| “ | Why I've decided to leaveitall™ behind me, and not just take a break | ” |
Reddit post - Link
It is very hard for me to just leave the community life I've invested so much into behind me, just like that. Ive no idea how to write this, and even though I usually order things very neatly in my articles, I will for this post just let my hands and heart do the writing.
So maybe first the reason why you are here. Maybe youve been CLICKBAITED by the reddit post and lured in hoping to see footage of Browse crying (manly), but maybe you are just here because of the title. And yeah, I want to talk about that.
Right off the bat, I want to clarify that its purely a coincidence that I'm leaving soon after other major people of the English community (Amarantine, Alatheio, Hansxe etc etc). And Id lie if I were to claim that not influencing me.
Amarantine (henceforth: Ama), after he announced his own leave, once asked me why I'm still doing all this for the community. Work on the wiki, aid people looking for advice or complains or concerns of individual community users. And I've been asked similar things like that various times from different people respectively (CMs, old community members). And I have to admit that I gave all of them a different answer, each time. Yet all of those answers roughly converged at the simple minded idea of: "...I don't know?".
Ive done "this" for almost 3 years now, was on board right when the game started and have been working on the wikia since September 2015 or so. Reddit always, tried myself on the official forum, on foreign forums and naturally reached out to the scatted DB players in other SNS (except Facebook). And looking back it all really started with the drive
- to "collect" the (at that time still) brilliant ideas of other DB players
- to "give" something back to the people that introduced me into the community life
- to "leave my mark" in a, for me at that time, wonderful community
- to "make" - and this sounds silly - dragon blaze a better game with an even better community
My most recent attempt to fulfill those desires was the discord channel, and Ive told the people over there very early on what my plans with the community were.
Livi (very old blogger) just recently left the community after 1 year of service and her leaving was still fresh within the community. She is a very important character in my community life and my own leave so you will hear more about her throughout these texts - but to get back on track: The community at that time was very naive and very dependant. It was horrible for me what Livi had, in my eyes, left the community with. She and I had our hardships but she was ultimately also one of the first people Ive connected with (we were both Germans so that helped!). But I soon found myself not agreeing with anything she had done.
She concentrated the community on a single website which is made by one person and shared opinions of one person and does not leave space for any converseations (I was in that comment section, trust me, you couldn't evolve there as a player) and who can guess what happens when that one polar point left everyone from one day to another? Yeah, people were running around with their hair on fire and yelling for help.
INTERLUDE: If you ever wondered why she closed her blog: It could have been purely technical reasons like freeing the domain, not having to concern with new comments etc. But as Livi and me tried to make up just days before she eventually left for good, I always felt that she tried to create an opportunity for me, which I was grateful for and vowed to realize. INTERLUDE END
So, maybe from that experience and those promised that I made for myself, but directed to the community, sprouted the ME that would eventually try to achieve what I eventually sought out to do over the past years. And this is where it comes together:
Ive told the people on discord (and some might still remember it to this day) that I wanted to create a community that is independant from a single point of source. Or if there has to be one playground for everything, it should at least promote, allow and support individualism. Never again, is what I vowed back then, do I ever want to see the community feel left alone and in the dark again after one major community member leaves the scene. Never again, I wished for, do I ever want to see the community in its stale form as it was back then. And so I sought out for something I believed to be better.
I saw Livi's mistakes and tried to aim not higher, but more precise (odd analogy). The wiki, while always emphasized to be a comeplete and the complete database, should always have been a product of many individuals, not one. While being complied of articles, should always offer the freedom to grow as a player.
And being near the end of my DB life I am standing in front of my 3 year result.
Yes, Ive managed to offer players a playground. The discord, while not the only one for DB, most certainly the first, biggest and most offical one (with all of the offical CMs in one place and the most active users), grants a daily chatting ground for those that are enthusiastic enough. The reddit forum grew to be a common and the most heared of waymark for DB players. Thanks 2BV, Deathcrown and yes, Livi for having the pleasure to shape its early form together with you. And of course, the Wiki, which did, is and hopefully will always be a reliable source which successfully spawend many players that aside from me can actually comment in the comment section and aid the people in there with their questions. Many thanks to the many annonoumys contributors, User:Holygrenade, User:MeanFalse and many more. Yes, Ive recognized your daily activities. I hope that Ive succeeded in growing the community together a little bit and help develop its activeness.
But no, Ive not fully succeeded in what I hoped to achieve. Maybe there was not enough time for me, or maybe I dream of something impossible for this game.
While having the potential to be created by many people, the Wiki, especially in its early and mid days were unfortunatly a one man army thing. I did feel alone for a lot of time, felt many times that I was used as the bimbo of the community and my dream of sharing this playground called wiki with many other editors has not been realized once to my fulfillment.
One major flaw that I think I was never able to fix was the passivity of the players. Or rather taking everything for granted. The work invovled in the wiki is being taken for granted by too many. The players of this game have, if any, one big flaw which is being big consumers. They consume the tier list or advice from reddit that they've read. No, that is not independant growth and evolving as a player, that is taking what others did and gobbling it in.
There are top player guilds that horde their knowledge and wont share it with anyone in the community except other top player guilds, and for a long time I was angry about that (granted, I still am). But their argument is just as true: Why should they share information that they worked to achieve with players that just mindlessley consume. As a wiki editor who believes in free knowledge for everyone I surely disagree with that viewpoint, but I was never the person to see everything black and white. What they say is mostly true, but I offer one correction: The community is changing. I see new faces everyday on reddit and discord. Even in-game in channel 1 I see new people that start to engage, start to discuss and work for their development into greater players. I see a change, even when slight.
Yes, Ive repeated some mistakes that Livi did and created new ones on my own. But I dont feel it lead to nothing.
