What’s going to happen now? (Personal opinion, considering stepping down, my lack of activity, and apology)
Hey, it's me, CJ. I'm not going to beat around the bush, because everybody saw what happened last month, but if you don’t then basically here’s the short version: I had a beef with two users about 3 pages, a show and 2 companies, the show determining if it fully recovered (which it didn’t in my opinion), and the 2 pages being something that Raidarr said should be fixed by removing the era entirely. However, multiple people said that I should retire from the wiki, while Raidarr only merely suggested that I step down, and he has lots of merits, because he did explain why I’m not fit for a bureaucrat, or even an admin. Now, this is going to focus on my apology, stepping down, my lack of activity, and my opinion on the copy pasted pages (as I wanted to make it separate but I decided to put it here, because this is likely going to be my last blog). If you’re wondering why I added my thoughts on the copy-pasted pages here is because I wanted to make it a separate blog, but because this is likely going to be the last blog I’ll make, I decided to put it here.
Apology
So, I want to apologize for what happened. Sorry if I sound overly confident, but I don’t want to say the typical “I will do better, I’ll promise, I learned my lessons” or the excuses, because that doesn’t sound sincere to me, and it’s a trope commonly used in YouTube apology videos. All I can say is I was really stupid at the time, and I shouldn’t have been very aggressive. And yeah, the Admin’s “note” (or should I call it threat) didn’t help either, because I was aggressively telling people “Shut up, my point is valid, yours isn’t”. The main reason why I’ve been aggressive is because the wiki has become a chore for me, and whenever I return, I simply revert stuff I perceived as nonsensical and just refuse to change (Nickelodeon, Disney, and Rick and Morty). The other reason why I was passive aggressive is because whenever I tried to use the talk page, the users either used strawman arguments, or continued on insisting their points, even with the counterpoints being valid. So, yeah, that's why I just went hog wild. However, this is a stupid thing to do, and I honestly discourage you to do that as well, even if you had similar experiences as mine, as we might never know if the other side has actually good counterpoints.
My lack of activity
As you might have known, I’ve been very inactive in the wiki, and only made edits here and there, and only became fully active during the whole debacle. Well, here’s why I wasn’t that active: Burnout (something certain people just don't get, the admins will understand who I'm referring to), and lack of interest. Back in late 2021, the entirety of 2022, and the first half of 2023, I genuinely loved contributing to the reception wikis, and did it as a main hobby after returning from school at home, because it was very nice to edit there, and just being helpful. I also met a lot of great people, who I had a lot of good experiences with, and editing there was simply fun. Contributing there was mainly my hobby, and that’s one of the reasons why I revived it. However, then in mid-2023, I started to suffer from burnout, and felt less interested in contributing there. No need for more explanation, because you already get what I’m saying with this, but in short, I just felt tired of being there, monitoring the entire wiki, while I have to do other stuff, which effectively slowed me down. The same thing happened with ImaginationLand Wiki, except my burnout from it started pretty late, let’s say late 2023. Yes, even my imagination started to sour, because I’m only currently coming up with ideas for my future projects and my fanfics, not for the wiki, and I’m sorry for that, it’s just that I lost interest in it. So, pretty much, I'm inactive in both wikis due to lack of interest, but despite that, I came back just once every blue moon to enforce something or to revert stuff back to normal. Yeah, that's pretty much what I did.
My opinion on the copy-pasted pages
Now, this is going to be one of the biggest hot takes in the wiki, and please be nice to me with this, but, I still think the copy-pasted pages are generally not a good idea. Shocking, I know, but here are the reasons why I don’t think they’re good. Some reasons are simply what I was told by another user I won’t mention, but still, most of what I say is what I think.
They feel soulless and empty
Now, what do I mean by this? Well, simply put, the copy-pasted pages feel passionless and thoughtless, because you can feel that it was taken from something else, rather than entirely made in the wiki. I can provide an example: the Discontinuation of the Dreamcast page, even though it’s not in New Qualitipedia. I like reading this page again and again because not only was the story interesting, but I also knew people put passion into it, and weren’t forced to work on it. If this page was copy pasted in New Qualitipedia, it just wouldn't feel the same, because all I see is basically someone pretending to be themselves, not the actual themselves.
How are they supposed to fix the wiki?
One thing that I always wondered, and is something pointed out by a retired user is, how are they supposed to fix the wiki? Seriously, in what way are they supposed to make it better? All they do is just repeat the mistakes from the original QP. Let’s take for example a rant blog of Mighty No. 9 from GameFAQs. Reading it, you can see that the user who wrote it clearly played the game, and actually dissects point by point the fundamental flaws of the game, while also bringing the positives of it, making it feel substantial, and makes it feel like it’s genuine. The page on New QP on the other hand, sounds like a bunch of loosely put together rants and lines from other YouTube rants at best, and sounding like a bunch of YouTube comments at worst, because it’s clear the people who wrote it have likely never played the game. Plus, you don’t exactly get to picture how the game is in your mind if 1) You’ve never played it or 2) Didn’t even watch the gameplay. From my personal experience, I can vaguely say that the game is awful, but I need to provide substance to why that is, otherwise it’s just one thing I said and that’s it.
