User blog:Green47/Review 2

Well, that was an interesting 2 months. As stated, I had an unused story I found and decided to put some of the details here. I reused some of these ideas in a story on Fanfiction.net, which you may find here. At the same time, I decided to expand some of the items I'd written about in the 2017 articles, such as the Pink Decimators and Kogoz Rezmug. I also created the Star Rajas simply to create a Southeast Asian Space Marine Chapter. Nobody has objected to the use of the Malay flag as the basis.

So did anything happen? Remos deleted two images for not having proper descriptions.



Apparently, Remos does this rather than simply warn the user in order to attract their attention. I still strongly disagree with this. As I said on the page, administrators of wikis are not members of the Adeptus Arbites. Shock tactics are not necessary except for repeat offenders.

Remos also placed a warning about Avrolanc having 2 infoboxes. Well, I see his point, and he was correct. However, I have not taken up his suggestion of splitting them because I don't think they're separate. As far as I'm concerned, the planet and the moon are one item.

Nothing much happened after. However, Ovaltine Patrol added the following quote to Marcia Hrodberht:

"I don't care if you have receipts, these auspex units and vox casters have clearly been smashed with hammers. No refunds."

- Douchard Bagge

This is how the conversation went:

"What is the quote you added to Marcia Hrodberht about? I can't see any value it adds so unless you revise it I'll have to remove it."

- Me

"A DB quote increases the value of any page I add it to by a factor of 10."

- OP

That was that quote removed. That was not an explanation, nor an attempt at revision. Furthermore, I'm not sure how that 10% figure came about, nor I care. The quote implies that Marcia is a clumsy twit. She is not.

I'd have thought it would end there. No. I removed the quote for adding no value. Then Necrus came along.

"1. Clearly was not vandalism 2. Quotes promote a democratic and communicative user community 3. Douchard Bagge is a popular article, appreciate the exposure"

- Necrus on reverting my removal.

Necrus then reverted his revert, realising I was write. When I spoke with him on this, he admitted that admins can screw up. Here's what I said:

"Yes, of course I was right. It was my article and I know who this character is and what she does. I don't care how popular an article subject is: anything irrelevant is gone. I am not obligated to 'appreciate the exposure'. If you hadn't changed your mind, I would have reverted the change anyway and withdrawn the automatic permission for other users to add their own quotes. Kindly do not do that again to anyone in future"

- Me (you'd think this would be common sense)

Still, Necrus admitted he was wrong. But the Marcia issue was not over yet. Imposter noticed correctly that Marcia sounded like a Handmaid from The Handmaid's Tale. Initially, I congratulated him for noticing and explained my reasoning. However, Necrus wrote a response that I perceived as patronising. Then the drama started.

I objected to this lecture by pointing out the stuff I already knew.: OK, first my awareness of how ruthless the Imperium is. You saw the story on fanfiction.net so you are aware of my Quora account. Right, now that's over, don't even think about telling me how awful the Imperium is. I already know.
 * I suggested that the Imperium may incorporate Oceania from 1984 for the propaganda skills. Here.
 * Pointed out that the Imperium is 'paranoid, ruthless, and oppressive', that 'some planets that are giant farms and some that are your average horrible, stereotype council estate multiplied by 10000 or more'. Here.
 * Pointed out that the Imperium uses 'Hanging, Shooting, Flaying, Beating, Flogging, Branding, Starvation', forces some criminals to be suicide bombers, detailed an encounter where someone thought a list from The Handmaid's Tale was from 40k, and finally brought up the possibility that the Imperium uses FGM on Sororitas Orders with a celibacy vow (and was fortunately disproven). Here.
 * Said that if a self-confessed heretical Guardsman was not executed immediately, he'd get 'cold showers, flogging, psychic torment, several months chained up underground,' or, if just a crisis of faith, 'extra sermons, one-on-one tuition, and perhaps temporarily recruit him into an Inquisitor’s staff to show him how correct the Imperial Creed is', with said tutor being Karamazov. Here.
 * Compared the Mechanicus to fanatics of the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian faiths. Here.
 * Gave the possibility of a female attempting to join the Astartes: 'Alternatively, you could have a girl disguising herself as a boy to try and join the Space Marines. She manages to fool the doctors, she gets through the tests… and then dies painfully when they start the genetic modifications. Moral of the story: Join the Guard!' Here.
 * Explained the USP of 40k: 'This will be hard, but most dystopias are about the protagonists struggling against an oppressive regime. In 40k, they are the oppressive regime.' Here.
 * 'There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures. (Strongly Disagree) There are feral worlds and civilised worlds. The alien is always savage, humanity in general always civilised. 'Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried. (Agree) As Fyodor Karamazov would put it, everyone is guilty of something.' 'It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals. (Strongly Agree) The worse heretics get a new job: Servitor.' Abortion, when the woman’s life is not threatened, should always be illegal. (Disagree) Infants can be a liability. There are plenty of babies, like there are plenty of soldiers in the Imperial Guard. Some are expendable.'. Here.
 * Meanwhile, I commented: 'Actually, I want Imperial characters to be relatable people with modern values precisely because they’re not Nazis. Having the sort of people a reader could meet in the street or work alongside reinforces this point highlighted by the Imperial War Museum: "The idea that the Germans were naturally predisposed more than any other race to committing genocide, the idea that the Cambodians had some secret germ inside them or that the Rwandese did, is absolute nonsense. We are all capable of it."'

