User blog:Nults McKagan/Four Years

Ahhhhhh, yesssssss. So, it's my four-year anniversary of joining this wiki... sort of. My actual anniversary was on the 25th, but I was at my dad's house that day, and when I got back and realized I needed to make some kind of blog about this I was unsure of what to say or do for it.

Up until the writing of this blog, and even during the writing itself, I've been unsure of what exactly to write: Do I write my thoughts on current wiki matters? Do I write individualized "thanks" to everybody? What do I write? As far as wiki matters go, I'd prefer to wait until they've exploded into a flaming cesspool of madness before saying anything about them (as I'm sure they inevitably will). As far as giving individualized 'thanks" to everybody, that would make this seem too much like a "goodbye i'm quitting" blog, which it's not at all. So, I decided I'd write a detailed account about my history on the wiki thus far. So, here goes nothing:

From Humble-ish Beginnings
As anybody who's listened to my late-night ramblings can tell you, I've been socially awkward for some time now. I started playing PotCO in November 2007, and, while it was a gradual process, over the next few years I started hanging out with my neighbors less and less and started devoting more and more time to PotCO. I played other games in-between and what not, but I'd always go back to PotCO. No game could keep me away.

Sometime in the summer of 2011, I discovered what was then known as the "PotCO Players Wiki." I forget exactly how I stumbled across it, but I think it may have been Benjamin MacMorgan (AKA Voxelplox) who introduced me to it. Regardless, some of my first actions on the wiki involved vandalizing pages, for which I was ridiculed by then-admin John Breasly for doing. I then proceeded to delete his messages on my talk page, to which he replied by adding more, which I also deleted; I eventually got over this phase, of course. I also made a nooby page for my pirate (which has since improved), and enlisted the help of Davy Hookwrecker (AKA Failpwnz) to help me with adding photos to userboxes.

Also, I think it's worth mention that I made CaptainJosh98 quit the wiki at one point and make a rage page directed at me and a mutual friend of ours, so there was that.

Joining Benjamin MacMorgan's French Empire
Yeah, I don't even know what happened here to be entirely honest. I was this fervent pirate roleplayer who had no desire to submit to country roleplayers (whom I collectively referred to as "EITC scum"), but suddenly I decided I wanted to be a part of Ben's rebellion against Jack Bluehawk. I did make Ben promise I could still be a pirate, so I suppose that was enough. I also made him promise to give me a "gubernatorial seal" to stamp papers with (props to monkey island 4 woo).

Ben made some guild for his French Empire rebellion thing, and made my ship the official "French Flagship." This led to, resulting in a very interesting SvS against the Paradox in which 30-some-odd Brits piled onto my ship and nobody grabbed any cannons, me becoming furious, docking, and teleporting away. To be entirely honest, I'm not exactly sure what happened to the French rebellion thing after this. I'm sure some RP buff will tell me about what happened to Ben in the comments below though, so no worries; didn't he get Russia or something?

Random 2011/2012 stuff
I don't remember much about the period of time between MacMorgan's France and my first major fanon, so here's just some random stuff I recall happening between, in no particular order: There are probably other important events I'm forgetting, but whatever. Now onto to the stuff I remember.
 * I stalked people's in-game meetups that they arranged on the wiki whenever I could. This is how I first became acquainted with Tyler Crossbones (AKA Sir Joseph Grey).
 * I joined both Japan (under Bill Plunderbones) and Persia (under Richard Goldvane) at the same time, and left a day or so later, all for no particular reason.
 * I made this
 * and this
 * Remember when the wiki went through a bad meme phase?
 * I temporarily ran a wiki "tabloid" named the Cannonwalker Periodical. Much like a tabloid, I exaggerated facts and talked in-depth about things I didn't understand. Issues 1, 2, 3 and 4; both the regular and something called the "Literary Sphere". There could be more floating around but I have no clue where they are.
 * I plotted a wiki takeover with Jeremiah Garland, Jack Goldwrecker and Benjamin MacMorgan; an event for which none of us were punished. I didn't particularly want a wiki takeover as they did, but I wanted change, and didn't see any other option.
 * I was promoted to rollback, but resigned a day later due to pressure placed on me by Breasly & co. in the aftermath of the 10-9 vote.