They feel like an excuse to be lazy
Yes, this is going to be highly controversial, but simply put, whenever they ask to copy paste a page, it just feels like an excuse to simply be lazy instead of creating brand new pages. Whenever they create a new page, it actually seems like they took effort, and were passionate. Copy pasted doesn’t, but instead of coming up with actual new pointers, which might help make the page look distinguishable, the users will simply plaster the page, without any care whatsoever. One of the instances I can recall was the Air Control page made by infamous twat Szczypak64 (if you’re wondering, yes, this is how I call those 4 vandals). The first time he “remade” the page, he only did that on the surface level, that is, the description, what it is, and the reception, but the actual pointers were completely unchanged. You can take a look by yourself. The pointers were not touched in the slightest, and most of the effort went outside of them, and because of that, I moved the page to Szczypak’s sandbox, much to his dismay, so he added new pointers and rewrote some of them, and at least it was better. I prefer when they take copy pasted content, and add at least something substantially new before pasting it, but no, from what I saw, most of the pages are a mess, and they don’t feel the users genuinely cared about them, and instead, just think “oh, it’s good enough” and then boom, copy-paste it, and call it a day.
The “they were well-written and good enough” excuse
Now, this is one of the many excuses a lot of users use when they want to feel justified in copy-pasting pages, that is “Oh, they’re just well made, there's no reason for them to be fully remade”. Here's the thing, though: No matter how good or well-written the page is, it simply doesn't change the fact that its pointers are either poor or straight up biased. People can make very long arguments and provide examples, but it doesn't change the core substance, which may leave a lot to be desired. Let's take for example, the Space Chickens in Space page, written by a former admin on the original QP. On the surface, it looks like a well-written page, with good arguments, and good examples. In fact, I imported it and even featured it (again, because it was already featured in the original QP) and highly praised it, because I admittedly fanboyed the user who wrote it for a while, and thought it was very good. However, when you actually take a look at it, you realize that it's simply not that good and leaves a lot to be desired. The way the page is written feels like the editor wanted to pad out the word counter, as they added pointers that don't prove why the show is good (examples being WIR 1 and 2), or straight up making pointers that didn't need to be this long (BQ 1), and instead they should have either been straight to the point, or at least a long and well-articulated argument that doesn't feel like it was padded out. Oh, and don't get me started with the reception section. It's one of the rudest, most biased reception sections ever written: Lashing out at people for simply disliking the show, dismissing any form of criticism, and attacking a YouTuber simply for his opinion. The IMDb section also aged like milk, since it says it has a 7.1/10 but now it has a 5.4/10. So yeah, this is why the excuse doesn't work. And don't use the “Oh, it's just a few pages, it doesn't apply to 90% of the pages”. Just because a few pages do this doesn’t mean it’s not a big problem, especially if a certain show is very obscure and has little-to-no retrospectives.
But then again, this is just my opinion, Raidarr explained to me the reason why we allowed them is because the newer pages were actually worse than the older pages, and bringing them might have actually helped, so I can’t say much about it.
Considering stepping down as a bureaucrat (and admin)
Now, this may sound a victory to those who have a disdain for me, but trust me, it isn’t. I’m considering stepping down as a bureaucrat, and maybe even admin. However, contrary to what you may believe, that I simply gave to the people complaining about me (which, I’ll go back in a bit), I’ve actually considered retiring days prior, as I felt my role just didn’t mean much nowadays. When Raidarr explained why I should step down from being a bureaucrat, it fueled my reasonings for that even more, because I’ll be honest, the only reason why I’m a bureaucrat is because I created the wiki, and that’s pretty much it. I’m simply not a person who’s skilled enough to deserve this role, and because this role is for people who are professional in stuff like coding, which is a skill I lack (especially in CSS). So, yeah, I definitely need to step down. This is actually a blessing in disguise for me, because I simply want to feel free from the wiki, and simply want to move on with my life, as I feel that it slows what I do, other than procrastination. I just want to work on my projects I planned, but have been slowed down due to school, and the wiki. So, yeah, I also feel that stepping down makes me feel free. However, before I retire, I simply want to make only 3 final pages, while wiping out all my sandboxes, 2 of them focus on Attack on Titan (I’ve been watching the show, finished season 2, and it’s a masterpiece, I loved it), and the other is The Return to Freddy’s 2 (the sequel of a game that was one of my first pages ever in this wiki).
