@doppelgreener not really. The term actually derives from an old comedy from Aristophanes (first performed in 414 BC). Read here if you want the full story - short version, the term derives from the name of a city in that play.
The city is called Νεφελοκοκκυγία — Nephelokokkygia. "Nubicuculia", which is usually translated to "cloud-cuckoo-land".
The term ""cloud-cuckoo-lander" derives from there, but often people (including me) forget the "cloud" and just call them ""cuckoo-lander" instead.
BTW, since we are at it... It is just me or in many children animated show (but maybe it is just a Carton Network thing) cuckoolander seems to be a synonym of "the character is neurodiverse so let's make an idiot out of him"?
so, yes, that seems to be the purpose of the trope: neuroatypical people who are also comic relief
so if they fit that trope it's because they're being handled that way
@doppelgreener depends. If "edgy gritty grimdark" means "more swearing at Batman".... nope. If that means more Trigon and more focus on Raven... I could live with it I suppose
@doppelgreener Probably you are right and the trope is indeed a catch all. But I think there is a big difference in how Pinkie Pie is portrayed in MLP and how, for example, Patrick is in Spongebob or Clarence in Clarence.
Pinkie is a weird pony with her own way of thinking (and her own set of issues that actually makes sense in context since she actually has a back-story)...
i suspect specifically focusing on the trope (and what it defines and who is or isn't included in its example pages) is going to be a bit of a red herring in a discussion about neuroatypical characters and how they get portrayed
@Derpy also yes lol edgy gritty grimdark with swearing at batman is definitely not on.
It's often said on this site that meta means murder and that this acts as a deterrent. Our site, which is supposed to act as the central clearinghouse for network-wide matters, doesn't have a great rep despite the good efforts of many people here. Using a system designed for objective(ish) Q&A,...
Meta.se is a physical avatar of the Stack Exchange's unexamined conviction that its mechanical site infrastructure is suitable for any subject with only minor modifications to the users' social behavior.
@BESW I mean, the usually lingering problem there is that the community is kinda unable to be kind to each other and just live in harmony. That is the same on the actual sites, in chat and so on.
The Stack Exchange devoted years to developing an interface and infrastructure to enforce an epistemology that values pithy independent responses to clear, precise problems. This interface and its accompanying infrastructure actively discourages discussion, ambiguity, and accompaniment.
@BESW I get what you meant there, but to me the greater issue is that people think that it totally makes much difference if something is downvoted to -100 instead of just stopping at -10....
Because you know
> It helps reinforcing the message and helps them learn.
I meant that just because the "downvoting structure empowers that attitude." one shouldn't just forget to think about what is actually the kind thing to do.
The site's structure tells us how we're expected to behave, creating and reinforcing expectations. While I am a firm believer in peoples' ability to rise above their environments, curated environments are a strong multiplication factor that can either help or actively obstruct that process.
so, what I meant is that even if the current system is kinda bad I would like to think that people could use their brain to use the system to hurt people less.
I mean... You folk here manage to be very different from many other sites in the network.
The Stack is getting people who are coming from spaces on the Internet which have taught them to devalue kindness and value quick and visible responses of any kind.
The Stack's interface and mechanics reinforce those ideas by devaluing discussion, personal interaction, and nuance, in favor of quick and populist responses that use the accepted rhetoric.
We've worked VERY hard to create this room culture, and the system fights us.
I never made it a secret that I hang here because these are some of the most pleasant chat rooms in the network to stay at.... I don't think you are all saints descended from some high cloud in the heavens, it means meta.SE should be able to behave like you do here.
... instead of just fighting all day long in chat (obviously an hyperbole here, but I hope my point is clear enough)
The Stack's policies, as well, are not kind. "Be nice" is largely phrased as tone policing, for example.
The Stack Overlords themselves devalue emotional labor; the fundamental basis of the Stack concept is that users are faulty, incorrigible, fungible cogs in an ambivalent, morally neutral machine.
We are not moving in a system which considers us people.
So... yeah, it'd be really nice if people could become more kind in this space. But then they'd leave and make a space that is itself kinder.
sadly enough, I once betrayed the mighty ones by posting that infamous post about the inherent not-so-kindness of a certain site prank redesing, so I am once again a step farther from reaching 10k rep on meta.SE and be able to see deleted content, but I think Monica post used to have at least... 4 more answers.
