The initial pride logo (left) in use from ~June 7-8 and the updated pride logo (right) used for the remainder of the month.^[1]Images from Internet Archive archives of the SCP-682 article.

The June 2018 Pride Controversy, or simply “the Logo Fiasco”, was an incident that took place on the SCP Foundation Wiki that was meant to celebrate and advertise the LGBTQ+ friendliness of the site during Pride Month, but that resulted in lasting controversy. It indirectly resulted in the creation of alternate containment fiction platforms, including the Wayward Society, and the RPC Authority.

On June 6 or 7, 2018, the SCP Wiki Foundation incorporated the pride colors into the website logo in honor of Pride Month to show support for the community’s LGBT members. While largely regarded as well-intentioned, the decision was ad hoc and made without community discussion.

The logo was controversial, but the ensuing debate was initially peaceful. The controversy was exacerbated when SCP social media staff began posting inflammatory comments about the situation, in part without the approval of SCP main-site staff. Most notoriously, the SCP Twitter account criticized the “chan culture and its toxic baggage” that the SCP Wiki had originally brought from its origins on 4chan, and claimed that the Wiki had purged members who harassed others. These comments, as well as the indiscriminate banning of people who criticized the tweet, convinced many SCP fans that the Wiki was purging members based on the political ideologies of those in administration and higher staff structures.

The controversy erupted on 4chan’s /x/ board by June 9th.

On June 17, Mister Metokur released a video entitled “LGBSCP” on YouTube which criticized the use of the logo.^[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9IOoB_G9s, mirror Generally, the message of the video was that the site had experienced a cultural shift at the hands of a vocal minority that culminated in the logo change. He uses crude rhetoric, including a racist meme and speech that would be described as “ableist”, to suggest that the SCP Wiki had devolved into “a hugbox” for “an SJW mindset… Tumblrettes and Redditors… who can’t take a fucking joke; where any dissenting opinion gets you kicked off and banned, where the people who run the website will block you from social media for telling them they are acting like idiots.”

The fallout caused the creation of numerous splinter websites, the most successful of which was the RPC Authority.^[3]https://i0.wp.com/www.containmentfiction.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Splinter-chart-small.png?ssl=1 The controversy also saw brigading against the SCP Wiki, the protection of a pro-LGBTQ article at the center of that raiding, counter-raids by SCP against the RPC Authority, and a prominent SCP author deleting most of their works from the SCP website.

The controversy fizzled out in early July after the pride logo was removed, although the worst of the damage would continue for most of the month. The greatest long-term impact of the controversy was the splintering of containment fiction and the ending of the long-standing monopoly the SCP Foundation held over this genre.

Background

The Logo(s)

The earliest reference in terms of textual data on-site is 7 Jun 2018, 23:26.^[4]thread –archive-. An Internet Archive of the Series I list shows that the logo was still unaltered at some point on June 6, 2018. Due to differences in time zones across websites, it’s difficult to determine the exact day the logo change took place.

The SCP Foundation Wiki updated its logo to include the colors of the Philadelphia Pride Flag (a variant of the pride flag adopted by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that includes the six traditional rainbow colors of the pride flag plus a brown and black stripe to represent LGBT people of color). The initial logo contained a black outline, but this was replaced with a white outline on June 8 due to complaints that the black part of the logo blended in too much with the wiki.^[5]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6086502/the-scp-symbol (archive)

The Decision to Post the Logo

The decision to change the logo was made entirely by SCP staff; there was no community discussion beforehand.^[6]As evident by a lack of forum threads discussing the pride logo before the change was made. It is possible that staff consulted with the IRC chat or other informal channel, but this would have … Continue reading According to a staff member responding to a thread on June 14th, the logo was altered for two reasons:^[7]A talk about mod behaviour – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive)

First, it’s to represent how poorly the site treated LGBTQ+ in its past. Previous staff teams were incredibly hostile to gay and trans people, to the point where they would ban people for just having those identities. The logo serves to show how the site has changed. It’s also there to respect and show solidarity with people on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, considering the vast majority of staff and a very good portion of active users within this community are proud of their identities within that spectrum.

While a single member of staff made this statement, the statement was the result of a staff discussion and made on behalf of staff.^[8]A talk about mod behaviour – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive)

The Controversy

The First 39 Hours (~June 7-9)

June 7-9 on Wikidot

The first SCP thread regarding the updated logo was created on June 7 at 11:26 PM (Eastern Time). ^[9]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6086502/the-scp-symbol (archive) For the remainder of the seventh and much of the eighth, most of the conversation was positive. A lot of contributors shared their approval of the change, offered suggestions to improve the logo design, made light-hearted jokes about the SCP Foundation and community members being “gae,”and even had a conversation about updating the logo for the Fourth of July and other national holidays.^[10]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6086502/the-scp-symbol (archive)

By the afternoon of June 8, criticism of the logo change started to emerge. A lot of the earliest criticism consisted of complaints about the logo breaking immersion, being out-of-character for the SCP Foundation, and worries that involving the SCP Foundation in politically controversial topics like LGBT rights would result in drama.

This resulted in much spirited debate. While the contents of the debates are far too extensive to fully document, much of it revolved around whether leaving the logo unaltered to avoid controversy was truly a neutral decision and the paradox of tolerance.^[11]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6086502/the-scp-symbol (archive) ^[12]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-5797485/complaints-thread (archive) These debates were well-reasoned and civil, with even LGBTQ+ members of the community expressing disapproval at the logo change.^[13]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6227357/as-an-lgbt-person-i-am-no-longer-comfortable-here^[14]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6145647/a-talk-about-mod-behaviour Vizlox (a future RPC moderator) expressed surprise at how respectful the debates had been.^[15]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6086502/the-scp-symbol#post-3830310 (archive) About two hours after making this post, Vizlox stated that a specific user’s comment about all logo opponents being homophobes was disrespectful. Many of the opponents identified themselves as LGBT or supporters of LGBT rights.

On June 8 at 9:17 PM, Decibelles created a staff post ending the logo discussion on the Complaints Thread. She stated that the debate had run its course and that she closed the discussion to prevent it from going downhill, which she believed was an inevitability from her experience as a chat admin.^[16]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-5797485/complaints-thread (archive) On June 9 at 2:19 PM, she also locked the June 7 thread about the pride logo just as the debate started giving way to personal attacks. She stated that she hoped the shutdown of the complaint thread debate would “inspire discussion in this thread to be at least more positive” and that she was locking the thread because her “immersion [was] being broken from these conversations happening when [she] already closed [them].” She also reiterated that discussion could begin again in July.^[17]The SCP Symbol – SCP Foundation (archive.md)

June 7-8 on Twitter

At some point on June 7, the official SCP Twitter account released a series of tweets addressing both the updated logo on the main website and criticism against it on twitter.^[18]The SCP Foundation on Twitter: “The internet is not a kind place to #LGBTQ people. The SCP wiki came from 4chan initially. It came with chan culture and its toxic baggage. Making the Wiki … Continue reading Two of the most controversial of the tweets read as follows:^[19]The SCP Foundation on Twitter: “The internet is not a kind place to #LGBTQ people. The SCP wiki came from 4chan initially. It came with chan culture and its toxic baggage. Making the Wiki … Continue reading

The internet is not a kind place to #LGBTQ people. The SCP wiki came from 4chan initially. It came with chan culture and its toxic baggage. Making the Wiki inclusive was a project by our members that lasted years.