As I stated later, "expert" was my mistake. I meant Imposter, which I'd called him earlier, but I only realised it looked as though I was calling myself an expert afterwards. Still, the list. It is obvious that

"OK, first my awareness of how ruthless the Imperium is."

- Me

The list.

"Right, now that's over, don't even think about telling me how awful the Imperium is. I already know."

- Me

are part of the same point. There is simply no way I can perceive anyone not seeing them as connected. Here's Imposter's response, which I will not dignify with quote formatting:

''“OK, first my awareness of how ruthless the Imperium is. You saw the story on fanfiction.net so you are aware of my Quora account.”''

''I was aware you had one. I didn’t read your posts or have any interest in them. Most of this isn’t even relevant to a my points, and largely appears to be a lot of unsourced conjecture. I also wouldn't consider ‘Quora’ to be a good source - as the site is filled to the brim with pseuds who do not provide sources.''

“Right, now that's over, don't even think about telling me how awful the Imperium is.”

''There’s no need to be rude. Your exceedingly arrogant attitude makes me feel it’s pointless to offer any feedback as you seem unwilling to accept any sort of critique.''

Since it is near-impossible not to realise that the list and the two sentences are an attempt to prove I don't need to be patronising, I can only assume that Imposter was deliberately twisting my words. Perhaps I am wrong. If I am right, the question is why. And then we have this: And said rulebooks largely depict 40k as an absurd, over the top autocratic theocracy in the style of Brazil or Judge Dredd.

Once again, patronsing! I think Imposter twisted my words just because he wanted to look like a victim and have the chance to continue lecturing and therefore look superior. Again, I cannot perceive any way that anyone could not realise the sentences and the list are connected, so I must assume it was deliberate. Perhaps it wasn't, but that's how I see it. I'm not saying guilty or not guilty.

Everything I said was valid. However, there was another thing: Imposter said I did not provided sources. Let me make this clear: I do provide sources. Therefore:

"And another thing: Unless you withdraw the claim that what I write is unsourced, this discussion will not go any further."

- Me

Then along came Blackdamp. At this point, I was feeling under attack after Ovaltine Patrol, Necrus, and Imposter's actions. Blackdamp basically stereotyped the Imperium and said that because I was not fulfilling the stereotype, the article was of low quality.

"The Imperium enslaves countless trillions of people, out of necessity. Many toil until they die in factories, or are thrown against the enemies of man by the billions."

- BD's first stereotype. "My opinion is they probably don't care because you are going to be eaten by a Ork on your first mission for the Guard."

- BD's second and even worse stereotype.

Does Blackdamp also believe that the people of Scotland all wear kilts, eat haggis, and play bagpipes? I expect not, so why here? But my real annoyance was that he described my description as insulting. Considering I had more canon and real life data on my side, that was plain wrong.

Imposter finally retracted his comment and decided to interpret this an embellished propaganda. Fine. Remos also stepped in and fairly objected to my Guard name-dropping and use of the word "homophobic". I sorted that out. Blackdamp also said that he just giving his "Opinion" (his capitals) and that it was not to his tastes. However, I explained that in mainstream media, reviews are themselves reviewed, especially if readers feel the review is misleading, ill-informed, or both.

Finally, I elaborated on the use of the word insulting. Clearly, the real insult is to all the GW authors (of novels & rules) who tried to make the Imperium and the Galaxy a varied and interesting place by defying the stereotypes. To use the stereotypes against the work of others is the real insult. That was the end of that. However, Blackdamp also criticised my mention of glossy magazines. I considered delaying my departure to write it but instead gave the idea to Remos. He has control of it now, either to use himself when his Knight World is done or to suggest to users who come to him asking for ideas.

That's the overall review. This last disaster has done a lot of damage to the possibility of me coming back after 17:00 today.