Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31256456-20181228061901

I'm going to be very blunt, I'm kind of upset with the reviewing that has been going on the wiki. Simply put, it has become a roasting fest for new users who just simply want to have their ideas seen. I haven't been innocent on this, I'll admit, but some of this has gone really way too far and could hurt our future wiki lifespan. The best way to get people interested in a wiki community is simply put: To engage them, to get them excited. I found this wiki by chance, and wrote a (pretty trash) role review. It was kindly reviewed by a user (who has since turned on us), but the review was constructive, and clean. He introduced me into this wiki as a place where I could have ideas and share them. They might've been garbage, but they were kindly rejected, and there were suggestions for how to improve.

Now, a year later...

This has gone out of control. I think it's pretty common knowledge that most roles people make are rejected, and that's totally fine and it makes sense. However, the comments being made about people's ideas aren't constructive, and are often accompanied with insults that bring no discussion to the table.

Example: I post a Vigilante rehash

Reviewer: This role is a complete abomination. It doesn't work, it has no creativity, and really has nothing to do with the game I know and love, Town of Salem Coven Edition.

Or

Reviewer: Wow, we see way too many of these garbage roles, seriously. Alright now I'll go make a critical paragraph about it that gives no way to improve your idea.

I get that some ideas aren't salvageable, but in that case, you can always tell the user that it isn't going to work, but that we'd be happy to help him improve in terms of his ideas. In doing so, you introduce the member into the communtiy, as someone who can participate in discussion, and maybe, get involved into the community that is the wiki we know today. But instead, no, we shun them, we negatively tell users that their ideas are not worth looking at, that their role is "unfixable, a disaster, completely broken" instead of simply saying "hey, it's not going to work, but we'd be happy to help you with how you can make sure that your roles can work in an actual Town of Salem game!'

Frankly, I'm sick of it.

I want to see a change, where we can go and positively respond to role ideas, even the horrible ones. I see the community welcoming people's roles of those who are established into the wiki community already, while rejecting ideas from people outside of the community, restricting and pushing away possible future members. Instead of saying "just another rehash" (which I have done in the past, and even recently), we should explain to them how to improve. Now to be clear, I am not being critical to everyone. I think that there are amazing members out there that really do know how to give good suggestions, and I wish to join them in the future, but for now, their voices are often drowned out by the endless onslaught of "rehash reject no suggestions". So please, when you see a wiki member posting a role, (and I will commit to this in the future), at least be positive about it and admire the effort they put into sharing something with us. Perhaps that way, we can grow the community and see it grow, because we can obviously see that this Wiki is a great place- but maybe not to the person who made one bad role and is now shunned from the community. The role ideas area is not to completely roast everyone who makes a slightly flawed role, but instead to help a person with their ideas or at least direct people who are misguided in the right direction.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let's talk Townie of the Month.

Okay so I have no idea who made that 400 edit rule, but I see major problems with that. I believe that there should be a cap but 400 edits is way too much. It's actually hilarious, I have like 580 edits and apparently that's barely meeting the 400 edit limit to vote. I've seen users being turned down simply for not having enough edits and "not understanding the community", and that's really not what Townie of the Month should be about. The limit should be reduced to 100 edits, because shunning potential new users who would like to participate simply because they don't talk enough isn't the right thing to do. It is isolating potential users, and I'm not onboard with that. I still see friendly users helping, and I know that 97% of people are kind and friendly to new users, but it certaintly doesn't seem like that when we have this kind of voting system, one that shuns instead of introduces. We have a tightly-knit circle and I would like that to grow, but it's hard when I see very little new user participation. Most new users post one edit and then leave. I want to see that change, and this Townie of the Month 400 edit ridiculousness is really dumb. We barely saw any bot accounts voting anyway in the past and I highly doubt users are going to waste their time racking up 100 edits at all. If only "people who contribute" and somewhat important people can vote, that really isn't representing the wiki as a whole, is it? What does are the everyday people who go on this wiki and meet someone who's willing to help with their role or answered their question and appreciated them. That is what the Townie of the Month is all about. (Don't get me wrong, still supporting faraday, he's an amazing person lol)

Now the purpose of the "400 edit limit system" is apparently to stop bots and to make sure that people who don't know much about tos and are only on the board to vote for a person are limited, but a bot would not spend 200 edits on trying to get themselves eligible to vote, and the whole point of the Town of Salem Wiki is to educate people who do not understand mechanics of the game... about mechanics of the game, and I value most the votes from the people who might have fewer edits but appreciate a person because of something they did that helped those people to get into the community! I don't believe that people are evil or sad enough to randomly get people from outside to vote for them who've never played town of salem and if so, it can be enforced. I see that there should be a limit just so that we only include voters who are actually interested in the community (and with the botting problem) but 400 is way too much and just isolates potential voters, who upon looking at the ridiculous voter limit of 400 might just give up entirely and move on. Not everyone has to be on the wiki everyday to vote. I don't want to see the person with the most edits winning. I want to see the person who has helped the most people win.

Listen. I think all of you staff are amazing people, no doubt about it, (and the staff are not the problem here) and maybe none of what I just said made any sense, and maybe I'm just looking at the negative parts of the wiki instead of the positive parts, but I just don't like the isolation that's going on that is caused by some users, and some parts of the system. I get that I haven't been the best in the past either about this, but I'll try to improve, and I want to see some people try to be less negative as well.

Thanks, that's all. No ban please.  