But it was worth doing. It was worth making the wiki a positive, creative space. It was worth purging members who stalked and harassed people. It was worth making, following and implementing anti-harassment policies. It made our writing and editing better. Our community freer.

On the 8th, the official Twitter account linked to several pride logos hosted on the SCP Tumblr account, and also announced it was turning off notifications due to the large number of responses.^[20]The SCP Foundation on Twitter: “The internet is not a kind place to #LGBTQ people. The SCP wiki came from 4chan initially. It came with chan culture and its toxic baggage. Making the Wiki … Continue reading^[21]SCP Foundation | 5c0ut: now you can secure, contain, AND protect… (archive.md)

The staff member running the Twitter would go on to blanket ban anyone criticizing the decision, including large numbers of people making good faith arguments against the logo and the language of the Twitter posts. SCP main-site staff later claimed that the series of Twitter posts (particularly the quoted purge comment) were misleading, inflammatory, and made without authorization from the main SCP Wiki. The Twitter staff member was also accused of needlessly escalating the pride controversy and convincing many fans that the SCP Wiki was discriminating against older members of the community.^[22]General thread: Discussion Thread: Our response to social media fiasco – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive). Important comment: 5lrrzoq9t5981.png (1508×754) (redd.it) (archive)

Djkaktus First Amendment Post on r/SCP (June 9)

On June 9 at 11:52 AM Eastern Time and in response to the growing controversy over the pride logo, then-SCP-subreddit moderator djkaktus made an announcement to r/SCP entitled “The First Amendment and You: How to Avoid Getting Your Knickers in a Twist Because of Some Colors.”^[23]The First Amendment and You: How to Avoid Getting Your Knickers in a Twist Because of Some Colors : SCP (reddit.com) In the post, djkaktus acknowledged the ongoing controversy regarding the logo change and stated:^[24]https://archive.md/CQ0cG

If you are offended that the SCP Foundation wiki community is celebrating Pride in June, and are offended that you receive downvotes when you express that sentiment, do understand that you will receive no sympathy from this moderator team. We are uninterested in your arguments. We are uninterested in the perceived political throat-shoving you claim to experience. We cannot untwist your knickers for you, so either find a way to untwist them yourself or fuck off for a month.

djkaktus also stated that anyone who disliked the logo could avoid seeing it by following a five-step process that included deleting a folder called System32.^[25]https://archive.md/CQ0cG The system32 folder contains many programs critical to the functioning of Microsoft Windows; if it’s deleted from a computer, then the computer stops functioning.

Looking through the thread itself, many of the top-level comments were critical of the pride logo and the tone/advice of the announcement, although there were also a number of comments defending the logo change. The top-level criticisms were civil, non-homophobic and well-thought out.

4chan Discovers the Pride Logo (June 9-10)

The oldest known 4chan thread addressing the logo change was posted on June 8 at 3 PM; it received three responses all of which were dismissive towards the poster.^[26]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20901874 (4plebs.org) (archive) The controversy on 4chan became significant on early morning of June 9, when an anon posted a screenshot of the SCP tweet condemning “chan culture”. Shortly after noon, the anons began criticizing djkaktus and the SCP subreddit (djkaktus’s First Amendment post had been made at 11:52 AM).^[27]https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/20904788/ (archive)

Intolerance on 4chan

Members of 4chan reacted with general outrage to the logo change.^[28]/x/ – Oh nonononono AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md); /x/ – SCP is fucking cancer – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md) Unlike the Wikidot critics, many of the logo opponents on 4chan espoused anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. For example, the following comments were all made over the span of June 9 and 10: “[f]aggots ruin everything,”^[29]/x/ – Oh nonononono AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md), post #20907492 “what a bunch of cock sucking FAGGOTS,”^[30]https://archive.md/zdicv, post #20904824 and “[a]nything even slightly popular on the internet gets infected with trannies.”^[31]https://archive.md/zdicv, post # 20908618 Hateful language of this sort could be found throughout threads discussing the pride logo. Additionally throughout June 2018, 4chan’s scorn was directed at Jews (“[y]ou think the jews paid them off to promote LGBT-Marxism?”, numerous uses of the slur “kike”),^[32]/x/ – New scp logo – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md), post # 20912507 and throughout black people (“[b]ecause fags and women come into a community and ruin it with their PC bullshit. Niggers too…”),^[33]https://archive.li/mGBcH, post # 420746645 and women (“[w]omen and faggots are annoying …they need to fuck off.”).^[34]https://archive.li/mGBcH, post # 420746778

Other general reactions on 4chan

Beyond the intolerance documented above, there were general complaints about declining standards on the SCP Foundation website, identity politics, Tumblr posting pro-LGBT posts, SCP-2721, and the politicization of the SCP Foundation. There were also conspiracies about the infiltration of the SCP Foundation and the use of pro-LGBT sleeper cells.^[35]/x/ – SCP is fucking cancer – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md)^[36]/x/ – Oh nonononono AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md) Many anons also accused the SCP Foundation staff of trying to both erase the contributions of the /x/ board in creating and developing the SCP Wiki and purging members of /x/. Many of these comments cited the June 7 Twitter post regarding toxic 4chan baggage and making the SCP wiki inclusive.^[37]/x/ – We all know the SCP foundation is full of circleje – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.li), post # 20924517

There is also evidence that by this point in the controversy, 4chan members were starting to insert themselves into the ongoing debates back on Wikidot and social media websites. For example, one anon stated:^[38]https://archive.md/zdicv, post 20906612

Yesterday I asked on the fourums how to remove the gay sign, as it was distracting and ruining my immersion. A tranny admin in like 1 min locked the thread, for me asking a question. I went to the irc, and was banned immediately for asking how to remove it. Then same thing happened on Reddit. These brainwashed idiots dont even want to talk, they just ban anyone eh doesnt want this crap shoved down their throat.

Note that the anon appears to have been banned for using the word “tranny,” which corresponds to a thread on the SCP Wiki forums.^[39]snip – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive This user, Nijok, was banned on the date the anon claimed to be banned about two minutes (rather than one) after making the post; both users also seemed to have a particular affinity for the word “tranny.”

