And Cindy, I don't know if it's a comfort or if you need to be told this, but I believe the real story would have come out even without you speaking up. This isn't to discount the effort and care you put into the situation, of course.

I think I'm missing a shit-ton of information.

Allyson, did you see the stories on The Mary Sue? That was my original impetus for taking the temperature of the group.

Cindy, I think you made a good point, and I don't think people are offended by it.

I don't care about the Tropers community; I don't feel any great urge to help them out. And whenever I've done something because I'm mad at someone else, I pretty much always regret it, and usually regret the consequences.

Cindy, please don't delete your old posts. It feels like you think there's some mob gathering here, that is going to use your posts to start some shitstorm. I don't think that's true.

Seconded. We're just talking, it's what we do, and I don't see a mob gathering. The pitchforks are still in the barn.

And Cindy, deleting your posts removes part of the conversation from anyone who comes in later. You have added valuable information and context, and it will be hard to make this discussion make sense if you take away everything you've said--because what you said is helping shape the discussion.

I think if a troper asked us for information, that might be different. Or even if we were approached by a reporting or blogger investigating, I think we could offer up what we know. But actively seeking to insert ourselves into the situation and screaming about how big of a asshole he is or what he did or didn't do to our board or if the website was his original idea just smacks of too much vendetta.

I hate him but I don't want to go tell other people how much of a dick he is unless they ask me.

I don't think it would help anyone that much or make a big "oh we'll clearly he's evil let's kill TV tropes!" or anything. And it would cause drama here.

But seriously--if someone came here and said ita had committed pseudicide somewhere else on the Internet, would we care? I mean, we might personally lose respect for her but would we shut down the board? Stop talking to each other? I'd like to think not.

Oh yeah, I did. I was thinking about going into the thread when Fast Eddie posted and giving Gus a Shout Out from his friends in Minearverse. OH HAI, WE REMEMBER YOU AND CAN TOTES FUCK WITH YOU WHENEVER WE WANT.

But I really can't remember with razor-sharpness what happened. Just that Gus died, and Trudy was upset, and we were like, "Trudy, he's not really dead, he's was just a figment of some dude's imagination."

And then there was some hurt feelings, and then we were like, "WTF TVTROPES?"

It was at that point that there were just hundreds of stories about pseudicides popping up all over the place, I just felt kind of stupid, like I'd been had, AGAIN.

I know that a lot of folks are still really upset by it in different ways. I just think he's a fucking dick. I don't know why we wouldn't post about him, somewhere. It's our story.

(Though, honestly, the pain in the ass off turning off registrations for programming makes me lean on the side of, eh, fuck it.)

(But, err, that piece hits too close to work.)

It is our story, Allyson. If this were a convo about whether or not we should document it in our FAQ, I would feel differently. But there was no gang of 16 or 14 documenting this. There was no Margot. There was me, with a side of Teppy, Cashmere, and Hec, and mere notes of the community going, "Okay, I see your point, but you suck for not letting us grieve longer." I don't want my research used to take down the admittedly big faker, Guy Straley. It's not why I did it. I did it to save the Buffistas grocery money and grief. Period.