From all I've did, my work in this Wikia has been the most engaging.
"Why do you still work for the community?"
Well, I never did it for anything in return, really. I just had my foolish idea of a community and felt only I can in this current community work towards its realization.
Yes, I did think a lot of times that I should just stop. There were times when I thought: This community isn't worth my effort; This is being all taking for granted; I don't want to play the bimbo any longer.
But today I feel like I see what I sough out to do has not been in vain.
So why did I work for the community? I... just did it, really. Just trying to think of a reason ended up being 700 characters of unfiltered writing (which I did warn you about thought).
So why do I leave? I... just do it.
Many times before I was upset with this or that in the community. There were so many points in time in which I should have already left. Thought of all the possiblites, all the different scenarios that could have marked my leave, but in the end... it happens to be none of the scenarios that I've thought to be.
As I mentioned, there are many many things causing me to pass on the torch today.
- The most major reason is probably my current job. I just recently got promoted (people on disocrd will remeber when I was absent for a while to achieve that promotion)
I wake up 6 am, go to work, come back 9pm, go to sleep and thats it. Rinse and repeat. By all means I am not unhappy with my current occupation. Ive worked hard to achieve it and I am paid accordingly. Albeit the work hours are not entirely legal, I do not complain about it and could even imagine doing this for the rest of my life, which I probably will. What I want to say is that my current occupation is what I really wished for and it allows me a save and future orianted life, but a 6 hour wiki editor hobby is simply and straight out impossible. Physically and mentally alike. - It is not because I lost interest in the game. No, in fact I will continue to play, albeit very casually. The magic of DB has always been that I fortunatly dont have to be phyiscally present to progress. So you will see me ingame way into ch7. (BTW, I will try to make my leave from the Wikia as smooth as possible too. No hard suprises as this sudden post, for example)
- As Ive established above, I think this is a good time to leave. I dont think its perfect at all, no. But both the Korean community and the English speaking one has spawned many new enthusiastic people lately that could continue to pick up something like the patch note translation on the wikia.
So I dont want to leave the community behind me. But Ive reached a point in my life where I had to make a decision. Maybe some of you will remeber that my PC died just recently. All my personal but also Wiki related files were just gone with that. And ever since then I had a hard time getting back into the flow. Maybe I took it as a sign, as a last nod and confirmation to: You can no longer sustain both RL and DB Community, move on. In a sense it wasn't a decision I made entirely on my own accord, but one that I had to make. And I am very fortunate that it does not hit the worst timing possible.
I do have regrets what the Wiki is concerned though.
| “ | And well, there is one last thing that has been boiling inside me for too long. | ” |
People that know me understand that Ive started to be a wiki editor because I dont seek recognition. Unlike Ama or Livi, my name was never signed below any of my articles.
I was shot down brutally many times by the community when I even tried to say "hey, look here, this article which took me hours to complie exists to answer all your questions and I did it a week ago without anyone noticing", while they celeberated Livi like a god whenever she just sneezed.
Ive poured my knowledge into all articles and acculumated knowledge of all things in-game, as articles existed for everything. It took me years to understand the game so deeply as I do right now, and while other pro players can write you novels about the right gear and its careful attention to detail, I can tell you that and what is engraved on PvP Icon from ch2 as an added bonus, because I wrote an article about that trival shit too.
By the time of the 15th November 2017 (hey, thats today!) Ive worked and shared that accumulated knowdlegde, albeit sometimes trivial to some people, on the Wikia more than the time Ive spent actually playing the game. I know I cant keep playing like this. Ive said that I still have interest in the game, but sometimes it feels like a choir to do all that and put the outside game before the ingame (literally putting the cart before the horse).
I've spent resouces noone else would for testing out and double checking mechanics and skills. Ive spent farming time and golem runs to check skill card behaviour and created + leveld new accounts just to have a battle partner in pvp to test out damage behaviour. My game suffered, my time ran out but at the end of the day I am happy with the result. 900 articles, many more blog posts, other namespace pages and countless comments with valuable information partly from me, partly researched from others but 100% recorded for eternity.
The question and my concern just remains what that Wikipedia will continue to be. Will it hold this status Quo forever? Will the lack of revisions cause the articles to suffer from the flow of time and be eventually outdated altogether? Will, what I poured so much time into just die out?
I am most afraid of noone stepping up to continue keeping the wiki great, because they either took it being updated for granted or realizes after 1 week of editing that they are not cut out for it.
Ive never asked anyone in this community for anything in return. But today I want to make a wish. I dont want to leave my mark in this game. I just want to leave any mark in this game. Even though the game itself was shaped by so many things happening here on this wiki, I dont feel like in these 3 years Ive really left A considerable mark.
So I wish upon you, anyone, any man, any woman out there to take everything, anything Ive told you today in this post with you, maybe learn something of it, maybe be inspired by it and when you still have room in your heart, allow me to make me leave my mark in you.
To you it might sound silly but you cannot possibly compherened how important it is to me, someone who spent 3 years of his life, in which I grew, developed and got to know many new things and people, to just not leave with the feeling of being talked about one day and be forgotten the next day. Because If you forget what I told you today, and how I literally lived with you the past 3 years, I feel like my ideas that Ive strived for, and the marks such as the Wiki Ive tried to leave behind are being discarded and abonded eventually.
Remeber me sometimes, and if you do remeber how I strived this wiki to be a turning point for the community. Contiue it for me, and by doing so, you will have allowed me to leave a mark.
Sincerly yours (forever), Browseitall
Wiki
- Tomorrow (16th) or at last by Friday I will have a seperate post with detailed instructions on how to continue as the Wikia. What to look out for, what to work on
- Some trusted people will become Admins. I will introducdes them soon enough.