Btw, have you had a look at the chat discussion that is linked in one of the replies too, @BESW ?
Does it provide an artificially high bar for new user entry? Yes, and the Stack Exchange knows it and is okay with it: our Stack Overlords' position on the matter is that they are picky about the users they want to court: users who are already primed to learn the SE systems and rules; they're willing to lose users who need hand-holding to get to that point, and to sacrifice a small number of questions along the way.
The Stack is not welcoming and it's not supposed to be. It was designed that way, and they can't un-spill that milk with superficial policy changes, it's baked into the site. Those downvotes are working as intended, and the Overlords have only changed their intent to the degree it's making them fearful of their profits.
(To be clear, I think Monica's honestly trying to make it a more pleasant place to be but she can only work inside the system; the problem is systemic and can only be eliminated by the people with the authority to rip the site's code apart and rebuild from premise up.)
Our Stack Overlords have indicated an interest in making the site more welcoming of diverse peoples, but I don't get the impression they understand that this means challenging some of their basic assumptions about the system's best practices.
I get the impression they think they can solve the hostility problem with policy updates and cosmetic changes.
@Derpy So, the basic principle here is that we are not a community: the policy is that you should vote as if you're the only one voting. Screw context, life is objective and society is the coincidental harmony of a billion raving sociopaths.
CONTENT FOR THE CONTENT GOD.
It's like Rule Utilitarianism, if happiness were replaced with content.
and the only measure of success is whether productive things are occurring in sufficient quantities
and we don't really have adequate measures for gently working through things with people: everything gets thrown into the public masses, and the only additional tool moderators have is the one where we tell you that you can't use the site anymore for a while, or which we use to provide warnings when your account is heading in that direction.
there are users we've had to suspend because part of their activity pattern represented significant disruption and we didn't really have any other recourse
And moderators suffer the same neglect, because the tools for supporting them are incomplete and focused on protecting the company rather than treating them like people.
if you wanna understand what “the stack doesn't compensate for emotional labour” feels like, become a moderator
i'd say “be a regular contributing member who engages in moderation” but that's been eased into, becoming a diamond moderator has a more sudden drastic noticeable change
> She found herself in a state of simultaneous gratitude and fury. (She was getting used to the combination: that doubling, the strangeness of being grateful for something she should never have had to experience in the first place. Teixcalaan was full of it.)
(Speaking of representation, @doppelgreener, I also can't recommend A Memory Called Empire highly enough.)
@doppelgreener no thanks. Already had my share of "moderation life" back during my Ultima Online dayse. From attempting dousing flamewars on online forums to keep people well-behaving in game to attempt to create events and stories for people who are just there for the prize to be insulted to be backstabbed by the staff when they don't needed us anymore... I have all the scouts merit badges.
Wouldn't want to bore anyone with the full story, let's just say our server was pretty unlucky with the "management choices" it made.
oh, in the meantime I just found one of my cryptic warnings I once posted on the main Meta chat when discussing the direction the server was going to.
anyway... found out. If anyone is interested, you can find a short version of "why Derpy won't touch moderation roles with a 20 meter long pole the Ruyi Jingu Bang" starting here.
@ShadowWizard Long ago, in a far far away land, there was a private UO shard. It was a small server, with little resources, but the people that created it were friends. And so that little server grew and prosper for a while, slowly getting bigger and famous as more and more people started to play there.
oh, I think that when I posted that I had in mind that other incident about the "leonizing users" in mind. Some of which also happened to be voluntary moderators
... sometime I kinda wish Monica and BESW had a talk. I can try to explain her how we feel about the current situation, but I fell my English is far too lacking.
It's the staff we really need to speak to, though.
Monica's just one of the moderators. None of us can change the system.
user15026
Pretty much.
user15026
And a lot of it is so....entrenched in how people view the system, that it's gonna be....difficult at best to get any real change in any sort of reasonable timeframe.
Yeah, it's not like this is a unique Stack problem. The idea of treating users as fungible content creators is baked into the modern Internet-based business model, and is a distillation of the wider "profitability is the primary good" paradigm of our economy.
