hmm. been doing some research about the tea between harmony (the person who posted all of those msgs to the scp-wiki-official blog before it was vaporized) and the staff, and honestly? uh this seems like a really complex issue.
might post more later but i investigated some of the stuff she posted on the scp blog before it went under. massive thank you to @braintapes for taking all of those screenshots and posting them. also shout out to @scp-archived for reblogging a ton more relevant stuff to keep it around.
harmony says that her original account, which is currently named do_the_right_thing on the wiki, was banned (and subsequently became disused) because of a comment she left on a guide (an out-of-universe article writers to help writers on the wiki)
[RELEVANT PART OF THE IMAGE: a tumblr post from the scp-wiki-official blog, presumably written by pixelatedHarmony, reading: “So I came out as trans and realized a lot of what had been doing as part of the staff was fucked up (sic), but I wasn’t taken seriously and got banned for criticizing a guide I had approved as a checked-out admin.” END ID.]
i guess the implication here is that she might have been banned because of the staff finding her disagreeable all of a sudden, because of a) her gender identity, b) her criticism of the staff, or c) both. im not super familiar with any of the staff that would have been involved (havent read much on the allegations against them either), nor am i familiar with how the staff typically functions in situations like these, so im refraining from commenting on this for now.
i went through her profile on the wiki and found the guide and the comment she was talking about.
here’s a link to the guide: http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/avoid-the-blackbox
the interesting thing about the comment that she left was that, within an hour of initially posting it, she had revised her comment approximately 25 times. i wont bother with the middle 23 because they basically look like those covers for the animorphs books (i.e. theyre all somewhere in between the first revision and the last revision in terms of content).
here’s her initial comment:
[IMAGE ID: a comment on the scp foundation wiki, written by user do_the_right_thing, currently known as pixelatedHarmony. the comment was posted on February 26th, 2021, at 10:44 A.M. EDT. the comment reads: “This is a terrible guide. What kind of creative writing site are we that we celebrate something that spits on our core values in favor of deifying pedantry? There’s not a single word here that isn’t telling people how they’re allowed to think and nothing about how they can use an iconic SCP visual element in new, creative or interesting ways, instead urging them to not even consider the tool and to throw it directly in the trash.
A complete waste of a good author’s misguided effort, this the worst guide or essay on this Wiki.” END IMAGE ID]
so...... yall can draw ur own conclusions from that but that is pretty harsh, and definitely the type of comment that the staff would review. however, it is worth noting that she revised her comment pretty heavily over the course of roughly an hour. the final comment looks like this:
[IMAGE ID: a comment on the scp foundation wiki, written by user do_the_right_thing, currently known as pixelatedHarmony. the comment was posted on February 26th, 2021, at 11:52 A.M. EDT. the comment is titled: “Disaster (done editing the post for real).” the body of the comment reads: “A series of straw man arguments fighting for a point that didn’t need to be made, feeding into the misguided notion that somehow the only thing holding people back from writing “correctly” is some nebulous thing called “proper clinical tone.”
How did the SCP Wiki, a creative writing site that celebrates a lack of defined canon, unquestioningly accept something that spits on this core value in favor of pedantry? There’s not a single word here that isn’t telling people how they’re allowed to think and nothing about how they can use an iconic SCP visual element in new, creative or interesting ways, instead urging them to not even consider the tool and to throw it directly in the trash.
We do not need to emulate any real-life institutional style guide because we are not them. They are real and have valid reasons to use rigid rules to govern their speech, we are a facsimile using our speech to make interesting fiction. So if that means defying the conventions of a field we’re not even participating in, what is wrong with that?
I know none of this was done intentionally, no honest writer wishes to limit how they or anyone else could use language. The guide accomplishes only that chilling effect.” END IMAGE ID]
personal commentary here: i do think this final comment is still incredibly harsh, unnecessarily so. revising the comment doesnt mean that the original comment was never made and published. the author of the work would still be able to read the initial comment, the same way anyone can. however, i probably wouldnt ban someone for this comment if this was their only offense. its cruel but it still makes valid criticism given the contents of the article. at most, i would only have reprimanded Harmony in this case, knowing only the information that has been presented to us. thats my personal opinion on the case, though, and i dont know what the staff’s line of thinking was for this.
theres more but i need to sleep for now, so ig to sum it up: its kinda hard to tell what happened without spending hours digging around the wiki and other online forums. i might for a passion project if i have time in the future. right now, it’s looking like it could be a trans woman coming out and pointing out flaws in a system and subsequently being unfairly punished.... or it could be someone manipulating the situation, only producing evidence (from a shady site ig?) when its convenient. i just dont have enough information to really lean one way or the other yet.
if anyone else has done any kind of digging, i would love to know. if anyone related to the wiki or the staff has anything to say to try to clear matters up (or throw some more mayhem in there, who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), feel free. i have anon asks turned on if anyone wants to say something anonymously. any future posts of mine on the subject will be tagged #harmony v the staff
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