User blog:StrawberryMaster/Sit down, let's talk



Hello there, members of the HHW community! I didn't think I would have to write another blog post like this again, but it seems I had to. This is different from the HHW rants, which I no longer make. However, I will still be highlighting my opinion on a few things that have increasingly concerned me as of late.

The chat
Ah, the chat. A wonderful part of the HHW community where users talk about a variety of different topics. In the past year or so, however, the chat has been constantly referred to other users as "cancerized", and that has deeply concerned the administration members. In 2018, for example, the chat was constantly filled with well-known HHW memes like "sad" and "keg". At that point, we started decancerizing the chat, and we nicknamed the process "cooperization", as Cooper, one of our administrators, was one of those who wanted chat to be less cancerous.

For a while, it worked! The users were still being funny as usual, but that was perfectly fine. After all, the sole goal of it was not to stop users from having fun but to stop users from filling the chat with overused, repetitive and annoying things in chat. Nonetheless, this year things have been different, as "cooperization" has been frequently seen by some users as a meme.

We should all work to say less repetitive things (like the usual "sad") and try talking about different things. Such things have frequently demotivated users from talking in the channel, and that concerns all of us.

The immaturity
That leads us to the immaturity we've seen around coming from some users. I am not here to say which user is immature and which user is not, but I am here to help them realize that they can do other things and improve their behavior in the process.

If your posts are ignored in the chat, don't think that the users don't want to see them. They may have been busy or may have not seen you. But please avoid repetitively posting them. Such thing cancerizes the chat and may make users think you are immature.

We should always be respectful to users. There are times where you may not like a person or disagree with their methods, but being respectful is the best way to have a peaceful relationship with them. Treat others as you would like others to treat you.

The worshipping
This probably concerns me the most. To many new or old users, I am constantly treated as the wiki leader or the co-wiki leader, but none of those things are true. I am a mere bureaucrat of the Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki, just like my fellow co-workers are. Bob, Garfield, and MH are frequently forgotten, and it really saddens me that only I and Hype are recognized by the users in here. We have all done things for the wiki, but only some bureaucrats are remembered.

The same goes for some administration members. If you were asked to mention one bureaucrat, it's quite likely you would say Farm or Roy, but less likely you would've said Brick or Chap. We need to realize that all administration members are important, and ultimately, all are simply normal users with special powers (user rights) to help the wiki a safe and welcoming place for us all.

Conclusion
In the end, the HHW chat is slowly transforming into something else that is becoming out of touch with the HHW community. There have been many times where chat users have imagined that there is some sort of division between the HHW administration and that there are heightened levels of tension between some administration members. It was true for a while but is not the case at the time this blog post was written.

The administration members agree and disagree on many things, but they always reach into a consensus and are still here, protecting the wiki and making it a fine environment for new users. We all have to work with each other to make the wiki a welcoming place. We don't need to segregate the community further by creating a division. If this doesn't happen, we might be seeing some very dark days.

If it does happen, will the last person to leave HHW please turn off the lights...?