4chan mods begin deleting threads

By June 10, the moderators of /x/ had started deleting SCP related posts en masse to the complaint of many anons, who accused the mods of showing favoritism to the SCP Foundation.^[40]See, for example, /x/ – We all know the SCP foundation is full of circleje – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.li) post # 20913322

Other Social Media

Numerous SCP members who ran the site’s Official Tumblr wrote in support of the logo change in ways that were later considered unnecessarily inflammatory, and that further contributed to the perception that the SCP Wiki’s official stance was that opposing them equaled homophobia:

-IAMNOTADAMNEDMONKEY (aka AdminBright)^[41]https://web.archive.org/web/20181024092522/http://iamnotadamnedmonkey.tumblr.com/post/172709534141/reminder-to-the-scp-fandom

This post was reblogged by the Official SCP Tumblr as well as the Official SCP Twitter, and was given an extensive defense by site authors. ^[42]https://web.archive.org/web/20180620032246/http://scp-wiki-official.tumblr.com/page/13 This was later discussed in the post-mortem analysis thread on O5 Command.^[43]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6186027/discussion-thread:our-response-to-social-media-fiasco#post-3842049

Alternatives to the SCP Foundation Emerge (June 10-17)

The Failure of SS:GG (June 10-12)

On June 10 at 3:28 PM in an ongoing /x/ thread, an anon suggested abandoning the SCP Wiki and creating something new. The anon proposed a “WWII Era Paranormal Task Force within Nazi Germany tasked with acquiring, containing, and researching paranormal artifacts” and laid out a few ground rules for the new canon. These rules included:^[44]https://archive.md/ugWKi, post #20911742 & 20911781

• Nazi Germany ultimately lost WWII.
• The Holocaust was a historical event; concentration camps provided the paranormal task force’s equivalent of D-Class.
• Paranormal objects always had some drawback preventing their widespread use.
• The various Allied powers may also have their own paranormal objects.

The anon stated that involving Nazi Germany would keep out the “retards ruining SCP” while the fact Nazi Germany lost and the Holocaust happened within the setting’s canon would prevent it from becoming “a /pol/ circlejerk.”^[45]https://archive.md/ugWKi, post #20911781

The SS:GG Matrix forum; picture taken by cell phone.

The proposal was well-received and there was additional discussion in the thread developing the canon. During this discussion, the anons settled on calling this organization the SS:GG or Geistgruppen (translation: Ghost Group).^[46]https://archive.md/ugWK, post # 20912654. Geistgruppen would be the official name used in documents while SS:GG would be the community name

The anon, going by the name Geist, submitted a wiki proposal to the Miraheze platform on June 10; it was accepted on June 12.^[47]Wiki requests queue – Miraheze Meta (archive); Wiki requests queue – Miraheze Meta (archive)   That day, Geist would share the link to the new wiki with the /x/ board of 4chan and also provide links to Matrix chatrooms to further develop SS:GG.^[48]https://archive.li/4fTjm, post # 20924717 Geist’s posts only attracted a handful of comments, and the entire premise was quickly forgotten about. The SS:GG wiki does not appear to have received any contributions;^[49]SS:GG (archive.org) it was subsequently deleted long after the June 2018 controversy concluded. The linked Matrix forums still exist, although all of their contents have been deleted.

The Rise of the RPC Authority

Creation (June 13)

CFOperator created the RPC Authority website on June 13 at 5:08 PM.^[50]Most Recently Created – RPC Authority (archive.is) In a July 2018 interview with TheVolgun, CFOperator claimed he was not concerned with the pride logo but rather how SCP staff reacted to the ongoing controversy, and that the logo fiasco offered the opportunity to capitalize on a long-felt initiative.^[51]https://youtu.be/qciRHguh98E, archive According to this interview, the immediate catalyst for the RPC Authority was djkaktus’ First Amendment post (covered previously), which CFOperator claimed was dismissive of claims against the logo.^[52]https://youtu.be/qciRHguh98E, 3:00-3:24. CFOperator specifically identifies the post in question at 45:45. Summarizing his train of thought upon seeing the djkaktus post, CFOperator stated:^[53]https://youtu.be/qciRHguh98E, 3:24-3:29.

I just figured, well there’s all these problems with the site. Why can’t I just start my own thing? And why can’t I do it better, you know?^[54]https://youtu.be/qciRHguh98E

4chan posts from July 2018 indicate that CFOperator was active on a /b/ discord and that multiple people from this Discord were responsible for developing the RPC Authority.^[55]https://archive.is/fxrEH, post # 21096270 & 21096520 While details on this supposed discord server are scarce, RPC community members active in the Society for Containment Fiction discord server confirm that CFOperator was active on some sort of Discord while creating the RPC Authority.

The original RPC Authority Main Page

The original RPC Authority page was an almost-identical soft fork of the SCP Foundation Wiki, even featuring an identical color scheme. The logo and coding would be altered in the ensuing weeks into the RPC Authority’s modern form.

The website originally contained a “Legacy RPCs” hub located under the library tab. CFOperator’s archive drive would eventually be abandoned and the page would be deleted. However, to this day a copy of the original version of SCP-7143-J can be found in the RPC Authority’s Joke section; this is a relic of CFOperator’s archive drive.

The RPC Authority on 4chan (June 13-17)

On June 13 9:02 PM in the same thread where SS:GG fizzled, CFOperator made the following post:^[56]https://archive.li/4fTjm, post # 20928630

If anyone is interested, I’m setting up a mirror site right now to archive and break away from the SCP mods. http://rcpauthority.wikidot.com Keep in mind this is an extremely early build but hopefully I can get it running soon.

CFOperator also took requests in the thread for SCPs to be archived onto the RPC Authority website.^[57]https://archive.li, post # 20933470 This resulted in extended discussion about alleged censorship and controversial rewrites of various SCPs such as SCP-049 (The Plague Doctor) and SCP-847 (The Mannequin).^[58]https://archive.li

CFOperator would later create a standalone thread on June 14th at 5:00 PM to advertise the RPC Authority. In the thread, he asked for help from anyone interested in archiving SCPs or writing new RPC. He also announced that he had written his own RPC (RPC-002) to encourage contributions.^[59]/x/ – SCP Replacement – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.md)

On June 17, a supporter of CFOperator started another thread to discuss the RPC Authority and to urge anons to join the new website. The supporter claimed that the “SCP wiki has turned into an absolute shit fest of raging faggots who can’t write.”^[60]https://archive.li/YjFA9 The supporter also stated that:^[61]https://archive.li/YjFA9

Thanks to CFOperator we now have the RPC Authority, an /x/ certified non-political alternative dedicated purely to well written horror. No bans for dark subjects like rape or gender targeted RPCs. No bans for having a contrarian opinion. Just pure love of horror where only quality matters.

The earliest responses to the thread were largely supportive. Many anons expressed the view that the SCP Foundation had been stolen from 4chan and that they were reclaiming what was their’s.^[62]https://archive.li/YjFA9

During the early part of the thread, the anons became aware of a YouTube video posted by Mister Metokur (see section The Mister Metokur Video). The video resulted in a mass explosion of proposed alternatives to the SCP Foundation.

Where Did the Earliest RPC Authority Members Come From?

RPC members who joined June 2018 by means of discovery. Chart courtesy of LPP, data collected from an official RPC community survey.

