Northern 
I refuse to bend
As a result of the new changes to the rules specifically disallowing even parody and satirical representations of a fictional character and excluding fictional depictions of a racist character simply because she is not canon to the show, I will be taking my pony spirit elsewhere from now on. This thread now exists for those of us who disagree with the final iteration of the rule change to express disappointment, sorrow, misery or otherwise shame that we feel in the staff, the community and for the flagrant disregard to the majority of the userbase that believes that the staff in question are, indeed, destroying the concept of the integrity of their database with the new rule changes and should feel ashamed of themselves for doing it. I have read the updated rules and my opinion on them and their enforcement has not changed. As a longtime member of this community and, indeed, one of the foundational members of this community from its fledgling days where it started on the small corner of the internet that was /b/ on 4chan , I am fundamentally disappointed in the lack of conviction or dedication to keeping to the ideals that founded this community: That everypony is to be treated equally, that everypony is to be loved. All forms of expression were welcome, all forms of expression should be welcome, even those that we disagree with. Even those that openly attacked us and all that we stood for were tolerated with open arms back then, because we knew that attempting to silence others who disagreed with us would inevitably lead to the silencing of us explicitly for the very thing we all came together around. I will say this loud and clear, for the final time on this site, before I will leave and not come back until/unless it returns to the ideals it once held: this community is not, has not been and should never be about the feelings of a minority that feel like they have the right to silence others. It also has not and should never be about how a majority of people who feel like they have the right to silence others feel, even if these people believe they’re in the majority. Freedom of expression, truthfully, carries more weight than any of the arguments made against it in the thread announcing the current changes and I hope, indeed I beg the staff to reconsider the thought that they have in any way the responsibility (or indeed the moral right) to wield their influence as prominent members of this community to attempt to cull trends within the community they disagree with, regardless of the vitriolic, impassioned response against them saying “No, we fundamentally disagree with the very foundational notion of what you suggest doing to our community and we beg you to reconsider”.
As it stands, I can no longer support the untenable situation that is being created here, under the watchful, unblinking, controlling eyes of moderators and administrators who believe that their desires for what the community should be outweigh the principles that brought us together in the first place: The ideals that represented what this community stood for and indeed still stands for in the eyes of many – the right to think, create and be accepted for the various expressions we have, even when they are not considered normal in the eyes of many, or indeed, any we know.
Once upon a time, that was our community, being silenced and suppressed for creating all of our artwork, being vitriolically torn apart on far flung corners of the internet and in the belly of the beast that would otherwise devour us whole that was /b/ and even /co/ on 4chan. The ‘channer culture’ that so many of you seek to remove from this community is, in fact, the oldest form of this community that exists, older than /mlp/‘s very existence and in this pony’s opinion, quite a bit more welcoming than any culture that would suppress and silence expressions they disagree with in the name of cultivating a community that does not contain any semblance of ideas that they disagree with, even created in the pure form of parody, satire, jest or artistic contrast for the sake of artistic contrast.
No, staff. Things were not rotten behind closed doors. No, staff. Hatred does not grow when you leave it out in the open for everyone to see, it grows when you exile it to the far corners of society and refuse to acknowledge or challenge it in the open, boldly and brashly by allowing it to be seen in the sunlight and soundly defeated. You CAN NOT and WILL NOT ever stamp out hatred as a concept and exiling it will only make it a stronger and stronger element in this community. No one can remove all negativity from their community entirely, but what we can do is, as a community say “That’s your opinion and I may not like it but you’ve said it now. Downvoting and moving on”. By censoring the content you don’t like out of the database you are only going to succeed in turning those who are against censorship into the arms of the people you don’t like, which is not to say that this utilitarian look at the mechanics of what you are doing is in any way more important than the principle of the matter is in the first place. You have failed to represent the pony community fairly. You have failed to represent the users of your own site fairly and you have failed, I repeat, you have FAILED to uphold the values that made the pony community what it is.
Everypony Equal, Everypony Loved.
This has been Northern Wind. Another old, longstanding member of this community, signing out. Anyone else who wants to say a proper goodbye, again, this thread is for you, as stated in the beginning.
