User blog:Captaingoldvane2/Clearing Things Up - Some Insight on "UGW"

Now, before I say anything,  I want you to know you're all scheme- *gets slapped by Par* Ahem..

Joker quotes aside, it has occured to me that a lot of you are thinking because this Wiki is trying to pass a vote that will allow the addition of more games to its subject that it's somehow "becoming the United Gamers Wiki." It seems to be a "trend", or a "topic", and while I normally don't visit this website anymore for any reasons other than to humiliate users who've gone mad and ( in my opinion) started something stupid, I come here on a more serious note. Yep, it's a rare sight of that "Old Goldvane" that didn't think he was Heath Ledger, never cursed and always stayed quiet :P

History of UGW
Now, a lot of you are saying that "UGW is a craphole, we don't want to be like them" - I realize a lot of you have gotten a very bad image of UGW, and that's probably my fault. My strict, non-lenient and crack-down-on-users attitude probably drives you all away. But you have to understand why I am like that, and why I am so quick to kick people in chat who are doing something not-so-great or ban users who keep doing it.

UGW was created with the intention of housing a select group of people - Dent, Kitty, Bill, Kat/Step, Squirt, Marc, Josh, and myself. (I'm pretty sure I'm not forgetting anyone... if I am, you can send your complaints to Bill :P) We quickly grew to invite people like Walker, Basil,  and Law. And that was pretty much about it...

Now, the reason we created UGW is sort of a complicated matter. People have speculated that we made it "to replace PPW", or some might just think something completely innocent like "they wanted to expand to more games but keep Pirates involved too" - In fact, it's neither of these. Who am I to decide why Dent made the wiki? Well, the whole thing was my idea, I just pitched it to Dent, and he managed the creation.

No, the reason we created the UGW was because we wanted away from all the drama. Sorry to call names, but Breasly and Pearson were constantly causing fights, dramatic "controversies"... it was crap after crap. As you all know, I was very intensely against Breasly's drama, and although I didn't get into the Pearson mess until sort of the "second phase" of it, I was against that too. I tried to be strict over here, because I found no other way to make this site a better place. If users like Breasly or Blake kept causing problems, I saw fit to place bans on their accounts. It was the only way to make them listen. And of course, when you ban someone there are always consequences... banned users have friends -- friends attack you. Banned user is unhappy -- he complains about it. Banned user is anry -- he uses a sockpuppet. I got a lot of backlash for my bans, and I'm aware a lot of you probably still don't like me for that.

Anyway, after a long period of trying to push this WIki in a more strict direction, I grew tired of listening to the trouble-makers soften up every time they knew a possible ban was around the corner. Users were easily manipulated, fooled, or just convinced into voting "no" for the troublemakers' bans. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, obviously some people like the troublemakers and want to talk to them. But for me, as a veteran administrator and someone who had watched PPW develop over the years, I was ready for a break. I would get angry at times. Users would mock me, jab at me, and being the unstable admin I was, a lot of times I'd jab back. After a while, I was known as "the bad guy" or the "big stern admin", users even called me a dictator. It was after all this drama, all this immaturity and all of this constant arguing for pointless reasons that I hatched the idea to move away. At first, I thought about just quitting Wikia altogether. I would email my friends, use Facebook to contact them - maybe even just try and stay in touch with them solely through Pirates. But then another idea entered my mind. What if I could talk to my friends without the drama, and with the addition of writing fiction and being surrounded by an environment related to a game we all play, a subject we all enjoyed. First I needed to gain the support of my friends.

I was astonished at how much they agreed with me. At the time, everyone wanted out - everyone wanted an escape from the madness that the Players wiki harbored. I got a handful of my good friends and sort of "drew up the plan" - all we needed was a "topic" for the Wiki. Obviously, we didn't want another Pirates Wiki. A few of us started playing Star Wars, and some of us played Minecraft. I think it took a few days before I actually came up with the idea - the idea to merge the three subjects into one and created, what would be the "uniting" of the gamers who played those specific games. So, the whole 3-game system was sort of a cover (Not entirely, but partially) for what was honestly not a "replacement" for PPW, but an escape from it. We wanted a way out, we wanted to be ourselves, not worry about troublemakers and not worry about drama.

We chatted there for a handful of months before, as Bill would put it "we were discovered", or as I'd put it, "Josh screwed up some coding and added a link to Tama's ppw userpage that led a lot of people to our website"... either way, what started with Voxelplox, Blake and Par eventually came a whole lot of users. And for the most part, we were fine with it. We had accepted our "discovery" and the fact that there were others on our site.

We had a very mixed set of opinions. People like Jim, Par, Boog, and many others loved the site for a social circle.. others like Nults and Albert thought we were "stealing users", or "taking away from  PPW's activity", and then people like Blake, Joseph Grey and Goldtimbers mostly wanted to troll and mess with people.

We operated for a bit like this, but eventually, as more users flocked over to UGW, the chat was filled with users. You couldn't keep up with the chat. There were three, five, seven conversations going at once. PMs were being sent, users would get into fights, others got angry that their chat was being disrupted, others just wanted to get a friend's attention. It was chaos. What was once our quiet, peaceful getaway had turned into a mad box of users all wanting to use the chat for whatever purpose. Personally, my chats were being disrupted... drama in the chat, arguing, angry users, and a hellishly large amount of trolling occured on a daily basis.