LPP (aka Vizlox) stated that there were a total of 29 respondents who joined RPC in June 2018. The “other” category likely consists mainly of people who joined from /x/, a place where CFOperator heavily advertised the RPC Authority. Many of the respondents for the RPC reading/other YouTube video category were likely viewers of a livestream Mister Metokur held later in June; this livestream was separate from Mister Metokur’s June 17 video, and would be flagged and taken down for “privacy concerns” after uploaded.^[63]Description of chart : StudyCatalogPublish (reddit.com) (archive) ^[64]https://archive.fo/OSPvR Interestingly, over 13% of RPC members discovered the Authority through the SCP Foundation website itself.

Multiple RPC staff and ex-staff members such as Von Pincier, Vizlox, and Prototype_Toaster were members of the SCP Foundation prior to the pride controversy. Several major writers were members of the SCP website or part of the SCP fandom before joining the RPC Authority.

The Failure of the Chaos Insurgency (June 18)

The Chaos Insurgency website, as it has looked since July 25, 2018

The idea of a new Chaos Insurgency website was first proposed on June 18 at 12:52 AM by an anon participating in a general SCP complaint thread on /x/.^[65]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20952444 (4plebs.org) (archive), post # 20952989 The responding anons largely approved, mainly on the ground that this would provide an in-universe justification for “stealing” SCP articles. Throughout the thread, several anons commented that a regularly updated Chaos Insurgency Wiki already existed, but these comments were ignored.^[66]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20952444 (4plebs.org) (archive)

At 1:58 AM, an anon (who admitted to being drunk) announced that he had created a Chaos Insurgency website at “http://chaos-fuckscp.wikidot.com/”;^[67]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20952444 (4plebs.org) (archive), post # 20953459 no edits were made to this wiki following its creation.^[68]Home – Chaos Insurgency (archive.org) At 3:43 AM, another anon participating in the thread created an additional Chaos Insurgency website on Wikidot;^[69]Most Recently Created – The Chaos Insurgency (wikidot.com) (archive the anon first announced this website at 3:46 AM.^[70]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20952444 (4plebs.org) (archive), post # 20954334 While there would be some discussion about which of the two proposed Chaos Insurgency websites to use, the 3:43 AM version won out since it was more developed.^[71]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20952444 (4plebs.org) (archive)

The 3:43 AM Chaos Insurgency creator (or the creator’s supporters) posted multiple Chaos Insurgency related threads on /x/ throughout the 18th. In one thread, there was extensive discussion on world building, object classes, and what the Chaos Insurgency logo should look like. There was backlash to this within the thread, with one commentor stating that this type of “autistic circlejerking” is what ruined the SCP Foundation Wiki.^[72]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20958764 (4plebs.org) (archive)

The Chaos Insurgency website failed to take off. As of the writing of this article, only twenty-four pages were ever created with the most recent being posted on January 31, 2019. More than a dozen of these pages consisted of site rules, background, and core infrastructure needed for the functioning of the website (such as “Glossary” and “RSS Feed”).^[73]Most Recently Created – The Chaos Insurgency (wikidot.com) (archive) The forums show that some people joined (unlike SS:GG), but activity petered out.^[74]Forum Categories – The Chaos Insurgency (wikidot.com), (archive) Ironically, a “temporary” CI Discord created to develop the project is the only part of the Chaos Insurgency still remotely active; as of 2021, it continues to see sporadic postings of memes and shitposts.

Other Splinter Projects are Created (June 17 onwards)

By mid to late June, a massive explosion of splinter projects were created on 4chan. On June 19 one anon looked through the /x/ archives and counted 12 proposed spin-offs. These were:^[75]https://archive.md/nM5BE, post # 20970840

• The RPC Authority
• The Chaos Insurgency
• The Somnium Institute
• Freaky Leaks
• Nowhere Files
• Black Box
• Foundation for AGS
• Orion’s Arm
• Project Overlord
• Knights of the Round
• SCP Protocol
• Gideon Keys

The anon seems to have overcounted the number of splinter projects. The Nowhere Files were  an alternative name for Freaky Leaks^[76]https://archive.li/tx7GS, post #20966199 while Orion’s Arm, Project Overlord, and Gideon’s Keys were all pre-existing projects.^[77]Orion’s Arm is a sci-fi world-building project active since 2000. The name Project Overlord appears to have been taken from the Mass Effect video game franchise. Gideon’s Keys is an old … Continue reading It’s unclear what context these later three “projects” came up in, but it’s possible that at least some of them were mentioned in passing or as an example of something to imitate.

Few of these proposals received attention. For example, the Knights of the Round (a sort of Medieval SCP Foundation) only received a single reply to its standalone thread.^[78]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #20957817 (4plebs.org) (archive) Most were deleted off of 4chan and the internet entirely; the only reason references to these projects exist is because they were mentioned by the anon in an archived thread.

Of the surviving proposals not discussed elsewhere, the two largest were Freaky Leaks and the Somnium Institute. Freaky Leaks was designed as a sort of Wikileaks for government documentation of the paranormal, while the Somnium Institute was a pre-existing project that attempted to recruit members during the controversy.^[79]/x/ – Come work for the Somnium Institution. The best employer in the known metaverse. – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.is); /x/ – FreakyLeaks – Paranormal – 4chan … Continue reading These large-scale discussions always followed a similar pattern: someone would come in with an idea to replace the SCP Foundation. There would usually be a lot of disorganized discussion, and then the thread would be deleted, and the idea would be forgotten.

Comments made to /x/ indicate that some of these proposals did make it off of 4chan. According to these comments, the members of these projects consisted of “a small handful of hopefuls and a few dozen 5th grade tier “authors.”^[80]https://archive.md/nM5BE, post # 20970871 Many of the projects simply copied SCP content without making any substantive changes.^[81]https://archive.md/nM5BE, post #20970944

The Mister Metokur Video (June 17)

Description of The Video

On June 17, a YouTuber named Mister Metokur posted a video entitled “LGBSCP” addressing the ongoing pride logo controversy: in a little over a week the video would rack up over 260,000 views.^[82]LGBSCP – YouTube (archive.org) The video is no longer available on the Mister Mekotur YouTube channel, but numerous archives exist on YouTube.

The video essentially argued that the SCP Foundation had been stolen from 4chan by progressive liberals from Tumblr and Reddit. It focused heavily on developments in the pride controversy leading up to June 17 and spent about three minutes of its 21-minute run time condemning SCP-2721 for being a “Mary Sue self-insert”.

Mister Metokur focused heavily on a handful of critical comments on the SCP-7143-J (“A Fine Piece of Hardware”^[83]https://web.archive.org/web/20180616130144/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/djkaktus) to argue that the SCP Wiki had been infiltrated by social justice warriors, with the concerns against the article being “red flags”.

