Thread:FishTank/@comment-26923065-20151125023254/@comment-2253059-20160103194626

I’m breaking this message up into three sections to address the following topics:

I. FishTank’s version of the story

Perhaps the most notable thing about FishTank’s description of what happened is he’s admitting he contacted the staff after I agreed to his demand.

Fair enough, he didn’t promise he wouldn’t report me. But when you threaten to do something if a certain action isn’t taken, and that action is taken, it is common courtesy not to follow through with your threat.

If you still follow through with your threat, problems are going to appear. Usually, the person you threatened is going to go back to doing what you didn’t want him or her to do. You demonstrated there were no benefits to complying with your demands. In this scenario, reporting me helped keep the conflict alive. By reporting me, FishTank took away the benefit of ending the fight with his friend. Why should I back down if I’m going to get blocked anyways?

I was also banned within less than 24 hours after told FishTank I would stop, which implies he didn’t deliberate long on filling a ticket. His motivation for filling it is a little odd too; saying the “intensity and vehemence of (my) arguments and BBM's responses” made him question if there should be a formal inquiry, when BadlyBruisedMuse began the argument and I was the one responding. It’s minor, but I’m still pointing this out.

I can’t access the ticket, so I don’t know how the full conversation at the Help Center went. Still, there are two things worth noting from the excerpts provided:

First, the thread FishTank linked is an odd choice to include in his basis for filling the ticket. That part of the conflict was already settled; shortly after that thread was removed, BadlyBruisedMuse and I were ordered by John Alfred Hammond, CEO to stop fighting. I apologized for my conduct and that was the end of it, at least for a few days. That thread also features BadlyBruisedMuse vehemently denying any wrongdoing on his part when John Alfred Hammond, CEO ultimately removed a wall post he created about me at the time. BadlyBruisedMuse received a warning, blamed me for the post being made, “apologized” for his part in a “trivial debate,” and then continued the “trivial debate” on my own message wall, ensuring the conflict would continue. I suspect none of this was brought to DaNASCAT’s attention.

And then there’s this part of DaNASCAT’s message: “If he is harassing you outside of Wikia” – the “you” of course referring to FishTank. After all, nothing written here indicates BadlyBruisedMuse took part in the Help Center conversation.

As evidenced by this quote, DaNASCAT thought I was harassing FishTank. I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion. A possible scenario is FishTank mislead DaNASCAT into thinking I harassing him. Or perhaps DaNASCAT made a mistake and FishTank didn’t bother correcting him. Which is also pretty bad.

Regardless of what made DaNASCAT believe this, I did not harass FishTank. Nothing I said before the ticket was filed comes anywhere close to harassment. His message wall on the AHS Wiki says you can contact him on Facebook. I asked him for help and backed down when he threatened me. And that’s practically the opposite of harassment.

Originally, I was going to argue against FishTank’s logic in our first Facebook correspondence, but I decided it wasn’t worth being blocked. Once I got blocked, I tried to let it go, but I was too frustrated by what happened. I did what he told me to do and the outcome was the same if I had stood up to him. I allowed him to walk all over me. That’s what prompted my later message.

Small thing to note: That message was sent on October 15th, not October 11th. I don’t know why the date was changed.

Anyways, that message was what I originally intended to write. It was a refutation to what FishTank told me. I don’t see how deconstructing someone’s claims warrants a report on Facebook.

FishTank says he was hoping the situation would go away, but by notifying BadlyBruisedMuse about the message I sent him in October, he helped further agitate it. The same day I sent that message, BadlyBruisedMuse responded to Kooshmeister’s post on his message wall and talked about how horrible I was to him. That’s not a coincidence. That message he wrote also prompted a chain of events that led to this thread being created.

But again, this situation probably would have been over if FishTank didn’t report me after I agreed to his demand. I was ready to end it. Reporting me took away only benefit of backing down and forced me to stand up for myself to prevent these people from turning me into their doormat.

II. BadlyBruisedMuse’s comment

BadlyBruisedMuse claims he’s not interested in me, yet he felt the need to write a 496-word response to a post that wasn’t even directed at him. It was a post where I admitted to wrongdoing and he still made a lengthy reply.

What I was doing in the quote BadlyBruisedMuse cited was pleading no contest. I have every right to do that so long as there’s no concrete evidence against me. It’s neither an admission nor a denial. I’ve admitted to performing that action now because I actually am honest. Unfortunately, that honesty keeps being used against me, while BadlyBruisedMuse flat-out denies lying and exaggerating allegations, and people seem to believe him, despite the evidence to the contrary.

BadlyBruisedMuse says he’s “a debater” and “it became clear” I’m “not interested really in reason.” In reality, our first debate ended with me responding to all of his points and he couldn’t refute what I said. He resorted to claiming his word alone made him right and lying about refuting me. He only claims I’m not interested in reason because I didn’t conform to his viewpoints and he can’t accept the possibility of being wrong.

