User blog:Alemas2005/The Wiki is dying. And we are killing it

(Adapted Nietzsche quote, thank religion lessons in school for that. Yes, in Germany, if you go for Catholic religious lessons, they teach you about Nietzsche, Kant, and their views on God. Just a side-note. )

Another rant blog, really, reflecting my thoughts on current events on the Wiki...

This isn't what the Wiki should have ended up as. The Wiki was originally seen as an extension of the MBs, a place where information about Wiki users could be collected and where past and present MB users could mingle in a slightly freer environment that what they had been used to. It was decent, it worked, the "dictatorial" admins, much like MB mods, controlled everything. It just... worked. There were even some links to the MBs, at least it could be mentioned there. Unfortunately, Nashtron happened and all ties were cut and we are basically condemned by the mods.

Then in came the democracy reforms. Taking power away from the admins, giving it to the people, the community. No more admin vetoes, no more admin decisions not involving blocks or bans, no more executive actions by admins, no more petitions as they involved the admins. Woe to the admin who did something by himself without approval of the community, that's the general mantra I got at the time and the one I'm still getting nowadays. I was initially pretty sceptical about it all. I had a gut feeling that at some point or another, the new system would show flaws. "The community can be trusted", they said. Maybe at the time, but right now...

Let's go back to the present day. What do we have now? Votes to unblock words we couldn't even think of unblocking 1 or 2 years ago. We have already unblocked the words "damn" and "piss", two words that until a year ago wouldn't have passed the vote. We have a vote to unblock the f-word. And it has over a dozen supports.

I mean, yeah, it has 19 votes against it, but, still ...what the hell? Just imagine a Wiki on the LEGO Message Boards, I repeat, the LEGO Message Boards, allowing the use of the f-word. Does it make any sense to you? A Wiki on that subject matter, with the f-word? Can we really allow that? Just look at yourselves, how can such a Wiki allow the use of the f-word? 'cause this is how it'll end up, eventually! And we admins can't do anything against it, because we don't have vetoing rights!

I'll admit, the community is changing. No longer are we 15 years old, we are growing older, more mature. And that is fine. The problem is making the Wiki grow with our maturity. And it just can't. I repeat, the subject matter of this Wiki is the LEGO Message Boards. It can't allow words like the f-word, the s-word, "damn", "piss", and so many other words we have unblocked recently. The very idea of the Wiki is just not compatible with our changing standards, and this is a big problem.

What if we create another Wiki? A "Mature LEGO Message Boards Wiki"? So that older people, still from the MBs, can go there and swear to their hearts' content? This would mean that the more conservative users can remain here and enjoy the increased safety. This would probably mean some words here would have to be blocked again, but at least the more mature users could go to the "MLMBW" and circumvent the blocked words.

Heh, the rant has ended up in a half-idea of sorts. What do you think?