Itemsgate

Itemsgate was a political scandal on the MicroWiki forums in which MicroWiki admins engaged in heavy-handed censorship of what they considered inappropriate speech. The scandal began after, in an innocuous post on the forums, Dylan Callahan offhandedly referred to a “box of crap,” triggering a moderator to immediately change the word “crap” to “items” and issue a reprimand to Callahan. The scandal created a community-wide debate about censorship of speech and led to the Grand Republic of Delvera’s withdrawal of official diplomatic communications from the platform.

Scandal

Initial incident

In December 2016, Dylan Callahan created a MicroWiki forum post in which he referenced sorting through a “box of crap” related to NottaLotta Acres. This box was not the subject of the post, and was only referenced in passing. Soon after the message was posted, a MicroWiki moderator altered the post, changing the word “crap” to the word “items,” the text of which was also changed to red so that it would be noticed. Callahan also received a reprimand in a reply from the mod over the incident. Callahan protested this change in the thread, and received a scathing reply in private messages about how difficult the mod’s job was.

Profanity list

This precipitated serious discussions and concerns in the community. Jordan Brizendine intensively questioned the administration about what words were and were not permitted for use in forum posts, which the moderators initially stated that they used arbitrary methods to determine (i.e. the “could I say this in front of my grandmother” test). After a long period of inaction, the head administrator and self-described “overlord of the community” produced a list of banned words and an expanded rule against swearing on the forums. The list was extensive, including many innocuous words such as “heck,” and was specifically billed as incomplete, with any word or phrase perceived to be an expletive or insult not mentioned implied to be included in the rule.

Arbitrary censorship

Before the list and the expanded rule had been released, several users had been censored extensively while attempting to get answers regarding the issue. This censorship was not limited to simple word changes, but also included major post alteration, manipulation of reputation points, editing of profile pictures, and outright deletion of posts. In addition, certain users who were friendly with the administration were permitted to completely disregard the rule against swearing, using numerous hard swears in posts with no alteration or reprimand.

Delveran withdrawal

All of these issues led the Grand Republic of Delvera to withdraw from official diplomatic engagement on the forums, which were seen as a non-serious and undignified medium of interaction. Further, both Callahan and Brizendine determined that the community was not conducive to healthy or legitimate micronational development and resolved to drastically reduce their activities in the MicroWiki sphere.

Legacy

This event laid the groundwork for Delvera’s total departure from MicroWiki in late 2017.

Itemsgate became a cultural reference in Delvera, with several citizens self-censoring various words to “items.” A citizens’ group chat and a Lavrada Bannerman column were later named “Delvera Items”.