User blog:Nikolai Banks/A Road To A Better Community

I love to give Sannse kudos for her amazing blog How to Get Unblocked, it has inspired me and in some ways her blog relates to Matthew 5:25, why I say this is quite obvious. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:25 "Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way traveling with him, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison."

Or in those terms, its best to come to terms quickly with the Admin you might of had problems with before, or any other user you have had a bad past with, it is better to come to terms of an agreement with your accuser, remember as a community, we work on a daily basis with each other, no matter if we are Admins, Staff, Mods, VSTF or normal users, it is far better to make peace and come to terms, admit what you did was wrong and ask for forgiveness, though not all users will be willing to forgive so easily, other times users are forgiving, but that depends entirely on the situation you and the user were in. If it was something minor, like cursing or harassing, you will most likely be given a warning, but if its more serious, like lashing out or personal attacks, vandalism and spamming or even trolling, then the situation will be a very serious one and you will only have angered not just the users, but admins and mods who are present at the time.

As for getting yourself banned, don't see it as being unfair, see it as a time out, an Admin or mod will put you on a time out from Chat or the community you are part of, due to either bad behavior or other serious problems, but if you are still able to send messages to the Mod/Admin that blocked you, take this as an opportunity to apologize for your actions, admitting your bad behavior and apologizing for them is the first step of coming to terms with the other user.

But if you chose to be rude and start throwing threats and insults, that won't help with your situation, your ban could be expanded as a result as well as your ability to message users on the site will be disabled in the process. Like Sannse said in her blog, be polite, calm and approach the issue in a calm matter.

Coming to the terms of forgiveness, you must forgive the user you had problems with and ask for the user for their forgiveness. Just as Jesus spoke about coming to terms with your accuser or adversary in Matthew 5, He said in Luke 6:37 "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:"

The moral of His message in Luke 6:37 is this, do not judge the person that blocked you from the chat, like Sannse said, there could be a reason for them blocking you, from saying something that is against the community guidelines or you just of came on at the wrong time [That either you were in a bad mood or the Admin/Mod are in a bad mood], best way to deal with this situation, is to be positive, if you are in a bad mood, don't take it out on the local admin/mods or other users present, if your bad mood was due to a family problem or any other real life problems you are having, please don't take it out on your fellow users or any of the local admins and staff members, this pretty much goes the same for the Admins, if any Admin has had a bad day due to life problems, don't take it out on other users, it is best to keep yourself calm, rather than lashing out at other users.

For the message involving Condemning, is pretty much like banning indefinitely without a reason, don't condemn your fellow users, or else you just might be condemned with out a reason yourself, rather jumping into conclusions and blocking a user for no apparent reason, specially if you are in a bad mood, just don't go there, one of the best ways to get over your current mood [if it's a bad mood or a negative mood], best talk it out with a friend, with talking things out with a friend or a fellow user, you will feel a lot better in some way, if talking to a friend doesn't help your current mood, try doing something that will, do something active or creative, there are many things to do that is active or creative, like painting art [With a paint brush, not on a computer], hanging out with real life friends or going to your local gym if you are a member of the gym, or do anything that is creative or active that comes to your mind, if it helps you and makes you feel better, I say go for it.

Now leading to forgiveness, like Jesus says in His message in Luke 6:37 "Forgive and you will be forgiven" Along to coming to terms with your accuser, it is good to forgive the person that accused you, and they will eventually will forgive you as you both come into terms with one another, but if you forgive the user, but they don't forgive you, or you don't forgive them but they forgive you, or if neither of you forgive each other, that will complicate things in your situation. If at anytime you are in that sort of situation, it is best to leave your computer, do something else and think about the situation, but if you start trolling the person's message wall/talk page, that won't get you forgiven and will lead to far more trouble. Trolling your accuser is like poking a hornet nest, it will lead to trouble and you will be stung, in this case, you will be blocked, or if you already blocked, it will only be expanded to a longer period of time.

Leading to the next step, is Fellowship, fellowship in a community is important, Staff are like the mayors of the community, Admins are the law enforcers and VSFT are the janitors and Mods are like new recruits or guards, and users, are normal, all are in a community, and most communities have to have a form of fellowship, and that makes a community become good at team work and helping one another out, by doing this, you are not just helping Admins, Mods, VSTF, and Staff, but you are also helping your fellow users, if any conflict arises during the time, remember the things I said in this blog, as well as the things Sannse has said in her own blog, most of all, remember to use your common sense, hopefully that will help users to come to terms and help each other better in the future.

Now leading towards ignorance, when a problems arises, there are people who are there to help, then there are people who are ignorant towards the problem, people who are facing the problem suffer very much due to the current situation, if folks ignored the person's problem, this will lead the person or more to believe the community isn't worth helping. then there are people who take notice of the problem and help his friend or neigbour who is dealing with the issue, once one or more people start helping his neigbour, others soon enough join in to help their neigbours.

Now, take Wikia, there are multiple communities with in Wikia, one community can be a good neigbour and or friend, and help his neigbouring community, if it is under seige of trolls, vandals or are in need of new users, founders of the community can chose to leave a link on their profile for other users or wiki community founders to find, so neigbouring communitiy founders can join and begin their way to helping

I hope this helps users in any way possible, and remember to keep my blog as well as Sannse's blog in mind, as well as the Guidelines or policies the community you are part of. Once joining a community, you can choose to either help out or do something that helps the struggling community, like sharing it with others, though if issues arise, as for example a user is accused for sockpuppetism, one of the best ways is remember, do not judgr that person if they match the same IP as a recently banned user, you can do a few things, like, question the user, and if they live in the same building, house or appartment as the same user who as banned, then that passes 1 test they are a different person, 2nd is the notice of the personality, if the user has the same personality as the banned user, then it is possibly the same, remember to check his/her behavior as well, if the personality and behavior is different, howe ever still part of the same IP as the previously banned, don't jump the gun and ban the user right away, if the personality and behavior are different, better question the person and make double sure it is someone else. As for those who are ignorant towards the user's personality and behavior and do ban the person because they are part of the same IP, then that shows ignorance at it's highest. followed by an offended and hurt user, so if by any chance the ignorant realize their faults, they have 3 simple choices.

1: Remove the block and apologize for your mistakes.

2: Ignore it and continue with your duties and let someone else deal with it.

3: If you contacted by the accused on another wiki, best take this as a chance to redeem yourself and admit you made a mistake and din't know the new user shared the same appartment or building as the previously banned, come to terms with them and make peace, way better than being scoled at for a fault.

But even after all that, if you still feel like the user might be the same, it won't hurt to keep a watch on him/her and inform other users to do the same, can be fair at least, but can't be too careful.

Remember to be open minded as well as patient with previous offenders and new offenders alike, remember as well, rather than throwing a block, try showing the offenders their faults and help them to learn from their mistakes, even if they seem hard to do at first. But if no change has been made, a ban of your own chosing can be a last resort.

Be sure to place your thoughts in the comments, and for all CC Admins, do not delete this blog, I worked real hard and I would appreciate that you be respectful and talk to me first.

Thank you all for reading.