I remember describing to Kitty the way I felt. I was angry. I felt intruded. I felt like these trolls and troublemakes, as harmless  as they probably are, were invading my site. Sure, it wasn't "mine", but it was my idea, and I was a founding bureaucrat, so I took a large portion of the "ownership" to myself. Others agreed with me and wanted the troublemakers gone too, but Dent wanted the users to have a nice view of the administration, and Kitty wanted to welcome every user with open arms and a cookie, so we were at a stalmate of lenient vs strict. Eventually, Dent and Kitty began to grow somewhat inactive, and my "followers" and I decided to sort of "take out site back". We cracked down on those who we believed disrupted out chat. We stood to be respected, obeyed and not trolled or mocked. We laid down our policies in print, banned users who tried to make fun of us or posted nonsense in chat, and fought off any resistance with our sarcasm and joke-like yet honest display of our policies. Were we "too strict"? Maybe. Should we have acted differently? Maybe. I don't know. But that's life for you... sometimes there aren't clear answers. Somethings, thing as in a gray area. Sometimes you have to just make a decision and act upon it, regardless of the possible consequences. Sometimes you just have to fire a hail mary and hope for the best.

We got the job done... yep. Most of the disruptive users were banned, and while it took a while with some (like LeCap), eventually they were all banned or just inactive.

After that, the activity slowly died down as we moved on to using Teamspeak/SWTOR, and users either flocked away because their favorite trolls and drama-mongers left or they just lost interest. Either way, the activity has died down now, and it's pretty much just the original people there now with additions of Par, Boog, Walker, and a few others.

UGW Today
Is our site "retarded" ( as Joseph Grey put it )? I don't see how, but if you, despite your immatue troll-like attitude want to call our website retarded.. good luck to you good sir!

Is it inactive? I wouldn't say inactive, but yes, it's certainly less active than it was.

^ Is that a bad thing? That's debatable. It's another one of those gray areas in life, and this one particularly just depends on opinion. People like Bill would say that it's good, while someone like Boog would say we should bring more people around. I'm sort of neutral ( as I was known for being ).. I miss having people to talk to and having a larger community (not TOO large though), but I'm also very relieved that there aren't trolls, trouble-makers or drama-mongers wondering around our site anymore. And also we haven't seen the Pearson clan for a while, so it's pretty much been peaceful.

"Turning PPW into UGW"
I personally think this philosophy is rubbish. First off, how would it be "turned into UGW"? You're not going to add Minecraft and SWTOR as your games... maybe MC, but you people don't play Star Wars. And if you did use those two games, you'd look pretty foolishly desperate now wouldn't you? No, if you do decide to expand to other games, they will probably be games unlike the ones at UGW.

Also, the crowd here is completely different. A much more lenient, user-based community rather than a secluded website for a certain type of person (which is basically what UGW is). PPW will never be UGW. There are things better about UGW, and things worse about it. Either way, those of you who think "OCRAP WE'RE GONNA BE UGW", stay calm and realize - you won't ever be like us. Even if you want to :P

What I actually think you schemers sh-*gets slapped by Par again* OKAY OKAY I get it... what I actually think you people should do...
What I think you should do is sort of a UGW Act II. Make another website!! Move on from this place. Nostalgic? Then use the same damn colors! If you're that attached to this website just for the name or whatever the hell, you're just being girly. You can always visit here and read all of the memories. There's no reason not to move on to another site. Perhaps one with different rules? I realize there are groups here, and if each group had their own site, or if you all even moved to another site that could fit all of your preferences, either way it'd work!

Upsides to a singular site: Upsides to multiple new sites: Upsides to moving on in general: Anyway, to close out... I don't think this expansion is a good idea. But if you want to do it, go ahead - however, I don't appreciate the hateful and ignorant words toward UGW, hence the creation of this blog post. This was made to inform and advise people - nothing more. I hope you enjoyed my moment of seriouness :P
 * 1) You could have a rule-set and subject that everyone liked, therefore bringing the people together and eliminating some conflict.
 * 2) The people would be less divided, therefore allowing more fictional and creative possibilities.
 * 1) Literally everyone would be happy, having multiple sites to choose from. Groups would form, and people could be around who they liked without dealing with drama.
 * 2) People don't have to be around those they don't like, they can choose the site with the people they do.
 * 3) Limited troll population because the trolls (if any)  would be divided among
 * 1) I think everyone would mature a bit in moving away from this site.
 * 2) It's healthy to, eventually, put the past behind you.
 * 3) You will all enjoy the new possibilities of another site.
 * 4) You won't have to deal with Pearson and his sockpuppets trying to get unbanned cause this place won't even be active! If he comes to your sites, just ban him if he misbehaves, make sure you keep a track of why you banned him, have a GOOD reason for it, and you can keep he and his lackeys banned easily.
 * 5) Probably more reasons I can't think of... c'mon  Breasly, you're good at these lists, come up with something!

~The Agent of Chaos