My personal rant on ToTheEdge
Now, this is going to be a part where I’m just…can I call it venting? Idk, but I hope you get what I mean, but, it’s me just expressing my thoughts and responding to one certain mod, ToTheEdge. This part is going to be fully personal, and this is just my opinion, and expect me to be somewhat immature with my wording, as I’m just tired of this mod, okay? So, he told me that I should step down as a bureaucrat, because the majority of the people agree that I should, and he wrote like he’s winning by protesting against me. Now, first off, f**k you, ToTheEdge, you and the majority of the people simply don’t get to decide if I should retire or not, it’s my decision, and the only person who didn't act like he controls me is Raidarr, who just suggested me to step down, with actual arguments and reasons that are not just related to this situation, but also for other things (my skills, or lack thereof, and inactivity), while you acted like you and the others could simply force me to do that, even though you have no power. Also, I’d love to highlight your hypocrisy: You call me out for my aggressive behavior, and being stubborn with my points, most notably with the Rick and Morty page, claiming that the show did improve, and I’m wrong. Well, when I finally proved that Rick and Morty did go downhill, and hasn’t fully recovered yet, and also proved seasons 4, 6 and 7 are weak, you just dismissed it entirely, by not only cherry-picking the sources to prove your stance, but you also dismissed the video sources by using an argument that is just as good and effective as the “I ain't reading all that” argument Twitter uses (which is not). In fact, you shouldn’t have been even promoted as a mod, and that's not just my opinion, other admins agreed with me as well, and the only reason you've become an admin was because you asked if you could become one, and Street was pretty generous with you. In fact, you can see my request down below, asking to keep an eye on you.
A few requests
However, I just want to make a few requests to the admins who are still willing to contribute here:
- Keep an eye on the recently promoted moderators, especially ToTheEdge: You should see his responses when I posted my proof of Rick and Morty going downhill, and he was too stubborn, and even flat out dismissed some of my sources, by using a “I ain’t reading all that” kind of argument. Also worth mentioning that he uses all-caps when writing, even though it just makes you look immature. The fact that he got promoted instantly as a mod seemed kinda fishy, so, please keep an eye on him, and make sure he doesn’t abuse his power. Same for the other mods.
- Try to balance the Source Reliability-O-Meter with the political views, as from what I’ve seen, QP has been recently leaning on the left, which completely defeated the centrist view the wiki was supposed to have, which is something I’ve been trying to keep it since the original Qualitipedia was heavily pro-GamerGate and right wing, as I’ve seen some sources being blacklisted for their political views rather than their…you know, takes? Now, if they made Breitbart or Kotaku level of takes, then it makes sense, but people like The Critical Drinker were just added because they’re conservative. So, please, fix it.
- Another request I can come up with about the Source Reliability-O-Meter is delete it entirely. It's literally useless, and is incredibly underutilized, and also caused some debate like The Day Before, which had the IGN review being removed because the website is blacklisted, even though it's the first time in 10 years the site gave a game a 1/10.
- I don’t know if this is going to work, but for the eras of the companies, is it ok if we change from (Random year)-present to (Change of the era)? For example, let’s take the Disney page, instead of making 2003-present, we could simply change to Disney (post-Disney family era). Get what I mean? You can simply say no, and that’s fine. This request is merely a tip.
So, yeah, this is all I have to say.
Small clarification to SuperStreetKombat
Remember in the Tiresome Wikis Wiki, when you thought Szczypak wrote the pointer of you promoting mods out of desperation in August 2022, when the original QP was on the verge of collapse? That wasn’t him, I was the one that wrote it, and the main reason for that is because I vividly remember it was dark time when a lot of good admins were retiring, either due to drama (whoever was in the Entryway Discord server when the shitshow happened will remember vividly), or loss of interest, and I saw more mods being promoted, and when I thought about it retrospectively, I just thought it was a desperate attempt to salvage the wikis, because most of the mods were promoted fairly quickly, and considering it coincided with the retirement of multiple admins, it’s no wonder I thought that. This is something I wanted to clarify, this one of the few moments where Szczypak did nothing wrong (although it’s not saying much). If you say it was another reason for why the mods were promoted, then feel free to explain, as I can change that pointer.
In the end…
So, in the end, this is all I have to say. As I said before, I'm going to work on a couple of pages before taking this long break, and these pages are related to Attack on Titan and one FNaF fan game. These are mainly the pages that are sort of last meals before going away, because these are also the last pages I will likely make. So, yeah. This is all I have to say. I hope you guys had a good day, and I genuinely wish the best to everyone, even those who aren't that…well, mature, but still, I wish you the best, and I'll see you once I feel comfortable enough to return. Bye!
-CJWorldGame32125