Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-7424710-20160929025515

Don't worry, this isn't a serious topic I'm tackling or whatever. I'm just very, very bored and really feel like having a random serious conversation for no good reason.

'''Yada yada, I'm not an admin, pretty sure I'll never be one. I'm just talking my head off because I love this place and want to keep it in a state where people can love it as much as I do, yada yada. Don't mean to offend, don't mean to come off as offensive, don't mean to target individuals, apologies if it seems like it.''' So, let's talk about how we've progressed over the past few months and beyond. I don't really have a purpose with this, I'm just in the mood to talk about how much we've grown, while also me nitpicking at some of the more common problems that have been growing since the past and some of them up into current events. Pointing out some things in the past, how we're working on that, that kind of stuff.

To begin with, let's talk about our progress so far. When we finished up on my last big debate on administration problems, everyone getting hired and replacing those who are retiring was a big change. We got to do so many things us regular users have been griping about. We got the Candidates for Deletion cleaned up, we spruced up some rules, all those basic essentials we had in mind. Now... we're at a point where since we have the surface cleaned out, it may be time to go deeper into the skin of problems arising on the wiki. Unimportant pages that were red flags at the beginning may have been easy to spot, but we have to pull out our magnifying glass and search for things deeper within, things that are hiding to be normal pages but really aren't.

One thing we've done is create both a new board and a new, very special thread on it. The Wiki Management board was made to help discuss pages, content, and proposals for new additions to rules and content. If you have a big ambition or an idea you want to consider for the Wiki, go on ahead and do it there.

Following the opening of that board, we opened up a Rule Violation thread where people can report incidents that no moderators or administrators were present to catch. Please, if you know something that violates the Rules and Guidelines, even if it's the most minor thing, report it on that thread. Even if it's small, it can help us out on moderating the wiki and keeping this place clean. It's not very easy when you have up to only five people actively working on these things, y'know.

Along with this, veteran administrators and moderators are beginning to retire, mostly due to life calling. Now I haven't talked to anybody about this situation, but if you ask me, this can be a perfect time to select candidates that we can actually begin to take Moderation Training into place. Opening up spaces for people who get on at different times, for example I'm good for late afternoon and early nightshift hours, can open up more eyes to scout for trouble. But that's only my opinion and up for administrators to discuss, not my business. Besides, Discussion Mod town is pretty lonely with Derp and I being the only active ones.

Now that we have discusses the current agenda, let's discuss problems happening among other users, both in the past and in the present.

Pessimism. Pessimism is a word that often gets mistaken for self-hated. This is not the case. Pessimism is simply the opposite of optimism, which would mean instead of considering the bright side of things, people would more-often think about the worst side of things. Or, in other words, some people tend to be a defeatist when things get gloomy.

Take for example a thread made by AgentHoxton, a former administrator. At the time he made this alongside Para's infamous "It's Time To Stop" thread, things weren't very well, as both threads would describe. However, in Hox's case, there was one thing that stood out from the rest. The very first sentence is what made this speech collapse.

"tl;dr - I'm not going to do anything myself given I am not an admin at the time of writing."

So, basically, all he did was whine and gripe about the scenario, looked down upon it and didn't even dare to try to explain or come up with any solution to said "dishonest hack" situation. If you ask me, that's just one giant way to say "I think it's only going downhill from here." Now I like Hox for his pros, his stern, direct, and straight-to-the-point attitude, but this pessimistic way of (what I believe to be is) delivering a righteous surrender is only adding to a fire... an oil fire... with oil that spilled on a bunch of electronics and mashed with highly flammable or even explosive chemicals.

In fact, many administrators had been placed under this curse in one way or another. Being so let down that they didn't even like running this wiki anymore, yet they still decide to run it. And with that, they're pessimistic attitudes spread and affecting things that could've avoided it, but they got infected and made things toxic. It made them into landmines: '''one wrong step and things would blow up. If you were to be so down about your own job that you believe that there is no way to come back to a better point in time, SO FAR TO CALL YOUR OWN (technically it's your) SECOND HOMD CANCER''', then boy would you need a wake-up slap to Teletubbyland, because you need some courage and happiness back in your life.