My First (Major) Fanon
Up until the later part of 2012, I had made no pages on the wiki except for ones concerning my in-game character, ships, and other things of the like. I made fake stories about them at times, of course, but I never really made an "official" fanon story. This changed on October 13th, 2012, when I published In Too Deep. I had been working on it for nearly a month before, and, as I didn't understand the concept of "publishing to the wiki as I write," I published the entire thing in bulk when it was done. It was the biggest piece of crap ever, but it was mine, and I'll gladly own up to it any day. After deciding everybody else's fanon publishing companies weren't suitable for my piece, I made my own company, which operates to this very day: McKagan Productions.

The Nepal-Morocco Situation
This is probably one of the more regrettable instances of wiki roleplaying I've done. Basically, what happened was the Roleplay Council, which I wholeheartedly supported at the time (but now regret supporting) gave me the little Asian country of Nepal. I didn't have much of a guild to lead, so I got Keira Kinover to lend me the services of her guild, The Eco Warriors, in exchange for giving her a high position in the Nepalese government. The Eco Warriors, a small guild of 80-some-odd people, wasn't exactly in the best of shape to defend Nepalese land claims.

Fast-forward maybe a few weeks or so, I don't know the exact time. John Breasly approaches me and says that Nepal only has six people in it, none of whom are actually active (he was, for all intents and purposes, correct). I stood up to his accusations against me and what resulted was probably the most embarrassing moment of my short roleplay career:

Breasly told me he wanted to SvS, to which I denied; I knew I'd lose, so I figured denying would be the better option. This wasn't the case, as Breasly made a page declaring Nepal a British colony, with Blake Stewart as its Viceroy. I attempted to remove the contents of the page, only to have Breasly tell me to stop vandalizing or he'd get an admin involved. I then contacted all of the Nepalese governors to try and round up a crew for the SvS; all but Keira either denied or were unable to for whatever reason. Keira and I hopped on her light galleon and proceeded to get absolutely steamrolled by the ship the British sent out. Turns out, Breasly was only testing me, and immediately surrendered his claims to Nepal after the fight.

Sometime in January, 2013, Peter Coalvane realized I was apparently "doing things" with Nepal and gave me his Moroccan territory, resulting in possibly the most unlikely nation in all of PotCO Roleplay: Morocco with Nepal as its territory. This wouldn't last long, however, as I gave the territory to Romania so I could focus on the next part of the story: Island Roleplay and the 8th Brethren Court.

Island Roleplay
Sometime in early March 2013, a couple months after the "first" 8th Brethren Court formed (which went inactive when Ned Edgewalker did), I stayed up late in chat one night with Sven Daggersteel and Albert Spark laying down the foundations for what would be known as "Island Roleplay." The idea was that we'd all own islands in the actual game, as opposed to unrelated countries, as traditional roleplayers did, and that this would somehow rectify all the issues country roleplay faced.

I owned Outcast Isle (later Padres Del Fuego), Sven owned Kingshead, and Albert owned Raven's Cove. Sven was particularly active due to his status as the Guildmaster of the biggest country roleplay guilds of the time, so it was mainly just Albert and I doing stuff. I forget the exact details of what happened, but Albert and I got into a fight which resulted in a short war between us, in which no territories changed. However, we both realized the issues of country roleplay could not be rectified as we once thought, and I took my leave from island roleplay sometime in mid-May.

Being Pirate King
At the end of The 7th Brethren Court's life, Ned Edgewalker began laying out the foundation for the 8th Court that would come after it. I was one of the people invited to join the Court, and after the Court was formed in January 2013, Ned inexplicably went inactive. The following April, when he came back, I demanded that he reform the Court by kicking certain people out and filling their spots with others. Eventually, an election for Pirate King was held and I won after campaigning against Parax and Ned.

By the time I was Pirate King, I already had my own guild: The Outlanders. The Outlanders was the main guild of the Court, as the other lords either had smaller guilds or were a part of The Outlanders themselves. I used the guild a bit for Island Roleplay, and even tried to make the Brethren Court more central to roleplay, but this ultimately didn't work out as I had hoped at the time.

