Thread:Viliusr/@comment-961279-20140615220607

This is kind of long, but it's important for you to read all of it.

On the main page's talk page, you asked which wiki you should contribute to. That is a personal decision you will need to make. Here are the facts that will help you make your decision.

Four years ago, Wikia announced they were going to change the appearance of the wikis they host. The group that was here at the time didn't like it and wanted to leave. They also wanted to erase everything that was here. They were told that under the licensing that covers every edit to this wiki, they could take a copy, but it was Wikia's decision as to whether the information here would be removed and Wikia wanted to keep it. That group got upset and decided to retaliate by attempting to destroy this wiki. You can see the list of what they did in the Timeline of the vandalism.

I came here in March 2011 to respond to some vandalism. There were only three admins left at the time from the previous group and they were doing the best they could to fix the damage that was still being done. Wikia did not get "new people to come in and take over". I decided to help with fixing the mess, and the more I stuck around, the more I realized that the wiki was worth saving. Later that year, I started the process for adopting this wiki after keeping an eye out for people who would make good admins. Two of them stepped forward, and later on I was given admin and bureaucrat rights.

In the two years that this wiki has been under its new leadership, we've done a lot of cleanup that hadn't been done by the previous group, even when they were still here. For example, I was able to update and replace about 130 templates with about 25, and in the future may be able to streamline that even more. There are a lot of areas that still look similar between the two wikis because we haven't needed to change them.

During that time, there have been a few attempts to reconcile things between the two wikis. I have always been open to the possibility but realized that it wasn't likely to happen. Sadly, each time was met with a variation of "the Wikia group has to give up everything and come over to our wiki". No compromise or willingness to work together. All one-sided in their favor.

Also during that time, I took a look at the kind of person the leader of that other wiki is and I've learned the following.
 * Over four years later, he still resents what happened. You can see it in his response to your question on his wiki.
 * He has always viewed things as a competition or a battle. When there is a problem, he must win and everyone else must lose.
 * He didn't have any objection to another person committing vandalism here, but when that person went off to continue vandalizing other wikis, he distanced himself and didn't want anything more to do with that person. His attitude was "I'm okay with your vandalism if it helps me, but I take no responsibility if you vandalize elsewhere".
 * He doesn't have any objection to recommending a different wiki hosting service even after it had a lot of problems a few years ago because he is apparently a part of that company in some manner. However, he does not back up this recommendation by moving his own wiki to that company.
 * It's been a while since he last did this, but every once in a while he'll come over here and make a legal threat against this wiki in an attempt to intimidate us into doing what he wants. He apparently doesn't realize that there is enough information on record that if he were to pursue this, that a counter-suit could very likely be brought against him for the damage he personally committed against this wiki.

Now that you know the situation, you can make your decision about where you want to help out. While you could edit on both wikis, it does make sense to pick one or the other.

I will not be going over there for one additional reason. Even if he was completely justified in his actions, he has never apologized. If he was as good a person as he kept saying he is, he would still have apologized as it's the right thing to do. Until he gets over his resentment, he's not going to do this, and since he has had that "everything is a competition" mentality for a very long time, I doubt he will ever grow past that point and become the kind of person he claims he is. And until he does so, that's not the kind of person I want to be associated with.

If you do want to associate with him by editing on his wiki, you're free to do so, but it's your decision. 