I, on the other hand, was more of an optimist on these kinds of situations. I could see the good that could come out of us, something we could all look at and say "Hey, we can try to fix this." It didn't really matter if we failed, but hey, at least we tried to do something instead of lean back and whine about it all day. But enough about me griping about griping, let's move on, shall we?

'''Unfair, Unjust, and Harsh Punishments. '''This more specifies on the former method of banning that some administrators and moderators held. Having an admin that is light-hearted and very suspect to forgiveness may not be the best thing, but it's no better if you're not even considering a warning for the minor inconvenience by the time you banned him for a week, especially if that ban only required two hours. Now, this USED to be a major problem, but it's still in my range of discussion since it used to happen, and discussing it would bring it more into light and most likely prevent it in the future. Many moderators and administrators have had instinctive moments where they banned somebody without thought, knowing that they might've struck again even with the disciplinary sentence. While they may be correct, they have no right to act like that. By the Guidelines we ourselves forged, doing something like that is just spitting ourselves in the face. Arrogance and an abuse of a system like this should not be tolerated by anyone, commoner or administrator alike. It's one thing to be strict and uptight, but it's another thing to be an unfair tyrant who lets his personal beliefs contradict with Guidelines they forged or agreed with. All punishments should be aligned with how they are presented in the Rules and Guidelines, not instinct or emotional balances. I've seen this been done way too many times in the past, and this unjust treatment of users makes me sick, man. I don't mean that as an offense to anyone who has been accused of such actions, it's just... really?

Hoo, sorry, Example B was a little bit personal for me. Let's just move on before I start to become a tyrant myself.

Oversensitivity and Insensitivity. I find myself to blame on this one, and I'm not afraid to admit it. We're all human, we make mistakes, and I'm not trying to shame anybody for doing anything when I myself have done wrong. This will be split into two parts since it deals with two separate topics.

Now many people are sensitive to some content, and that's completely fine. If something that you see makes you feel uncomfortable, it's a relatable experience since we all have some form of it. Say for example the discussion of death disturbs you, speak out and hopefully they'll respect your urges. Now that doesn't give you an excuse to be too sensitive. Many of these incidents arise from jokes from user to users, whether it be a niche you have and calling you it based off of it. These jokes, while harmful at first, seem to be used maybe months later after it's a normal thing to use, and then right there, they snap and go into a frenzy.

'''If you were a person who doesn't like a certain name, you should be able to say you're uncomfortable with it on the spot, not wait a year and act like you just got called the worst thing on planet Earth for the first time. '''And right after that snap, it only takes at most about a week before they go back and accept the hits like nothing ever happened and they knew what they were dealing with from the beginning.

Though, I won't blame them for going over the edge if it weren't for the insensitive types as well. Or is it a result of oversensitivity that they become insensitive? I don't even know.

Those who are insensitive won't even stop. They'll keep going and going until the end of time, whether it be a fresh joke, fresh meme, fresh whatever. And hey, I'm well victim of being this kind of character, and I've been in huge drama for not adhering to those who were also oversensitive on a said topic while I kept going like nothing happened. Combined, the use of oversensitivity and insensitivty is a giant batch of Hell that will only end in something bad. I guess what we can try to consider is approaching things more lightly, be more friendly to new users who may or may not be used to this kind of exposure, and only go all out on people that we're 100% certain we know can take a good hit. We don't need to be shitposting on strangers with memes that they can find to be an attack or very annoying.

And that's pretty much all I wanted to rant off my head because I've had built-up tension over the last few weeks and I decided to just let it flow.

'''tl;dr I fucking love you guys and this place. So let's try and keep it up, 'aight?''' 