In the last moments of the video, Mister Metokur asks why there aren’t celebrations for additional, alternate logos during other months — such as Black History Month in February — and encourages viewers to suggest specific logos to SCP Wiki staff for “all kinds of crazy shit… that fucking logo is going to be swapped out more times than you can imagine… just get creative with it. Think of a fucking holiday or a month of celebration, and make these assholes celebrate it. Just shit it up.”

Mister Metokur decried the reaction from SCP Staff that banned anyone who disagreed with “wrongthink”, and locked threads of discussion on the subject. ^[84]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6094852/snip#post-3829707^[85]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6094887/disciplinary-njiok

Why the Video Resonated

The SCP Foundation originated on 4chan at a time when the prefix *fag” was common. For example, the Admin of the original EditThis wiki described themselves as the “[o]fficial adminfag.”^[86]User:Admin – Scp Wiki (archive.org) On the Wikidot website, jokes about gay people were also considered acceptable. For example, SCP-252 (posted November 10, 2008 by Dr. Kondraki) was a bomb that turned people gay; the entire premise was played for laughs. The very first edit to the article stated “Page pending declassification once it stops being so faaaaaaaabulous!”^[87]SCP-252-ARC – SCP Foundation (archive.org)^[88]SCP-252 original text : StudyCatalogPublish (reddit.com) (archive) SCP staff not only approved of the concept, but voted to save it from deletion in 2011 due to their enjoyment of the article when the community downvoted it into deletion range (one staff member did vote to archive because it was referenced in another article, but the majority of votes were for reasons of personal taste).^[89]SCP-252-ARC – SCP Foundation (archive.is) That same year, IRC staff protected the right to use slurs via admin fiat on free speech grounds.^[90]June 2021 Editorial (archive)

Seven years later, SCP staff had gone from protecting homophobic slurs and humor at the expense of LGBT people to displaying a pride logo and banning those with good-faith criticism of that decision both on-site and on official social media sites. This was a rapid cultural shift that clearly caught many people off-guard and gave credence to Mister Metokur’s claims about infiltrators and the intellectual theft of the SCP Foundation Wiki.

Response to Mister Metokur’s Video (June 17-early July)

4chan (June 17-18)

The Mister Metokur video vastly inflamed the ongoing pride controversy. In the ongoing RPC Authority thread of June 17, anons denounced the so-called SJWs for stealing the SCP Foundation Wiki from them. As the discussion continued, the anons started to focus on how to deal with the SCP Foundation. Two rough factions started to emerge. One faction wanted to build up a new website and find ways to protect it from the people who had supposedly infiltrated the SCP Foundation. Within this faction, there was a further division about whether the “new website” should be the RPC Authority, the Chaos Insurgency, or whether both could be maintained. Some of these factions members uploaded their own RPCs. Others wanted to take the fight to the SCP Foundation. One anon posted:^[91]https://archive.li/YjFA9, post # 20952656

And that’s why we should fight back this time. We need to impose ourselves on to them. Start raiding them as the chaos insurgency.

Others suggested carrying out a DDOS attack^[92]https://archive.li/YjFA9, post # 20953432 or infiltrating the SCP Wiki and causing chaos from within.^[93]https://archive.li/YjFA9, post # 20953555

In a separate thread created on June 18, an anon encouraged members of /x/ to raid the SCP Foundation subreddit. The reaction to this request was mixed: some people had grown tired of the ongoing drama while others promised to help with the raid.^[94]https://archive.md/Jhczs

The SCP Foundation Wiki & Social Media (June 17-26)

Following the Mister Metokur video, both the SCP Foundation website and its various social media platforms were flooded with critics. Mister Metokur had further drawn attention to the SCP Wiki’s social media accounts by referencing them on his Twitter, which resulted in him being blocked from multiple platforms.

The SCP Wiki staff closed website applications during this time, beginning on 6-18-2018, and re-opening nine days later, on 6-27-2018. Applications submitted in the immediate days prior were not processed. The official reasons given in #site17 (the Official Staff Help Chat) on numerous occasions were that the memorandum on applications was due to trolls, raids, and brigading, with one statement claiming they were “from 4chan and other sites”.^[95]https://www.containmentfiction.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/site17-1.pdf

The SCP Foundation Twitter account had already locked itself down by June 16, which prevented anyone besides followers from seeing or responding to official SCP tweets.^[96]Tweets with replies by The SCP Foundation (@scpwiki) | Twitter (archive.org) A staff member on Reddit claimed the account had been locked because staff had received a warning that 4chan was planning a raid against it.^[97]What happened to the SCP Wiki twitter? : SCP (reddit.com) (archive) It would be unlocked by June 22 without any official comment.^[98]The SCP Foundation (@scpwiki) | Twitter (archive.fo)

On June 18, ProcyonLotor posted in the public site 17 chat:^[99]https://www.containmentfiction.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/site17-1.pdf, page 173

Okay, ops and all other staff, I’m gonna tell you to not be patient or hesitant with bans for the next few days

Ban first and let god sort them out.

When asked whether this applied to main-site staff, ProcyonLotor responded: “everyone with perms in here.”^[100]https://www.containmentfiction.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/site17-1.pdf, page 173

On June 19, Bluesoul, a staff member, announced on the official subreddit that discussion regarding the pride logo would be restricted to a single thread.^[101]Housekeeping during a general shitshow. : SCP (reddit.com) (archive) Bluesoul claimed that traffic was 3-6 higher than normal and provided a graph showing that the subreddit was routinely exceeding over 2000 “uniques” per hour since the Mister Metokur video.^[102]Imgur: The magic of the Internet (archive)  Bluesould justified this decision by stating:^[103]Housekeeping during a general shitshow. : SCP (reddit.com) (archive)

This subreddit works best when it’s a place where creativity is sparked, and where people share cool shit and become inspired to contribute. Regardless of any other site- or meta-drama, that is my top priority, maintaining that atmosphere. Too many threads on the same topic, on any goddamn topic, messes with our ability to deliver that.

The initial pride logo discussion thread contained a top-level text of Joreth reminiscing about his experiences with the SCP Foundation Wiki and their thoughts on the ongoing pride controversy. The thread received 985 comments by the time it was archived in December 2020.^[104]On Recent Developments : SCP (reddit.com) (archive). Archival is an automatic process on Reddit which occurs six months after a post is made. Once archived, it is no longer possible to vote or … Continue reading The next day (June 20), the Joreth thread was replaced with a more generic discussion thread.^[105][Megathread] Pride Month and logo discussion. : SCP (reddit.com) (archive) This thread would only receive 295 comments by the time it was archived in December 2018.^[106][Megathread] Pride Month and logo discussion. : SCP (reddit.com) (archive) A dedicated thread would be created on r/OutOfTheLoop several months later in April 2019.^[107]https://archive.vn/NFD2y

The SCP Foundation itself received many posts about the pride controversy, but SCP staff would refrain from restricting discussion to a single thread until June 26. ^[108]Sticky Regarding Threads About Recent Drama – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive) (This will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent section.)

