SCP Foundation

Knowing that a large part of this tale is focused and set in the temple of Ana, I can't say I feel fully on-board. I don't like 1052, and depictions of eating disorders is a very hit-or-miss thing for me. Suffice it to say, that angle is a miss for me, both in 1052 and in here. At most, I can chalk that up to it being portrayed as a religious and spiritual kind of thing, in a more abstract way than I'm used to seeing. There's probably parallels to how it's perceived in reality, but it feels more distant here than I'd personally like.

Critique the work, don't attack the writer.

I believe the sentence in question was very clearly a statement concerning objective, egregious, preventable mechanical errors.

Don't tell the author "The problems with this article should be obvious."

I believe I have thoroughly enumerated the factors that brought me to my overall feelings about the piece.

Guidelines

1. Critiques should be helpful in some way.

I believe I've fulfilled this requirement as well. Every piece of revision and editing behind the collapsible supports and points logically to the sentence in question.

2. You aren't required to post anything in-depth: "I didn't care for it" or "I dislike this idea" are valid criticisms. Maybe you can't articulate exactly why it didn't grab you. That's fair. However, feedback is most beneficial to an author when there is a clear indication of what needs to be fixed.

I tend to err on the side of being thorough. In this situation, because I was so harsh, I felt it was necessary to show the author exactly which parts led me to my conclusions through visible, thorough consideration of the piece.

3. Feel free to be as harsh as you need to be. If an article is pretty bad, you don't have to say nice things to make up for your criticisms. The point is for your criticism to be effective, not to fluff someone's ego. If most of the article's bad, you don't need to search for something good to say.

This is the place where I believe we differ. As I mentioned throughout my review and also in this ending synopsis, I believe there's an air of complacence running rife in this piece. While that assessment is obviously a subjective one, I believe it's also very observable.

Given Djoric's history with the community, I find it particularly alarming that this post, which was submitted as a polished final product, contained a large number of careless and absolutely preventable errors. For clarification, I do agree thoroughly with Guidline 7 (Content of user posts is what matters, not user status); my qualm is with the discrepancy in writing quality between the content of this piece and that of the author's other pieces, not the author's length of time here. I feel the critical purpose and merit of the sentence in question is very clear:

The sentence in question was not an attack on Djoric's character or behavior and cannot reasonably be construed as such. It was a calculated, straightforward, purposeful criticism regarding the concept's execution, which is as much a part of the writing process as putting words on paper. Some mistakes are the result of technical errors and some are the result of issues with a piece's handling and execution. Mentioning either of these causes as the root of a problem is valid and necessary in the interest of remedying it.

As for the harshness of the sentence in question, I put only the necessary amount of force behind it and only did so after careful consideration. If there is an unwritten cap on this, it must necessarily be precisely defined and clearly delineated within Guideline 3; otherwise, providing criticism that does not align with the personal tastes of an individual is not an actionable offense.

As stated in Guideline 3 ("The point is for your criticism to be effective, not to fluff someone's ego."), coddling isn't helpful. I will not apologize for purposeful, constructive criticism on the basis that it was aimed at something inconvenient for or unpleasant to the author. Doing so would be an affront to the process and a disservice to Djoric's piece.

I have never once in any of the several critiques I've submitted here given anyone reason to believe that I speak without conscientious consideration of the effect of what I have to say and I resent the implications you've made in that vein about my personal character.

(On a side note, the word conscientious, although I don't believe you meant to exercise its full magnitude, has very strong connotations involving a person's moral fiber. To say or imply that someone is not conscientious is to say a deficiency in the understanding of right and wrong is part of their character.)

As a side note, on the subject of protocol, if I ever have concerns regarding anyone's behavior on a personal level, I will immediately pursue them through the appropriate channels and I can readily produce an IRC log in which I've done so previously as a testament to that fact. The sentence in question was not included for the purpose of reprimanding Djoric; that is not my right or responsibility and I would never be so brazen as to imply that it was. Although I don't feel like my criticisms implied such, I regret any statement that was ambiguous in that way.

Don't try to enforce your personal preferences as How-Things-Should-Be-Done: There's no rule saying someone must use a sandbox, or swear off writing humanoids/-Js/Keters until they're more experienced, or that Author Avatars are the cancer that is killing SCP. If a new writer wants to try something risky, let them go for it. The worst that can happen is that their article gets deleted. We want people being ambitious and taking chances.

I do not feel like this applies to the sentence in question or to my overall critique based on the premise that adequate proofreading part of the "How To Write An SCP" page and not a personal preference I'm imposing.

There is no publicly available data (at least at my level) concerning the Wiki's traffic or membership, but I believe it's reasonably safe to assume that most users are between the ages of 15 and 25 with a spike in the 18–20 range because of the site's standards for writing. Here are some relevant statistics about this demographic from ANAD (the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, anad.org):

• 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.”
• 86% report onset of eating disorder by age 20; 43% report onset between ages of 16 and 20.6
• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents.
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.8
• 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a weight-management technique.
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.
• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.

Given those figures, I believe we can reasonably assume that eating disorders are a very relevant topic for a significant segment of this site's traffic. Because that's the case, I believe it's necessary to handle the topic with empathy, respect, and sensitivity. For anyone wondering how I came to the conclusion that this tale has an allegorical component related to eating disorders, the term "ana" (as mentioned in a post above) is a shortened form of the word "anorexia". This slang sees a lot of use in "pro-ana" groups that condone and encourage anorexia as a lifestyle.

This content is offensive because it exploits an eating disorder in the interest of adding profundity to the narrative. This intention is very, very obvious in the consistently stilted narrative voice that often waxes poetic and paternalistically describes the mindset of a person affected by the disorder. The piece fails in its pursuit of profundity because there's much more concern for sounding insightful than providing an adequate and properly representative metaphor. It's probably most visible in the inconsistencies in characterizations of the temple and its goddess that I mentioned in my initial post here.

In addition, there are some very powerful, inaccurate, and problematic implications that come with conflating religious morality and an eating disorder. The conceptualization of thinness as a virtue that sometimes comes with anorexia nervosa is very rarely rooted in or brought about by a moral imperative. More often, it's a combination of social influence and psychological factors that causes it to manifest. For some people, anorexia is an island of tangible control over their circumstances in the chaotic tempest of the modern world or a situation in which they don't have agency. For others, it provides an unattainable standard by which they can abuse themselves with internalized societal pressures. For others, it's a form of self harm. Ultimately, it represents something different for everyone who experiences it and implying otherwise is reductive.

As I mentioned in IRC before I went to bed, using a setting as a metaphor for a mental condition—even an eating disorder—can and has been done effectively in the past. However, it requires either personal experience with one or doing a massive pile of homework.

This section is not meant in any way to defame Djoric's character and I don't believe he intended any harm when he wrote this tale. Without firsthand experience, it's very difficult to understand why such a representation of an eating disorder is inaccurate and hurtful. That being said, it's very, very necessary to address the destructive potential of content like this whether or not it was purposely written with malicious intent. All I've said here is intended as criticism leveled at the inappropriate treatment of subject matter in a piece of fiction; it's no different than criticizing a consistent flaw in syntax.