn't want to bog Elftown down with more rules. He already dislikes some of the rules we have, such as the ASCII rule. I think he only agreed to add it, because he got tired of the endless heavy crew fights that were fought about adding it or not.

2006-08-11 [Kiddalee]: How does adding a rule bog Elftown down? Besides, it's only natural for me to argue that seeing all these memes in peoples' houses bog Elftown down more.

2006-08-11 [Sunrose]: Because it makes many people feel that Elftown has too many rules, according to [Hedda]'s reasoning.
No they don't, they hardly take any space.

2006-08-11 [Kiddalee]: I wasn't talking about how much space they take up in terms of data. I was talking about how they give the wrong impression to users visiting the houses and adversely affect their sense of community.

2006-08-11 [Sunrose]: How is that?

2006-08-11 [Stray Kitty]: Well, when you enter a house and see a lot of pasted unoriginal stuff, it doesn't go with the whole writer/artist/Elfwood hangaround thing. Some people here don't even know what Elfwood is.

2006-08-12 [Moonlit Serenade]: I thought Elfpack was created for people who don't like all the rules? If there is Elfpack for the lack of Rules and Elftown for some rules but not for serious art lovers, then why not make yet another site for people who do want more rules because they think this is all absurd and are tired of people who just want to hang around to cyber? And [Stray Kitty] is right. Elftown used to be the only site like this that wasn't blocked by our school's filter. So a lot of people made accounts so they could chat during school, not wanting to do much else. Most of them had no idea what Elfwood was and didn't care. Eventually, someone got caught, so it no longer is available in my district. But in a lot of other states and districts, it's probably the same deal.

2006-08-12 [Azuri]: I know I could get in threw my school computers but i had a account long before I found that out.

2006-08-12 [Moonlit Serenade]: Of course. Not everyone is here to chat at school. That's not what I meant. But half the people in my school have accounts ONLY because it could get past the security for a while. A lot of people are using this place as a cheap and easy message board or chat room, with no care for art. And a lot of them have never even heard of Elfwood. That's all I meant by the last part. A lot of people aren't even considered Elfwood hangarounds.

2006-08-12 [Sunrose]: Elftown isn't just for Elfwood hangarounds. You don't have to be a serious artlover either and chatting is OK.
Elfpack almost doesn't have any rules, Elftown has quite a few and there don't need to be more. If you want more, you can go to Elfwood.
The applicationsystem has cleaned up Elftown for a great deal. If you don't think that's true, try to find UAR-violations and report them :)

2006-08-13 [Azuri]: This is very true, over the last year or so people have been working hard to get rid of the people who arent good for the community. Of course its still going to take a while but we are the right road.

2006-08-13 [Sunrose]: We've always been working hard O_O
We however would've never been able to do what the applicationsystem does. Consequently we actually have less work now than we had before.

2006-08-16 [Kiddalee]: Elftown doesn't need to be for Elfwood hangarounds, but Elftown hangarounds, being Elftown hangarounds, should still have something to do with the character of the community.

2006-08-16 [Sunrose]: Elftown is about fantasy and sci-fi art, it doesn't say you have to make it yourself. It also allows other interests (see the interests that you can select on your house).

2006-08-23 [Moonlit Serenade]: Yyyeaaaah, this was mentioned.... long ago (Only two pages, but it was a while back)! Anyway, if you're still interested, here you are. 
How to turn a quiz into an intelligent description

2006-08-23 [Kiddalee]: Though Elftown allows hangarounds, one must note the difference between people who hang around as a part of the community and people who hang around doing nothing but sapping the spirit away from the community.

2006-08-24 [Sunrose]: I think that also depends on how you personally perceive hangarounds and the community. My sense of community is not affected because a non artistical person sent me a hi-message, for instance.
What I actually found true is that a community 'needs' something to kick against, it seems to make people come together and form a tighter group. Like gossip actually has a function in real life, if you study sociology.

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