SCP-2721 and SCP-7143-J (June 17-June 26)

The Mister Metokur video focused on SCP-2721 which caused the article to come under heavy scrutiny. The article’s discussion page was flooded with comments criticizing the SCP for a wide variety of reasons including being a self-insert, mentioning Homestuck and Tumblr, breaking immersion, not being a -J, being a Mary Sue, and containing transgender themes.^[109]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-1757068/protected:scp-2721#post-3839678 (archive) The SCP’s rating was also tanked by the Mister Metokur backlash.

Since its posting on July 7, 2016, SCP-2721 had gained upvotes at a roughly linear rate; this rise continued for over a week into the pride controversy. From June 17 to 24 however, the SCP dropped from 157 net upvotes to only 68 net upvotes (a drop of about 57%).^[110]SCP-2721 – ScpperDB (archive) Staff, concluding that a brigade was taking place against SCP-2721, suspended new applications to the site and placed the article in the newly created “Protected” category which disabled ratings. ^[111]“PROTECTED” Status Pages – What and Why? – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive) A raid was also concluded to have occurred on the r/SCP Reddit.^[112]archive.fo/B3MGq

The decrease in SCP-2721’s rating did not slow with the suspension of new applications. It continued to decrease after site applications were re-opened, and per SCPper, reached a rating of +32 before being protected,^[113]https://scpper.com/page/44606597, however Site17’s bot Jarvis recorded SCP-2721’s total rating to be +11 on 11-5-2018.^[114]https://www.containmentfiction.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/site17-1.pdf, page 2256.

On June 20, djkaktus rewrote his SCP-7143-J article changing it from a highly attractive doorknob everyone wanted to have sexual relations with into an ordinary doorknob described as such. The title was changed from “A Fine Piece of Hardware [NSFW]” to “The doorknob on the door to the third floor staff dormitory at Site-19”, and later to “THE KNOB [SFW?]”.^[115]https://web.archive.org/web/20180616130144/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/djkaktus^[116]https://web.archive.org/web/20180816101417/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/djkaktus^[117]https://web.archive.org/web/20210702181028/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/djkaktus(The tagline was changed from “I would fuck the shit out of that doorknob.” to “When asked about the installation of SCP-7143-J, he remarked, ‘I installed a doorknob.'”^[118]https://web.archive.org/web/20180816101417/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/djkaktus) This appears to have been done to troll SCP critics; on the talk page djkaktus wryly noted that he had “made some minor alterations.”^[119]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-1218274/scp-7143-j#post-3843735 (archive)

The RPC Authority Gets Raided (~June 23-July, and onwards)

RPC-094’s rating tab on June 23, 2018.^[120]Image anonymously submitted to Zyn at Disciplinary – A Blessed Feline – O5 Command (wikidot.com); file saved at Gyazo

By the end of June, the RPC began being brigaded by users who attempted to downvote every article on the website.

A Blessed Feline

On June 18. A Blessed Feline posted to r/crappyoffbrands and shared a link to the RPC Authority. While the post had a ~70% upvote ratio, most of the comments were hostile; the top-rated comment (posted June 23) simply stated “[n]ice raid.”^[121]RPC Authority : crappyoffbrands (reddit.com) (archive)

On June 23 at 12:45 AM, CFOperator (using a friend’s account) posted on the SCP Foundation website and accused A Blessed Feline of downvoting every single article on the RPC Authority website.^[122]Please stop raiding the RPC Authority – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive) Staff created a disciplinary thread on 05 command at 12:58 AM; A Blessed Feline’s SCP Foundation membership was revoked at 1:48 AM after staff determined that CFOperator’s accusation was true.^[123]Disciplinary – A Blessed Feline – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive) A Blessed Feline would later apologize by early June 24 and remove most of their downvotes from the RPC Authority.^[124]Disciplinary – A Blessed Feline – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive)

Other Raiders

While a Blessed Feline was the most visible pro-SCP raider, there were many more anonymous attacks on the RPC Authority. While these accounts all had names (at least before deletion), they were clearly throw-away accounts created solely to attack the RPC Authority. These raids lasted for years after the conclusion of the June 2018 controversy,^[125]For example, the thread for RPC-410 (archive) notes that a downvote raid had taken place in April of 2020 but the most intense raiding period lasted from late June to early July 2020. For example, from July 2 to 6 the RPC Authority was hit by four downvote accounts: Able Archer, Bobeep7, Mazarov95, and Apocalyptic Dawn.^[126]Page 1: More raiding – RPC Authority (wikidot.com) (archive); Page 2: http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/forum/t-6282685#post-3861190 (archive)

RPC Authority Staff React

RPC staff plainly lacked the ability to remove downvotes from their wiki, meaning that every downvote brigade was permanent. In future years, once with a 5-star based rating system, 1-vote brigades would do noticeable damage to new articles’ or minimally-voted upon articles’ composite score. There would be many attempts to stop these downvote brigades, all of which ended in failure.

One of the earliest attempts to combat brigading was to create multiple accounts, all of which started with “RPCCorrector” and ended with a number, to manually add upvotes to downvoted articles. However, these accounts were unable to keep up with raiders and this effort appears to have been abandoned by early July.^[127]http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/forum/t-6282685#post-3861190 (archive)

At the end of June or on July 1, RPC staff attempted to hide the downvote option on the rating display (at the top right-hand portion of articles) in an apparent attempt to stop downvote raids.^[128] The archive of RPC-228 shows that there was a standard downvote option on the rating display on June 28 but not on July 1. The rating display would be changed back to normal by July 4,^[129]See RPC-003 – RPC Authority (archive.org) likely due to the alteration’s failure to stop raiders.

On August 27, RPC staff converted the website’s +/- rating system into a 5-star rating system.^[130]News – RPC Authority (wikidot.com) (archive) This did not stop raiding, but the system was a mathematically clever way to reduce most of the impact at the time.^[131]In the +/- system, a downvote account voting “-” on an RPC would always decrease that RPC’s score by 1. Under the 5-star system, an average of all votes would be taken. A downvote … Continue reading The benefit from the 5-star defense against raids was proportional to the pre-existing number of votes on a given RPC article.