One part of his argument hinged on his belief that “dropped” was “strong, precise verb,” even though dropped can refer to a number of things other than a person falling downwards. If charges against a defendant are dropped in a court of law, does that mean the charges fell out of a person’s hands? Of course not, at least not in the way “dropped” is typically used in that context. Another part was based on the strawman that I was arguing “dropped” grammatically indicates intent by itself when I was really arguing “dropped” implied intent by itself. When I made it clear I was talking about how the word was perceived, he stopped directly contesting my arguments. The only thing he has against my perception argument is apparently his English professor and “academic peers” don’t believe “dropped” implies intent, without any evidence to prove that’s their actual opinion on the matter. Plus, using his peers’ opinions to support his argument is also a fallacy (argumentum ad populum), but I’ve said enough about this.

Other editors haven’t removed “dropped” from the articles because it’s not a big deal to them. They didn’t remove “fell” either; only BadlyBruisedMuse objected to it being in Zara-related articles. The word appears in other articles because most editors would rather just copy and paste similar information than write it from scratch. The Wikipedia entry on Zara says she “falls into the Mosasaurus lagoon” and nobody’s changed that either. At least not yet; it wouldn’t surprise me if BadlyBruisedMuse rushes over to Wikipedia after learning this to insert “dropped” on the page.

I used “dropped” on two occasions in a thread I created. BadlyBruisedMuse would have had to “stalk” my edits to see these posts, but that’s another story. Anyways, I used it when the Pteranodons were the main focus in my sentences. I was discussing how only two Pteranodons grabbed Zara before she fell to explain why it wasn’t necessary to mention she was tossed around in her article. Obviously, the sentences in Zara’s article are going to focus on her, which changes how they’re written.

The real irony is BadlyBruisedMuse included “fell” in his definition of “dropped” and then tried to argue they were “distinctly different” words.

Like always, BadlyBruisedMuse acts like all he did was disagree with me. He focuses on what I did and ignores what he did. What he really did was try to force me into accepting his point of view, even after I proved him wrong. He would not stop undoing my edits and he would not stop posting on my message wall. He made a wall post on his own wall insulting me and repeatedly insisted there was nothing wrong it. He continued to pick fights with me, even after he received a warning. He continues to tell lies, manipulate admins, and exaggerate what I did. He remains unable to take responsibility for his own actions. This doesn’t make my actions right, but I own up to them. BadlyBruisedMuse does not.

Just like BadlyBruisedMuse didn’t start accusing me of cyberstalking him until FishTank brought it up, he didn’t start accusing me of harassing him until I said he was harassing me. That’s pretty interesting. Makes me wonder what term he’ll copy next.

III. American Horror Story Wiki drama

Roughly a month after I was reported, BadlyBruisedMuse had a falling out with fellow admin OGRastamon on the AHS Wiki. I don’t know exactly when the conflict between them started and I’m not sure what caused it. The earliest traces of tensions can be found in this wall post.

Although BadlyBruisedMuse said it would be for the best if he and OGRastamon didn’t talk to each other, he started a fight with him on his message wall a few days later.

He then proceeded to post on OGRastamon’s message wall four more times, criticizing his edits and trying to initiate more fights with him. Even after OGRastamon made it clear that he had no interest in debating his edits, even after he requested BadlyBruisedMuse to stop posting on his wall over minor issues, and even after he began ignoring the messages, BadlyBruisedMuse persisted in openly attacking his edits and attempting to goad him into a fight.

Like I said above, I don’t know the full story behind this conflict; what I can gather from OGRastamon’s message to BadlyBruisedMuse is BadlyBruisedMuse felt he was doing all the hard work on the wiki and he attacked OGRastamon for apparently not pulling his weight.

My perspective is obviously biased, but contrary to BadlyBruisedMuse’s claim, I see nothing backhanded about OGRastamon’s message. He was praising BadlyBruisedMuse for handing “boring and frustrating day-to-day tasks” that most people wouldn’t have the energy to complete. Calling his tasks “boring” wasn’t meant as an insult, it was a compliment to his work ethic.

The only thing OGRastamon was critical about was the fact that he made more edits to the wiki than BadlyBruisedMuse, despite BadlyBruisedMuse being on the wiki almost a year longer than he was. And that’s fact, but it seems BadlyBruisedMuse didn’t take to kindly to this being pointed out. So in an effort to prove he was the better contributor, he took it upon himself to openly criticize OGRastamon’s edits every chance he got when could have “corrected” them without trying to start a debate.

To repeatedly attack a fellow editor on his message wall, even when the editor asked to be left alone - that is harassment. I suspect none of this was observed by the discussion group FishTank established.