Board Thread:Special Admin Messages/@comment-26533608-20200112211153

Hey everyone, Deadlock here.

Although I wasn't going to be back until next week, I felt that this was urgent enough for me to quickly pop on here and make a post about it.

The Issue
Today, I came across a post. I thought it made quite a few valid points, a few I didn't agree on, and I posted it on the wiki's Discord server for discussion.

After I saw Fico's opinions on it, he and I had a discussion about how some of the points made in the post ring true.

This discussion about the flaws of the wiki eventually led to a discussion about what the wiki is in principle.

Eventually everything boiled down to one question:

Should we close the MCCW?

1. Drama
This is pretty obvious at this point. Not mentioning any names - I'm just referring to drama in general. It's essentially become a fact of MCCW life that the wiki thrives on drama. Drama leads to activity spikes. There are so many points in time where drama caused increases in activity and lifted the MCCW from the vegetative state it's in usually.

At this point, this wiki could probably be repurposed into a drama hotbed. But that'd be stupid. Drama defines this wiki, drama has always defined this wiki, and chances are that it always will. However, drama is not what anyone running a functioning wiki would want a lot of. We've had 13 "wars", a decent wiki should have far less than that.

2. Administration
Let's get this straight.

The wiki's administration isn't good.

The post claims that the staff is mainly comprised of edgy teenagers who run this wiki like how they'd want to run a country.

The thing is, the poster isn't wrong. The wiki’s audience is mainly comprised of 11-16 year olds, and our staff team has always reflected that. In fact, I have a theory that the majority of the wiki’s problems could have been solved if '’everyone was just that bit older and more mature''. And then there's also the corruption and misconduct scandal in mid-to-late-2017.

Remember when we used to ban users by insulting them, like "fuck you" and "go away" instead of "hateful commenting" or "vandalism"?

Remember when we all left shitty messages on a regular rulebreaker's wall?

Remember banning users just for saying "This pasta is real?

-Fico

We use terms that shouldn’t be used in a wiki for scary stories about a block game – revolution, war, treaty, and many others. Terms which are mainly political and shouldn’t be used in our context.

What isn’t helping is that 4 of the most 'respected’ staff members in MCCW history have/had a penchant for real-life politics. I think that we subconsciously applied that to the MCCW, treating it as if it were a real-life nation-state.

3. Purpose
Creepypasta as a concept has been dead since 2014-15.

The Question
Should we close the MCCW?

This is a very impactful question - it determines the entire future of the community.

Me and Fico have discussed it extensively, and we've reached our conclusions.

For us, this wiki is driven pointless drama caused and fuelled by teenage angst and the mistakes of our pasts which should be buried and locked away.

But that's us. Sure, we both may be the owner and a retired bureaucrat respectively, but we're not the only users on the wiki. Suddenly closing the wiki without notice wouldn't be a great move.

But I leave you with this message: With the endless barrages of drama and conflict, the dying purpose of the wiki and how us staff are angsty teenagers who don't know how to run a wiki, combined with how many fuckups we've done, is the wiki still worth keeping?

-Deadlock & Fico

This speech was rushed so I could finish it and still do other things.

Feel free to ask any questions and discuss the notion below. 