User:Anaxis/The Case Against the Suitress Policy

This is just my personal opinion, so take it how you will, but I don't believe that the Suitress policy has valid enough reason to exist. I'm speaking from the perspective of somebody who knew and had spoken to the Suitress before, so keep that in mind.

Policy Origin

Looking back through records, it seems that sympathy towards the Suitress originated from the fact that she had been manipulated by Bella and thrown under the bus by both her and Sean Walker (and later was carelessly doxed several times by GiBi in his videos). This coupled with the Suitress's obvious mental issues and general naivete caused certain individuals to look upon her with a less harsh gaze than towards other individuals involved in this whole saga. If this were contained to Bella and her actions alone, I could somewhat understand this perspective: after all, Bella did use her to further her own goals with Chris, and had some questionable ideas involving the Suitress, including a stated intent to "steal" her from Chris.

However, one must remember how the Suitress got to this position in the first place: she went out of her way to find Chris and get into contact with him, despite the many, many warnings of those around her. This is no different than any other orbiter who wants to get a little too close to Chris for whatever reasons they may have. Do you see these people getting the same treatment as the Suitress? The same free passes, even if said people have mental issues or are naive? No, of course not. They're doxed by the Kiwi Farms and documented on the CWCki as a result.

Infantilization

By no means am I pro-doxing, but I'm just a little bit frustrated with how the Suitress is being treated with kiddie gloves on, as though she did not have the capability to know any better. She's not a minor and she's clearly able to control her own decisions, seeing as she once briefly backed down from my warning to her. But then she charged forward and made the decision she did despite the warnings she received. How is this any different than Chris ignoring the advice of those who genuinely tried to help him over the years, and doing numerous stupid things as a result? Autism and stupidity were not an excuse for him. Why is this the case for the Suitress?

I recognize that the Suitress is a victim of Bella's - that much is true - but one mustn't forget that she got herself in that position in the first place, and we shouldn't be excusing that if this wiki shows the information of people like Bella and Sean as well. Maybe they deserve it more because they've done worse things, but who decides that? Is this not a potential slippery slope?

The Suitress vs. The Wallflower

Lastly, I just want to bring up the over-extreme implementation of this policy. The editor who made the decision to censor The Suitress's name and information took inspiration from the Wallflower policy, in which a young woman who was unintentionally associated with Chris online made a request to site admins, for information about her identity to be redacted. Seeing this as reasonable, said admins did as she requested, redacting her name and personal info, as well as anything having to do with her that did not relate to Chris. This was a simple task because this young woman was someone who got unwanted attention from Chris, and he wound up dragging her into the spotlight.

Bearing this in mind...know that The Suitress is in no way similar to the Wallflower. The Suitress chose to involve herself with Chris; this wasn't someone who got unwanted attention for being around Chris briefly in real life. The Suitress sought Chris out with a perverse desire to involve herself romantically and/or sexually with him. The only thing dividing her from a troll pretending to be a sweetheart is that she was being entirely sincere. She also never asked to be censored by the CWCki; purportedly, this was done "for her own good," but what moral arbiter gets to decide that? Why does she need protection from this wiki? Once again, I am not pro-doxing and I am not suggesting that all of the Suitress's personal information be laid bare on this website, I don't think that would help anyone. But when she's so thoroughly involved in the events that surrounded the Bella and Incest sagas (unlike the Wallflower, who was just an unlucky soul who happened to pass through Chris's story), what good does it do to censor her to this extent?

Originally, the way that this policy was enforced was far more extreme than that of the Wallflower. While the Wallflower policy disallowed her real name and appearance from being used on the wiki, references to her screen name (Damien Antaria) were still allowed, which was reasonable. The Suitress policy, however, forbade the use of not only her real name, but her screen names as well. This made transcription of Discord logs that she appeared or was mentioned in much more difficult than it needed to be, because she was not allowed to be called anything but "the Suitress." I don't think this actually happened, but this scenario left open potential for abuse, perhaps from someone submitting Discord messages purported to belong to the Suitress but actually do not, easily covered-up by the fact that the username would have to be censored by the uploader.

Unlike the Wallflower, the Suitress's face being seen was actually an integral part of videos with Chris, causing its censorship to actually take away information. There have been a small handful of leaked Facetime videos between Chris and the Suitress which feature Chris reacting to her in different ways. However, despite this, either the video's uploader or the editor who enacted the policy went out of their way to edit the videos and black out the Suitress's part of the call, making it unclear what exactly Chris is reacting to. When the policy's implementation has the side effect of removing context from information about Chris, that's when you know it's gone too far.

Since then, the policy has thankfully been relaxed a little to allow usage of the Suitress's screen names and her real name in transcripts, something which I am grateful for, as my explanation for how I knew the Suitress once but didn't recognize her the second time we were in a server together hinged on being able to explain that she used different pseudonyms. The original threat of a ban for breaking the policy had also been relaxed. But this still left me in an awkward position of sorts, since I had to refer to her real name as a pseudonym in my story, as a way of explaining again how I didn't recognize her. As of writing, one of the three known Suitress Facetime Videos still remains censored on the CWCki as well.

What's crazy about all of this is that it's clear that this amount of censorship is negatively affecting the perception of truth around what happened to the Suitress, to the point that the page made for debunking misinformation on the CWCki admits that the Suitress policy had the unintended side-effect of clouding the truth. It's clear that this is causing issues...so why is the Suitress policy still active?

Conclusion

The image on the page explaining the Suitress policy, one of a baby holding a gun with the caption "What we're up against with this policy," is one that I think is very telling of the general attitude that has been taken when regarding the Suitress on this wiki. She is being infantilized, treated as though she cannot be held responsible for her own actions despite being an adult. She does not need to be coddled, protected, or otherwise censored by this wiki. Especially when considering the fact that she not only doesn't care about her face and name being out there, but she actively seeks out attention. After all the drama went down and the Suitress was rumored to have had her internet "lumberjacked" and had visited a mental hospital, she made a reappearance on Reddit to attempt an AMA, which was met with very negative reception by the forum posters who had previously sympathized with her and viewed her as a victim. Much like Chris, if the Suitress rejected attempts at helping her well-being, what obligation does anyone have to continue trying to help her?

I sincerely hope that the editor responsible for the Suitress policy - and any other editors who feel the need to uphold it - reads this essay carefully and is receptive to my arguments. I don't wish any ill will on this young woman. I just want the standards of the CWCki to be applied equally to people like her, who went out of their way to get a place in Chris's story, either without considering or outright ignoring the consequences.