User blog comment:FishTank/Introducing Vanguard, Wikia's Newest Volunteer Team/@comment-452-20160819225633/@comment-3026053-20160820080018

Beginning with this: '''this is a general note and not specifically aimed at any user in particular. So please do not feel personally attacked, as that is definitely not my intention.'''

I'd just like to share my personal experience with the Vanguard team: as admin and bureaucrat of my main wiki, I was contacted by Vanguard members about converting to portable infoboxes. If there is one thing I can take away from that experience, it is that they listen and respect your wishes. I outlined clearly what needed to happen before I would ever even consider the transition. They understood and never challenged me on its merit. Instead, they worked to comply with our wiki's needs and only struck up the conversation again when they had the answer to my requirements. Even when they did, they still waited for me to give the green light to them, presenting the solution by linking me to the coding the intended to use and exampled of its result compared to our infoboxes, both on mobile and desktop. There were some infoboxes that could have provided an issue, so then they once again contacted me to ask what we as a wiki wanted to do. When I told them to leave it alone, they did without further issues. So kudos to them.

In general, I can definitely understand some defensive attitude toward a team of "intruders" that have rights on "your" wiki, but let's not overreact here and put unnecessary emphasis on the name and its military connection. Obviously, that's not what they are. If anything, the military comparison is just about them taking the first step to eventually - hopefully - create a better mobile experience of Wikia. So they're the vanguard to "attack" mobile-unfriendly infoboxes before some "main army" (i.e. another team/innovation) comes along with some other mobile progress.

Open dialogue and friendly communication between a wiki's community (which is larger than just the admin body) and the members of that team will often bring progress a long way and sway any doubts of them trying to take over "our" wikis based on "their" agendas. This is not "us vs them" but rather an effort of "everyone working together" - which on itself requires work and willingness to meet each other half way.

So basically, tl;dr : stop randomly hating on the volunteer teams as they are perceptive to open dialogue and friendly communication. They will not hijack the community's coding in order to push PI.

And also ending with this: '''this is a general note and not specifically aimed at any user in particular. So please do not feel personally attacked, as that is definitely not my intention.'''