User blog comment:Captain Ned Edgewalker/Blog/@comment-25915432-20170808151828/@comment-25915432-20170808161703

eh screw it i'm gonna fight emotions with logic

One of the core principles of democracy is that, potentially, any one person can ignite a chain reaction that can change things from the bottom up. This is (ideally) true both in massive nations in the real world, and in small communities like ours. When one person sits down and analyzes a democratic model and comes across proof that there are flaws, it is ideal that they "poll" community members, such as myself, to see if they concur. You insist that this wiki has some flaws, but:



You only rarely give vague hints as to what they could possibly be, and;

When you do, they are not substantiated by both a consensus in community opinion and hard, logical evidence.  Still, I kept myself open, as one should, and conversed with Nults in discord yesterday. I sifted through the logs for some of his points: We, as a community, tend to be disinterested in others' work.Our moderate profanity rules deter potential users from joining; their alternative is switching between both extremes at different times, and:Our stained past, too, deters potential users, and so a clean slate is ideal. Our conversation alone produced more substance than the blog that was intended to win your audience over. Regardless, I believe points exist to be either supported or destroyed, and so I have given them all some thought and come up with a response for each. I lean to agree with this first point. Although as an individual I find myself very eager to enjoy others' work and very excited when some is made, I do find that some veteran users like G-man or Mallace are a bit disinterested. Still, these are only two of our users, and I find that others like Lith and even Ned are often quick to react to a new piece. I would say Nults is as well, but he is currently absent. Yet, assuming this point was completely true, why not fix it by kickstarting a campaign of your own with your own work and demonstrating excitement for others'? Verdict is I agree somewhat, but do not see why it would require splitting such a small community in half.</li>This point I can not be so generous to. I assume he means to say that we are implementing an inefficient and unattractive policy by allowing profanity in linked images and yet curtailing it in chat itself. I see nothing wrong with this policy, myself; I have found that other users agree with me in saying that giving strikes to users for linking a single image with a single curse word somewhere in it is both pointless and counterproductive. The moderators still enforce the "lax" rules, ensuring they are not abused. Nults insists that because the forums prohibit profanity, and the forums are doing well, prohibition of profanity must be conducive to activity. However, correlation =/= causation. To top it off, the changes were passed by a community vote, and the opposition's arguments were just flimsy ("Because as a rule of thumb I'm always against anything and everything that loosens our swearing policy" - Jeremiah Garland) Verdict is I do not see how this hurts our wiki at all, but maybe if I saw some evidence otherwise I'd change my mind.</li>This I could see being true, but then again, the events you refer to happened years ago, and I don't see much proof that newcomers are deterred by them. I'd blame our lack of newcomers on a lack of a platform to advertise on (like an MC RPG-like server, which would bring in MC fanon writers). Can't really form an opinion here, because I've been presented with no evidence for either side.</li></ol>  Overall, some points you guys make have a touch of reason in them. Still, when you're disappointed with a policy in the real world, do you secede from the country or vote and find out if the majority agrees? (Only northerners may answer). My final word is that if you could present some proof that any of our policies directly deter users, there'd really be no solid argument for us to make. There's no reason to split our tiny tightly-woven community in half, especially after it's stood 7 years strong.