Who’s Behind The Site?
The SCP Wiki traces its origins to 4chan’s /x/ board¹. The site itself is funded through ad revenue and is hosted on Wikidot.com. The vast majority of the content is user-generated and unless otherwise noted, all content on the website is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0⁸.
The SCP wiki features a diverse user-base with 14 different language translations for the site, each including its own unique set of articles and tales generated by its language-diverse userbase⁹. A number of popular authors and commentators on the SCP Wiki have their own YouTube channels, with subscriber counts in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands. TheVolgun and Dr. Cimmerian are just two examples. (The essay continues below.)
The SCP Wiki’s Origins:
The SCP Wiki draws its origins to a post by a user named S.S Walrus on 4chan’s /x/ board in June 2007. 4chan’s /x/ board, or paranormal board, is a section of 4chan devoted to the exchange of paranormal tales — both supposedly real and obviously fictional. Tales of this sort have more recently come to be referred to as “creepypastas” in the context of the wider internet¹.
S.S. Walrus’s post describes a malicious entity, cryptically referred to as SCP-173, in a dry report-style that quickly set it apart from other creepypastas on the board¹. The popularity of the post then saw several similar report-style creepypastas crop up, purporting to share the same canonical universe of S.S. Walrus’s post.
Later, in January 2008, a few 4chan users would set up the first iteration of the SCP wiki on the website Editthis, after which several more report-style stories or “articles” would be added. The wiki would eventually be moved to Wikidot to address moderation concerns, content restrictions, and Editthis moving to a paid model²³.
Pride Month Controversy:
Perhaps the most overt example of the SCP Wiki taking a political stance comes from a 2018 controversy surrounding a rainbow-colored version of the SCP logo being posted in honor of pride month.
The controversy began when the rainbow logo, and a number of LGBT-specific versions of the logo were posted on the SCP Wiki’s Tumblr page and later to the wiki itself⁴. The SCP Wiki Twitter would later report that the wiki had received a large volume of criticism for participating in pride month and would go to explain why the staff felt participating in pride month was worthwhile, noting their belief that the SCP Wiki’s 4chan origins had left it with “toxic baggage”⁵.
On June 17th, Critics, including a conservative YouTuber by the name of Mister Metokur, would go on to not only criticize the participation in pride month, but also assert that moderators for the SCP Wiki’s various 
social media branches were banning any users that took issue with the Pride Month logo⁶. Metokur’s video has since been taken down.
On June 18th, a Redditor named Ozplod created a Reddit post explaining why he felt that the pride flag did not suit the theme of the SCP Wiki⁷. The Reddit post was positively received by the SCP Wiki’s Reddit community, reaching approximately 2,200 points and a 76% upvote ratio.
On June 24th the SCP Wiki moderation team apologized for the inappropriate behavior of some members of the moderation team who had indeed taken administrative action against users who had respectively voiced their dislike of the SCP Wiki’s participation in pride month. The moderation team indicated “staffing changes” had occurred as a result of this inappropriate behavior by the moderators in question.
Despite taking the stance that criticizing the Pride Month logo was acceptable, the moderation team did reaffirm its support of the LGBT community, and that harassment and bigoted behavior would not be tolerated.
Analyses:
In general, the criticism over the SCP Wiki’s participation in Pride month seems to boil down to the fact that the SCP foundation puts a lot of effort into making the website appear to be a database operated by a (largely unethical) pseudo-government, shadow organization. The webpage is made to look as though it’s for in-house eyes only, and thus including a Pride Month logo as part of that database makes very little sense. It does not appear as though there was strong Anti-LGBT sentiment within the community based on the comments section of Ozplod’s Reddit post.
The apparent zealousness some of the SCP Wiki moderators adopted in moderating the initial wave of complaints in this controversy seems, to me, to suggest a liberal bias in the site’s staff. However based on the subsequent disciplinary action taken against the moderators in question, as well as on the moderation team’s apology, I’m led to believe there is likely a strong ideal of free speech held by the site’s senior staff.
Despite the SCP Wiki’s roots in 4chan, a website that’s now infamous for its right-wing bias, these two events, as well as the website’s participation in pride month, leave me with the overall impression that SCP Wiki staff is currently center-left leaning.
Essay Table of Contents:
- https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/fandom/scp-foundation-paranormal-artifact-containment-horror/
- http://www.scp-wiki.net/history-of-the-universe-part-one
- https://www.fantascienza.com/22696/cos-e-la-scp-foundation (Page is in Spanish)
- https://scp-wiki-official.tumblr.com/post/174523828203/5c0ut-now-you-can-secure-contain-and-protect
- https://twitter.com/scpwiki/status/1004759224663060480
- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/scp-foundation#fn25
- https://www.reddit.com/r/SCP/comments/8rx7hv/i_know_im_going_to_get_downvoted_for_this_but_i/
- http://www.scp-wiki.net/licensing-guide
- http://scp-int.wikidot.com/main