User blog:Aravis Tarkheena/About our Recent Community Votes

Friends, Wikians, and Countrymen (that would be Daddy and Uncle M yay), lend me your eyes, because I don’t think this is being narrated to you although it would be neat to record this being read, but that would be impractical. It has come to all of our attentions—or should that be attention, since that’s not the sort of thing that can be said in the plural—that a number of words are in the Community Vote process of being unblocked.

Now, I do understand that recently a lot of changes have been being considered concerning the management of this wiki, which has led to the relaxing of a good deal of our formerly tight rules. With the way that the community’s members have been changing, this has been a necessary and good thing, since many of the rules/guidelines had been the same for years, while the community’s demographic most definitely has not.

However, while most of these amendments have been necessary, the one area which is currently under examination seems, to me, to be different. Just because we’ve adjusted the mechanics of how this place is run doesn’t mean we need to change the words that we can say. The words we use to express ourselves don’t change in the same manner as a community; the way we’ve been talking is still much the same as it was a year, or two years ago. (as in, we still speak english and we still usually type like we have brains.)

I understand this want for a bit more freedom, to be allowed to type the way that we want to, to use the words that we feel, and while I don’t personally disapprove of the way anyone here naturally expresses himself, it’s not quite that simple. The reason that this is a personal issue for me is because if these proposed word-unblockings pass, this wiki will no longer be a safe place for me, and others like me, whose parents/guardians know that we frequent this place and thus keep an eye on us while we’re here, or independently check the wiki to make sure it still conforms to their standards of safety.

You see, it’s not necessarily that we personally condemn the use of those words that it seems many of you would like unblocked. It’s simply that if LMBW allows the use of them, several of us may be disallowed to come here, just because we happen to be monitored by people with stricter principles than us. And quite obviously we don’t want to leave; we think you’re generally decent people most of the time. :P

All I really ask is that you take a moment to consider the implications of your voting on these words, in the light of what you’ve just read. What may be so simple for you (that is, thinking “I think we should be allowed to use this word so /finally/ support”) will have grave consequences for those of us with not quite as much liberty as you.

So, please think about this, and thanks for your understanding and your time.

Aravis (talk)