Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-36052213-20180802015552/@comment-24101790-20180802212838

I’ll open this with what Banning said on your admin application as it is pertinent to what’s going on: “As far as my concerns go, my biggest is that you may still need to improve on your ability to finesse agitated situations. The tone in your application, as well as some of your word choices makes me slightly concerned, but I am hoping that those instances were meant in humor. Remember, as an Admin, you will be the face and voice of this community. Your decisions (deletions, bans, warnings... etc) need to be made based strictly on the written rules and policies. Once you get admin rights, you can't stoop to the level of an irate user who may resort to calling you names. Some people will take deletions very poorly and may respond with some nasty messages. You have to always be the bigger person and remain professional.”

Starting with the positives, Helel is active on the wiki and generally responds to situations within a day of them being posted. This ranges from deleting spam pages, banning vandals, renaming pages, etc. This is essential for the wiki to run smoothly. It also acts as a deterrent to shit-posting if it’s cleaned up quickly.

He’s also on Discord and seems to generally enjoy interacting with users which does help relations between admins and users. Unfortunately given that this situation has risen due to some of his actions on that server, there’s a drawback here and his caustic/joking nature can cause discord (yes, I am aware of the pun) like we’re seeing here.

Onto the negatives: Taking his response to the thread: “I responded, giving him the answer he sought, and even got him his pasta back.” He did do that, but he also wrote: “But I must warn you that most of us admins don't like playing fetch simply because the users were reckless.” which doesn’t set the best tone (more on that below).

On the topic of Helel’s Wall, reading it over, it seems like Helel has been misconstruing inquiries for hate. Simon Slaughter’s message is just him asking why his story was deleted and Helel’s response doesn’t set the best tone for future conversations with that user given its loaded nature. Also his interactions with other users have left a lot to be in terms of response and highlighting issues present in their story (grammatical errors should be talked about a bit more as those can be fixed, but if there are other issues present in the story in terms of plot they should be brought up with the person who's asking why their story was deleted).

The activity when other admins are busy/asleep/living a happy and productive life can be a double-edged sword. He decided to delete Strider’s blog without consulting any of the other admins (I assume) and even though he undid the deletion and talked it out with Chaoz, it wasn’t before this. Anyone not looking into things too deeply (i.e. contacting the people involved) can accidentally misread this as censorship/silencing on part of the wiki even if it came from a place of thinking the blog violated ToU. His message to Chaoz was also fairly nebulous and could be misconstrued as intimidation as well (as the OP originally took it). This kind of response is likely to cause problems down the line.

All in all, I do worry that Helel doesn't know how to properly mediate between users and admins (combined with his tendency to jokingly talk down to some users which some people are no longer seeing as jokes) and this could cause some fraction that would be hard to deal with if he happens to be alone on the wiki during an incident without someone to let a higher-up know what's going on that can intervene. He restored that blog after other users on Discord brought it up with him. He only stopped rallying people to argue on SB's video after Cleric got involved. Both of these are incidents that could have blown up into much larger issues that damage the reputation of the wiki.

It truly is a rock and a hard place. This wiki needs activity and someone to quality-check incoming stories, but the wiki needs to be a welcoming place that promotes authors stories which Helel hasn't always done given his temperament.

Unfortunately what tips this scale even though I have been on better terms with Milan is how he has handled himself on Discord before and after this thread. Being friends unfortunately makes this next part hard, but I have to do what I think is best for the future of this site. Seeing how he’s responded to the demotion thread and comments he’s made on Discord have solidified my opinion. While I understand that it is separate from the site, it most certainly bleeds over and can impact things on the Creepypasta Wiki when it's comprised of users from the wiki.

Here’s a few screen grabs where he (under the handle of Darth Boreas in general chat) encourages people to raid Slimebeast’s webpage:



You can argue and say it was said in jest, this is the internet and people don’t make the best decision when they think they’re anonymous (see: the idiot who mailed threatening messages to Chris’ house) or are unable to discern a joke from honesty). What would happen if a group of people did go off and try to spam/flame/raid Slimebeast’s webpage and then that image was brought to their attention? How would it look? To me, it would look like an admin on the wiki was actively encouraging someone to go and start drama on another site even if what he said was meant to be taken as a joke.

While his most recent comments about people who have written/supported this thread is on a private Discord, those people are part of the wiki nonetheless and being disparaging only makes matters worse. While I would hope more level heads would prevail, I can see comments like this and what was mentioned above causing unnecessary strife on a site that is focused on being a community interested in horror literature. This is longer than I would have hoped (and I spent my break in-between studying ti write this), but I feel like I owe it to the site to do what is best for it. As it currently stands, I don’t think Helel is ready for the responsibility and I worry how his approach will impact people coming to the site. As Banning mentioned in his application: “Remember, as an Admin, you will be the face and voice of this community. Your decisions (deletions, bans, warnings... etc) need to be made based strictly on the written rules and policies.” Unfortunately given these past few issues, I don’t think you’re quite ready.

Regardless of the results of this thread, I think that it's going to be necessary for admins/crats to have a discussion with Helel about basic interaction with users on the site and how matters off site can become relevant when they involve people who are on this wiki.