In mid-2019, an RPC Authority began demanding that users re-upload their articles to clear one-star raid votes; the staff member in question was only supposed to tell users that they had the option of reuploading.^[132]Discord discussion : StudyCatalogPublish (reddit.com) (archive)

SCP Staff React to Raids Against RPC Authority

SCP staff held a discussion on July 4, 2018 in response to RPC complaints about the raids. Dr. Clef, who started the discussion, claimed that there had been about a dozen raid accounts by this point and that it was impossible to determine who controlled the accounts. SCP staff generally agreed that they would ban or revoke the membership of any SCP Foundation member who raided the RPC Authority, and that they would shut down any discussion on IRC about messing with the RPC Authority.^[133]Preventing Downvote Bombing on RPC Authority – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive)

On July 7, a staff member made a post on the SCP subreddit about the RPC Authority; the post threatened to permanently ban anyone who used the SCP subreddit to “incite any sort of brigade or even a hint of one.”^[134]A couple small things about RPC. : SCP (reddit.com) (archive)

RPC/SCPD Discord Wars (date unknown)

At some point during the pride controversy, the official RPC Discord and the server of the SCP Declassified subreddit exchanged raids. It is unclear who started this. CFOperator claimed that SCPD Discord threw “all they got” at the RPC Discord.^[135]A Conversation with CFOperator, 15:39-16:05 Modern Erasmus, on the other hand, claimed that it was the RPC Discord that started the conflict and that the RPC raiders included an RPC mod.^[136]https://www.reddit.com/r/SCP/comments/8xquzs/comment/e258n8j/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 (archive) According to CFOperator, the RPC and SCPD mods reached some sort of agreement and established basic ground rules on conduct.^[137]A Conversation with CFOperator, 15:39-16:05 However, this statement was made on July 10 yet the RPC staff Discord indicates that raiding remained a problem until at least September.

TheVolgun contributes the RPC Authority logo (June 23-24)

TheVolgun’s initial logo^[138]https://imgur.com/7cUOuaO

TheVolgun, a well-known containment fiction YouTuber, joined the RPC Authority during the controversy. On June 23, he created his own version of the RPC logo and shared it on the RPC forums. The reaction was unanimously positive and James Pitchford (the creator of the original arrow in shield logo) requested TheVolgun contact CFOperator on Discord.^[139]RPC Logo (and hi) – RPC Authority (wikidot.com) (archive) TheVolgun would go on to delete the text from the logo and on June 24, CFOperator made this the official logo of the RPC Authority.^[140]RPC Authority (archive.org) This change was announced on the main page; the announcement linked to TheVolgun’s Wikidot account.^[141]RPC Authority (archive.org)

On June 26, an SCP admin contacted TheVolgun via Wikidot in an attempt to persuade him to cut ties with the RPC Authority. The Wikidot message gave a history of the RPC Authority and claimed it was created in response to the Mister Metokur video. In most relevant part, the message stated:^[142]Conversation between Volgun and an SCP admin, used with permission of Volgun

I’m not your dad and won’t order you to do or not do anything, but be aware that RPC Authority was built specifically as a fuck you to SCP and as a place for homophobic and transphobic people who want to do similar stuff to do so, while also being allowed to be shitty to minorities. We are mostly refusing to legitimize them on the main wiki, while keeping a watch on their progress.

Von Pincier Departs (June 26)

On June 26 at 7:57 PM, Von Pincier announced in the deletions forum thread that he was leaving the SCP Foundation and that he had deleted all of his SCPs and tales; in a follow-up post, Von Pincier clarified that he had not deleted collaborative works.^[143]http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-5974396/deletions-51:its-about-the-shadow-monster-isnt-it#post-3851533 (archive); See you, space cowboy… – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive) Regarding his decision, Von Pincier simply stated:^[144]See you, space cowboy… – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive)

Time to head to greener pastures. To everyone else; I’m disappointed in you all. You can do better.

CFOperator claimed a few weeks later that Von Pincier left the SCP Foundation because he could not stand the mod team and that Von Pincier had started working with RPC staff to transfer his writings within a week of the RPC Authority’s creation.^[145]A Conversation with CFOperator, 2:08-2:32

The deletions left a major hole in the SCP lore. Von Pincier had been a prolific, high-quality writer for the SCP Foundation, and two SCP “canons” were based on his work. The deletion of SCP-1548 (the hateful star) was particularly mourned.^[146]http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-5974396/deletions-51:its-about-the-shadow-monster-isnt-it#post-3851533 (archive) Another SCP about a star would be posted in the 1548 slot on June 26 (the day of the original’s deletion); the rewritten 1548 is coded to permanently display the trans pride colors in the SCP logo.^[147]SCP-1548 – SCP Foundation (archive.org)

Apology and Resolution (late June-July)

SCP Staff Reflect and Apologize (mid to late June)

Staff held two discussions starting on June 18 to dissect what went wrong during the controversy, which they agreed they had handled poorly. Staff noted that they did not have good lines of communication between one another. Social media staff, some of whom were not even main-site staff, acted with great autonomy and with little oversight as official representatives of the Wiki. The main-site staff noted that many social media staff had behaved unprofessionally, made highly inflammatory comments without the approval of site staff, and that many people had been wrongly banned for opposing the pride logo. Staff agreed that they needed to admit how badly they had messed up, unban a lot of unfairly banned users, and take steps to address the issues they had identified. They also agreed to leave the pride logo up for the rest of the month.^[148]Discussion: Social Media Reactions/Responses – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive);Discussion Thread: Our response to social media fiasco – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive)(archive 2) 

On June 23, an official explanation and apology was given across all SCP Wiki affiliated social media platforms.^[149]https://archive.fo/rUvNv^[150]https://web.archive.org/web/20180624102656/http://scp-wiki-official.tumblr.com/ In an O5 Command discussion specifically on the social media accounts’ reactions, there would be a push to greater centralize communication between the SCP Wiki staff and official social media accounts after the pride controversy, a clarification of the purview of site staff regarding these accounts, and become the purview of the Internet Outreach team.^[151]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6185675/discussion:social-media-reactions-responses This thread saw additional self-criticism from SCP Wiki staff for the manner in which the logo itself and the reactions to it were handled.

On June 26, Dexanote posted a sticky to the main-site General forum (this was the same post restricting discussion to a single page). On the post Dexanote admitted that staff members had made mistakes, claimed that several members of social media staff had stepped down due to the controversy, and also reaffirmed that the SCP Foundation was pro-LGBT. Dexanote also shared an official statement from the Internet Outreach Team, which had also been posted across SCP social media states in the days prior. The official statement claimed that social media staff had overstepped their authority by “disciplining several accounts which were not actually trolling and had legitimate concerns or criticisms of the change.” The statement contained an apology and also urged anyone who felt they were unfairly banned to send a message to a moderator.^[152]Sticky Regarding Threads About Recent Drama – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive)

The Pride Logo is Removed (~July 1)

The normal logo was restored at some point between June 28^[153]SCP Foundation (archive.org) and July 2.^[154]End of Death Hub – SCP Foundation (archive.org)

Activity Dies Down on 4chan (late June-mid July)

For the entirety of June, SCP related activity continued on at 4chan at a fevered pitch although it was becoming increasingly obvious that many members of /x/ were growing tired of the controversy. For example, one anon counted 13 SCP threads (or 14 including anon’s thread) on June 20 and told /x/ to stop giving SCP attention and to get over it.^[155]/x/ – There are currently 13 scp related threads, 14 cou – Paranormal – 4chan (archive.is)

Looking through the 4plebs /x/ archive, the rapid pride logo discussion largely died down by the first few days of July, although there was a large SCP thread on July 8 and 9 which resulted in the creation of the Wayward Society.^[156]See here and here for the final weeks of the controversy on 4chan and here for the aftermath when discussion died down^[157]/x/ – Paranormal » Thread #21079088 (4plebs.org) (archive) Anons would still make hostile posts about the SCP Foundation and the pride logo for months and even years afterwards, but these were far less frequent and numerous than what had occurred in June 2018.