Updates about the spam in this thread;
@Derpy Whooves
Explanation of which threads were hit, all of which, minus the one the moderator couldn’t remember are the specific ones where I had successfully argued my case and the moderators had stopped responding, in my opinion because they’d run out of tenable arguments.
@Derpy Whooves
Reasonable explanations as to how the modstaff could have handled this that points to the possibility of someone else explicitly reporting the spammer’s motivations.
@Derpy Whooves
A proper explanation of the spammer’s ‘manifesto’ that was deleted kicking off this whole thing. The context leads me to believe they were exclaiming, through the link in question, that they believe the alt-right is winning and therefore they must silence people on the anti-censorship side of the argument. Decide for yourself. I am convinced, at least, that we lack the evidence to confirm that the spammer was working with the staff. Someone targeting their motivations directly and forcing the mod to act could have created the same scenario. At the very least, we know that someone did something to attempt to hide the spammer’s motivation’s directly as reporting the first piece of spam and then the last was not applied consistently at all. The spammer still made the site staff’s side of the argument look bad, but not the site staff themselves.
As it stands, I can no longer support the untenable situation that is being created here, under the watchful, unblinking, controlling eyes of moderators and administrators who believe that their desires for what the community should be outweigh the principles that brought us together in the first place: The ideals that represented what this community stood for and indeed still stands for in the eyes of many – the right to think, create and be accepted for the various expressions we have, even when they are not considered normal in the eyes of many, or indeed, any we know.
Once upon a time, that was our community, being silenced and suppressed for creating all of our artwork, being vitriolically torn apart on far flung corners of the internet and in the belly of the beast that would otherwise devour us whole that was /b/ and even /co/ on 4chan. The ‘channer culture’ that so many of you seek to remove from this community is, in fact, the oldest form of this community that exists, older than /mlp/‘s very existence and in this pony’s opinion, quite a bit more welcoming than any culture that would suppress and silence expressions they disagree with in the name of cultivating a community that does not contain any semblance of ideas that they disagree with, even created in the pure form of parody, satire, jest or artistic contrast for the sake of artistic contrast.
No, staff. Things were not rotten behind closed doors. No, staff. Hatred does not grow when you leave it out in the open for everyone to see, it grows when you exile it to the far corners of society and refuse to acknowledge or challenge it in the open, boldly and brashly by allowing it to be seen in the sunlight and soundly defeated. You CAN NOT and WILL NOT ever stamp out hatred as a concept and exiling it will only make it a stronger and stronger element in this community. No one can remove all negativity from their community entirely, but what we can do is, as a community say “That’s your opinion and I may not like it but you’ve said it now. Downvoting and moving on”. By censoring the content you don’t like out of the database you are only going to succeed in turning those who are against censorship into the arms of the people you don’t like, which is not to say that this utilitarian look at the mechanics of what you are doing is in any way more important than the principle of the matter is in the first place. You have failed to represent the pony community fairly. You have failed to represent the users of your own site fairly and you have failed, I repeat, you have FAILED to uphold the values that made the pony community what it is.
Everypony Equal, Everypony Loved.
This has been Northern Wind. Another old, longstanding member of this community, signing out. Anyone else who wants to say a proper goodbye, again, this thread is for you, as stated in the beginning.
Updates about the spam in this thread;
@Derpy Whooves
Explanation of which threads were hit, all of which, minus the one the moderator couldn’t remember are the specific ones where I had successfully argued my case and the moderators had stopped responding, in my opinion because they’d run out of tenable arguments.
@Derpy Whooves
Reasonable explanations as to how the modstaff could have handled this that points to the possibility of someone else explicitly reporting the spammer’s motivations.
@Derpy Whooves
A proper explanation of the spammer’s ‘manifesto’ that was deleted kicking off this whole thing. The context leads me to believe they were exclaiming, through the link in question, that they believe the alt-right is winning and therefore they must silence people on the anti-censorship side of the argument. Decide for yourself. I am convinced, at least, that we lack the evidence to confirm that the spammer was working with the staff. Someone targeting their motivations directly and forcing the mod to act could have created the same scenario. At the very least, we know that someone did something to attempt to hide the spammer’s motivation’s directly as reporting the first piece of spam and then the last was not applied consistently at all. The spammer still made the site staff’s side of the argument look bad, but not the site staff themselves.
