User blog:Little-Red/Nature Of The Beast

wikis, as we are all aware by now, are by in large communities - however like all online forms of communication they have a number of problems (trolls, vandals, misguided users and (I'll be bold here) overzealous admins).

Thankfully our wiki communities (Heroes, Villains and RPG) have by in large managed to avoid such things on a major scale - at least for now.. sadly a recent trend has developed that has impacted severely upon our community: in-fighting.

As you're all probably aware Inferno is pretty much leaving, I talked with him on chat last night and he has said that he probably won't be back - which is going to be a problem for multiple reasons..

However the main purpose of this blog is to highlight what seems to be going wrong and I'm going to go straight to the point - as blunt as it will be: the thing that has been killing our community is a sudden and unhealthy fascination with competition.

Whether real or imagined it seems this sense of competition has driven a few members away and begun the cycle of in-fighting that inevitably leads to a state of affairs not dissimiliar to Ancient Rome - when everyone is trying to outdo one another or inflict petty spites on each other (thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as some wikis but it should be addressed before it gets any worse).

In every community their are personalities that clash and egoes that are going to get burst - the problem (as Inferno said) is when in-fighting occurs it makes doing RPing harder as well since many people don't really feel like playing with certain individuals if they have "bad blood" between them (again, whether real or imagined).

Of course their is no solution to personal bickering and that's the nature of humans, but as a community we need to start thinking on what we say and do more.. and how it may be percieved by others..

No matter what you do you will offend someone, apologizing is fine - normally it's considered polite to accept said apology as well (sadly not everyone can accept apologies - this is just something we need to accept and move on).

Abuse of power is a topic I don't even want to get involved in as I have no idea what the hell happened to convince Inferno that the V.W. became corrupt (and to be frank I don't really care - as long as it doesn't get any worse) - the whole "characters" and "concepts" being threatened thing is also a somewhat confusing issue and I don't know if it's all manifesting from the in-fighting that has been going on.

Friends argue, families bicker, wiki users do the same - unfortunately the internet makes it easier for people to either say/do things that are (again, being frank) stupid.. things they may regret.

I'm going to talk with Inferno some more and Misery too (the joys of RL contacts) - so I'll keep you posted if you wish.. other than that I'm just going to upload this blog to tell people a bit on what I feel on the subject.