Likely one of the last events of note to take place on 4chan regarding the controversy was an RPC Authority thread on July 10. There, many anons criticized CFOperator for attempting to hold absolute power over the entire RPC Authority. He was accused of making unilateral policy decisions, deleting articles he personally disliked, and attempting to keep the RPC Authority as an SCP clone. In this thread, it was also revealed that many RPC staff and members had jumped ship to RPC splinters, the largest of which was GEAR.^[158]https://archive.is/fxrEH Ironically, the RPC Authority was going through its a similar experience of the pride controversy and fracturing, less than a month after it had been created.

SCP Staff Ban CFOperator and Update Policy (July)

The post CFOperator was permanently banned for.^[159]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6319479/disciplinary-cfoperator

CFOperator successfully joined the SCP Foundation at some point during the ongoing pride controversy. On July 4, a disciplinary thread for CFOperator was created on 05 Command after he posted the following message to the RPC Discord:^[160]Disciplinary – CFOperator – O5 Command (wikidot.com) (archive)

[URL of entry in the ongoing SCP-4000 contest] have y’all read this? it is honestly one of the worst SCPs I’ve ever read. I left a response to it in the discussion page as well if you want to read it, but you need to see this to remember why politics will be forever banned on this site.

CFOperator initially received a 24-hour ban for brigading. The decision was controversial and and many staff members disputed whether this behavior really constituted brigading. Staff in favor of disciplinary action argued that CFOperator had behaved rudely on site and deliberately picked fights with others. The straw that broke the camel’s back was an SCP member downvoting an article “à la CFOperator.” Once an image of this post was shared on the staff chat, it only took staff ten minutes to agree to permanently ban CFOperator.^[161]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6319479/disciplinary-cfoperator#post-3864483 (archive) The commentor later specified that they worded the comment poorly and did not intend to communicate that CFOperator had sent them to downvote the article.^[162]http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/forum/t-6341387/the-nail-in-the-coffin#post-3865720 This user would also receive a dedicated O5 Command disciplinary thread,  a year-long ban, and would delete their WikiDot account sometime later.^[163]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6340362/disciplinary-writewingspedsquadz

Members of the RPC Community were highly critical of CFOperator’s permanent ban. They accused SCP staff of censorship and unfairly punishing CFOperator for the actions of third parties and that they violated their own rules in doing so.^[164]CFOperator got banned – RPC Authority (wikidot.com) (archive) ^[165]http://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/forum/t-6341387/the-nail-in-the-coffin

On July 31, 2018, the SCP Site Rules were officially updated to explicitly prohibit brigading, which was defined as “[c]alling for group downvoting (or group upvoting) of an article.” A comment beneath this definition states that “[n]ot every call to check out an article by someone who dislikes it is brigading. Context and intent will determine whether or not an incident is considered brigading. Rule of thumb: Don’t try to push a group of people to vote the same as you.”^[166]Site Rules – SCP Foundation (wikidot.com) (archive) While the policy is not particularly direct on this point, it establishes that contributors who make posts similar to CFOperator’s discord message may be banned for brigading. A debate over what is and isn’t brigading on the SCP Wiki forums predated this change.^[167]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-6436404/defining-brigading-for-dummies An additional section was added to the Site Rules that outlined what actions would result in a permaban.^[168]https://web.archive.org/web/20180531064901/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/site-rules^[169]https://web.archive.org/web/20180812000755/https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/site-rules

Aftermath

The Splintering of Containment Fiction

See generally: Timeline of Containment Fiction – Confic Wiki

For most of the 2010s, the SCP Foundation held a monopoly on containment fiction; even the nominal competition from the once imposing Holders community had collapsed by 2012-13. Separate containment fiction-like Wikis were created, for example the original Global Occult Coalition Wiki created by DrClef and Aelanna, but either did not thrive or were incorporated into the SCP Wiki as a Group of Interest.

For most of the 2010s, the vast majority of containment fiction communities were official or unofficial offshoots of the SCP Foundation. The 2018 controversy fractured the SCP Foundation’s hold over containment fiction. While most of the projects proposed during this time period failed, the SCP Foundation was left with a rival in the form of the RPC Authority.

Perhaps even more importantly was the impact on popular imagination. As demonstrated in the Timeline of Containment Fiction article, there was an explosion of independent containment fiction communities in the years following the pride controversy. One of these, the Backrooms, has emerged as a third major “containment fiction” community (while a fourth, the Liminal Archives, has emerged from the Backrooms). Perhaps the most significant impact of the pride controversy was establishing that the SCP Foundation did not have to be the only containment writing project, and that the genre was larger than the idiosyncrasies exhibited at the SCP Foundation Wiki.

SCP-2721

Per SCPper, voting was re-opened on SCP-2721 on 3-5-2019.^[170]scpper.com/page/44606597 While the first votes to appear on this day were a majority upvotes, downvotes quickly dominated. The total tally for the day was -38 (65 upvotes, 27 downvotes). The article was again protected on this day. It remains the only SCP article in the protected category.^[171]https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/system:list-all-categories

Pride on the SCP Foundation

The SCP Foundation did not update its logo for pride month in 2019 or 2020;^[172]SCP Foundation (archive.org); SCP Foundation (archive.org) it would officially return for Pride Month 2021.^[173]Front Page – SCP Foundation (archive.org) This time, there would be far less controversy on either 4chan or the various SCP social media websites.

Following the controversy, many members of the SCP Foundation coded their articles to always display the pride logo or variations of it. While most articles still display either the standard logo, these modified logos are still a common sight (particularly in series IV, the series open during the pride controversy). The presence of these logos would lead to additional controversy in 2021 after the Spanish SCP branch was accused of removing pride logos (and other custom logos) from translated articles, a political gaffe colloquially referred to as “The -ES Incident”.^[174]http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14415091/november-2021-recap#esinc

Trivia

June 2018 was not the first time that the SCP Wiki changed its logo in an official capacity to a rainbow pride variant. Official SCP Wiki social media accounts did so in 2015 as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision re: Obergefell vs Hodges that granted equal rights for marriage to gay couples in the United States. The decision resulted in backlash on the official SCP Wiki’s Facebook page, where individuals were banned as a result.^[175]https://mobile.twitter.com/scpwiki/status/843176312202121217, archive^[176]https://twitter.com/scpwiki/status/615555975886544896, archive^[177]https://twitter.com/search?q=(from%3Ascpwiki)%20until%3A2015-06-30%20since%3A2015-06-25&src=typed_query&f=top, archive In response to the backlash, the Twitter account stated:

“We’ve been getting some upset messages on our Facebook page about the logo colors. Rest assured, your complaints are reaching deaf ears.”^[178]https://twitter.com/scpwiki/status/615287720093556737, archive