User blog:Withersoul 235/Solving the Problem

New record: 3 months.

that was a beautiful time I had at the majestic Georgian port city of Batumi ბათუმი, but then, as I sat on the beach enjoying my retirement, I received a phone call. Apparently, the Henry wiki's reputation has been heavily tainted by toxicity, salt and the classic problem of misinformation.

Ah shit, here we go again ...

Do I blame the staff? Not at all. They're doing all they can, but are simply overwhelmed.

Rather, I am seriously disappointed with the community.

Guys, it really didn't have to come this far ...

Identifying the Problem
As I currently see it, the Henry Wiki has very much become the Lernaean Hydra. For every immature child we ban from the wiki, more of them flow in and cause disruption. The wiki community here is very young and sadly immature (Average / median age appears to be 13 - 14), and many of them create low-effort spam posts / blogs and add false, unverified information to the content pages.

Solving the Problem
As I'm now pulled back into leadership yet again, I see myself forced to take extreme measures.

This should be the final time I have to deal with the treble of immaturity, toxicity and misinformation, so I will enforce a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy.

Concretely,


 * Comments are disabled until further notice. The comment section of the page Sam Turner was so full of absolute SHITE that the news reached even Twitter. Charles's section was also infamous for containing the exact same trash all over: "this is the greatest plan" sayings, helicopter memes, et cetera. It needs to stop.
 * IF the comments are enabled back, and only IF ( not  when — their restoration is not inexorable), they will be HEAVILY moderated.


 * The Discussions area, blogs and message walls will be heavily moderated so that low-effort posts, shitposts and spam can be nuked in the masses. We will not retroactively nuke the majority of older posts, so with the exception of things hailing from up to a few weeks back, this will apply mainly for anything posted after this day, 6 May 2021. Anyone guilty of consistently flooding the site with low-effort posts that contribute to nothing, including spam and shitposts, will be penalized accordingly.


 * From now on, everyone MUST provide proof, sources and references when adding to content pages. All information added without explicit evidence from a reliable source will be removed when caught.


 * A large part of our moderators will become administators for the sake of having more manpower. I would rather have a shortage of moderators than a shortage of administrators. New moderators to take their place will be sought after when the time is right.


 * Permabans will be handed out far faster. We're in an era of zero-tolerance. This is not to say that we'll permaban for whatever we see, but rather, it means we'll be less lenient nonetheless. We will enforce a "three strikes and you're out" system. Offend the same policy thrice, and you're gone. In uncommon cases, this may apply to offending more than 1 rule for a total of 3 offences upon our discretion. This is solely in cases of serious misconduct.


 * We're spiking down harder on underaged users. Prior to this, we had a policy of not reporting underage users to Fandom (Who permanently shuts down any underage account it catches), but instead banning them until their 13th birthday. We will continue to uphold this policy, but users we know are underage that either:
 * consistently cause far more drama, hostility or toxicity than the average user and are generally a pain; OR
 * challenge their ban and try to return to the wiki using sockpuppetry (== alts)


 * will be reported to Fandom, ensuring the erasure of their accounts. We don't like having to act intimidating like this, but a large part of this community's drama, salt and toxicity comes from children who truthfully have no business being here. It's simply necessary to take these extreme measures, else this madness will never end.

More measures will be added as deemed necessary and following consensus with administrators. It's about time this lunacy ends, so that this wiki can finally go at least 1 week without being hailed as the piss-pole of the Henry Stickmin fanbase.

So what now?
I won't edit many pages. My Henry phase is over with, and I've now moved on to brainrotting other series like Contra, Metal Slug, Phantasy Star, WarioWare, Call of Duty and a bunch of manga. Rather, I'll mainly patrol the wiki's social areas, lead the staff team in unison with Kirb, appoint and dismiss staff as seen fit, manage the wiki's design and functionality, and generally provide oversight.

I really hope we can finally move out of this phase and address this wiki's long-standing issues, so I can at last move on from this place properly and focus on my new fandoms, projects, and eventually my job and my college.

Wither out.