Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-35230176-20180801115250

A FANDOM community team member said:

Hello, I’m Tim - I’m one of FANDOM’s Community team members. Today, I want to address some events that have occurred on this wiki in the last week and highlight what the community as a whole - admins and users alike - can do to improve the situation.

This morning, a number of community members were banned by the admin team over some behavior that occurred off the wiki, on the wiki’s Discord server. FANDOM is not privy to all the details of what is alleged, nor do we want to use this space discuss those allegations. It is critical that we say if you have felt threatened, endangered, or sexually harassed, you contact your local authorities, or if you are under 18, discuss the situation with your parents or guardian. FANDOM’s number one concern for our user base is their online safety.

This specific instance highlights what we call a “toxic culture”. ‘Toxic’ is a strong word - you’ve probably heard it most referred to when told to avoid chemicals. Toxic implies real and potent harm. If something is toxic, it can be more than a physical effect - A toxic culture is where norms, behaviors, and conflict causes real harm on the both the individual members of the community and the community itself. Numerous members of this wiki have recently felt increasingly stressed, agitated, and harassed - serious mental effects of a toxic culture. And the wiki has suffered too - instead of building good content or sharing what you all have in common, a lot of time is now devoted to sorting out and fixing drama.

How did this happen? A lot of factors came into play, but let’s focus on what appears to be the biggest one - the wiki’s Discord. Discord - and live chatting in general - tend to create much different cultures than your average wiki. Chatting allows for real-time interaction and more personal conversations. Chatting is also harder to moderate because discussion can happen 24/7, direct messages can be sent, and conversations can shift so quickly.

As a result, a number of inappropriate, dangerous, and toxic behaviors have become normalized on this wiki’s Discord. I want to be direct and address them head-on.

Inappropriate discussions - It appears a number of discussions about sexual topics have occurred, mostly through DMs but also in the general area of the wiki’s Discord. This wiki, due to its topic, often attracts underage users (users between the age of 13 and 18) - we know many of you are under 18. It is absolutely inappropriate to use this wiki’s Discord to have conversations about sexual topics - in many cases, it might actually be illegal. While the Discord channel is not owned by FANDOM, we are deeply worried about its effects on our users who go there. We will not permit such discussion on this platform and nor should this community permit or seek such discussion on any other platform. Personal vendettas - A number of users have strong, negative feelings toward each other and are using Discord to air their grievances and insult each other. In many cases, this has become harassment - a pattern of repeated abusive behavior by somebody (or somebodies) meant to upset, attack, or frighten a target. This might lead to threats, or trying to find out information about someone’s private life - like their real name, address, or pictures. Hate speech - Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We’ve seen evidence that many members of this community are freely using on Discord words that do exactly this, especially ones that marginalizes females or non-white members of this community. What is critical for any community to succeed is respect amongst its members - this speech promotes divisiveness and hatred. So what can we do to solve this? Unfortunately, there is no easy solution - toxic cultures take some time to develop and they likewise take some time to solve. I want to highlight three ways we can start moving in the right direction together.

Focus on the wiki content. It’s important for our community members to feel connected - we do want our wikis to allow for members to get to know each other. But at the same time, what drew you to this wiki was an interest in what the wiki was about. You all have nearly 16,000 pages of truly unique content that can always keep growing. Hop off Discord, at least for now. Sometimes the best solution is just to take a timeout. I would encourage the admin team here to quit it themselves and to start a new server later down the road - a few weeks at least - with some more stringent moderation and community guidelines. It is likely some bad actors may remain on the old server - they are acting to the benefit of this community, so it’s best if you stop engaging with them. Think About Your Words and Actions. A few weeks off from Discord should give you a chance to reflect on how you’ve interacted with your fellow community members. Did the words you say hurt or help someone? Were they said with kindness at heart or were they said to tear someone down? Is there someone in your life who handles conflict well and how do they do it? I’d encourage everyone to really think about these things - turn this into a learning experience to make yourself a better community member. I’ll be here to watch this blog and see what your thoughts are. We truly want the best for VS Battles Wiki - we’re proud to have a unique community like this on FANDOM. 