User blog comment:Silver-Haired Seireitou/The End of Naruto/@comment-13970942-20141106205348/@comment-4961229-20141107031052

Your post is well written and sincere so I want to treat it seriously. Like this wiki there is much good about this post. Unfortunately, also like this wiki, there are flaws here as well. Your analysis is slightly off. Desire for power? Yes. Self-centeredness? Perhaps. Archipelagos of isolation? Certainly. All based on a longing for adulthood and authority? In some cases, I'll spot you that. In many cases, hell no.

A few years ago, I'd left other websites that possessed all that top-down control that you seem to treasure in spades. Places where it took months just to get admins and moderators to even look at your submission (after badgering and pestering). More months to work out the kinks in your submission (after more badgering and pestering). More months to get every single aspect or accessory of the original basic submission approved. (I'm talking normal unenhanced kunai's and swords and shit!) To someone who's just trying to get his feet wet in RPing that level of top-down control is paralyzing to anything resembling creativity.

I'll give you an example. I originally had the idea for a dispossessed clan all but wiped out by the Uchiha annexation of their lands during Konoha's formation. Power inflation was nowhere in my consciousness at the time. I submitted a proposal for my reluctantly nomadic clan after many years of wandering the Land of Fire to by chance come upon the seedling fern forest, which Kimimaro left behind with his jutsu. They would settle there, turn it into a village that could be collectively defended with his kekkei genkai. Purely defensive non offensive position. What was I told as an unappealable objection? "No... just no."

WTF?!? After literally pages and pages of what do you mean by "no... just no"? I managed to squeeze out "personally I find it disgusting that a group of homeless people would resort to taking up residence in what is essentially someone's deceased, discarded carcass. It's nasty." WTF?!? I'm like, did you find Orochimaru's testicle-jacking, snake-in-the-ass technique, full-body blow your cookies no jutsu similarly so? Was it "nasty" when Jiraiya said, hey you big fucking insect eating bullfrog! Why don't you jump down my throat and "take up residence" in the intestinal tract pocket dimension of my still living carcass? What about a whole clan of folks who's entire ass substitutes as a honeycomb roach motel? His reply? "...."

Tell me... please, tell me... how is that type of totally subjective, illogical, selectively intractable dictatorship devoid of the kind of "ultimately self-destructive cycle of personal aggrandizement" you spoke of in your post?

When I came here I was all about learning how to commune and RP. I was lost. The navigation on this site was so poor. There wasn't any instructions on how to format an article or use the built in functionality on this wiki. There wasn't even an up to date listing of the admins and moderators of the site. You had to ask around and hope you asked the right question of the right person. Some were friendly/knowledgeable and helped. Some were rude/unknowing and didn't want to be bothered. And I felt bad even bothering them with my noob questions. Where was the FAQ I wondered aloud. I made a patchwork one from fumbling in the dark, but to this day I couldn't get the admins or moderators to even put my FAQ or any other FAQ on the front page. The forms I had screamed about being accessible only got to the front page long after I'd given up. I settled for just the functionality of the website.

People like me came here to find a creative community environment. I didn't even know what RPing really was about. I was interested primarily in collective storytelling. What I found instead was an intractable, abrasive, and/or apathetic homeowner's association, which did more to hamper creativity than foster an environment where a community could flourish, as well as, a pervasive multi-player gaming atmosphere.

And here is the crux of a major problem which you only half addressed. Multi-player (gaming) role playing fosters an atmosphere of competition, as opposed to the cooperative air of collective storytelling. It is that aspect of competition that leads to basically an arms race. People don't want the characters they've put so much time and effort into to get randomly killed or otherwise stomped on. This leads to power inflation and ultimately god modding. Not only have I observed this phenomenon in people who originally had perfectly reasonable submissions. I've actually felt it myself immediately upon taking part in my first mutual role play. Before then I had no desire for power inflation. When RPing I see people loading their characters with reality warping, unlimited chakra, and god modish style skills. Not only that, in some RPs you were controlled as to who your characters can interact with. So what is one to do when building clans focused on taijutsu on the level of the Hyuugas or fuinjutsu on the level of a clan that was wiped out before the canon story even started? The answer is power inflation, quite involuntary, I assure you, for one seeking participation in the "community."

No wonder I stepped back from RPing, nor was I alone. No wonder archipelagos of isolation erupted into existence on this site.

The top down control of the fanon canon extending across the entire website did nothing to fix these issues that I'm talking about. What you term as the site regressing was simply an inevitable continuation of that "ultimately self-destructive cycle of personal aggrandizement" that you spoke of. In other words, what you claim fostered community necessarily brought about an equal and opposite and quite unavoidable backlash. You ushered in the very thing you were trying to avoid.

I will always maintain that it is an environment of positive reinforcement and proactive facilitation, rather than negative subjective constraints and pervasive arbitrary restrictions, as well as a limited fanon canon that will foster the community well equipped with the quality control sought by you and others.

I love the world Kishi built. And I came here to celebrate it. It's unfortunate that I could only do so in a kind of public isolation. However, I enjoyed my time here. I thank those responsible for the functionality of this wiki that allowed and facilitated the expression of my ideas, whether good or bad. I thank those who were helpful and friendly and welcoming of newcomers. And I bear no ill will to those who weren't. When the day comes for me to finally leave this site behind, know that it will be missed and remembered.

Well met, Naruto Fanon. Well met. And apologies for the Great Wall of Text.