One of the things I did with the 8th Court that no other Court did was establish an official rule for Lords that became inactive. The other courts would mostly just wait for all/most of the lords to become inactive and establish a new court. However, my hope was to make the Court able to last as long as it needed to; many lords were replaced with time. If I recall correctly, Ned himself was even replaced when he went inactive (again), or it was at least considered. I resigned from the Court on my birthday, August 2nd, making David McMartin the new Pirate King. However, a certain event that would forever change the course of the wiki was about to unfold that would make me regret my decision: PotCO was about to close.

The End of PotCO & the Wiki Afterwards
On August 20th, 2013, Disney announced that PotCO would be closing on September 19th. I felt an array of emotions; anger, sadness... well, mostly just those two. I don't exactly want to relive the emotions I felt in that month, but I will say that there were a lot of screenshots taken, a lot of goodbyes said, and other such things. On September 12th, I convinced David to make me Pirate King again, simply so I could say I was the last Pirate King of PotCO roleplay.

After the game was shut down, this place was a ghost town; it was like walking through a cemetary. I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread, as if the game being gone meant the community we had going would suddenly vaporize as well. After a month or so, the United Gamers Wiki, a wiki made by Dentface, Richard Goldvane and some others, had unintentionally absorbed the entire population of the wiki. I didn't have internet from the end of October to sometime in late December, so I couldn't talk to anybody during that time. However, upon my return, I organized a boycott of sorts; I feel like people miscontrued the entire ordeal as me hating UGW, when all I wanted was the wiki that I liked more and still wanted to be on to keep its activity. I did some things during the boycott that I'm not necessarily proud of, such as flame the UGW and insult it and its people.

My Second (first long-term) Promotion & Resignation
On August 15th, 2013, shortly before the announcement of PotCO's closing, a blog was made to promote me. Unlike the first promotion, this was for me to become a chat mod and a rollback, rather than just a rollback. Also unlike the first promotion, it passed without any problems; 20 who supported and 0 opposition whatsoever.

I held the position until July 2014, almost an entire year later. During this time, as drama and workload were high, I spent the entire time questioning whether or not I wanted to be a chat mod/rollback. I was the next selection to be Admin if anything had ever happened to one of those currently serving; I even served as a temporary Admin a little before my resignation because G-man left for a bit.

As for the details of my demotion, I'm sure most of you reading remember those. I supported the unbanning of Pearson Wright partially due to G-man leading me to believe he would help with G-man's PotCO emulator if he was unbanned, and partially because I believed it was possible for Pearson to change at the time. The SSC vote was very clearly in favor of sending the vote to the community, but Parax and Jeremiah Garland shot it down, saying blacklisted users couldn't be unbanned by a community vote.

The acts perpetrated by me during the SSC vote were probably some of the worst ever perpetrated by any admin or moderator on this wiki. I lost control of my temper and dropped an f-bomb on Haras, a friend of mine, in chat, because he wouldn't see things my way. I also thought that perhaps I could make Parax crack like an egg and resign by adding more pressure from needless SSC requests and drama, then try at the request again at a later date; this not only wouldn't have worked, but could have been probably one of the slimiest moves ever pulled by anybody on this wiki, as I've always considered Parax a friend. Mallace and a few others then tried to demote me, which would have passed if I had not resigned myself.

The only thing I can really say about this part of my wiki life is that I'm glad it's all over. I've been absolved of the responsibilities of the position for almost a year on the day now, and I haven't looked back once.

Shifting the Wiki's Focus
Very shortly after my resignation, I decided to author an SSC request titled "A Shift in Direction." The premise of the request was that PotC/PotCO fanon was on the way out, and activity was being absorbed by dramatic "wiki politics," and the way to fix this is to allow non-PotC games. The blog passed without a hitch, and other games were allowed. People began writing about anything from SWTOR, to Minecraft, to Metal Gear, and anything inbetween. The wiki was renamed once again to "Gamers Fanon Wiki," after a lengthy debate within the community. I'd say if there's anything on the wiki I want to be remembered for, it's writing this request.

The time after this request was passed has been blissful, to say the least. While there's still some political drama every so often, a large portion of activity is now consumed by fanon pages from various games. While we may not have as much activity as we did back in 2011, a lot of 2011 activity was consumed by roleplay drama. This is the most peaceful the wiki has been in a long time, and I wouldn't trade it away for anything.