Board Thread:Breaking News and Announcements/@comment-24596982-20180505160319

Hi everyone, Jake here.

It's about time I create the forum post that will explain what's been going on the past month that's led the wiki to where it is now. Alongside that, I'll be addressing a few things that will be happening in the not too distant future, as well as other hopes that we can achieve down the line.

As such, this may seem like a lot to go over, but it's important that I do so. What Happened and What's Going On I'm going to start by discussing the events that occurred from March 31st to April 4th. I'd say that is the most important period of time to go over.

Our former bureaucrat, administrator, and council member TWDFan630, better known as Nathan, made the decision the nuke the community Discord server that he was in charge of, due to an April Fools joke being made in regards to the website PornHub. The Discord itself, back then and even now, does not condone NSFW (not-safe-for-work) content whatsoever. However, the joke in question was not an NSFW joke, but rather a play on words. For April Fools, the website had changed their entire motif to horns, such as trumpets, brass horns, car horns, etc. and was fittingly renamed "HornHub".

When the joke was shared to the community Discord server, most members did find the joke funny. However, Nathan misinterpreted the joke as being something purely pornographic, and in a fit of anger, deleted the entire server. The blame here does not fall on those who shared the joke. It was April Fools Day, and the screencap of the altered website was not inappropriate content. The content of the image fell within guidelines of the server, and the date in question made telling such a joke fall within an appropriate time. As such, the blame falls on Nathan for the following reasons:


 * Overreaction to a joke.
 * Misunderstanding of the situation.
 * Failure to accept responsibility on his own.

The heat took to the community public chat on the wiki and was seemingly going nowhere. I was asked to come try and help and I ended up being one of the people to stop it. The drama had ended for the time being. However, as a result of all of this, Nathan decided to leave Wikia for good, due to what he claimed to be "extreme feelings of stress". Nathan's Leave Nathan stepped down from Wikia as a whole after the debacle over the PornHub situation. Prior to the whole scenario, I had never seen him act the way he did. However even then I did not ask him to leave. He made the decision, and gave up his administration rights.

But it is never really that simple. Due to his stepping-down/retirement/whatnot, we could not remove his bureaucrat status ourselves. So I contacted Wikia staff, and requested they remove his position due to his retirement. They responded by telling me a community vote would have to be done to ensure that this is what our Fandom/Wiki wants and what has to be done, and that it could be turned in after a week

Said community vote can be foundhere, but it is no longer relevant.

During the middle of the week while voting was still going on, Nathan removed his status on his own, and left a message, of which you can see here.



This essentially proved he was still around. And he still is. He continues to lurk and is not sticking to his word, and any and all respect I had for him is down the drain.

Nathan was indeed one of the original council members. If you look here, you can see an archive of who is what rank, and what time these staff members joined the wiki. I joined first, on May 16, 2014; Jeff joined November 10, 2015; DAKINGINDANORF joined March 21, 2015; and Nathan joined last, on January 30, 2016. However, when ownership of the wiki was passed to Jeff, and we were all promoted, Nathan did begin to take charge of the wiki. We were not working as a council, nor were any of the staff really working together at all. And that was not really a community we wanted. But it was the one we ended up being in charge of.

This is not a community where one person can be in charge. However, as evident by the nuking of the first Discord, Nathan seemingly upheld the most power. Even in the middle of the community public chat, Nathan banned someone who badmouthed him, in front of all of us, and I had to undo it. Someone who is easily angered and cannot take criticism does not deserve an admin position.

After Nathan's leave, we discussed who would become the next member of the council to take Nathan's place. Nathan suggested Shay, and while I don't doubt that Shay would make a great addition to the council, we decided on Cam for the position. Our reasoning for doing so was so we could properly mend ties with the main wiki as well as partner with his other wiki, Fan Fiction Library.

While everything was indeed swell, Nathan decided to respond to us. He angrily told me off for promoting Cam, before taking to the new Discord to explain he had time to think it over (which he did not, up until that point all he was doing was angrily mouthing off to me) and said he thought the decision was great. This again proved he was lurking (again, he still is), and that he was most likely trying to suck up to us so we would repromote him for his eventual return and he could be on top with us all.

I won't go over everything else involving him, there is no point. But that is mostly what occurr involving him during the beginning to middle of April. Yes, he is still lurking now. And with everything that HAS happened, if and when he does fully return, we have no interest in reimbursing his admin status. Staff Evaluation Another thing that I've talked about with Jeff and a few others is the matter in regards to re-evaluating our staff. Most of the people we have were promoted by Nathan solely based on edits and activity at the time. This is not a good way to promote staff, and while most of the promoted people have since proven their worth, others have not. So, soon a handful of our staff members will be demoted due to the following reasons:


 * Inactivity
 * Lack of responsibility in regards to the staff position they hold

While we will make another forum post to list who is up for re-evaluation, Jeff and I have an idea of who will not be up to bat. He and I will discuss this more in a later post.

Well, that is all from me for now. If anyone would like to ask any questions, or if any of the staff would like to add onto this, all are free to do so.

Until next time,

--Jake 